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+The Project Gutenberg EBook United Netherlands, 1584-1609, Complete
+[This ebook includes eBooks #4837-4884]
+#85 in our series by John Lothrop Motley
+
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+Title: History of the United Netherlands, 1584-1609, Complete
+
+Author: John Lothrop Motley
+
+Release Date: January, 2004  [EBook #4885]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 17, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNITED NETHERLANDS, 1584-1609 ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
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+
+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
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+
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+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS, 1584-1609, Complete
+
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+The indulgence with which the History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic
+was received has encouraged me to prosecute my task with renewed
+industry.
+
+A single word seems necessary to explain the somewhat increased
+proportions which the present work has assumed over the original design.
+The intimate connection which was formed between the Kingdom of England
+and the Republic of Holland, immediately after the death of William the
+Silent, rendered the history and the fate of the two commonwealths for a
+season almost identical.  The years of anxiety and suspense during which
+the great Spanish project for subjugating England and reconquering the
+Netherlands, by the same invasion, was slowly matured, were of deepest
+import for the future destiny of those two countries, and for the cause
+of national liberty.  The deep-laid conspiracy of Spain and Rome against
+human rights deserves to be patiently examined, for it is one of the
+great lessons of history.  The crisis was long and doubtful, and the
+health--perhaps the existence--of England and Holland, and, with them, of
+a great part of Christendom, was on the issue.
+
+History has few so fruitful examples of the dangers which come from
+superstition and despotism, and the blessings which flow from the
+maintenance of religious and political freedom, as those afforded by the
+struggle between England and Holland on the one side, and Spain and Rome
+on the other, during the epoch which I have attempted to describe.  It is
+for this reason that I have thought it necessary to reveal, as minutely
+as possible, the secret details of this conspiracy of king and priest
+against the people, and to show how it was baffled at last by the strong
+self-helping energy of two free nations combined.
+
+The period occupied by these two volumes is therefore a short one, when
+counted by years, for it begins in 1584 and ends with the commencement of
+1590.  When estimated by the significance of events and their results for
+future ages, it will perhaps be deemed worthy of the close examination
+which it has received.  With the year 1588 the crisis was past; England
+was safe, and the new Dutch commonwealth was thoroughly organized.  It is
+my design, in two additional volumes, which, with the two now published,
+will complete the present work, to carry the history of the Republic down
+to the Synod of Dort.  After this epoch the Thirty Years' War broke out
+in Germany; and it is my wish, at a future day, to retrace the history of
+that eventful struggle, and to combine with it the civil and military
+events in Holland, down to the epoch when the Thirty Years' War and the
+Eighty Years' War of the Netherlands were both brought to a close by the
+Peace of Westphalia.
+
+The materials for the volumes now offered to the public were so abundant
+that it was almost impossible to condense them into smaller compass
+without doing injustice to the subject.  It was desirable to throw full
+light on these prominent points of the history, while the law of
+historical perspective will allow long stretches of shadow in the
+succeeding portions, in which less important objects may be more slightly
+indicated.  That I may not be thought capable of abusing the reader's
+confidence by inventing conversations, speeches, or letters, I would take
+this opportunity of stating--although I have repeated the remark in the
+foot-notes--that no personage in these pages is made to write or speak
+any words save those which, on the best historical evidence, he is known
+to have written or spoken.
+
+A brief allusion to my sources of information will not seem superfluous:
+I have carefully studied all the leading contemporary chronicles and
+pamphlets of Holland, Flanders, Spain, France, Germany, and England; but,
+as the authorities are always indicated in the notes, it is unnecessary
+to give a list of them here.  But by far my most valuable materials are
+entirely unpublished ones.
+
+The archives of England are especially rich for the history of the
+sixteenth century; and it will be seen, in the course of the narrative,
+how largely I have drawn from those mines of historical wealth, the State
+Paper Office and the MS. department of the British Museum.  Although both
+these great national depositories are in admirable order, it is to be
+regretted that they are not all embraced in one collection, as much
+trouble might then be spared to the historical student, who is now
+obliged to pass frequently from the one place to the other, in order to,
+find different portions of the same correspondence.
+
+From the royal archives of Holland I have obtained many most important,
+entirely unpublished documents, by the aid of which I have endeavoured to
+verify, to illustrate, or sometimes to correct, the recitals of the elder
+national chroniclers; and I have derived the greatest profit from the
+invaluable series of Archives and Correspondence of the Orange-Nassau
+Family, given to the world by M. Groen van Prinsterer.  I desire to renew
+to that distinguished gentleman, and to that eminent scholar M. Bakhuyzen
+van den Brink, the expression of my gratitude for their constant kindness
+and advice during my residence at the Hague.  Nothing can exceed the
+courtesy which has been extended to me in Holland, and I am deeply
+grateful for the indulgence with which my efforts to illustrate the
+history of the country have been received where that history is best
+known.
+
+I have also been much aided by the study of a portion of the Archives of
+Simancas, the originals of which are in the Archives de l'Empire in
+Paris, and which were most liberally laid before me through the kindness
+of M. le Comte de La Borde.
+
+I have, further; enjoyed an inestimable advantage in the perusal of the
+whole correspondence between Philip II., his ministers, and governors,
+relating to the affairs of the Netherlands, from the epoch at which this
+work commences down to that monarch's death.  Copies of this
+correspondence have been carefully made from the originals at Simancas by
+order of the Belgian Government, under the superintendence of the eminent
+archivist M. Gachard, who has already published a synopsis or abridgment
+of a portion of it in a French translation.  The translation and
+abridgment of so large a mass of papers, however, must necessarily occupy
+many years, and it may be long, therefore, before the whole of the
+correspondence--and particularly that portion of it relating to the epoch
+occupied by these volumes sees the light.  It was, therefore, of the
+greatest importance for me to see the documents themselves unabridged and
+untranslated.  This privilege has been accorded me, and I desire to
+express my thanks to his Excellency M. van de Weyer, the distinguished
+representative of Belgium at the English Court, to whose friendly offices
+I am mainly indebted for the satisfaction of my wishes in this respect.
+A letter from him to his Excellency M. Rogier, Minister of the Interior
+in Belgium--who likewise took the most courteous interest in promoting my
+views--obtained for me the permission thoroughly to study this
+correspondence; and I passed several months in Brussels, occupied with
+reading the whole of it from the year 1584 to the end of the reign of
+Philip II.
+
+I was thus saved a long visit to the Archives of Simancas, for it would
+be impossible conscientiously to write the history of the epoch without a
+thorough examination of the correspondence of the King and his ministers.
+I venture to hope, therefore--whatever judgment may be passed upon my own
+labours--that this work may be thought to possess an intrinsic value; for
+the various materials of which it is composed are original, and--so far
+as I am aware--have not been made use of by any historical writer.
+
+I would take this opportunity to repeat my thanks to M. Gachard,
+Archivist of the kingdom of Belgium, for the uniform courtesy and
+kindness which I have received at his-hands, and to bear my testimony to
+the skill and critical accuracy with which he has illustrated so many
+passages of Belgian and Spanish history.
+
+31, HERTFORD-STREET, MAY-FAIR,
+November llth 1860.
+
+
+
+
+THE UNITED NETHERLANDS.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+     Murder of Orange--Extension of Protestantism--Vast Power of Spain--
+     Religious Origin of the Revolt--Disposal of the Sovereignty--Courage
+     of the Estates of Holland--Children of William the Silent--
+     Provisional Council of State--Firm attitude of Holland and Zeeland--
+     Weakness of Flanders--Fall of Ghent--Adroitness of Alexander
+     Farnese.
+
+WILLIAM THE SILENT, Prince of Orange, had been murdered on the 10th of
+July, 1534.  It is difficult to imagine a more universal disaster than
+the one thus brought about by the hand of a single obscure fanatic.  For
+nearly twenty years the character of the Prince had been expanding
+steadily as the difficulties of his situation increased.  Habit,
+necessity, and the natural gifts of the man, had combined to invest him
+at last with an authority which seemed more than human.  There was such
+general confidence in his sagacity, courage, and purity, that the nation
+had come to think with his brain and to act with his hand.  It was
+natural that, for an instant, there should be a feeling as of absolute
+and helpless paralysis.
+
+Whatever his technical attributes in the polity of the Netherlands--and
+it would be difficult to define them with perfect accuracy--there is no
+doubt that he stood there, the head of a commonwealth, in an attitude
+such as had been maintained by but few of the kings, or chiefs, or high
+priests of history.  Assassination, a regular and almost indispensable
+portion of the working machinery of Philip's government, had produced, in
+this instance, after repeated disappointments, the result at last which
+had been so anxiously desired.  The ban of the Pope and the offered gold
+of the King had accomplished a victory greater than any yet achieved by
+the armies of Spain, brilliant as had been their triumphs on the blood-
+stained soil of the Netherlands.
+
+Had that "exceeding proud, neat, and spruce"  Doctor of Laws, William
+Parry, who had been busying himself at about the same time with his
+memorable project against the Queen of England, proved as successful as
+Balthazar Gerard, the fate of Christendom would have been still darker.
+Fortunately, that member of Parliament had made the discovery in time--
+not for himself, but for Elizabeth--that the "Lord was better pleased
+with adverbs than nouns;" the well-known result being that the traitor
+was hanged and the Sovereign saved.
+
+Yet such was the condition of Europe at that day.  A small, dull,
+elderly, imperfectly-educated, patient, plodding invalid, with white hair
+and protruding under jaw, and dreary visage, was sitting day after day;
+seldom speaking, never smiling, seven or eight hours out of every twenty-
+four, at a writing table covered with heaps of interminable despatches,
+in a cabinet far away beyond the seas and mountains, in the very heart of
+Spain.  A clerk or two, noiselessly opening and shutting the door, from
+time to time, fetching fresh bundles of letters and taking away others--
+all written and composed by secretaries or high functionaries--and all
+to be scrawled over in the margin by the diligent old man in a big
+schoolboy's hand and style--if ever schoolboy, even in the sixteenth
+century, could write so illegibly or express himself so awkwardly;
+couriers in the court-yard arriving from or departing for the uttermost
+parts of earth-Asia, Africa America, Europe-to fetch and carry these
+interminable epistles which contained the irresponsible commands of this
+one individual, and were freighted with the doom and destiny of countless
+millions of the world's inhabitants--such was the system of government
+against which the Netherlands had protested and revolted.  It was a
+system under which their fields had been made desolate, their cities
+burned and pillaged, their men hanged, burned, drowned, or hacked to
+pieces; their women subjected to every outrage; and to put an end to
+which they had been devoting their treasure and their blood for nearly
+the length of one generation.  It was a system, too, which, among other
+results, had just brought about the death of the foremost statesman of
+Europe, and had nearly effected simultaneously the murder of the most
+eminent sovereign in the world.  The industrious Philip, safe and
+tranquil in the depths of the Escorial, saying his prayers three times
+a day with exemplary regularity, had just sent three bullets through the
+body of William the Silent at his dining-room door in Delft.  "Had it
+only been done two years earlier," observed the patient old man, "much
+trouble might have been spared me; but 'tis better late than never."  Sir
+Edward Stafford, English envoy in Paris, wrote to his government--so soon
+as the news of the murder reached him--that, according to his information
+out of the Spanish minister's own house, "the same practice that had been
+executed upon the Prince of Orange, there were practisers more than two
+or three about to execute upon her Majesty, and that within two months."
+Without vouching for the absolute accuracy of this intelligence, he
+implored the Queen to be more upon her guard than ever.  "For there is no
+doubt," said the envoy, "that she is a chief mark to shoot at; and seeing
+that there were men cunning enough to inchant a man and to encourage him
+to kill the Prince of Orange, in the midst of Holland, and that there was
+a knave found desperate enough to do it, we must think hereafter that
+anything may be done.  Therefore God preserve her Majesty."
+
+Invisible as the Grand Lama of Thibet, clothed with power as extensive
+and absolute as had ever been wielded by the most imperial Caesar, Philip
+the Prudent, as he grew older and feebler in mind and body seemed to
+become more gluttonous of work, more ambitious to extend his sceptre over
+lands which he had never seen or dreamed of seeing, more fixed in his
+determination to annihilate that monster Protestantism, which it had been
+the business of his life to combat, more eager to put to death every
+human creature, whether anointed monarch or humble artizan, that defended
+heresy or opposed his progress to universal empire.
+
+If this enormous power, this fabulous labour, had, been wielded or
+performed with a beneficent intention; if the man who seriously regarded
+himself as the owner of a third of the globe, with the inhabitants
+thereof, had attempted to deal with these extensive estates inherited
+from his ancestors with the honest intention of a thrifty landlord, an
+intelligent slave-owner, it would have yet been possible for a little
+longer to smile at the delusion, and endure the practice.
+
+But there was another old man, who lived in another palace in another
+remote land, who, in his capacity of representative of Saint Peter,
+claimed to dispose of all the kingdoms of the earth--and had been willing
+to bestow them upon the man who would go down and worship him.  Philip
+stood enfeoffed, by divine decree, of all America, the East Indies, the
+whole Spanish Peninsula, the better portion of Italy, the seventeen
+Netherlands, and many other possessions far and near; and he contemplated
+annexing to this extensive property the kingdoms of France, of England,
+and Ireland.  The Holy League, maintained by the sword of Guise, the
+pope's ban, Spanish ducats, Italian condottieri, and German mercenaries,
+was to exterminate heresy and establish the Spanish dominion in France.
+The same machinery, aided by the pistol or poniard of the assassin, was
+to substitute for English protestantism and England's queen the Roman
+Catholic religion and a foreign sovereign.  "The holy league," said
+Duplessis-Mornay, one of the noblest characters of the age, "has destined
+us all to the name sacrifice.  The ambition of the Spaniard, which has
+overleaped so many lands and seas, thinks nothing inaccessible."
+
+The Netherland revolt had therefore assumed world-wide proportions.
+Had it been merely the rebellion of provinces against a sovereign, the
+importance of the struggle would have been more local and temporary.  But
+the period was one in which the geographical land-marks of countries were
+almost removed.  The dividing-line ran through every state, city, and
+almost every family.  There was a country which believed in the absolute
+power of the church to dictate the relations between man and his Maker,
+and to utterly exterminate all who disputed that position.  There was
+another country which protested against that doctrine, and claimed,
+theoretically or practically, a liberty of conscience.  The territory of
+these countries was mapped out by no visible lines, but the inhabitants
+of each, whether resident in France, Germany, England, or Flanders,
+recognised a relationship which took its root in deeper differences than
+those of race or language.  It was not entirely a question of doctrine or
+dogma.  A large portion of the world had become tired of the antiquated
+delusion of a papal supremacy over every land, and had recorded its
+determination, once for all, to have done with it.  The transition to
+freedom of conscience became a necessary step, sooner or later to be
+taken.  To establish the principle of toleration for all religions was
+an inevitable consequence of the Dutch revolt; although thus far, perhaps
+only one conspicuous man in advance of his age had boldly announced that
+doctrine and had died in its defence.  But a great true thought never
+dies--though long buried in the earth--and the day was to come, after
+long years, when the seed was to ripen into a harvest of civil and
+religious emancipation, and when the very word toleration was to sound
+like an insult and an absurdity.
+
+A vast responsibility rested upon the head of a monarch, placed as Philip
+II. found himself, at this great dividing point in modern history.  To
+judge him, or any man in such a position, simply from his own point of
+view, is weak and illogical.  History judges the man according to its
+point of view.  It condemns or applauds the point of view itself.  The
+point of view of a malefactor is not to excuse robbery and murder.  Nor
+is the spirit of the age to be pleaded in defence of the evil-doer at a
+time when mortals were divided into almost equal troops.  The age of
+Philip II. was also the age of William of Orange and his four brethren,
+of Sainte Aldegonde, of Olden-Barneveldt, of Duplessis-Mornay, La Noue,
+Coligny, of Luther, Melancthon, and Calvin, Walsingham, Sidney, Raleigh,
+Queen Elizabeth, of Michael Montaigne, and William Shakspeare.  It was
+not an age of blindness, but of glorious light.  If the man whom the
+Maker of the Universe had permitted to be born to such boundless
+functions, chose to put out his own eyes that he might grope along his
+great pathway of duty in perpetual darkness, by his deeds he must be
+judged.  The King perhaps firmly believed that the heretics of the
+Netherlands, of France, or of England, could escape eternal perdition
+only by being extirpated from the earth by fire and sword, and therefore;
+perhaps, felt it his duty to devote his life to their extermination.
+But he believed, still more firmly, that his own political authority,
+throughout his dominions, and his road to almost universal empire, lay
+over the bodies of those heretics.  Three centuries have nearly past
+since this memorable epoch; and the world knows the fate of the states
+which accepted the dogma which it was Philip's life-work to enforce, and
+of those who protested against the system.  The Spanish and Italian
+Peninsulas have had a different history from that which records the
+career of France, Prussia, the Dutch Commonwealth, the British Empire,
+the Transatlantic Republic.
+
+Yet the contest between those Seven meagre Provinces upon the sand-banks
+of the North Sea, and--the great Spanish Empire, seemed at the moment
+with which we are now occupied a sufficiently desperate one.  Throw a
+glance upon the map of Europe.  Look at the broad magnificent Spanish
+Peninsula, stretching across eight degrees of latitude and ten of
+longitude, commanding the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, with a genial
+climate, warmed in winter by the vast furnace of Africa, and protected
+from the scorching heats of summer by shady mountain and forest, and
+temperate breezes from either ocean.  A generous southern territory,
+flowing with wine and oil, and all the richest gifts of a bountiful
+nature-splendid cities--the new and daily expanding Madrid, rich in the
+trophies of the most artistic period of the modern world--Cadiz, as
+populous at that day as London, seated by the straits where the ancient
+and modern systems of traffic were blending like the mingling of the two
+oceans--Granada, the ancient wealthy seat of the fallen Moors--Toledo,
+Valladolid, and Lisbon, chief city of the recently-conquered kingdom of
+Portugal, counting, with its suburbs, a larger population than any city,
+excepting Paris, in Europe, the mother of distant colonies, and the
+capital of the rapidly-developing traffic with both the Indies--these
+were some of the treasures of Spain herself.  But she possessed Sicily
+also, the better portion of Italy, and important dependencies in Africa,
+while the famous maritime discoveries of the age had all enured to her
+aggrandizement.  The world seemed suddenly to have expanded its wings
+from East to West, only to bear the fortunate Spanish Empire to the most
+dizzy heights of wealth and power.  The most accomplished generals, the
+most disciplined and daring infantry the world has ever known, the best-
+equipped and most extensive navy, royal and mercantile, of the age, were
+at the absolute command of the sovereign.  Such was Spain.
+
+Turn now to the north-western corner of Europe.  A morsel of territory,
+attached by a slight sand-hook to the continent, and half-submerged by
+the stormy waters of the German Ocean--this was Holland.  A rude climate,
+with long, dark, rigorous, winters, and brief summers, a territory, the
+mere wash of three great rivers, which had fertilized happier portions of
+Europe only to desolate and overwhelm this less-favoured land, a soil so
+ungrateful, that if the whole of its four hundred thousand acres of
+arable land had been sowed with grain, it could not feed the labourers
+alone, and a population largely estimated at one million of souls--these
+were the characteristics of the Province which already had begun to give
+its name to the new commonwealth.  The isles of Zeeland--entangled in the
+coils of deep slow-moving rivers, or combating the ocean without--and the
+ancient episcopate of Utrecht, formed the only other Provinces that had
+quite shaken off the foreign yoke.  In Friesland, the important city of
+Groningen was still held for the King, while Bois-le-Duc, Zutphen,
+besides other places in Gelderland and North Brabant, also in possession
+of the royalists, made the position of those provinces precarious.
+
+The limit of the Spanish or "obedient" Provinces, on the one hand, and of
+the United Provinces on the other, cannot, therefore, be briefly and
+distinctly stated.  The memorable treason--or, as it was called, the
+"reconciliation" of the Walloon Provinces in the year 1583-4--had placed
+the Provinces of Hainault, Arthois, Douay, with the flourishing cities
+Arran, Valenciennes, Lille, Tournay, and others--all Celtic Flanders, in
+short-in the grasp of Spain.  Cambray was still held by the French
+governor, Seigneur de Balagny, who had taken advantage of the Duke of
+Anjou's treachery to the States, to establish himself in an unrecognized
+but practical petty sovereignty, in defiance both of France and Spain;
+while East Flanders and South Brabant still remained a disputed
+territory, and the immediate field of contest.  With these limitations,
+it may be assumed, for general purposes, that the territory of the United
+States was that of the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands, while the
+obedient Provinces occupied what is now the territory of Belgium.
+
+Such, then, were the combatants in the great eighty years' war for civil
+and religious liberty; sixteen of which had now passed away.  On the one
+side, one of the most powerful and, populous world-empires of history,
+then in the zenith of its prosperity; on the other hand, a slender group
+of cities, governed by merchants and artisans, and planted precariously
+upon a meagre, unstable soil.  A million and a half of souls against the
+autocrat of a third part of the known world.  The contest seemed as
+desperate as the cause was certainly sacred; but it had ceased to be a
+local contest.  For the history which is to occupy us in these volumes is
+not exclusively the history of Holland.  It is the story of the great
+combat between despotism, sacerdotal and regal, and the spirit of
+rational human liberty.  The tragedy opened in the Netherlands, and its
+main scenes were long enacted there; but as the ambition of Spain
+expanded, and as the resistance to the principle which she represented
+became more general, other nations were, of necessity, involved in the
+struggle.  There came to be one country, the citizens of which were the
+Leaguers; and another country, whose inhabitants were Protestants.  And
+in this lay the distinction between freedom and absolutism. The religious
+question swallowed all the others.  There was never a period in the early
+history of the Dutch revolt when the Provinces would not have returned to
+their obedience, could they have been assured of enjoying liberty of
+conscience or religious peace; nor was there ever a single moment in
+Philip II.'s life in which he wavered in his fixed determination never to
+listen to such a claim.  The quarrel was in its nature irreconcilable and
+eternal as the warfare between wrong and right; and the establishment of
+a comparative civil liberty in Europe and America was the result of the
+religious war of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  The struggle
+lasted eighty years, but the prize was worth the contest.
+
+The object of the war between the Netherlands and Spain was not,
+therefore, primarily, a rebellion against established authority for the
+maintenance of civil rights.  To preserve these rights was secondary.
+The first cause was religion.  The Provinces had been fighting for years
+against the Inquisition.  Had they not taken arms, the Inquisition would
+have been established in the Netherlands, and very probably in England,
+and England might have become in its turn a Province of the Spanish
+Empire.
+
+The death of William the Silent produced a sudden change in the political
+arrangements of the liberated Netherlands.  During the year 1583, the
+United Provinces had elected Francis, Duke of Anjou, to be Duke of
+Brabant and sovereign of the whole country, under certain constitutional
+provisions enumerated in articles of solemn compact.  That compact had
+been grossly violated.  The Duke had made a treacherous attempt to
+possess himself of absolute power and to seize several important cities.
+He had been signally defeated in Antwerp, and obliged to leave the
+country, covered with ignominy.  The States had then consulted William of
+Orange as to the course to be taken in the emergency.  The Prince had
+told them that their choice was triple.  They might reconcile themselves
+with Spain, and abandon the contest for religious liberty which they had
+so long been waging; they might reconcile themselves with Anjou,
+notwithstanding that he had so utterly forfeited all claims to their
+consideration; or they might fight the matter out with Spain single-
+handed.  The last course was, in his opinion, the most eligible one, and
+he was ready to sacrifice his life to its furtherance.  It was, however,
+indispensable, should that policy be adopted, that much larger supplies
+should be voted than had hitherto been raised, and, in general, that a
+much more extensive and elevated spirit of patriotism should manifest
+itself than had hitherto been displayed.
+
+It was, on the whole, decided to make a second arrangement with the Duke
+of Anjou, Queen Elizabeth warmly urging that course.  At the same time,
+however, that articles of agreement were drawn up for the installation of
+Anjou as sovereign of the United Provinces, the Prince had himself
+consented to accept the title of Count of Holland, under an ample
+constitutional charter, dictated by his own lips.  Neither Anjou nor
+Orange lived to be inaugurated into the offices thus bestowed upon them.
+The Duke died at Chateau-Thierry on the 10th June, and the Prince was
+assassinated a month later at Delft.
+
+What now was the political position of the United Provinces at this
+juncture?  The sovereignty which had been held by the Estates, ready to
+be conferred respectively upon Anjou and Orange, remained in the hands of
+the Estates.  There was no opposition to this theory.  No more enlarged
+view of the social compact had yet been taken.  The people, as such,
+claimed no sovereignty.  Had any champion claimed it for them they would
+hardly have understood him.  The nation dealt with facts.  After abjuring
+Philip in 1581--an act which had been accomplished by the Estates--the
+same Estates in general assembly had exercised sovereign power, and had
+twice disposed of that sovereign power by electing a hereditary ruler.
+Their right and their power to do this had been disputed by none, save by
+the deposed monarch in Spain.  Having the sovereignty to dispose of, it
+seemed logical that the Estates might keep it, if so inclined.  They did
+keep it, but only in trust.  While Orange lived, he might often have been
+elected sovereign of all the Provinces, could he have been induced to
+consent.  After his death, the Estates retained, ex necessitate, the
+sovereignty; and it will soon be related what they intended to do with
+it.  One thing is very certain, that neither Orange, while he lived, nor
+the Estates, after his death, were actuated in their policy by personal
+ambition.  It will be seen that the first object of the Estates was to
+dispossess themselves of the sovereignty which had again fallen into
+their hands.
+
+What were the Estates?  Without, at the present moment, any farther
+inquiries into that constitutional system which had been long
+consolidating itself, and was destined to exist upon a firmer basis for
+centuries longer, it will be sufficient to observe, that the great
+characteristic of the Netherland government was the municipality.
+
+Each Province contained a large number of cities, which were governed by
+a board of magistrates, varying in number from twenty to forty.  This
+college, called the Vroedschap (Assembly of Sages), consisted of the most
+notable citizens, and was a self-electing body--a close corporation--the
+members being appointed for life, from the citizens at large.  Whenever
+vacancies occurred from death or loss of citizenship, the college chose
+new members--sometimes immediately, sometimes by means of a double or
+triple selection of names, the choice of one from among which was offered
+to the stadtholder of the province.  This functionary was appointed by
+the Count, as he was called, whether Duke of Bavaria or of Burgundy,
+Emperor, or King.  After the abjuration of Philip, the governors were
+appointed by the Estates of each Province.
+
+The Sage-Men chose annually a board of senators, or schepens, whose
+functions were mainly judicial; and there were generally two, and
+sometimes three, burgomasters, appointed in the same way.  This was
+the popular branch of the Estates.  But, besides this body of
+representatives, were the nobles, men of ancient lineage and large
+possessions, who had exercised, according to the general feudal law of
+Europe, high, low, and intermediate jurisdiction upon their estates, and
+had long been recognized as an integral part of the body politic, having
+the right to appear, through delegates of their order, in the provincial
+and in the general assemblies.
+
+Regarded as a machine for bringing the most decided political capacities
+into the administration of public affairs, and for organising the most
+practical opposition to the system of religious tyranny, the Netherland
+constitution was a healthy, and, for the age, an enlightened one.  The
+officeholders, it is obvious, were not greedy for the spoils of office;
+for it was, unfortunately, often the case that their necessary expenses
+in the service of the state were not defrayed.  The people raised
+enormous contributions for carrying on the war; but they could not afford
+to be extremely generous to their faithful servants.
+
+Thus constituted was the commonwealth upon the death of William the
+Silent.  The gloom produced by that event was tragical.  Never in human
+history was a more poignant and universal sorrow for the death of any
+individual.  The despair was, for a brief season, absolute; but it was
+soon succeeded by more lofty sentiments.  It seemed, after they had laid
+their hero in the tomb, as though his spirit still hovered above the
+nation which he had loved so well, and was inspiring it with a portion of
+his own energy and wisdom.
+
+Even on the very day of the murder, the Estates of Holland, then sitting
+at Delft, passed a resolution "to maintain the good cause, with God's
+help, to the uttermost, without sparing gold or blood."  This decree was
+communicated to Admiral de Warmont, to Count Hohenlo, to William Lewis of
+Nassau, and to other commanders by land and sea.  At the same time, the
+sixteen members--for no greater number happened to be present at the
+session--addressed letters to their absent colleagues, informing them
+of the calamity which had befallen them, summoning them at once to
+conference, and urging an immediate convocation of the Estates of all
+the Provinces in General Assembly.  They also addressed strong letters of
+encouragement, mingled with manly condolence, upon the common affliction,
+to prominent military and naval commanders and civil functionaries,
+begging them to "bear themselves manfully and valiantly, without
+faltering in the least on account of the great misfortune which had
+occurred, or allowing themselves to be seduced by any one from the union
+of the States."  Among these sixteen were Van Zuylen, Van Nyvelt, the
+Seigneur de Warmont, the Advocate of Holland, Paul Buys, Joost de Menin,
+and John van Olden-Barneveldt.  A noble example was thus set at once to
+their fellow citizens by these their representatives--a manful step taken
+forward in the path where Orange had so long been leading.
+
+The next movement, after the last solemn obsequies had been rendered to
+the Prince was to provide for the immediate wants of his family.  For the
+man who had gone into the revolt with almost royal revenues, left his
+estate so embarrassed that his carpets, tapestries, household linen--
+nay, even his silver spoons, and the very clothes of his wardrobe were
+disposed of at auction for the benefit of his creditors.  He left eleven
+children--a son and daughter by the first wife, a son and daughter by
+Anna of Saxony, six daughters by Charlotte of Bourbon, and an infant,
+Frederic Henry, born six months before his death.  The eldest son, Philip
+William, had been a captive in Spain for seventeen years, having been
+kidnapped from school, in Leyden, in the year 1567.  He had already
+become so thoroughly Hispaniolized under the masterly treatment of the
+King and the Jesuits, that even his face had lost all resemblance to the
+type of his heroic family, and had acquired a sinister, gloomy,
+forbidding expression, most painful to contemplate.  All of good that
+he had retained was a reverence for his father's name--a sentiment which
+he had manifested to an extravagant extent on a memorable occasion in
+Madrid, by throwing out of window, and killing on the spot a Spanish
+officer who had dared to mention the great Prince with insult.
+
+The next son was Maurice, then seventeen years of age, a handsome youth,
+with dark blue eyes, well-chiselled features, and full red lips, who had
+already manifested a courage and concentration of character beyond his
+years.  The son of William the Silent, the grandson of Maurice of Saxony,
+whom he resembled in visage and character, he was summoned by every drop
+of blood in his veins to do life-long battle with the spirit of Spanish
+absolutism, and he was already girding himself for his life's work.  He
+assumed at once for his device a fallen oak, with a young sapling
+springing from its root.  His motto, "Tandem fit surculus arbor," "the
+twig shall yet become a tree"--was to be nobly justified by his career.
+
+The remaining son, then a six months' child, was also destined to high
+fortunes, and to win an enduring name in his country's history.  For the
+present he remained with his mother, the noble Louisa de Coligny, who had
+thus seen, at long intervals, her father and two husbands fall victims to
+the Spanish policy; for it is as certain that Philip knew beforehand, and
+testified his approbation of, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, as that he
+was the murderer of Orange.
+
+The Estates of Holland implored the widowed Princess to remain in their
+territority, settling a liberal allowance upon herself and her child, and
+she fixed her residence at Leyden.
+
+But her position was most melancholy.  Married in youth to the Seigneur
+de Teligny, a young noble of distinguished qualities, she had soon become
+both a widow and an orphan in the dread night of St. Bartholomew.  She
+had made her own escape to Switzerland; and ten years afterwards she had
+united herself in marriage with the Prince of Orange.  At the age of
+thirty-two, she now found herself desolate and wretched in a foreign
+land, where she had never felt thoroughly at home.  The widow and
+children of William the Silent were almost without the necessaries of
+life.  "I hardly know," wrote the Princess to her brother-in-law, Count
+John, "how the children and I are to maintain ourselves according to the
+honour of the house.  May God provide for us in his bounty, and certainly
+we have much need of it."  Accustomed to the more luxurious civilisation
+of France, she had been amused rather than annoyed, when, on her first
+arrival in Holland for her nuptials, she found herself making the journey
+from Rotterdam to Delft in an open cart without springs, instead of the
+well-balanced coaches to which she had been used, arriving, as might have
+been expected, "much bruised and shaken."  Such had become the primitive
+simplicity of William the Silent's household.  But on his death, in
+embarrassed circumstances, it was still more straightened.  She had no
+cause either to love Leyden, for, after the assassination of her husband,
+a brutal preacher, Hakkius by name, had seized that opportunity for
+denouncing the French marriage, and the sumptuous christening of the
+infant in January, as the deeds which had provoked the wrath of God and
+righteous chastisement.  To remain there in her widowhood, with that six
+months' child, "sole pledge of her dead lord, her consolation and only
+pleasure," as she pathetically expressed herself, was sufficiently
+painful, and she had been inclined to fix her residence in Flushing, in
+the edifice which had belonged to her husband, as Marquis of Vere.  She
+had been persuaded, however, to remain in Holland, although "complaining,
+at first, somewhat of the unkindness of the people."
+
+A small well-formed woman, with delicate features, exquisite complexion,
+and very beautiful dark eyes, that seemed in after-years, as they looked
+from beneath her coif, to be dim with unshed tears; with remarkable
+powers of mind, angelic sweetness of disposition, a winning manner, and a
+gentle voice, Louisa de Coligny became soon dear to the rough Hollanders,
+and was ever a disinterested and valuable monitress both to her own child
+and to his elder brother Maurice.
+
+Very soon afterwards the States General established a State Council,
+as a provisional executive board, for the term of three months, for the
+Provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Friesland, and such parts of
+Flanders and Brabant as still remained in the Union.  At the head of this
+body was placed young Maurice, who accepted the responsible position,
+after three days' deliberation.  The young man had been completing his
+education, with a liberal allowance from Holland and Zeeland, at the
+University of Leyden; and such had been their tender care for the child
+of so many hopes, that the Estates had given particular and solemn
+warning, by resolution, to his governor during the previous summer,
+on no account to allow him to approach the sea-shore, lest he should be
+kidnapped by the Prince of Parma, who had then some war-vessels cruising
+on the coast.
+
+The salary of Maurice was now fixed at thirty thousand florins a year,
+while each of the councillors was allowed fifteen hundred annually, out
+of which stipend he was to support at least one servant; without making
+any claim for travelling or other incidental expenses.
+
+The Council consisted of three members from Brabant, two from Flanders,
+four from Holland, three from Zeeland, two from Utrecht, one from
+Mechlin, and three from Friesland--eighteen in all.  They were empowered
+and enjoined to levy troops by land and sea, and to appoint naval and
+military officers; to establish courts of admiralty, to expend the moneys
+voted by the States, to maintain the ancient privileges of the country,
+and to see that all troops in service of the Provinces made oath of
+fidelity to the Union.  Diplomatic relations, questions of peace and war,
+the treaty-making power, were not entrusted to the Council, without the
+knowledge and consent of the States General, which body was to be
+convoked twice a year by the State Council.
+
+Thus the Provinces in the hour of danger and darkness were true to
+themselves, and were far from giving way to a despondency which under
+the circumstances would not have been unnatural.
+
+For the waves of bitterness were rolling far and wide around them.  A
+medal, struck in Holland at this period, represented a dismasted hulk
+reeling through the tempest. The motto, "incertum quo fate ferent" (who
+knows whither fate is sweeping her?) expressed most vividly the ship
+wrecked condition of the country.  Alexander of Parma, the most
+accomplished general and one of the most adroit statesmen of the age,
+was swift to take advantage of the calamity which had now befallen the
+rebellious Provinces. Had he been better provided with men and money,
+the cause of the States might have seemed hopeless.  He addressed many
+letters to the States General, to the magistracies of various cities, and
+to individuals, affecting to consider that with the death of Orange had
+died all authority, as well as all motive for continuing the contest with
+Spain.  He offered easy terms of reconciliation with the discarded
+monarch--always reserving, however, as a matter of course, the religious
+question--for it was as well known to the States as to Parma that there
+was no hope of Philip making concessions upon that important point.
+
+In Holland and Zeeland the Prince's blandishments were of no avail.  His
+letters received in various towns of those Provinces, offered, said one
+who saw them, "almost every thing they would have or demand, even till
+they should repent."  But the bait was not taken.  Individuals and
+municipalities were alike stanch, remembering well that faith was not to
+be kept with heretics.  The example was followed by the Estates of other
+Provinces, and all sent in to the General Assembly, soon in session at
+Delft, "their absolute and irrevocable authority to their deputies to
+stand to that which they, the said States General, should dispose of as
+to their persons, goods and country; a resolution and agreement which
+never concurred before among them, to this day, in what age or government
+soever."
+
+It was decreed that no motion of agreement "with the tyrant of Spain"
+should be entertained either publicly or privately, "under pain to be
+reputed ill patriots."  It was also enacted in the city of Dort that any
+man that brought letter or message from the enemy to any private person
+"should be forthwith hanged."  This was expeditious and business-like.
+The same city likewise took the lead in recording its determination by
+public act, and proclaiming it by sound of trumpet, "to live and die in
+the cause now undertaken."
+
+In Flanders and Brabant the spirit was less noble.  Those Provinces were
+nearly lost already.  Bruges seconded Parma's efforts to induce its
+sister-city Ghent to imitate its own baseness in surrendering without
+a struggle; and that powerful, turbulent, but most anarchical little
+commonwealth was but too ready to listen to the voice of the tempter.
+"The ducats of Spain, Madam, are trotting about in such fashion," wrote
+envoy Des Pruneaux to Catherine de Medici, "that they have vanquished a
+great quantity of courages.  Your Majesties, too, must employ money if
+you wish to advance one step."  No man knew better than Parma how to
+employ such golden rhetoric to win back a wavering rebel to his loyalty,
+but he was not always provided with a sufficient store of those practical
+arguments.
+
+He was, moreover, not strong in the field, although he was far superior
+to the States at this contingency.  He had, besides his garrisons,
+something above 18,000 men.  The Provinces had hardly 3000 foot and 2500
+horse, and these were mostly lying in the neighbourhood of Zutphen.
+Alexander was threatening at the same time Ghent, Dendermonde, Mechlin,
+Brussels, and Antwerp.  These five powerful cities lie in a narrow
+circle, at distances varying from six miles to thirty, and are, as it
+were, strung together upon the Scheldt, by which river, or its tributary,
+the Senne, they are all threaded.  It would have been impossible for
+Parma, with 100,000 men at his back, to undertake a regular and
+simultaneous siege of these important places.  His purpose was to isolate
+them from each other and from the rest of the country, by obtaining the
+control of the great river, and so to reduce them by famine.  The scheme
+was a masterly one, but even the consummate ability of Farnese would have
+proved inadequate to the undertaking, had not the preliminary
+assassination of Orange made the task comparatively easy.  Treason,
+faint-heartedness, jealousy, were the fatal allies that the Governor-
+General had reckoned upon, and with reason, in the council-rooms of these
+cities.  The terms he offered were liberal.  Pardon, permission for
+soldiers to retreat with technical honour, liberty to choose between
+apostacy to the reformed religion or exile, with a period of two years
+granted to the conscientious for the winding up of their affairs; these
+were the conditions, which seemed flattering, now that the well-known
+voice which had so often silenced the Flemish palterers and intriguers
+was for ever hushed.
+
+Upon the 17th August (1584) Dendermonde surrendered, and no lives were
+taken save those of two preachers, one of whom was hanged, while the
+other was drowned.  Upon the 7th September Vilvoorde capitulated, by
+which event the water-communication between Brussels and Antwerp was cut
+off.  Ghent, now thoroughly disheartened, treated with Parma likewise;
+and upon the 17th September made its reconciliation with the King.  The
+surrender of so strong and important a place was as disastrous to the
+cause of the patriots as it was disgraceful to the citizens themselves.
+It was, however, the result of an intrigue which had been long spinning,
+although the thread had been abruptly, and, as it was hoped,
+conclusively, severed several months before.  During the early part of
+the year, after the reconciliation of Bruges with the King--an event
+brought about by the duplicity and adroitness of Prince Chimay--the same
+machinery had been diligently and almost successfully employed to produce
+a like result in Ghent.  Champagny, brother of the famous Cardinal
+Granvelle, had been under arrest for six years in that city.  His
+imprisonment was not a strict one however; and he avenged himself for
+what he considered very unjust treatment at the hands of the patriots,
+by completely abandoning a cause which he had once begun to favour.
+A man of singular ability, courage, and energy, distinguished both for
+military and diplomatic services, he was a formidable enemy to the party
+from which he was now for ever estranged.  As early as April of this
+year, secret emissaries of Parma, dealing with Champagny in his nominal
+prison, and with the disaffected burghers at large, had been on the point
+of effecting an arrangement with the royal governor.  The negotiation had
+been suddenly brought to a close by the discovery of a flagrant attempt
+by Imbue, one of the secret adherents of the King, to sell the city of
+Dendermonde, of which he was governor, to Parma.  For this crime he had
+been brought to Ghent for trial, and then publicly beheaded.  The
+incident came in aid of the eloquence of Orange, who, up to the latest
+moment of his life, had been most urgent in his appeals to the patriotic
+hearts of Ghent, not to abandon the great cause of the union and of
+liberty.  William the Silent knew full well, that after the withdrawal of
+the great keystone-city of Ghent, the chasm between the Celtic-Catholic
+and the Flemish-Calvinist Netherlands could hardly be bridged again.
+Orange was now dead.  The negotiations with France, too, on which those
+of the Ghenters who still held true to the national cause had fastened
+their hopes, had previously been brought to a stand-still by the death of
+Anjou; and Champagny, notwithstanding the disaster to Imbize, became more
+active than ever.  A private agent, whom the municipal government had
+despatched to the French court for assistance, was not more successful
+than his character and course of conduct would have seemed to warrant;
+for during his residence in Paris, he had been always drunk, and
+generally abusive.  This was not good diplomacy, particularly on the part
+of an agent from a weak municipality to a haughty and most undecided
+government.
+
+"They found at this court," wrote Stafford to Walsingham, "great fault
+with his manner of dealing that was sent from Gaunt.  He was scarce sober
+from one end of the week to the other, and stood so much on his tiptoes
+to have present answer within three days, or else that they of Gaunt
+could tell where to bestow themselves.  They sent him away after keeping
+him three weeks, and he went off in great dudgeon, swearing by yea and
+nay that he will make report thereafter."
+
+Accordingly, they of Ghent did bestow themselves very soon thereafter
+upon the King of Spain.  The terms were considered liberal, but there
+was, of course, no thought of conceding the great object for which the
+patriots were contending--religious liberty.  The municipal privileges--
+such as they might prove to be worth under the interpretation of a royal
+governor and beneath the guns of a citadel filled with Spanish troops--
+were to be guaranteed; those of the inhabitants who did not choose to go
+to mass were allowed two years to wind up their affairs before going into
+perpetual exile, provided they behaved themselves "without scandal;"
+while on the other hand, the King's authority as Count of Flanders was to
+be fully recognised, and all the dispossessed monks and abbots to be
+restored to their property.
+
+Accordingly, Champagny was rewarded for his exertions by being released
+from prison and receiving the appointment of governor of the city: and,
+after a very brief interval, about one-half of the population, the most
+enterprising of its merchants and manufacturers, the most industrious of
+its artizans, emigrated to Holland and Zeeland.  The noble city of Ghent
+--then as large as Paris, thoroughly surrounded with moats, and fortified
+with bulwarks, ravelins, and counterscarps, constructed of earth, during
+the previous two years, at great expense, and provided with bread and
+meat, powder and shot, enough to last a year--was ignominiously
+surrendered.  The population, already a very reduced and slender one
+for the great extent of the place and its former importance, had been
+estimated at 70,000.  The number of houses was 35,000, so that as the
+inhabitants were soon farther reduced to one-half, there remained but one
+individual to each house.  On the other hand, the twenty-five monasteries
+and convents in the town were repeopled--with how much advantage as a
+set-off to the thousands of spinners and weavers who had wandered away,
+and who in the flourishing days of Ghent had sent gangs of workmen
+through the streets "whose tramp was like that of an army"--may be
+sufficiently estimated by the result.
+
+The fall of Brussels was deferred till March, and that of Mechlin (19th
+July, 1585) and of Antwerp (19th August, 1585), till Midsummer of the
+following year; but, the surrender of Ghent (10th March 1585)
+foreshadowed the fate of Flanders and Brabant.  Ostend and Sluys,
+however, were still in the hands of the patriots, and with them the
+control of the whole Flemish coast.  The command of the sea was destined
+to remain for centuries with the new republic.
+
+The Prince of Parma, thus encouraged by the great success of his
+intrigues, was determined to achieve still greater triumphs with his
+arms, and steadily proceeded with his large design of closing the
+Scheldt--and bringing about the fall of Antwerp.  The details of that
+siege-one of the most brilliant military operations of the age and one of
+the most memorable in its results--will be given, as a connected whole,
+in a subsequent series of chapters.  For the present, it will be better
+for the reader who wishes a clear view of European politics at this
+epoch, and of the position of the Netherlands, to give his attention to
+the web of diplomatic negotiation and court-intrigue which had been
+slowly spreading over the leading states of Christendom, and in which the
+fate of the world was involved.  If diplomatic adroitness consists mainly
+in the power to deceive, never were more adroit diplomatists than those
+of the sixteenth century.  It would, however, be absurd to deny them a
+various range of abilities; and the history of no other age can show more
+subtle, comprehensive, indefatigable--but, it must also be added, often
+unscrupulous--intellects engaged in the great game of politics in which
+the highest interests of millions were the stakes, than were those of
+several leading minds in England, France, Germany, and Spain.  With such
+statesmen the burgher-diplomatists of the new-born commonwealth had to
+measure themselves; and the result was to show whether or not they could
+hold their own in the cabinet as on the field,
+
+For the present, however, the new state was unconscious of its latent
+importance, The new-risen republic remained for a season nebulous, and
+ready to unsphere itself so soon as the relative attraction of other
+great powers should determine its absorption.  By the death of Anjou and
+of Orange the United Netherlands had became a sovereign state, an
+independent republic; but they stood with that sovereignty in their
+hands, offering it alternately, not to the highest bidder, but to the
+power that would be willing to accept their allegiance, on the sole
+condition of assisting them in the maintenance of their religious
+freedom.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+     Relations of the Republic to France--Queen's Severity towards
+     Catholics and Calvinists--Relative Positions of England and France--
+     Timidity of Germany--Apathy of Protestant Germany--Indignation of
+     the Netherlanders--Henry III. of France--The King and his Minions--
+     Henry of Guise--Henry of Navarre--Power of France--Embassy of the
+     States to France--Ignominious position of the Envoys--Views of the
+     French Huguenots--Efforts to procure Annexation--Success of Des
+     Pruneaux.
+
+The Prince of Orange had always favoured a French policy.  He had ever
+felt a stronger reliance upon the support of France than upon that of any
+other power.  This was not unreasonable, and so long as he lived, the
+tendency of the Netherlands had been in that direction.  It had never
+been the wish of England to acquire the sovereignty of the Provinces.  In
+France on the contrary, the Queen Dowager, Catharine de' Medici had
+always coveted that sovereignty for her darling Francis of Alencon; and
+the design had been favoured, so far as any policy could be favoured, by
+the impotent monarch who occupied the French throne.
+
+The religion of the United Netherlands was Calvinistic.  There were also
+many Anabaptists in the country.  The Queen of England hated Anabaptists,
+Calvinists, and other sectarians, and banished them from her realms on
+pain of imprisonment and confiscation of property.  As firmly opposed as
+was her father to the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, she felt much of
+the paternal reluctance to accept the spirit of the Reformation.  Henry
+Tudor hanged the men who believed in the Pope, and burnt alive those who
+disbelieved in transubstantiation, auricular confession, and the other
+'Six Articles.'  His daughter, whatever her secret religious convictions,
+was stanch in her resistance to Rome, and too enlightened a monarch not
+to see wherein the greatness and glory of England were to be found; but
+she had no thought of tolerating liberty of conscience.  All opposed to
+the Church of England, whether Papists or Puritans, were denounced as
+heretics, and as such imprisoned or banished.  "To allow churches with
+contrary rites and ceremonies," said Elizabeth, "were nothing else but to
+sow religion out of religion, to distract good men's minds, to cherish
+factious men's humours, to disturb religion and commonwealth, and mingle
+divine and human things; which were a thing in deed evil, in example
+worst of all; to our own subjects hurtful, and to themselves--to whom it
+is granted, neither greatly commodious, nor yet at all safe."--[Camden]
+The words were addressed, it is true, to Papists, but there is very
+little doubt that Anabaptists or any other heretics would have received a
+similar reply, had they, too, ventured to demand the right of public
+worship.  It may even be said that the Romanists in the earlier days of
+Elizabeth's reign fared better than the Calvinists.  The Queen neither
+banished nor imprisoned the Catholics.  She did not enter their houses to
+disturb their private religious ceremonies, or to inquire into their
+consciences.  This was milder treatment than the burning alive, burying
+alive, hanging, and drowning, which had been dealt out to the English and
+the Netherland heretics by Philip and by Mary, but it was not the spirit
+which William the Silent had been wont to manifest in his measures
+towards Anabaptists and Papists alike.  Moreover, the Prince could hardly
+forget that of the nine thousand four hundred Catholic ecclesiastics who
+held benefices at the death of Queen Mary, all had renounced the Pope on
+the accession of Queen Elizabeth, and acknowledged her as the head of the
+church, saving only one hundred and eighty-nine individuals.  In the
+hearts of the nine thousand two hundred and eleven others, it might be
+thought perhaps that some tenderness for the religion from which they had
+so suddenly been converted, might linger, while it could hardly be hoped
+that they would seek to inculcate in the minds of their flocks or of
+their sovereign any connivance with the doctrines of Geneva.
+
+When,  at a later period, the plotting of Catholics, suborned by the Pope
+and Philip, against the throne and person of the Queen, made more
+rigorous measures necessary; when it was thought indispensable to execute
+as traitors those Roman seedlings--seminary priests and their disciples--
+who went about preaching to the Queen's subjects the duty of carrying out
+the bull by which the Bishop of Rome had deposed and excommunicated their
+sovereign, and that "it was a meritorious act to kill such princes as
+were excommunicate," even then, the men who preached and practised
+treason and murder experienced no severer treatment than that which other
+"heretics" had met with at the Queen's hands.  Jesuits and Popish priests
+were, by Act of Parliament, ordered to depart the realm within forty
+days.  Those who should afterwards return to the kingdom were to be held
+guilty of high treason.  Students in the foreign seminaries were
+commanded to return within six months and recant, or be held guilty of
+high treason.  Parents and guardians supplying money to such students
+abroad were to incur the penalty of a preamunire--perpetual exile,
+namely, with loss of all their goods.
+
+Many seminary priests and others were annually executed in England under
+these laws, throughout the Queen's reign, but nominally at least they
+were hanged not as Papists, but as traitors; not because they taught
+transubstantiation, ecclesiastical celibacy, auricular confession, or
+even Papal supremacy, but because they taught treason and murder--because
+they preached the necessity of killing the Queen.  It was not so easy,
+however, to defend or even comprehend the banishment and imprisonment of
+those who without conspiring against the Queen's life or throne, desired
+to see the Church of England reformed according to the Church of Geneva.
+Yet there is no doubt that many sectaries experienced much inhuman
+treatment for such delinquency, both in the early and the later years of
+Elizabeth's reign.
+
+There was another consideration, which had its due weight in this
+balance, and that was the respective succession to the throne in the two
+kingdoms of France and England.  Mary Stuart, the Catholic, the niece of
+the Guises, emblem and exponent of all that was most Roman in Europe, the
+sworn friend of Philip, the mortal foe to all heresy, was the legitimate
+successor to Elizabeth.  Although that sovereign had ever refused to
+recognize that claim; holding that to confirm Mary in the succession was
+to "lay her own winding sheet before her eyes, yea, to make her, own
+grave, while she liveth and looketh on;" and although the unfortunate
+claimant of two thrones was a prisoner in her enemy's hands, yet, so long
+as she lived, there was little security for Protestantism, even in
+Elizabeth's lifetime, and less still in case of her sudden death.  On the
+other hand, not only were the various politico-religious forces of France
+kept in equilibrium by their action upon each other--so that it was
+reasonable to believe that the House of Valois, however Catholic itself,
+would be always compelled by the fast-expanding strength of French
+Calvinism, to observe faithfully a compact to tolerate the Netherland
+churches--but, upon the death of Henry III.  the crown would be
+legitimately placed upon the head of the great champion and chief of the
+Huguenots, Henry of Navarre.
+
+It was not unnatural, therefore, that the Prince of Orange, a Calvinist
+himself, should expect more sympathy with the Netherland reformers in
+France than in England.  A large proportion of the population of that
+kingdom, including an influential part of the nobility, was of the
+Huguenot persuasion, and the religious peace, established by royal edict,
+had endured so long, that the reformers of France and the Netherlands had
+begun to believe in the royal clemency, and to confide in the royal word.
+Orange did not live to see the actual formation of the Holy League, and
+could only guess at its secrets.
+
+Moreover, it should be remembered that France at that day was a more
+formidable state than England, a more dangerous enemy, and, as it was
+believed, a more efficient protector.  The England of the period,
+glorious as it was for its own and all future ages, was, not the great
+British Empire of to-day.  On the contrary, it was what would now be
+considered, statistically speaking, a rather petty power.  The England of
+Elizabeth, Walsingham, Burghley, Drake, and Raleigh, of Spenser and
+Shakspeare, hardly numbered a larger population than now dwells in its
+capital and immediate suburbs.  It had neither standing army nor
+considerable royal navy.  It was full of conspirators, daring and
+unscrupulous, loyal to none save to Mary of Scotland, Philip of Spain,
+and the Pope of Rome, and untiring in their efforts to bring about a
+general rebellion.  With Ireland at its side, nominally a subject
+province, but in a state of chronic insurrection--a perpetual hot-bed for
+Spanish conspiracy and stratagem; with Scotland at its back, a foreign
+country, with half its population exasperated enemies of England, and the
+rest but doubtful friends, and with the legitimate sovereign of that
+country, "the daughter of debate, who discord still did sow,"--[Sonnet by
+Queen Elizabeth.]--a prisoner in Elizabeth's hands, the central point
+around which treason was constantly crystallizing itself, it was not
+strange that with the known views of the Queen on the subject of the
+reformed Dutch religion, England should seem less desirable as a
+protector for the Netherlands than the neighbouring kingdom of France.
+
+Elizabeth was a great sovereign, whose genius Orange always appreciated,
+in a comparatively feeble realm.  Henry of Valois was the contemptible
+monarch of a powerful state, and might be led by others to produce
+incalculable mischief or considerable good.  Notwithstanding the massacre
+of St. Bartholomew, therefore, and the more recent "French fury" of
+Antwerp, Orange had been willing to countenance fresh negociations with
+France.
+
+Elizabeth, too, it should never be forgotten, was, if not over generous,
+at least consistent and loyal in her policy towards the Provinces.  She
+was not precisely jealous of France, as has been unjustly intimated on
+distinguished authority, for she strongly advocated the renewed offer of
+the sovereignty to Anjou, after his memorable expulsion from the
+Provinces.  At that period, moreover, not only her own love-coquetries
+with Anjou were over, but he was endeavouring with all his might, though
+in secret, to make a match with the younger Infanta of Spain.  Elizabeth
+furthered the negociation with France, both publicly and privately.  It
+will soon be narrated how those negociations prospered.
+
+If then England were out of the, question, where, except in France,
+should the Netherlanders, not deeming themselves capable of standing
+alone, seek for protection and support?
+
+We have seen the extensive and almost ubiquitous power of Spain.  Where
+she did not command as sovereign, she was almost equally formidable as an
+ally.  The Emperor of Germany was the nephew and the brother-in-law of
+Philip, and a strict Catholic besides.  Little aid was to be expected
+from him or the lands under his control for the cause of the Netherland
+revolt.  Rudolph hated his brother-in-law, but lived in mortal fear of
+him.  He was also in perpetual dread of the Grand Turk.  That formidable
+potentate, not then the "sick man" whose precarious condition and
+territorial inheritance cause so much anxiety in modern days, was, it is
+true, sufficiently occupied for the moment in Persia, and had been
+sustaining there a series of sanguinary defeats.  He was all the more
+anxious to remain upon good terms with Philip, and had recently sent him
+a complimentary embassy, together with some rather choice presents, among
+which were "four lions, twelve unicorns, and two horses coloured white,
+black, and blue."  Notwithstanding these pacific manifestations towards
+the West, however, and in spite of the truce with the German Empire which
+the Turk had just renewed for nine years,--Rudolph and his servants still
+trembled at every report from the East.
+
+"He is much deceived," wrote Busbecq, Rudolph's ambassador in Paris, "who
+doubts that the Turk has sought any thing by this long Persian war, but
+to protect his back, and prepare the way, after subduing that enemy, to
+the extermination of all Christendom, and that he will then, with all his
+might, wage an unequal warfare with us, in which the existence of the
+Empire will be at stake."
+
+The envoy expressed, at the same period, however, still greater awe of
+Spain.  "It is to no one," he wrote, "endowed with good judgment, in the
+least obscure, that the Spanish nation, greedy of empire, will never be
+quiet, even with their great power, but will seek for the dominion of the
+rest of Christendom.  How much remains beyond what they have already
+acquired?  Afterwards, there will soon be no liberty, no dignity, for
+other princes and republics.  That single nation will be arbiter of all
+things, than which nothing can be more miserable, nothing more degrading.
+It cannot be doubted that all kings, princes, and states, whose safety or
+dignity is dear to them, would willingly associate in arms to extinguish
+the common conflagration.  The death of the Catholic king would seem the
+great opportunity 'miscendis rebus'."
+
+Unfortunately neither Busbecq's master nor any other king or prince
+manifested any of this commendable alacrity to "take up arms against the
+conflagration."  Germany was in a shiver at every breeze from East or
+West-trembling alike before Philip and Amurath.  The Papists were making
+rapid progress, the land being undermined by the steady and stealthy
+encroachments of the Jesuits.  Lord Burghley sent many copies of his
+pamphlet, in Latin, French, and Italian, against the Seminaries, to
+Gebhard Truchsess; and the deposed archbishop made himself busy in
+translating that wholesome production into German, and in dispersing it
+"all Germany over."  The work, setting duly forth "that the executions of
+priests in England were not for religion but for treason," was
+"marvellously liked" in the Netherlands.  "In uttering the truth," said
+Herle, "'tis likely to do great good;" and he added, that Duke Augustus
+of Saxony "did now see so far into the sect of Jesuits, and to their
+inward mischiefs, as to become their open enemy, and to make friends
+against them in the Empire."
+
+The love of Truchsess for Agnes Mansfeld had created disaster not only
+for himself but for Germany.  The whole electorate of Cologne had become
+the constant seat of partisan warfare, and the resort of organised bands
+of brigands.  Villages were burned and rifled, highways infested, cities
+threatened, and the whole country subjected to perpetual black mail
+(brandschatzung)--fire-insurance levied by the incendiaries in person--by
+the supporters of the rival bishops.  Truchsess had fled to Delft, where
+he had been countenanced and supported by Orange.  Two cities still held
+for him, Rheinberg and Neuss.  On the other hand, his rival, Ernest of
+Bavaria; supported by Philip II., and the occasional guest of Alexander
+of Parma, had not yet succeeded in establishing a strong foothold in the
+territory.  Two pauper archbishops, without men or means of their own,
+were thus pushed forward and back, like puppets, by the contending
+highwaymen on either side; while robbery and murder, under the name of
+Protestantism or Catholicism, were for a time the only motive or result
+of the contest.
+
+Thus along the Rhine, as well as the Maas and the Scheldt, the fires of
+civil war were ever burning.  Deeper within the heart of Germany, there
+was more tranquillity; but it was the tranquillity rather of paralysis
+than of health.  A fearful account was slowly accumulating, which was
+evidently to be settled only by one of the most horrible wars which
+history has ever recorded.  Meantime there was apathy where there should
+have been enthusiasm; parsimony and cowardice where generous and combined
+effort were more necessary than ever; sloth without security.  The
+Protestant princes, growing fat and contented on the spoils of the
+church, lent but a deaf ear to the moans of Truchsess, forgetting that
+their neighbour's blazing roof was likely soon to fire their own.  "They
+understand better, 'proximus sum egomet mild'," wrote Lord Willoughby
+from Kronenburg, "than they have learned, 'humani nihid a me alienum
+puto'.  These German princes continue still in their lethargy, careless
+of the state of others, and dreaming of their ubiquity, and some of them,
+it is thought, inclining to be Spanish or Popish more of late than
+heretofore."
+
+The beggared archbishop, more forlorn than ever since the death of his
+great patron, cried woe from his resting-place in Delft, upon Protestant
+Germany.  His tones seemed almost prophetic of the thirty years' wrath to
+blaze forth in the next generation.  "Courage is wanting to the people
+throughout Germany," he wrote to William Lewis of Nassau.  "We are
+becoming the laughing-stock of the nations.  Make sheep of yourselves,
+and the wolf will eat you.  We shall find our destruction in our
+immoderate desire for peace.  Spain is making a Papistical league in
+Germany.  Therefore is Assonleville despatched thither, and that's the
+reason why our trash of priests are so insolent in the empire.  'Tis
+astonishing how they are triumphing on all sides.  God will smite them.
+Thou dear God!  What are our evangelists about in Germany?  Asleep on
+both ears.  'Dormiunt in utramque aurem'.  I doubt they will be suddenly
+enough awakened one day, and the cry will be, 'Who'd have thought it?'
+Then they will be for getting oil for the lamp, for shutting the stable-
+door when the steed is stolen," and so on, with a string of homely
+proverbs worthy of Sancho Panza, or landgrave William of Hesse.
+
+In truth, one of the most painful features is the general aspect of
+affairs was the coldness of the German Protestants towards the
+Netherlands.  The enmity between Lutherans and Calvinists was almost as
+fatal as that between Protestants and Papists.  There was even a talk, at
+a little later period, of excluding those of the "reformed" church from
+the benefits of the peace of Passau.  The princes had got the Augsburg
+confession and the abbey-lands into the bargain; the peasants had got the
+Augsburg confession without the abbey-lands, and were to believe exactly
+what their masters believed.  This was the German-Lutheran sixteenth-
+century idea of religious freedom.  Neither prince nor peasant stirred in
+behalf of the struggling Christians in the United Provinces, battling,
+year after year, knee-deep in blood, amid blazing cities and inundated
+fields, breast to breast with the yellow jerkined pikemen of Spain and
+Italy, with the axe and the faggot and the rack of the Holy Inquisition
+distinctly visible behind them.  Such were the realities which occupied
+the Netherlanders in those days, not watery beams of theological
+moonshine, fantastical catechism-making, intermingled with scenes of riot
+and wantonness, which drove old John of Nassau half frantic; with
+banquetting and guzzling, drinking and devouring, with unchristian
+flaunting and wastefulness of apparel, with extravagant and wanton
+dancing, and other lewd abominations; all which, the firm old reformer
+prophesied, would lead to the destruction of Germany.
+
+For the mass, slow moving but apparently irresistible, of Spanish and
+papistical absolutism was gradually closing over Christendom.  The
+Netherlands were the wedge by which alone the solid bulk could be riven
+asunder.  It was the cause of German, of French, of English liberty, for
+which the Provinces were contending.  It was not surprising that they
+were bitter, getting nothing in their hour of distress from the land of
+Luther but dogmas and Augsburg catechisms instead of money and gunpowder,
+and seeing German reiters galloping daily to reinforce the army of Parma
+in exchange for Spanish ducats.
+
+Brave old La Noue, with the iron arm, noblest of Frenchmen and Huguenots
+--who had just spent five years in Spanish bondage, writing military
+discourses in a reeking dungeon, filled with toads and vermin, after
+fighting the battle of liberty for a life-time, and with his brave son
+already in the Netherlands emulating his father's valour on the same
+field--denounced at a little later day, the lukewarmness of Protestant
+Germany with whimsical vehemence:--"I am astounded," he cried, "that
+these princes are not ashamed of themselves; doing nothing while they see
+the oppressed cut to pieces at their gates.  When will God grant me grace
+to place me among those who are doing their duty, and afar from those who
+do nothing, and who ought to know that the cause is a common one.  If I
+am ever caught dancing the German cotillon, or playing the German flute,
+or eating pike with German sauce, I hope it may be flung in my teeth."
+
+The great league of the Pope and Philip was steadily consolidating
+itself, and there were but gloomy prospects for the counter-league in
+Germany.  There was no hope but in England and France.  For the reasons
+already indicated, the Prince of Orange, taking counsel with the Estates,
+had resolved to try the French policy once more.  The balance of power in
+Europe, which no man in Christendom so well understood as he, was to be
+established by maintaining (he thought) the equilibrium between France
+and Spain.  In the antagonism of those two great realms lay the only hope
+for Dutch or European liberty.  Notwithstanding the treason of Anjou,
+therefore, it had been decided to renew negociations with that Prince.
+On the death of the Duke, the envoys of the States were accordingly
+instructed to make the offer to King Henry III. which had been intended
+for his brother.  That proposition was the sovereignty of all the
+Netherlands, save Holland and Zeeland, under a constitution maintaining
+the reformed religion and the ancient laws and privileges of the
+respective provinces.
+
+But the death of Francis of Anjou had brought about a considerable change
+in French policy.  It was now more sharply defined than ever, a right-
+angled triangle of almost mathematical precision.  The three Henrys and
+their partizans divided the realm into three hostile camps--threatening
+each other in simulated peace since the treaty of Fleig (1580), which had
+put an end to the "lover's war" of the preceding year,--Henry of Valois,
+Henry of Guise, and Henry of Navarre.
+
+Henry III., last of the Valois line, was now thirty-three years of age.
+Less than king, less even than man, he was one of those unfortunate
+personages who seem as if born to make the idea of royalty ridiculous,
+and to test the capacity of mankind to eat and drink humiliation as if it
+were wholesome food.  It proved how deeply engraved in men's minds of
+that century was the necessity of kingship, when the hardy Netherlanders,
+who had abjured one tyrant, and had been fighting a generation long
+rather than return to him, were now willing to accept the sovereignty of
+a thing like Henry of Valois.
+
+He had not been born without natural gifts, such as Heaven rarely denies
+to prince or peasant; but the courage which he once possessed had been
+exhausted on the field of Moncontour, his manhood had been left behind
+him at Venice, and such wit as Heaven had endowed him withal was now
+expended in darting viperous epigrams at court-ladies whom he was only
+capable of dishonouring by calumny, and whose charms he burned to
+outrival in the estimation of his minions.  For the monarch of France was
+not unfrequently pleased to attire himself like a woman and a harlot.
+With silken flounces, jewelled stomacher, and painted face, with pearls
+of great price adorning his bared neck and breast, and satin-slippered
+feet, of whose delicate shape and size he was justly vain, it was his
+delight to pass his days and nights in a ceaseless round of gorgeous
+festivals, tourneys, processions; masquerades, banquets, and balls, the
+cost of which glittering frivolities caused the popular burthen and the
+popular execration to grow, from day to day, more intolerable and more
+audible.  Surrounded by a gang of "minions," the most debauched and the
+most desperate of France, whose bedizened dresses exhaled perfumes
+throughout Paris, and whose sanguinary encounters dyed every street in
+blood, Henry lived a life of what he called pleasure, careless of what
+might come after, for he was the last of his race.  The fortunes of his
+minions rose higher and higher, as their crimes rendered them more and
+more estimable in the eyes of a King who took a woman's pride in the
+valour of such champions to his weakness, and more odious to a people
+whose miserable homes were made even more miserable, that the coffers of
+a few court-favourites might be filled: Now sauntering, full-dressed, in
+the public promenades, with ghastly little death's heads strung upon his
+sumptuous garments, and fragments of human bones dangling among his
+orders of knighthood--playing at cup and ball as he walked, and followed
+by a few select courtiers who gravely pursued the same exciting
+occupation--now presiding like a queen of beauty at a tournament to
+assign the prize of valour, and now, by the advice of his mother, going
+about the streets in robes of penitence, telling his beads as he went,
+that the populace might be edified by his piety, and solemnly offering up
+prayers in the churches that the blessing of an heir might be vouchsafed
+to him,--Henry of Valois seemed straining every nerve in order to bring
+himself and his great office into contempt.
+
+As orthodox as he was profligate, he hated the Huguenots, who sought his
+protection and who could have saved his throne, as cordially as he loved
+the Jesuits, who passed their lives in secret plottings against his
+authority and his person, or in fierce denunciations from the Paris
+pulpits against his manifold crimes.  Next to an exquisite and sanguinary
+fop, he dearly loved a monk.  The presence of a friar, he said, exerted
+as agreeable an effect upon his mind as the most delicate and gentle
+tickling could produce upon his body; and he was destined to have a
+fuller dose of that charming presence than he coveted.
+
+His party--for he was but the nominal chief of a faction, 'tanquam unus
+ex nobis'--was the party in possession--the office-holders' party; the
+spoilsmen, whose purpose was to rob the exchequer and to enrich
+themselves.  His minions--for the favourites were called by no other
+name--were even more hated, because less despised than the King.  Attired
+in cloth of gold--for silk and satin were grown too coarse a material for
+them--with their little velvet porringer-caps stuck on the sides of their
+heads, with their long hair stiff with pomatum, and their heads set
+inside a well-starched ruff a foot wide, "like St. John's head in a
+charger," as a splenetic contemporary observed, with a nimbus of musk and
+violet-powder enveloping them as they passed before vulgar mortals, these
+rapacious and insolent courtiers were the impersonation of extortion and
+oppression to the Parisian populace.  They were supposed, not unjustly,
+to pass their lives in dancing, blasphemy, dueling, dicing, and intrigue,
+in following the King about like hounds, fawning at his feet, and showing
+their teeth to all besides; and for virtues such as these they were
+rewarded by the highest offices in church, camp, and state, while new
+taxes and imposts were invented almost daily to feed their avarice and
+supply their extravagance.  France, doomed to feel the beak and talons of
+these harpies in its entrails, impoverished by a government that robbed
+her at home while it humiliated her abroad, struggled vainly in its
+misery, and was now on the verge of another series of internecine
+combats--civil war seeming the only alternative to a voluptuous and
+licentious peace.
+
+"We all stood here at gaze," wrote ambassador Stafford to Walsingham,
+"looking for some great matter to come of this sudden journey to Lyons;
+but, as far as men can find, 'parturient montes', for there hath been
+nothing but dancing and banquetting from one house to another, bravery in
+apparel, glittering like the sun."  He, mentioned that the Duke of
+Epernon's horse, taking fright at a red cloak, had backed over a
+precipice, breaking his own neck, while his master's shoulder merely was
+put out of joint.  At the same time the Duke of Joyeuse, coming over
+Mount Cenis, on his return from Savoy, had broken his wrist.  The people,
+he said, would rather they had both broken their necks "than any other
+joint, the King having racked the nation for their sakes, as he hath-
+done."  Stafford expressed much compassion for the French in the plight
+in which they found themselves.  "Unhappy people!"  he cried, "to have
+such a King, who seeketh nothing but to impoverish them to enrich a
+couple, and who careth not what cometh after his death, so that he may
+rove on while he liveth, and careth neither for doing his own estate good
+nor his neighbour's state harm."  Sir Edward added, however, in a
+philosophizing vein, worthy of Corporal Nym, that, "seeing we cannot be
+so happy as to have a King to concur with us to do us any good, yet we
+are happy to have one that his humour serveth him not to concur with
+others to do us harm; and 'tis a wisdom for us to follow these humours,
+that we may keep him still in that humour, and from hearkening to others
+that may egg him on to worse."
+
+It was a dark hour for France, and rarely has a great nation been reduced
+to a lower level by a feeble and abandoned government than she was at
+that moment under the distaff of Henry III.  Society was corrupted to its
+core.  "There is no more truth, no more justice, no more mercy," moaned
+President L'Etoile.  "To slander, to lie, to rob, to wench, to steal; all
+things are permitted save to do right and to speak the truth."  Impiety
+the most cynical, debauchery the most unveiled, public and unpunished
+homicides, private murders by what was called magic, by poison, by hired
+assassins, crimes natural, unnatural, and preternatural, were the common
+characteristics of the time.  All posts and charges were venal.  Great
+offices of justice were sold to the highest bidder, and that which was
+thus purchased by wholesale was retailed in the same fashion.  Unhappy
+the pauper client who dreamed of justice at the hands of law.  The great
+ecclesiastical benefices were equally matter of merchandise, and married
+men, women, unborn children, enjoyed revenues as dignitaries of the
+church.  Infants came into the world, it was said, like the mitre-fish,
+stamped with the emblems of place.
+
+"'Twas impossible," said L'Etoile, "to find a crab so tortuous and
+backsliding as the government."
+
+This was the aspect of the first of the three factions in France.  Such
+was the Henry at its head, the representative of royalty.
+
+Henry with the Scar, Duke of Guise, the well-known chief of the house of
+Lorraine, was the chief of the extreme papistical party.  He was now
+thirty-four years of age, tall, stately, with a dark, martial face and
+dangerous eyes, which Antonio Moro loved to paint; a physiognomy made
+still more expressive by the arquebus-shot which had damaged his left
+cheek at the fight near Chateau-Thierry and gained him his name of
+Balafre.  Although one of the most turbulent and restless plotters of
+that plotting age, he was yet thought more slow and heavy in character
+than subtle, Teutonic rather than Italian.  He was the idol of the
+Parisian burghers.  The grocers, the market-men, the members of the
+arquebus and crossbow clubs, all doated on him.  The fishwomen worshipped
+him as a god.  He was the defender of the good old religion under which
+Paris and the other cities of France had thriven, the uncompromising
+opponent of the new-fangled doctrines which western clothiers, and dyers,
+and tapestry-workers, had adopted, and which the nobles of the mountain-
+country, the penniless chevaliers of Bearn and Gascony and Guienne, were
+ceaselessly taking the field and plunging France into misery and
+bloodshed to support.  But for the Balafre and Madam League--as the great
+Spanish Catholic conspiracy against the liberties of France, and of
+England, and of all Europe, was affectionately termed by the Paris
+populace--honest Catholics would fare no better in France than they did
+in England, where, as it was well known, they were every day subjected to
+fearful tortures: The shopwindows were filled with coloured engravings,
+representing, in exaggerated fashion, the sufferings of the English
+Catholics under bloody Elizabeth, or Jezebel, as she was called; and as
+the gaping burghers stopped to ponder over these works of art, there were
+ever present, as if by accident, some persons of superior information who
+would condescendingly explain the various pictures, pointing out with a
+long stick the phenomena most worthy of notice.  These caricatures
+proving highly successful, and being suppressed by order of government,
+they were repeated upon canvas on a larger scale, in still more
+conspicuous situations, as if in contempt of the royal authority, which
+sullied itself by compromise with Calvinism!  The pulpits, meanwhile,
+thundered denunciations on the one hand against the weak and wicked King,
+who worshipped idols, and who sacrificed the dearly-earned pittance of
+his subjects to feed the insolent pomp of his pampered favourites; and on
+the other, upon the arch-heretic, the arch-apostate, the Bearnese
+Huguenot, who, after the death of the reigning monarch, would have the
+effrontery to claim his throne, and to introduce into France the
+persecutions and the horrors under which unhappy England was already
+groaning.
+
+The scarce-concealed instigator of these assaults upon the royal and upon
+the Huguenot faction was, of course, the Duke of Guise,--the man whose
+most signal achievement had been the Massacre of St. Bartholomew--all the
+preliminary details of that transaction having been arranged by his
+skill.  So long as Charles IX. was living, the Balafre had created the
+confusion which was his element, by entertaining and fomenting the
+perpetual intrigues of Anjou and Alencon against their brother; while the
+altercations between them and the Queen Mother and the furious madman who
+then sat upon the throne, had been the cause of sufficient disorder and
+calamity for France.  On the death of Charles IX.  Guise had sought the
+intimacy of Henry of Navarre, that by his means he might frustrate the
+hopes of Alencon for the succession.  During the early period of the
+Bearnese's residence at the French court the two had been inseparable,
+living together, going to the same festivals, tournaments, and
+masquerades, and even sleeping in the same bed.  "My master," was ever
+Guise's address to Henry; "my gossip," the young King of Navarre's reply.
+But the crafty Bearnese had made use of the intimacy only to read the
+secrets of the Balafre's heart; and on Navarre's flight from the court,
+and his return to Huguenotism, Guise knew that he had been played upon by
+a subtler spirit than his own.  The simulated affection was now changed
+into undisguised hatred.  Moreover, by the death of Alencon, Navarre now
+stood next the throne, and Guise's plots became still more extensive and
+more open as his own ambition to usurp the crown on the death of the
+childless Henry III.  became more fervid.
+
+Thus, by artfully inflaming the populace of Paris, and through his
+organized bands of confederates--that of all the large towns of France,
+against the Huguenots and their chief, by appeals to the religious
+sentiment; and at the same time by stimulating the disgust and
+indignation of the tax-payers everywhere at the imposts and heavy
+burthens which the boundless extravagance of the court engendered, Guise
+paved the way for the advancement of the great League which he
+represented.  The other two political divisions were ingeniously
+represented as mere insolent factions, while his own was the true
+national and patriotic party, by which alone the ancient religion and the
+cherished institutions of France could be preserved.
+
+And the great chief of this national patriotic party was not Henry of
+Guise, but the industrious old man who sat writing despatches in the
+depths of the Escorial.  Spanish counsels, Spanish promises, Spanish
+ducats--these were the real machinery by which the plots of Guise against
+the peace of France and of Europe were supported.  Madam League was
+simply Philip II.  Nothing was written, officially or unofficially, to
+the French government by the Spanish court that was not at the same time
+communicated to "Mucio"--as the Duke of Guise was denominated in the
+secret correspondence of Philip, and Mucio was in Philip's pay, his
+confidential agent, spy, and confederate, long before the actual
+existence of the League was generally suspected.
+
+The Queen-Mother, Catharine de' Medici, played into the Duke's hands.
+Throughout the whole period of her widowhood, having been accustomed to
+govern her sons, she had, in a certain sense, been used to govern the
+kingdom.  By sowing dissensions among her own children, by inflaming
+party against party, by watching with care the oscillations of France
+--so than none of the great divisions should obtain preponderance--by
+alternately caressing and massacring the Huguenots, by cajoling or
+confronting Philip, by keeping, as she boasted, a spy in every family
+that possessed the annual income of two thousand livres, by making
+herself the head of an organized system of harlotry, by which the
+soldiers and politicians of France were inveigled, their secrets
+faithfully revealed to her by her well-disciplined maids of honour, by
+surrounding her unfortunate sons with temptation from earliest youth, and
+plunging them by cold calculation into deepest debauchery, that their
+enervated faculties might be ever forced to rely in political affairs on
+the maternal counsel, and to abandon the administration to the maternal
+will; such were the arts by which Catharine had maintained her influence,
+and a great country been governed for a generation--Machiavellian state-
+craft blended with the more simple wiles of a procuress.
+
+Now that Alencon was dead, and Henry III. hopeless of issue, it was her
+determination that the children of her daughter, the Duchess of Lorraine,
+should succeed to the throne.  The matter was discussed as if the throne
+were already vacant, and Guise and the Queen-Mother, if they agreed in
+nothing else, were both cordial in their detestation of Henry of Navarre.
+The Duke affected to support the schemes in favour of his relatives, the
+Princes of Lorraine, while he secretly informed the Spanish court that
+this policy was only a pretence.  He was not likely, he said, to advance
+the interests of the younger branch of a house of which he was himself
+the chief, nor were their backs equal to the burthen.  It was necessary
+to amuse the old queen, but he was profoundly of opinion that the only
+sovereign for France, upon the death of Henry, was Philip II. himself.
+This was the Duke's plan of arriving, by means of Spanish assistance,
+at the throne of France; and such was Henry le Balafre, chief of the
+League.
+
+And the other Henry, the Huguenot, the Bearnese, Henry of Bourbon, Henry
+of Navarre, the chieftain of the Gascon chivalry, the king errant, the
+hope and the darling of the oppressed Protestants in every land--of him
+it is scarce needful to say a single word.  At his very name a figure
+seems to leap forth from the mist of three centuries, instinct with ruddy
+vigorous life.  Such was the intense vitality of the Bearnese prince,
+that even now he seems more thoroughly alive and recognizable than half
+the actual personages who are fretting their hour upon the stage.
+
+We see, at once, a man of moderate stature, light, sinewy, and strong; a
+face browned with continual exposure; small, mirthful, yet commanding
+blue eyes, glittering from beneath an arching brow, and prominent
+cheekbones; a long hawk's nose, almost resting upon a salient chin, a
+pendent moustache, and a thick, brown, curly beard, prematurely grizzled;
+we see the mien of frank authority and magnificent good humour, we hear
+the ready sallies of the shrewd Gascon mother-wit, we feel the
+electricity which flashes out of him, and sets all hearts around him on
+fire, when the trumpet sounds to battle.  The headlong desperate charge,
+the snow-white plume waving where the fire is hottest, the large capacity
+for enjoyment of the man, rioting without affectation in the 'certaminis
+gaudia', the insane gallop, after the combat, to lay its trophies at the
+feet of the Cynthia of the minute, and thus to forfeit its fruits; all
+are as familiar to us as if the seven distinct wars, the hundred pitched
+battles, the two hundred sieges; in which the Bearnese was personally
+present, had been occurrences of our own day.
+
+He at least was both king and man, if the monarch who occupied the throne
+was neither.  He was the man to prove, too, for the instruction of the
+patient letter-writer of the Escorial, that the crown of France was to be
+won with foot in stirrup and carbine in hand, rather than to be caught by
+the weaving and casting of the most intricate nets of diplomatic
+intrigue, though thoroughly weighted with Mexican gold.
+
+The King of Navarre was now thirty-one years old; for the three Henrys
+were nearly of the same age.  The first indications of his existence had
+been recognized amid the cannon and trumpets of a camp in Picardy, and
+his mother had sung a gay Bearnese song as he was coming into the world
+at Pau.  Thus, said his grandfather, Henry of Navarre, thou shalt not
+bear to us a morose and sulky child.  The good king, without a kingdom,
+taking the child, as soon as born, in the lappel of his dressing-gown,
+had brushed his infant lips with a clove of garlic, and moistened them
+with a drop of generous Gascon wine.  Thus, said the grandfather again,
+shall the boy be both merry and bold.  There was something mythologically
+prophetic in the incidents of his birth.
+
+The best part of Navarre had been long since appropriated by Ferdinand of
+Aragon.  In France there reigned a young and warlike sovereign with four
+healthy boys.  But the new-born infant had inherited the lilies of France
+from St. Louis, and a later ancestor had added to the escutcheon the
+motto "Espoir."  His grandfather believed that the boy was born to
+revenge upon Spain the wrongs of the House of Albret, and Henry's nature
+seemed ever.  pervaded with Robert of Clermont's device.
+
+The same sensible grandfather, having different views on the subject of
+education from those manifested by Catherine de Medici towards her
+children, had the boy taught to run about bare-headed and bare-footed,
+like a peasant, among the mountains and rocks of Bearn, till he became as
+rugged as a young bear, and as nimble as a kid.  Black bread, and beef,
+and garlic, were his simple fare; and he was taught by his mother and his
+grandfather to hate lies and liars, and to read the Bible.
+
+When he was fifteen, the third religious war broke out.  Both his father
+and grandfather were dead.  His mother, who had openly professed the
+reformed faith, since the death of her husband, who hated it, brought her
+boy to the camp at Rochelle, where he was received as the chief of the
+Huguenots.  His culture was not extensive.  He had learned to speak the
+truth, to ride, to shoot, to do with little sleep and less food.  He
+could also construe a little Latin, and had read a few military
+treatises; but the mighty hours of an eventful life were now to take him
+by the hand, and to teach him much good and much evil, as they bore him
+onward.  He now saw military treatises expounded practically by
+professors, like his uncle Condo, and Admiral Coligny, and Lewis Nassau,
+in such lecture-rooms as Laudun, and Jarnac, and Montcontour, and never
+was apter scholar.
+
+The peace of Arnay-le-Duc succeeded, and then the fatal Bartholomew
+marriage with the Messalina of Valois.  The faith taught in the mountains
+of Bearn was no buckler against the demand of "the mass or death,"
+thundered at his breast by the lunatic Charles, as he pointed to
+thousands of massacred Huguenots.  Henry yielded to such conclusive
+arguments, and became a Catholic.  Four years of court imprisonment
+succeeded, and the young King of Navarre, though proof to the artifices
+of his gossip Guise, was not adamant to the temptations spread for him by
+Catherine de' Medici.  In the harem entertained for him in the Louvre
+many pitfalls entrapped him; and he became a stock-performer in the state
+comedies and tragedies of that plotting age.
+
+A silken web of palace-politics, palace-diplomacy, palace revolutions,
+enveloped him.  Schemes and counter-schemes, stratagems and conspiracies,
+assassinations and poisonings; all the state-machinery which worked so
+exquisitely in fair ladies' chambers, to spread havoc and desolation over
+a kingdom, were displayed before his eyes.  Now campaigning with one
+royal brother against Huguenots, now fighting with another on their side,
+now solicited by the Queen-Mother to attempt the life of her son, now
+implored by Henry III. to assassinate his brother, the Bearnese, as fresh
+antagonisms, affinities; combinations, were developed, detected,
+neutralized almost daily, became rapidly an adept in Medicean state-
+chemistry.  Charles IX. in his grave, Henry III. on the throne, Alencon
+in the Huguenot camp--Henry at last made his escape.  The brief war and
+peace of Monsieur succeeded, and the King of Navarre formally abjured the
+Catholic creed.  The parties were now sharply defined.  Guise mounted
+upon the League, Henry astride upon the Reformation, were prepared to do
+battle to the death.  The temporary "war of the amorous" was followed by
+the peace of Fleix.
+
+Four years of peace again; four fat years of wantonness and riot
+preceding fourteen hungry famine-stricken years of bloodiest civil war.
+The voluptuousness and infamy of the Louvre were almost paralleled in
+vice, if not in splendour, by the miniature court at Pau.  Henry's
+Spartan grandfather would scarce have approved the courses of the youth,
+whose education he had commenced on so simple a scale.  For Margaret
+of Valois, hating her husband, and living in most undisguised and
+promiscuous infidelity to him, had profited by her mother's lessons.
+A seraglio of maids of honour ministered to Henry's pleasures, and were
+carefully instructed that the peace and war of the kingdom were
+playthings in their hands.  While at Paris royalty was hopelessly sinking
+in a poisonous marsh, there was danger that even the hardy nature of the
+Bearnese would be mortally enervated by the atmosphere in which he lived.
+
+The unhappy Henry III., baited by the Guises, worried by Alencon and his
+mother, implored the King of Navarre to return to Paris and the Catholic
+faith.  M. de Segur, chief of Navarre's council, who had been won over
+during a visit to the capital, where he had made the discovery that
+"Henry III. was an angel, and his ministers devils," came back to Pau,
+urging his master's acceptance of the royal invitation.  Henry wavered.
+Bold D'Aubigne, stanchest of Huguenots, and of his friends, next day
+privately showed Segur a palace-window opening on a very steep precipice
+over the Bayae, and cheerfully assured him that he should be flung from
+it did he not instantly reverse his proceedings, and give his master
+different advice.  If I am not able to do the deed myself, said
+D'Aubigne, here are a dozen more to help me.  The chief of the council
+cast a glance behind him, saw a number of grim Puritan soldiers, with
+their hats plucked down upon their brows, looking very serious; so made
+his bow, and quite changed his line of conduct.
+
+At about the same time, Philip II. confidentially offered Henry of
+Navarre four hundred thousand crowns in hand, and twelve hundred thousand
+yearly, if he would consent to make war upon Henry III.  Mucio, or the
+Duke of Guise, being still in Philip's pay, the combination of Leaguers
+and Huguenots against the unfortunate Valois would, it was thought, be a
+good triangular contest.
+
+But Henry--no longer the unsophisticated youth who had been used to run
+barefoot among the cliffs of Coarasse--was grown too crafty a politician
+to be entangled by Spanish or Medicean wiles.  The Duke of Anjou was now
+dead.  Of all the princes who had stood between him and the throne, there
+was none remaining save the helpless, childless, superannuated youth, who
+was its present occupant.  The King of Navarre was legitimate heir to the
+crown of France.  "Espoir" was now in letters of light upon his shield,
+but he knew that his path to greatness led through manifold dangers, and
+that it was only at the head of his Huguenot chivalry that he could cut
+his way.  He was the leader of the nobles of Gascony, and Dauphins, and
+Guienne, in their mountain fastnesses, of the weavers, cutlers, and
+artizans, in their thriving manufacturing and trading towns.  It was not
+Spanish gold, but carbines and cutlasses, bows and bills, which could
+bring him to the throne of his ancestors.
+
+And thus he stood the chieftain of that great austere party of Huguenots,
+the men who went on, their knees before the battle, beating their breasts
+with their iron gauntlets, and singing in full chorus a psalm of David,
+before smiting the Philistines hip and thigh.
+
+Their chieftain, scarcely their representative--fit to lead his Puritans
+on the battle-field, was hardly a model for them elsewhere.  Yet, though
+profligate in one respect, he was temperate in every other.  In food,
+wine, and sleep, he was always moderate.  Subtle and crafty in self-
+defence, he retained something of his old love of truth, of his hatred
+for liars.  Hardly generous perhaps, he was a friend of justice, while
+economy in a wandering King, like himself, was a necessary virtue, of
+which France one day was to feel the beneficent action.  Reckless and
+headlong in appearance, he was in truth the most careful of men.  On the
+religious question, most cautious of all, he always left the door open
+behind him, disclaimed all bigotry of opinion, and earnestly implored the
+Papists to seek, not his destruction, but his instruction.  Yet prudent
+as he was by nature in every other regard, he was all his life the slave
+of one woman or another, and it was by good luck rather than by sagacity
+that he did not repeatedly forfeit the fruits of his courage and conduct,
+in obedience to his master-passion.
+
+Always open to conviction on the subject of his faith, he repudiated the
+appellation of heretic.  A creed, he said, was not to be changed like a
+shirt, but only on due deliberation, and under special advice.  In his
+secret heart he probably regarded the two religions as his chargers, and
+was ready to mount alternately the one or the other, as each seemed the
+more likely to bear him safely in the battle.  The Bearnese was no
+Puritan, but he was most true to himself and to his own advancement.  His
+highest principle of action was to reach his goal, and to that principle
+he was ever loyal.  Feeling, too, that it was the interest of France that
+he should succeed, he was even inspired--compared with others on the
+stage--by an almost lofty patriotism.
+
+Amiable by nature and by habit, he had preserved the most unimpaired
+good-humour throughout the horrible years which succeeded St.
+Bartholomew, during which he carried his life in his hand, and learned
+not to wear his heart upon his sleeve.  Without gratitude, without
+resentment, without fear, without remorse, entirely arbitrary, yet with
+the capacity to use all men's judgments; without convictions, save in
+regard to his dynastic interests, he possessed all the qualities,
+necessary to success.  He knew how to use his enemies.  He knew how to
+use his friends, to abuse them, and to throw them away.  He refused to
+assassinate Francis Alencon at the bidding of Henry III., but he
+attempted to procure the murder of the truest of his own friends, one of
+the noblest characters of the age--whose breast showed twelve scars
+received in his services--Agrippa D'Aubigne, because the honest soldier
+had refused to become his pimp--a service the King had implored upon his
+knees.
+
+Beneath the mask of perpetual careless good-humour, lurked the keenest
+eye, a subtle, restless, widely combining brain, and an iron will.
+Native sagacity had been tempered into consummate elasticity by the fiery
+atmosphere in which feebler natures had been dissolved.  His wit was as
+flashing and as quickly unsheathed as his sword.  Desperate, apparently
+reckless temerity on the battle-field was deliberately indulged in, that
+the world might be brought to recognise a hero and chieftain in a King.
+The do-nothings of the Merovingian line had been succeeded by the Pepins;
+to the effete Carlovingians had come a Capet; to the impotent Valois
+should come a worthier descendant of St. Louis.  This was shrewd Gascon
+calculation, aided by constitutional fearlessness.  When despatch-
+writing, invisible Philips, stargazing Rudolphs, and petticoated Henrys,
+sat upon the thrones of Europe, it was wholesome to show the world that
+there was a King left who could move about in the bustle and business of
+the age, and could charge as well as most soldiers at the head of his
+cavalry; that there was one more sovereign fit to reign over men, besides
+the glorious Virgin who governed England.
+
+Thus courageous, crafty, far-seeing, consistent, untiring, imperturbable,
+he was born to command, and had a right to reign.  He had need of the
+throne, and the throne had still more need of him.
+
+This then was the third Henry, representative of the third side of the
+triangle, the reformers of the kingdom.
+
+And before this bubbling cauldron of France, where intrigues, foreign and
+domestic, conflicting ambitions, stratagems, and hopes, were whirling in
+never-ceasing tumult, was it strange if the plain Netherland envoys
+should stand somewhat aghast?
+
+Yet it was necessary that they should ponder well the aspect of affairs;
+for all their hopes, the very existence of themselves and of their
+religion, depended upon the organization which should come of this chaos.
+
+It must be remembered, however, that those statesmen--even the wisest or
+the best-informed of them--could not take so correct a view of France and
+its politics as it is possible for us, after the lapse of three
+centuries, to do.  The interior leagues, subterranean schemes,
+conflicting factions, could only be guessed at; nor could the immediate
+future be predicted, even by such far-seeing politicians as William of
+Orange; at a distance, or Henry of Navarre, upon the spot.
+
+It was obvious to the Netherlanders that France, although torn by
+faction, was a great and powerful realm.  There had now been, with the
+brief exception of the lovers' war in 1580, a religious peace of eight
+years' duration.  The Huguenots had enjoyed tranquil exercise of their
+worship during that period, and they expressed perfect confidence in the
+good faith of the King.  That the cities were inordinately taxed to
+supply the luxury of the court could hardly be unknown to the
+Netherlanders.  Nevertheless they knew that the kingdom was the richest
+and most populous of Christendom, after that of Spain.  Its capital,
+already called by contemporaries the "compendium of the world," was
+described by travellers as "stupendous in extent and miraculous for its
+numbers."  It was even said to contain eight hundred thousand souls; and
+although, its actual population did not probably exceed three hundred and
+twenty thousand, yet this was more than double the number of London's
+inhabitants, and thrice as many as Antwerp could then boast, now that a
+great proportion of its foreign denizens had been scared away.  Paris was
+at least by one hundred thousand more populous than any city of Europe,
+except perhaps the remote and barbarous Moscow, while the secondary
+cities of France, Rouen in the north, Lyons in the centre, and Marseilles
+in the south, almost equalled in size, business, wealth, and numbers, the
+capitals of other countries.  In the whole kingdom were probably ten or
+twelve millions of inhabitants, nearly as many as in Spain, without her
+colonies, and perhaps three times the number that dwelt in England.
+
+In a military point of view, too, the alliance of France was most
+valuable to the contiguous Netherlands.  A few regiments of French
+troops, under the command of one of their experienced Marshals, could
+block up the Spaniards in the Walloon Provinces, effectually stop their
+operations against Ghent, Antwerp, and the other great cities of Flanders
+and Brabant, and, with the combined action of the United Provinces on the
+north, so surround and cripple the forces of Parma, as to reduce the
+power of Philip, after a few vigorous and well-concerted blows, to an
+absolute nullity in, the Low Countries.  As this result was of as vital
+importance to the real interests of France and of Europe, whether
+Protestant or Catholic, as it was to the Provinces, and as the French
+government had privately manifested a strong desire to oppose the
+progress of Spain towards universal empire, it was not surprising that
+the States General, not feeling capable of standing alone, should make
+their application to France.  This they had done with the knowledge and
+concurrence of the English government.  What lay upon the surface the
+Netherland statesmen saw and pondered well.  What lurked beneath, they
+surmised as shrewdly as they could, but it was impossible, with plummet
+and fathom-line ever in hand, to sound the way with perfect accuracy,
+where the quicksands were ever shifting, and the depth or shallowness of
+the course perpetually varying.  It was not easy to discover the
+intentions of a government which did not know its own intentions, and
+whose changing policy was controlled by so many hidden currents.
+
+Moreover, as already indicated, the envoys and those whom they
+represented had not the same means of arriving at a result as are granted
+to us.  Thanks to the liberality of many modern governments of Europe,
+the archives where the state-secrets of the buried centuries have so
+long mouldered, are now open to the student of history.  To him who
+has patience and industry many mysteries are thus revealed, which no
+political sagacity or critical acumen could have divined.  He leans over
+the shoulder of Philip the Second at his writing-table, as the King
+spells patiently out, with cipher-key in hand, the most concealed
+hieroglyphics of Parma or Guise or Mendoza.  He reads the secret thoughts
+of "Fabius,"--[The name usually assigned to Philip himself in the Paris-
+Simancas Correspondence.]--as that cunctative Roman scrawls his marginal
+apostilles on each despatch; he pries into all the stratagems of
+Camillus, Hortensius, Mucius, Julius, Tullius, and the rest of those
+ancient heroes who lent their names to the diplomatic masqueraders of
+the 16th century; he enters the cabinet of the deeply-pondering Burghley,
+and takes from the most private drawer the memoranda which record that
+minister's unutterable doubtings; he pulls from the dressing-gown folds
+of the stealthy, softly-gliding Walsingham the last secret which he has
+picked from the Emperor's pigeon-holes, or the Pope's pocket, and which,
+not Hatton, nor Buckhurst, nor Leicester, nor the Lord Treasurer, is to
+see; nobody but Elizabeth herself; he sits invisible at the most secret
+councils of the Nassaus and Barneveldt and Buys, or pores with Farnese
+over coming victories, and vast schemes of universal conquest; he reads
+the latest bit of scandal, the minutest characteristic of king or
+minister, chronicled by the gossiping Venetians for the edification of
+the Forty; and, after all this prying and eavesdropping, having seen the
+cross-purposes, the bribings, the windings, the fencings in the dark, he
+is not surprised, if those who were systematically deceived did not
+always arrive at correct conclusions.
+
+Noel de Caron, Seigneur de Schoneval, had been agent of the States at the
+French court at the time of the death of the Duke of Anjou.  Upon the
+occurrence of that event, La Mouillerie and Asseliers were deputed by the
+Provinces to King Henry III., in order to offer him the sovereignty,
+which they had intended to confer upon his brother.  Meantime that
+brother, just before his death, and with the privity of Henry, had been
+negotiating for a marriage with the younger daughter of Philip II.--an
+arrangement somewhat incompatible with his contemporaneous scheme to
+assume the sovereignty of Philip's revolted Provinces.  An attempt had
+been made at the same time to conciliate the Duke of Savoy, and invite
+him to the French court; but the Duc de Joyeuse, then on his return from
+Turin, was bringing the news, not only that the match with Anjou was not
+favored--which, as Anjou was dead, was of no great consequence--but that
+the Duke of Savoy was himself to espouse the Infanta, and was therefore
+compelled to decline the invitation to Paris, for fear of offending his
+father-in-law.  Other matters were in progress, to be afterwards
+indicated, very much interfering with the negotiations of the Netherland
+envoys.
+
+When La Mouillerie and Asseliers arrived at Rouen, on their road from
+Dieppe to Paris, they received a peremptory order from the Queen-Mother
+to proceed no farther.  This prohibition was brought by an unofficial
+personage, and was delivered, not to them, but to Des Pruneaux, French
+envoy to the States General, who had accompanied the envoys to France.
+
+After three weeks' time, during which they "kept themselves continually
+concealed in Rouen," there arrived in that city a young nephew of
+Secretary Brulart, who brought letters empowering him to hear what they
+had in charge for the King.  The envoys, not much flattered by such
+cavalier treatment on the part of him to, whom they were offering a
+crown, determined to digest the affront as they best might, and, to save
+time, opened the whole business to this subordinate stripling.  He
+received from them accordingly an ample memoir to be laid before his
+Majesty, and departed by the post the same night.  Then they waited ten
+days longer, concealed as if they had been thieves or spies, rather than
+the representatives of a friendly power, on a more than friendly errand.
+
+At last, on the 24th July 1854, after the deputies had been thus shut up
+a whole month, Secretary Brulart himself arrived from Fontainebleau.
+
+He stated that the King sent his royal thanks to the States for the offer
+which they had made him, and to the deputies in particular for taking the
+trouble of so long a journey; but that he did not find his realm in
+condition to undertake a foreign war so inopportunely.  In every other
+regard, his Majesty offered the States "all possible favours and
+pleasures."
+
+Certainly, after having been thus kept in prison for a month, the
+ambassadors had small cause to be contented with this very cold
+communication.  To be forbidden the royal presence, and to be turned out
+of the country without even an official and accredited answer to a
+communication in which they had offered the sovereignty of their
+fatherland, was not flattering to their dignity.  "We little thought,"
+said they to Brulart, after a brief consultation among themselves, "to
+receive such a reply as this.  It displeases us infinitely that his
+Majesty will not do us the honour to grant us an audience.  We must take
+the liberty of saying, that 'tis treating the States, our masters, with
+too much contempt.  Who ever heard before of refusing audience to public
+personages?  Kings often grant audience to mere letter-carriers.  Even
+the King of Spain never refused a hearing to the deputies from the
+Netherlands when they came to Spain to complain of his own government.
+The States General have sent envoys to many other kinds and princes, and
+they have instantly granted audience in every case.  His Majesty, too,
+has been very ill-informed of the contracts which we formerly made with
+the Duke of Anjou, and therefore a personal interview is the more
+necessary."  As the envoys were obstinate on the point of Paris, Brulart
+said "that the King, although he should himself be at Lyons, would not
+prevent any one from going to the capital on his own private affairs; but
+would unquestionably take it very ill if, they should visit that city in
+a public manner, and as deputies."
+
+Des Pruneaux professed himself "very grievous at this result, and
+desirous of a hundred deaths in consequence."
+
+They stated that they should be ready within a month to bring an army of
+3,000 horse and 13,000 foot into the field for the relief of Ghent,
+besides their military operations against Zutphen; and that the enemy had
+recently been ignominiously defeated in his attack upon Fort Lille, and
+had lost 2,000 of his best soldiers.
+
+Here were encouraging facts; and it certainly was worth the while of the
+French sovereign to pause a moment before rejecting without a hearing,
+the offer of such powerful and conveniently-situated provinces.
+
+Des Pruneaux, a man of probity and earnestness, but perhaps of
+insufficient ability to deal with such grave matters as now fell almost
+entirely upon his shoulders, soon afterwards obtained audience of the
+King.  Being most sincerely in favour of the annexation of the
+Netherlands to France, and feeling that now or never was the opportunity
+of bringing it about, he persuaded the King to send him back to the
+Provinces, in order to continue the negotiation directly with the States
+General.  The timidity and procrastination of the court could be overcome
+no further.
+
+The two Dutch envoys, who had stolen secretly to Paris, were indulged in
+a most barren and unmeaning interview with the Queen-Mother.  Before
+their departure from France, however, they had the advantage of much
+conversation with leading members of the royal council, of the
+parliaments of Paris and Rouen, and also with various persons professing
+the reformed religion.  They endeavoured thus to inform themselves, as
+well as they could, why the King made so much difficulty in accepting
+their propositions, and whether, and by what means, his Majesty could be
+induced to make war in their behalf upon the King of Spain.
+
+They were informed that, should Holland and Zeeland unite with the rest
+of the Netherlands, the King "without any doubt would undertake the cause
+most earnestly."  His councillors, also--even those who had been most
+active in dissuading his Majesty from such a policy--would then be
+unanimous in supporting the annexation of the Provinces and the war with
+Spain.  In such a contingency, with the potent assistance of Holland and
+Zeeland, the King would have little difficulty, within a very short time,
+in chasing every single Spaniard out of the Netherlands.  To further this
+end, many leading personages in France avowed to the envoys their
+determination "to venture their lives and their fortunes, and to use all
+the influence which they possessed at court."
+
+The same persons expressed their conviction that the King, once satisfied
+by the Provinces as to conditions and reasons, would cheerfully go into
+the war, without being deterred by any apprehension as to the power of
+Spain.  It was, however, fitting that each Province should chaffer as
+little as possible about details, but should give his Majesty every
+reasonable advantage.  They should remember that they were dealing with
+"a great, powerful monarch, who was putting his realm in jeopardy, and
+not with a Duke of Anjou, who had every thing to gain and nothing to
+lose."
+
+All the Huguenots, with whom the envoys conversed, were excessively
+sanguine.  Could the King be once brought they said, to promise the
+Netherlands his protection, there was not the least fear but that he
+would keep his word.  He would use all the means within his power; "yea,
+he would take the crown from his head," rather than turn back.  Although
+reluctant to commence a war with so powerful a sovereign, having once
+promised his help, he would keep his pledge to the utmost, "for he was a
+King of his word," and had never broken and would never break his faith
+with those of the reformed religion.
+
+Thus spoke the leading Huguenots of France, in confidential communication
+with the Netherland envoys, not many months before the famous edict of
+extermination, published at Nemours.
+
+At that moment the reformers were full of confidence; not foreseeing the
+long procession of battles and sieges which was soon to sweep through the
+land.  Notwithstanding the urgency of the Papists for their extirpation,
+they extolled loudly the liberty of religious worship which Calvinists,
+as well as Catholics, were enjoying in France, and pointed to the fact
+that the adherents of both religions were well received at court, and
+that they shared equally in offices of trust and dignity throughout the
+kingdom.
+
+The Netherland envoys themselves bore testimony to the undisturbed
+tranquillity and harmony in which the professors of both religions were
+living and worshipping side by side "without reproach or quarrel" in all
+the great cities which they had visited.  They expressed the conviction
+that the same toleration would be extended to all the Provinces when
+under French dominion; and, so far as their ancient constitutions and
+privileges were concerned, they were assured that the King of France
+would respect and maintain them with as much fidelity as the States could
+possibly desire.
+
+Des Pruneaux, accompanied by the two States' envoys, departed forthwith
+for the Netherlands.  On the 24th August, 1584 he delivered a discourse
+before the States General, in which he disclosed, in very general terms,
+the expectations of Henry III., and intimated very clearly that the
+different Provinces were to lose no time in making an unconditional offer
+to that monarch.  With regard to Holland and Zeeland he observed that he
+was provided with a special commission to those Estates.  It was not long
+before one Province after the other came to the conclusion to offer the
+sovereignty to the King without written conditions, but with a general
+understanding that their religious freedom and their ancient
+constitutions were to be sacredly respected.  Meantime, Des Pruneaux made
+his appearance in Holland and Zeeland, and declared the King's intentions
+of espousing the cause of the States, and of accepting the sovereignty of
+all the Provinces.  He distinctly observed, however, that it was as
+sovereign, not as protector, that his Majesty must be recognised in
+Holland and Zeeland, as well as in the rest of the country.
+
+Upon this grave question there was much debate and much difference of
+opinion.  Holland and Zeeland had never contemplated the possibility of
+accepting any foreign sovereignty, and the opponents of the present
+scheme were loud and angry, but very reasonable in their remarks.
+
+The French, they said, were no respecters of privileges nor of persons.
+The Duke of Anjou had deceived William of Orange and betrayed the
+Provinces.  Could they hope to see farther than that wisest and most
+experienced prince?  Had not the stout hearts of the Antwerp burghers
+proved a stronger defence to Brabant liberties than the "joyous entry" on
+the dread day of the "French fury," it would have fared ill then and for
+ever with the cause of freedom and religion in the Netherlands.  The King
+of France was a Papist, a Jesuit.  He was incapable of keeping his
+pledges.  Should they make the arrangement now proposed and confer the
+sovereignty upon him, he would forthwith make peace with Spain, and
+transfer the Provinces back to that crown in exchange for the duchy of
+Milan, which France had ever coveted.  The Netherlands, after a quarter
+of a century of fighting in defence of their hearths and altars, would
+find themselves handed over again, bound and fettered, to the tender
+mercies of the Spanish Inquisition.
+
+The Kings of France and of Spain always acted in concert, for religion
+was the most potent of bonds.  Witness the sacrifice of thousands of
+French soldiers to Alva by their own sovereign at Mons, witness the fate
+of Genlis, witness the bloody night of St. Bartholomew, witness the
+Antwerp fury.  Men cited and relied upon the advice of William of Orange
+as to this negotiation with France.  But Orange never dreamed of going so
+far as now proposed.  He was ever careful to keep the Provinces of
+Holland and Zeeland safe from every foreign master.  That spot was to be
+holy ground.  Not out of personal ambition.  God forbid that they, should
+accuse his memory of any such impurity, but because he wished one safe
+refuge for the spirit of freedom.
+
+Many years long they had held out by land and sea against the Spaniards,
+and should they now, because this Des Pruneaux shrugged his shoulders, be
+so alarmed as to open the door to the same Spaniard wearing the disguise
+of a Frenchman?
+
+Prince Maurice also made a brief representation to the States' Assembly
+of Holland, in which, without distinctly opposing the negotiation with
+France, he warned them not to proceed too hastily with so grave a matter.
+He reminded them how far they had gone in the presentation of the
+sovereignty to his late father, and requested them, in their dealings
+with France, not to forget his interests and those of his family.  He
+reminded them of the position of that family, overladen with debt
+contracted in their service alone.  He concluded by offering most
+affectionately his service in any way in which he, young and
+inexperienced as he knew himself to be, might be thought useful; as he
+was long since resolved to devote his life to the welfare of his country.
+
+These passionate appeals were answered with equal vehemence by those who
+had made up their minds to try the chances of the French sovereignty.
+Des Pruneaux, meanwhile, was travelling from province to province, and
+from city to city, using the arguments which have already been
+sufficiently indicated, and urging a speedy compliance with the French
+King's propositions.  At the same time, in accordance with his
+instructions, he was very cautious to confine himself to generalities,
+and to avoid hampering his royal master with the restrictions which had
+proved so irksome to the Duke of Anjou.
+
+"The States General demanded a copy of my speech," he wrote the day after
+that harangue had been delivered, "but I only gave them a brief outline;
+extending myself [25th August, 1584] as little as I possibly could,
+according to the intention and command of your Majesty.  When I got here,
+I found them without hope of our assistance, and terribly agitated by the
+partizans of Spain.  There was some danger of their going over in a panic
+to the enemy.  They are now much changed again, and the Spanish partizans
+are beginning to lose their tongues.  I invite them, if they intend to
+address your Majesty, to proceed as they ought towards a veritably grand
+monarch, without hunting up any of their old quibbles, or reservations of
+provinces, or any thing else which could inspire suspicion.  I have sent
+into Gelderland and Friesland, for I find I must stay here in Holland and
+Zeeland myself.  These two provinces are the gates and ramparts through
+which we must enter.  'Tis, in my opinion, what could be called superb,
+to command all the sea, thus subject to the crown of France.  And France,
+too, with assistance of this country, will command the land as well.
+They are much astonished here, however, that I communicate nothing of the
+intention of your Majesty.  They say that if your Majesty does not accept
+this offer of their country, your Majesty puts the rope around their
+necks."
+
+The French envoy was more and more struck with the brilliancy of the
+prize offered to his master.  "If the King gets these Provinces," said he
+to Catharine, "'t will be the most splendid inheritance which Prince has
+ever conquered."
+
+In a very few weeks the assiduity of the envoy and of the French party
+was successful.  All the other provinces had very soon repeated the offer
+which they had previously made through Asseliers and La Mouillerie.  By
+the beginning of October the opposition of Holland was vanquished.  The
+estates of that Province--three cities excepted, however--determined "to
+request England and France to assume a joint protectorate over the
+Netherlands.  In case the King of France should refuse this proposition,
+they were then ready to receive him as prince and master, with knowledge
+and consent of the Queen of England, and on such conditions as the United
+States should approve."
+
+Immediately afterwards, the General Assembly of all the States determined
+to offer the sovereignty to King Henry "on conditions to be afterwards
+settled."
+
+Des Pruneaux, thus triumphant, received a gold chain of the value of two
+thousand florins, and departed before the end of October for France.
+
+The departure of the solemn embassy to that country, for the purpose of
+offering the sovereignty to the King, was delayed till the beginning of
+January.  Meantime it is necessary to cast a glance at the position of
+England in relation to these important transactions.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Diplomatic adroitness consists mainly in the power to deceive
+Enmity between Lutherans and Calvinists
+Find our destruction in our immoderate desire for peace
+German-Lutheran sixteenth-century idea of religious freedom
+Intentions of a government which did not know its own intentions
+Lord was better pleased with adverbs than nouns
+Make sheep of yourselves, and the wolf will eat you
+Necessity of kingship
+Neighbour's blazing roof was likely soon to fire their own
+Nor is the spirit of the age to be pleaded in defence
+Pauper client who dreamed of justice at the hands of law
+Seem as if born to make the idea of royalty ridiculous
+Shutting the stable-door when the steed is stolen
+String of homely proverbs worthy of Sancho Panza
+The very word toleration was to sound like an insult
+There was apathy where there should have been enthusiasm
+Tranquillity rather of paralysis than of health
+Write so illegibly or express himself so awkwardly
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v37
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, 1584-1585
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+     Policy of England--Schemes of the Pretender of Portugal--Hesitation
+     of the French Court--Secret Wishes of France--Contradictory Views as
+     to the Opinions of Netherlanders--Their Love for England and
+     Elizabeth--Prominent Statesmen of the Provinces--Roger Williams the
+     Welshman Views of Walsingham, Burghley, and the Queen--An Embassy to
+     Holland decided upon--Davison at the Hague--Cautious and Secret
+     Measures of Burghley--Consequent Dissatisfaction of Walsingham--
+     English and Dutch Suspicion of France--Increasing Affection of
+     Holland for England.
+
+The policy of England towards the Provinces had been somewhat hesitating,
+but it had not been disloyal.  It was almost inevitable that there should
+be timidity in the councils of Elizabeth, when so grave a question as
+that of confronting the vast power of Spain was forcing itself day by
+day more distinctly upon the consideration of herself and her statesmen.
+It was very clear, now that Orange was dead, that some new and decided
+step would be taken.  Elizabeth was in favour of combined action by the
+French and English governments, in behalf of the Netherlands--a joint
+protectorate of the Provinces, until such time as adequate concessions on
+the religious question could be obtained from Spain.  She was unwilling
+to plunge into the peril and expense of a war with the strongest power in
+the world.  She disliked the necessity under which she should be placed
+of making repeated applications to her parliament, and of thus fostering
+the political importance of the Commons; she was reluctant to encourage
+rebellious subjects in another land, however just the cause of their
+revolt.  She felt herself vulnerable in Ireland and on the Scottish
+border.  Nevertheless, the Spanish power was becoming so preponderant,
+that if the Netherlands were conquered, she could never feel a moment's
+security within her own territory.  If the Provinces were annexed to
+France, on the other hand, she could not contemplate with complacency
+the increased power thus placed in the hands of the treacherous and
+jesuitical house of Valois.
+
+The path of the Queen was thickly strewed with peril: her advisers were
+shrewd, far-seeing, patriotic, but some of them were perhaps over
+cautious.  The time had, however, arrived when the danger was to be
+faced, if the whole balance of power in Europe were not to come to an
+end, and weak states, like England and the Netherlands, to submit to the
+tyranny of an overwhelming absolutism.  The instinct of the English
+sovereign, of English statesmen, of the English nation, taught them that
+the cause of the Netherlands was their own.  Nevertheless, they were
+inclined to look on yet a little longer, although the part of spectator
+had become an impossible one.  The policy of the English government was
+not treacherous, although it was timid.  That of the French court was
+both the one and the other, and it would have been better both for
+England and the Provinces, had they more justly appreciated the character
+of Catharine de' Medici and her son.
+
+The first covert negotiations between Henry and the States had caused
+much anxiety among the foreign envoys in France.  Don Bernardino de
+Mendoza, who had recently returned from Spain after his compulsory
+retreat from his post of English ambassador, was now established in
+Paris, as representative of Philip.  He succeeded Tasais--a Netherlander
+by birth, and one of the ablest diplomatists in the Spanish service--and
+his house soon became the focus of intrigue against the government to
+which he was accredited--the very head-quarters of the League.  His
+salary was large, his way of living magnificent, his insolence
+intolerable.
+
+"Tassis is gone to the Netherlands," wrote envoy Busbecq to the Emperor,
+"and thence is to proceed to Spain.  Don Bernardino has arrived in his
+place.  If it be the duty of a good ambassador to expend largely, it
+would be difficult to find a better one than he; for they say 'tis his
+intention to spend sixteen thousand dollars yearly in his embassy.  I
+would that all things were in correspondence; and that he were not in
+other respects so inferior to Tassis."
+
+It is, however, very certain that Mendoza was not only a brave soldier,
+but a man of very considerable capacity in civil affairs, although his
+inordinate arrogance interfered most seriously with his skill as a
+negotiator.  He was, of course, watching with much fierceness the
+progress of these underhand proceedings between the French court and the
+rebellious subjects of his master, and using threats and expostulations
+in great profusion.  "Mucio," too, the great stipendiary of Philip, was
+becoming daily more dangerous, and the adherents of the League were
+multiplying with great celerity.
+
+The pretender of Portugal, Don Antonio, prior of Crato, was also in
+Paris; and it was the policy of both the French and the English
+governments to protect his person, and to make use of him as a rod over
+the head of Philip.  Having escaped, after the most severe sufferings, in
+the mountains of Spain, where he had been tracked like a wild beast, with
+a price of thirty thousand crowns placed upon his head, he was now most
+anxious to stir the governments of Europe into espousing his cause, and
+into attacking Spain through the recently acquired kingdom of Portugal.
+Meantime, he was very desirous of some active employment, to keep himself
+from starving, and conceived the notion, that it would be an excellent
+thing for the Netherlands and himself, were he to make good to them the
+loss of William the Silent.
+
+"Don Antonio," wrote Stafford, "made a motion to me yesterday, to move
+her Majesty, that now upon the Prince of Orange's death, as it is a
+necessary thing for them to have a governor and head, and him to be at
+her Majesty's devotion, if her Majesty would be at the means to work it
+for him, she should be assured nobody should be more faithfully tied in
+devotion to her than he.  Truly you would pity the poor man's case, who
+is almost next door to starving in effect."
+
+A starving condition being, however, not the only requisite in a governor
+and head to replace the Prince of Orange, nothing came of this motion.
+Don Antonio remained in Paris, in a pitiable plight, and very much
+environed by dangers; for the Duke of Guise and his brother had
+undertaken to deliver him into the hands of Philip the Second, or those
+of his ministers, before the feast of St. John of the coming year.  Fifty
+thousand dollars were to be the reward of this piece of work, combined
+with other services; "and the sooner they set about it the better," said
+Philip, writing a few months later, "for the longer they delay it, the
+less easy will they find it."'
+
+The money was never earned, however, and meantime Don Antonio made
+himself as useful as he could, in picking up information for Sir Edward
+Stafford and the other opponents of Spanish policy in Paris.
+
+The English envoy was much embarrassed by the position of affairs.  He
+felt sure that the French monarch would never dare to enter the lists
+against the king of Spain, yet he was accurately informed of the secret
+negotiations with the Netherlands, while in the dark as to the ultimate
+intentions of his own government.
+
+"I was never set to school so much," he wrote to Walsingham (27th July,
+1584), "as I have been to decipher the cause of the deputies of the Low
+Countries coming hither, the offers that they made the King here, and the
+King's manner of dealing with them!"
+
+He expressed great jealousy at the mystery which enveloped the whole
+transaction; and much annoyance with Noel de Caron, who "kept very
+secret, and was angry at the motion," when he endeavoured to discover the
+business in which they were engaged.  Yet he had the magnanimity to
+request Walsingham not to mention the fact to the Queen, lest she should
+be thereby prejudiced against the States.
+
+"For my part," said he, "I would be glad in any thing to further them,
+rather than to hinder them--though they do not deserve it--yet for the
+good the helping them at this time may bring ourselves."
+
+Meantime, the deputies went away from France, and the King went to Lyons,
+where he had hoped to meet both the Duke of Savoy and the King of
+Navarre.  But Joyeuse, who had been received at Chambery with "great
+triumphs and tourneys," brought back only a broken wrist, without
+bringing the Duke of Savoy; that potentate sending word that the "King of
+Spain had done him the honour to give him his daughter, and that it was
+not fit for him to do any thing that might bring jealousy."
+
+Henry of Navarre also, as we have seen, declined the invitation sent him,
+M. de Segur not feeling disposed for the sudden flight out of window
+suggested by Agrippa D' Aubigne; so that, on the whole, the King and his
+mother, with all the court, returned from Lyons in marvellous ill humour.
+
+"The King storms greatly," said Stafford, "and is in a great dump."
+It was less practicable than ever to discover the intentions of the
+government; for although it was now very certain that active exertions
+were making by Des Pruneaux in the Provinces, it was not believed by the
+most sagacious that a serious resolution against Spain had been taken in
+France.  There was even a talk of a double matrimonial alliance, at that
+very moment, between the two courts.
+
+"It is for certain here said," wrote Stafford, "that the King of Spain
+doth presently marry the dowager of France, and 'tis thought that if the
+King of Spain marry, he will not live a year.  Whensoever the marriage
+be," added the envoy, "I would to God the effect were true, for if it be
+not by some such handy work of God, I am afraid things will not go so
+well as I could wish."
+
+There was a lull on the surface of affairs, and it was not easy to sound
+the depths of unseen combinations and intrigues.
+
+There was also considerable delay in the appointment and the arrival of
+the new deputies from the Netherlands; and Stafford was as doubtful as
+ever as to the intentions of his own government.
+
+"They look daily here for the States," he wrote to Walsingham (29th Dec.
+1584), "and I pray that I may hear from you as soon as you may, what
+course I shall take when they be here, either hot or cold or lukewarm in
+the matter, and in what sort I shall behave myself.  Some badly affected
+have gone about to put into the King's head, that they never meant to
+offer the sovereignty, which, though the King be not thoroughly persuaded
+of, yet so much is won by this means that the King hearkeneth to see the
+end, and then to believe as he seeth cause, and in the meantime to speak
+no more of any such matter than if it had never been moved."
+
+While his Majesty was thus hearkening in order to see more, according to
+Sir Edward's somewhat Hibernian mode of expressing himself, and keeping
+silent that he might see the better, it was more difficult than ever for
+the envoy to know what course to pursue.  Some persons went so far as to
+suggest that the whole negotiation was a mere phantasmagoria devised by
+Queen Elizabeth--her purpose being to breed a quarrel between Henry and
+Philip for her own benefit; and "then, seeing them together by the ears,
+as her accustomed manner was, to let them go alone, and sit still to look
+on."
+
+The King did not appear to be much affected by these insinuations against
+Elizabeth; but the doubt and the delay were very harrassing.  "I would to
+God," wrote the English envoy, "that if the States mean to do anything
+here with the King, and if her.  Majesty and the council think it fit,
+they would delay no time, but go roundly either to an agreement or to a
+breach with the King.  Otherwise, as the matter now sleepeth, so it will
+die, for the King must be taken in his humour when he begins to nibble at
+any bait, for else he will come away, and never bite a full bite while he
+liveth."
+
+There is no doubt that the bait, at which Henry nibbled with much
+avidity, was the maritime part of the Netherlands.  Holland and Zeeland
+in the possession of either England or Spain, was a perpetual
+inconvenience to France.  The King, or rather the Queen-Mother and her
+advisers--for Henry himself hardly indulged in any profound reflections.
+on state-affairs,--desired and had made a sine qua non of those
+Provinces.  It had been the French policy, from the beginning, to delay
+matters, in order to make the States feel the peril of their position to
+the full.
+
+"The King, differing and temporising," wrote Herle to the Queen, "would
+have them fall into that necessity and danger, as that they should offer
+unto him simply the possession of all their estates.  Otherwise, they
+were to see, as in a glass, their evident and hasty ruin."
+
+Even before the death of Orange, Henry had been determined, if possible,
+to obtain possession of the island of Walcheren, which controlled the
+whole country.  "To give him that," said Herle, "would be to turn the hot
+end of the poker towards themselves, and put the cold part in the King's
+hand.  He had accordingly made a secret offer to William of Orange,
+through the Princess, of two millions of livres in ready money, or,
+if he preferred it, one hundred thousand livres yearly of perpetual
+inheritance, if he would secure to him the island of Walcheren.  In that
+case he promised to declare war upon the King of Spain, to confirm to the
+States their privileges, and to guarantee to the Prince the earldoms of
+Holland and Zeeland, with all his other lands and titles."
+
+It is superfluous to say that such offers were only regarded by the
+Prince as an affront.  It was, however, so necessary, in his opinion; to
+maintain the cause of the reformed churches in France, and to keep up the
+antagonism between that country and Spain, that the French policy was not
+abandoned, although the court was always held in suspicion.
+
+But on the death of William, there was a strong reaction against France
+and in favour of England.  Paul Buys, one of the ablest statesmen of the
+Netherlands, Advocate of Holland, and a confidential friend of William
+the Silent up to the time of his death, now became the leader of the
+English party, and employed his most strenuous efforts against the French
+treaty-having "seen the scope of that court."
+
+With regard to the other leading personages, there was a strong
+inclination in favour of Queen Elizabeth, whose commanding character
+inspired great respect.  At the same time warmer sentiments of adhesion
+seem to have been expressed towards the French court, by the same
+individuals, than the, mere language of compliment justified.
+
+Thus, the widowed Princess of Orange was described by Des Pruneaux to his
+sovereign, as "very desolate, but nevertheless doing all in her power to
+advance his interests; the Count Maurice, of gentle hopes, as also most
+desirous of remaining his Majesty's humble servant, while Elector
+Truchsess was said to be employing himself, in the same cause, with very
+great affection."
+
+A French statesman resident in the Provinces, whose name has not been
+preserved, but who was evidently on intimate terms with many eminent
+Netherlanders, declared that Maurice, "who had a mind entirely French,
+deplored infinitely the misfortunes of France, and regretted that all the
+Provinces could not be annexed to so fair a kingdom.  I do assure you,"
+he added, "that he is in no wise English."
+
+Of Count Hohenlo, general-in-chief of the States' army under Prince
+Maurice, and afterwards his brother-in-law, the same gentleman spoke with
+even greater confidence.  "Count d'Oloc," said he (for by that ridiculous
+transformation of his name the German general was known to French and
+English), "with whom I have passed three weeks on board the fleet of the
+States, is now wholly French, and does not love the English at all.  The
+very first time I saw him, he protested twice or thrice, in presence of
+members of the States General and of the State Council, that if he had no
+Frenchmen he could never carry on the war.  He made more account," he
+said, "of two thousand French than of six thousand others, English, or
+Germans."
+
+Yet all these distinguished persons--the widowed Princess of Orange,
+Count Maurice, ex-elector Truchsess, Count Holenlo--were described to
+Queen Elizabeth by her confidential agent, then employed in the
+Provinces, as entirely at that sovereign's devotion.
+
+"Count Maurice holds nothing of the French, nor esteems them," said
+Herle, "but humbly desired me to signify unto your Majesty that he had in
+his mind and determination faithfully vowed his service to your Majesty,
+which should be continued in his actions with all duty, and sealed with
+his blood; for he knew how much his father and the cause were beholden
+ever to your Highness's goodness."
+
+The Princess, together with her sister-in-law Countess Schwartzenburg,
+and the young daughters of the late Prince were described on the same
+occasion "as recommending their service unto her Majesty with a most
+tender affection, as to a lady of all ladies."  "Especially," said Herle,
+"did the two Princesses in most humble and wise sort, express a certain
+fervent devotion towards your Majesty."
+
+Elector Truchsess was spoken of as "a prince well qualified and greatly
+devoted to her Majesty; who, after many grave and sincere words had of
+her Majesty's virtue, calling her 'la fille unique de Dieu, and le bien
+heureuse Princesse', desired of God that he might do her service as she
+merited."
+
+And, finally, Count Hollock--who seemed to "be reformed in sundry things,
+if it hold" (a delicate allusion to the Count's propensity for strong
+potations), was said "to desire humbly to be known for one that would
+obey the commandment of her Majesty more than of any earthly prince
+living besides."
+
+There can be no doubt that there was a strong party in favour of an
+appeal to England rather than to France.  The Netherlanders were too
+shrewd a people not to recognize the difference between the king of a
+great realm, who painted his face and wore satin petticoats, and the
+woman who entertained ambassadors, each in his own language, on gravest
+affairs of state, who matched in her wit and wisdom the deepest or the
+most sparkling intellects of her council, who made extemporaneous Latin
+orations to her universities, and who rode on horseback among her
+generals along the lines of her troops in battle-array, and yet was only
+the unmarried queen of a petty and turbulent state.
+
+"The reverend respect that is borne to your Majesty throughout these
+countries is great," said William Herle.  They would have thrown
+themselves into her arms, heart and soul, had they been cordially
+extended at that moment of their distress; but she was coy, hesitating,
+and, for reasons already sufficiently indicated, although not so
+conclusive as they seemed, disposed to temporize and to await the issue
+of the negotiations between the Provinces and France.
+
+In Holland and Zeeland especially, there was an enthusiastic feeling in
+favour of the English alliance.  "They recommend themselves," said Herleo
+"throughout the country in their consultations and assemblies, as also in
+their common and private speeches, to the Queen of England's only favour
+and goodness, whom they call their saviour, and the Princess of greatest
+perfection in wisdom and sincerity that ever governed.  Notwithstanding
+their treaty now on foot by their deputies with France, they are not more
+disposed to be governed by the French than to be tyrannized over by the
+Spaniard; concluding it to be alike; and even 'commutare non sortem sed
+servitutem'."
+
+Paul Buys was indefatigable in his exertions against the treaty with
+France, and in stimulating the enthusiasm for England and Elizabeth.  He
+expressed sincere and unaffected devotion to the Queen on all occasions,
+and promised that no negotiations should take place, however secret and
+confidential, that were not laid before her Majesty.  "He has the chief
+administration among the States," said Herle, "and to his credit and
+dexterity they attribute the despatch of most things.  He showed unto me
+the state of the enemy throughout the provinces, and of the negotiation
+in France, whereof he had no opinion at all of success, nor any will of
+his own part but to please the Prince of Orange in his life-time."
+
+It will be seen in the sequel whether or not the views of this
+experienced and able statesman were lucid and comprehensive.  It will
+also be seen whether his strenuous exertions in favour of the English
+alliance were rewarded as bountifully as they deserved, by those most
+indebted to him.
+
+Meantime he was busily employed in making the English government
+acquainted with the capacity, disposition, and general plans of the
+Netherlanders.
+
+"They have certain other things in consultation amongst the States to
+determine of," wrote Herle, "which they were sworn not to reveal to any,
+but Buys protested that nothing should pass but to your liking and
+surety, and the same to be altered and disposed as should seem good to
+your Highness's own authority; affirming to me sincerely that Holland and
+Zeeland, with the rest of the provinces, for the estimation they had of
+your high virtue and temperancy, would yield themselves absolutely to
+your Majesty and crown for ever, or to none other (their liberties only
+reserved), whereof you should have immediate possession, without
+reservation of place or privilege."
+
+The important point of the capability of the Provinces to defend
+themselves, about which Elizabeth was most anxious to be informed, was
+also fully elucidated by the Advocate.  "The means should be such,
+proceeding from the Provinces," said he, "as your Majesty might defend
+your interest therein with facility against the whole world."  He then
+indicated a plan, which had been proposed by the States of Brabant to the
+States General, according to which they were to keep on foot an army of
+15,000 foot and 5000 horse, with which they should be able, "to expulse
+the enemy and to reconquer their towns and country lost, within three
+months."  Of this army they hoped to induce the Queen to furnish 5000
+English footmen and 500 horse, to be paid monthly by a treasurer of her
+own; and for the assistance thus to be furnished they proposed to give
+Ostend and Sluys as pledge of payment.  According to this scheme the
+elector palatine, John Casimir, had promised to furnish, equip, and pay
+2000 cavalry, taking the town of Maestricht and the country of Limburg,
+when freed from the enemy, in pawn for his disbursements; while Antwerp
+and Brabant had agreed to supply 300,000 crowns in ready money for
+immediate use.  Many powerful politicians opposed this policy, however,
+and urged reliance upon France, "so that this course seemed to be lame in
+many parts."--[Letter of Herle].
+
+Agents had already been sent both to England and France, to procure, if
+possible, a levy of troops for immediate necessity.  The attempt was
+unsuccessful in France, but the Dutch community of the reformed religion
+in London subscribed nine thousand and five florins.  This sum, with
+other contributions, proved sufficient to set Morgan's regiment on foot,
+which soon after began to arrive in the Netherlands by companies.  "But
+if it were all here at once," said Stephen Le Sieur, "'t would be but a
+breakfast for the enemy."
+
+The agent for the matter in England was De Griyse, formerly bailiff of
+Bruges; and although tolerably successful in his mission, he was not
+thought competent for so important a post, nor officially authorised for
+the undertaking.  While procuring this assistance in English troops he
+had been very urgent with the Queen to further the negotiations between
+the States and France; and Paul Buys was offended with him as a mischief-
+maker and an intriguer.  He complained of him as having "thrust himself
+in, to deal and intermeddle in the affairs of the Low Countries
+unavowed," and desired that he might be closely looked after.
+
+After the Advocate, the next most important statesman in the provinces
+was, perhaps, Meetkerk, President of the High Court of Flanders, a man of
+much learning, sincerity, and earnestness of character; having had great
+experience in the diplomatic service of the country on many important
+occasions.  "He stands second in reputation here," said Herle, "and both
+Buys and he have one special care in all practises that are discovered,
+to examine how near anything may concern your person or kingdom, whereof
+they will advertise as matter shall fall out in importance."
+
+John van Olden-Barneveldt, afterwards so conspicuous in the history of
+the country, was rather inclined, at this period, to favour the French
+party; a policy which was strenuously furthered by Villiers and by Sainte
+Aldegonde.
+
+Besides the information furnished to the English government, as to the
+state of feeling and resources of the Netherlands, by Buys, Meetkerk, and
+William Herle, Walsingham relied much upon the experienced eye and the
+keen biting humour of Roger Williams.
+
+A frank open-hearted Welshman, with no fortune but his sword, but as true
+as its steel, he had done the States much important service in the hard-
+fighting days of Grand Commander Requesens and of Don John of Austria.
+With a shrewd Welsh head under his iron morion, and a stout Welsh heart
+under his tawny doublet, he had gained little but hard knocks and a dozen
+wounds in his campaigning, and had but recently been ransomed, rather
+grudgingly by his government, from a Spanish prison in Brabant.  He was
+suffering in health from its effects, but was still more distressed in
+mind, from his sagacious reading of the signs of the times.  Fearing that
+England was growing lukewarm, and the Provinces desperate, he was
+beginning to find himself out of work, and was already casting about him
+for other employment.  Poor, honest, and proud, he had repeatedly
+declined to enter the Spanish service.  Bribes, such as at a little later
+period were sufficient to sully conspicuous reputations and noble names,
+among his countrymen in better circumstances than his own, had been
+freely but unsuccessfully offered him.  To serve under any but the
+English or States' flag in the Provinces he scorned; and he thought the
+opportunity fast slipping away there for taking the Papistical party in
+Europe handsomely by the beard.  He had done much manful work in the
+Netherlands, and was destined to do much more; but he was now
+discontented, and thought himself slighted.  In more remote regions of
+the world, the, thrifty soldier thought that there might be as good
+harvesting for his sword as in the thrice-trampled stubble of Flanders.
+
+"I would refuse no hazard that is possible to be done in the Queen's
+service," he said to Walsingham; "but I do persuade myself she makes no
+account of me.  Had it not been for the duty that nature bound me towards
+her and my country, I needed not to have been in that case that I am in.
+Perhaps I could have fingered more pistoles than Mr. Newell, the late
+Latiner, and had better usage and pension of the Spaniards than he.  Some
+can tell that I refused large offers, in the misery of Alost, of the
+Prince of Parma.  Last of all, Verdugo offered me very fair, being in
+Loccum, to quit the States' service, and accept theirs, without treachery
+or betraying of place or man."
+
+Not feeling inclined to teach Latin in Spain, like the late Mr. Newell,
+or to violate oaths and surrender fortresses, like brave soldiers of
+fortune whose deeds will be afterwards chronicled, he was disposed to
+cultivate the "acquaintance of divers Pollacks," from which he had
+received invitations.  "Find I nothing there," said he, "Duke Matthias
+has promised me courtesy if I would serve in Hungary.  If not, I will
+offer service to one of the Turk's bashaws against the Persians."
+
+Fortunately, work was found for the trusty Welshman in the old fields.
+His brave honest face often reappeared; his sharp sensible tongue uttered
+much sage counsel; and his ready sword did various solid service, in
+leaguer, battle-field, and martial debate, in Flanders, Holland, Spain,
+and France.
+
+For the present, he was casting his keen glances upon the negotiations in
+progress, and cavilling at the general policy which seemed predominant.
+
+He believed that the object of the French was to trifle with the States,
+to protract interminably their negotiations, to prevent the English
+government from getting any hold upon the Provinces, and then to leave
+them to their fate.
+
+He advised Walsingham to advance men and money, upon the security of
+Sluys and Ostend.
+
+"I dare venture my life," said he, with much energy, "that were Norris,
+Bingham, Yorke, or Carlisle, in those ports, he would keep them during
+the Spanish King's life."
+
+But the true way to attack Spain--a method soon afterwards to be carried
+into such brilliant effect by the naval heroes of England and the
+Netherlands--the long-sighted Welshman now indicated; a combined attack,
+namely, by sea upon the colonial possessions of Philip.
+
+"I dare be bound," said he, "if you join with Treslong, the States
+Admiral, and send off, both, three-score sail into his Indies, we will
+force him to retire from conquering further, and to be contented to let
+other princes live as well as he."
+
+In particular, Williams urged rapid action, and there is little doubt,
+that had the counsels of prompt, quick-witted, ready-handed soldiers like
+himself, and those who thought with him, been taken; had the stealthy but
+quick-darting policy of Walsingham prevailed over the solemn and stately
+but somewhat ponderous proceedings of Burghley, both Ghent and Antwerp
+might have been saved, the trifling and treacherous diplomacy of
+Catharine de' Medici neutralized, and an altogether more fortunate aspect
+given at once to the state of Protestant affairs.
+
+"If you mean to do anything," said he, "it is more than time now.  If you
+will send some man of credit about it, will it please your honour, I will
+go with him, because I know the humour of the people, and am acquainted
+with a number of the best.  I shall be able to show him a number of their
+dealings, as well with the French as in other affairs, and perhaps will
+find means to send messengers to Ghent, and to other places, better than
+the States; for the message of one soldier is better than twenty boors."
+
+It was ultimately decided--as will soon be related--to send a man of
+credit to the Provinces.  Meantime, the policy of England continued to be
+expectant and dilatory, and Advocate Buys, after having in vain attempted
+to conquer the French influence, and bring about the annexation of the
+Provinces to England, threw down his office in disgust, and retired for a
+time from the contest.  He even contemplated for a moment taking service
+in Denmark, but renounced the notion of abandoning his country, and he
+will accordingly be found, at a later period, conspicuous in public
+affairs.
+
+The deliberations in the English councils were grave and anxious, for it
+became daily more obvious that the Netherland question was the hinge upon
+which the, whole fate of Christendom was slowly turning.  To allow the
+provinces to fall back again into the grasp of Philip, was to offer
+England herself as a last sacrifice to the Spanish Inquisition.  This was
+felt by all the statesmen in the land; but some of them, more than the
+rest, had a vivid perception of the danger, and of the necessity of
+dealing with it at once.
+
+To the prophetic eye of Walsingham, the mists of the future at times
+were lifted; and the countless sails of the invincible Armada, wafting
+defiance and destruction to England, became dimly visible.  He felt that
+the great Netherland bulwark of Protestantism and liberty was to be
+defended at all hazards, and that the death-grapple could not long be
+deferred.
+
+Burghley, deeply pondering, but less determined, was still disposed to
+look on and to temporize.
+
+The Queen, far-seeing and anxious, but somewhat hesitating, still clung
+to the idea of a joint protectorate.  She knew that the reestablishment
+of Spanish authority in the Low Countries would be fatal to England, but
+she was not yet prepared to throw down the gauntlet to Philip.  She felt
+that the proposed annexation of the Provinces to France would be almost
+as formidable; yet she could not resolve, frankly and fearlessly, to
+assume, the burthen of their protection.  Under the inspiration of
+Burghley, she was therefore willing to encourage the Netherlanders
+underhand; preventing them at every hazard from slackening in their
+determined hostility to Spain; discountenancing, without absolutely
+forbidding, their proposed absorption by France; intimating, without
+promising, an ultimate and effectual assistance from herself.  Meantime,
+with something of feline and feminine duplicity, by which the sex of the
+great sovereign would so often manifest itself in the most momentous
+affairs, she would watch and wait, teasing the Provinces, dallying with
+the danger, not quite prepared as yet to abandon the prize to Henry or
+Philip, or to seize it herself.
+
+The situation was rapidly tending to become an impossible one.
+
+Late in October a grave conference was held council, "upon the question
+whether her Majesty should presently relieve the States of the Low
+Countries."
+
+It was shown, upon one side, that the "perils to the Queen and to the
+realm were great, if the King of Spain should recover Holland and
+Zeeland, as he had the other countries, for lack of succour in seasonable
+time, either by the French King or the Queen's Majesty."
+
+On the other side, the great difficulties in the way of effectual
+assistance by England, were "fully remembered."
+
+"But in the end, and upon comparison made," said Lord Burghley, summing
+up, "betwixt the perils on the one part, and the difficulties on the
+other," it was concluded that the Queen would be obliged to succumb to
+the power of Spain, and the liberties of England be hopelessly lost, if
+Philip were then allowed to carry out his designs, and if the Provinces
+should be left without succour at his mercy.
+
+A "wise person" was accordingly to be sent into Holland; first, to
+ascertain whether the Provinces had come to an actual agreement with the
+King of France, and, if such should prove to be the case, to enquire
+whether that sovereign had pledged himself to declare war upon Philip.
+In this event, the wise person was to express her Majesty's satisfaction
+that the Provinces were thus to be "relieved from the tyranny of the King
+of Spain."
+
+On the other hand, if it should appear that no such conclusive
+arrangements had been made, and that the Provinces were likely to fall
+again victims to the "Spanish tyranny," her Majesty would then "strain
+herself as far as, with preservation of her own estate, she might, to
+succour them at this time."
+
+The agent was then to ascertain "what conditions the Provinces would
+require" upon the matter of succour, and, if the terms seemed reasonable,
+he would assure them that "they should not be left to the cruelties of
+the Spaniards."
+
+And further, the wise person, "being pressed to answer, might by
+conference of speeches and persuasions provoke them to offer to the Queen
+the ports of Flushing and Middelburg and the Brill, wherein she meant not
+to claim any property, but to hold them as gages for her expenses, and
+for performances of their covenants."
+
+He was also to make minute inquiries as to the pecuniary resources of the
+Provinces, the monthly sums which they would be able to contribute, the
+number of troops and of ships of war that they would pledge themselves to
+maintain.  These investigations were very important, because the Queen,
+although very well disposed to succour them, "so nevertheless she was to
+consider how her power might be extended, without ruin or manifest peril
+to her own estate."
+
+It was also resolved, in the same conference, that a preliminary step of
+great urgency was to "procure a good peace with the King of Scots."
+Whatever the expense of bringing about such a pacification might be, it
+was certain that a "great deal more would be expended in defending the
+realm against Scotland," while England was engaged in hostilities with
+Spain.  Otherwise, it was argued that her Majesty would be "so impeached
+by Scotland in favour of the King of Spain, that her action against that
+King would be greatly weakened."
+
+Other measures necessary to be taken in view of the Spanish war were also
+discussed.  The ex-elector of Cologne, "a man of great account in
+Germany," was to be assisted with money to make head against his rival
+supported by the troops of Philip.
+
+Duke Casimir of the Palatinate was to be solicited to make a diversion
+in Gelderland.
+
+The King of France was to be reminded of his treaty with England for
+mutual assistance in case of the invasion by a foreign power of either
+realm, and to be informed "not only of the intentions of the Spaniards
+to invade England, upon their conquest of the Netherlands, but of their
+actual invasion of Ireland."
+
+It was "to be devised how the King of Navarre and Don Antonio of
+Portugal, for their respective titles, might be induced to offend and
+occupy the King of Spain, whereby to diminish his forces bent upon the
+Low Countries."
+
+It was also decided that Parliament should be immediately summoned, in
+which, besides the request of a subsidy, many other necessary, provisions
+should be made for her Majesty's safety.
+
+"The conclusions of the whole," said Lord Burghley, with much
+earnestness, "was this.  Although her Majesty should hereby enter into a
+war presently, yet were she better to do it now, while she may make the
+same out of her realm, having the help of the people of Holland, and
+before the King of Spain shall have consummated his conquests in those
+countries, whereby he shall be so provoked with pride, solicited by the
+Pope, and tempted by the Queen's own subjects, and shall be so strong by
+sea, and so free from all other actions and quarrels,--yea, shall be so
+formidable to all the rest of Christendom, as that her Majesty shall no
+wise be able, with her own power, nor with aid of any other, neither by
+sea nor land, to withstand his attempts, but shall be forced to give
+place to his insatiable malice, which is most terrible to be thought of,
+but miserable to suffer."
+
+Thus did the Lord Treasurer wisely, eloquently, and well, describe the
+danger by which England was environed.  Through the shield of Holland the
+spear was aimed full at the heart of England.  But was it a moment to
+linger?  Was that buckler to be suffered to fall to the ground, or to be
+raised only upon the arm of a doubtful and treacherous friend?  Was it an
+hour when the protection of Protestantism and of European liberty against
+Spain was to be entrusted to the hand of a feeble and priest-ridden
+Valois?  Was it wise to indulge any longer in doubtings and dreamings,
+and in yet a little more folding of the arms to sleep, while that
+insatiable malice, so terrible to be thought of, so miserable to feel,
+was bowing hourly more formidable, and approaching nearer and nearer?
+
+Early in December, William Davison, gentleman-in-ordinary of her
+Majesty's household, arrived at the Hague; a man painstaking, earnest,
+and zealous, but who was fated, on more than one great occasion, to be
+made a scape-goat for the delinquencies of greater personages than
+himself.
+
+He had audience of the States General on the 8th December.  He then
+informed that body that the Queen had heard, with, sorrowful heart, of
+the great misfortunes which the United Provinces had sustained since the
+death of the Prince of Orange; the many cities which they had lost, and
+the disastrous aspect of the common cause.  Moved by the affection which
+she had always borne the country, and anxious for its preservation, she
+had ordered her ambassador Stafford to request the King of France to
+undertake, jointly with herself, the defence of the provinces against the
+king of Spain.  Not till very lately, however, had that envoy succeeded
+in obtaining an audience, and he had then received "a very cold answer."
+It being obvious to her Majesty, therefore, that the French government
+intended to protract these matters indefinitely, Davison informed the
+States that she had commissioned him to offer them "all possible
+assistance, to enquire into the state of the country, and to investigate
+the proper means of making that assistance most useful."  He accordingly
+requested the appointment of a committee to confer with him upon the
+subject; and declared that the Queen did not desire to make herself
+mistress of the Provinces, but only to be informed how she best could aid
+their cause.
+
+A committee was accordingly appointed, and a long series of somewhat
+concealed negotiations was commenced.  As the deputies were upon the eve
+of their departure for France, to offer the sovereignty of the Provinces
+to Henry, these proceedings were necessarily confused, dilatory, and at
+tines contradictory.
+
+After the arrival of the deputies in France, the cunctative policy
+inspired by the Lord Treasurer was continued by England.  The delusion of
+a joint protectorate was still clung to by the Queen, although the
+conduct of France was becoming very ambiguous, and suspicion growing
+darker as to the ultimate and secret purport of the negotiations in
+progress.
+
+The anxiety and jealousy of Elizabeth were becoming keener than ever.  If
+the offers to the King were unlimited; he would accept them, and would
+thus become as dangerous as Philip.  If they were unsatisfactory, he
+would turn his back upon the Provinces, and leave them a prey to Philip.
+Still she would not yet renounce the hope of bringing the French King
+over to an ingenuous course of action.  It was thought, too, that
+something might be done with the great malcontent nobles of Flanders,
+whose defection from the national cause had been so disastrous, but who
+had been much influenced in their course, it was thought, by their
+jealousy of William the Silent.
+
+Now that the Prince was dead, it was thought probable that the Arschots,
+and Havres, Chimays, and Lalaings, might arouse themselves to more
+patriotic views than they had manifested when they espoused the cause of
+Spain.
+
+It would be desirable to excite their jealousy of French influence, and,
+at the same time, to inspire throughout the popular mind the fear of
+another tyranny almost as absolute as that of Spain.  "And if it be
+objected," said Burghley, "that except they shall admit the French King
+to the absolute dominion, he will not aid them, and they, for lack of
+succour, be forced to yield to the Spaniard, it may be answered that
+rather than they should be wholly subjected to the French, or overcome
+by the Spaniard, her Majesty would yield unto them as much as, with
+preservation of her estate, and defence of her own country, might be
+demanded."
+
+The real object kept in view by the Queen's government was, in short, to
+obtain for the Provinces and for the general cause of liberty the
+greatest possible amount of assistance from Henry, and to allow him to
+acquire in return the least possible amount of power.  The end proposed
+was a reasonable one, but the means employed savoured too much of
+intrigue.
+
+"It may be easily made probable to the States," said the Lord Treasurer,
+"that the government of the French is likely to prove as cumbersome and
+perilous as that of the Spaniards; and likewise it may probably be
+doubted how the French will keep touch and covenants with them, when any
+opportunity shall be offered to break them; so that her Majesty thinketh
+no good can be looked for to those countries by yielding this large
+authority to the French.  If they shall continue their title by this
+grant to be absolute lords, there is no end, for a long time, to be
+expected of this war; and, contrariwise, if they break off, there is an
+end of any good composition with the King of Spain."
+
+Shivering and shrinking, but still wading in deeper and deeper, inch by
+inch, the cautious minister was fast finding himself too far advanced to
+retreat.  He was rarely decided, however, and never lucid; and least of
+all in emergencies, when decision and lucidity would have been more
+valuable than any other qualities.
+
+Deeply doubting, painfully balancing, he at times drove the unfortunate
+Davison almost distraught.  Puzzled himself and still more puzzling to
+others, he rarely permitted the Netherlanders, or even his own agents, to
+perceive his drift.  It was fair enough, perhaps, to circumvent the
+French government by its own arts, but the Netherlanders meanwhile were
+in danger of sinking into despair.
+
+"Thus," wrote the Lord Treasurer to the envoy, "I have discoursed to you
+of these uncertainties and difficulties, things not unknown to yourself,
+but now being imparted to you by her Majesty's commandment, you are, by
+your wisdom, to consider with whom to deal for the stay of this French
+course, and yet, so to use it (as near as you may) that they of the
+French faction there be not able to charge you therewith, by-advertising
+into France.  For it hath already appeared, by some speeches past between
+our ambassador there and Des Pruneaux, that you are had in some jealousy
+as a hinderer of this French course, and at work for her Majesty to have
+some entrance and partage in that country.  Nevertheless our ambassador;
+by his answer, hath satisfied them to think the contrary."
+
+They must have been easily satisfied, if they knew as much of the
+dealings of her Majesty's government as the reader already knows.  To
+inspire doubt of the French, to insinuate the probability of their not
+"keeping touch and covenant," to represent their rule as "cumbersome and
+perilous," was wholesome conduct enough towards the Netherlanders--and
+still more so, had it been accompanied with frank offers of assistance
+--but it was certainly somewhat to "hinder the courses of the French."
+
+But in truth all parties were engaged for a season in a round game of
+deception, in which nobody was deceived.
+
+Walsingham was impatient, almost indignant at this puerility.  "Your
+doings, no doubt of it," he wrote to Davison, "are observed by the French
+faction, and therefore you cannot proceed so closely but it will be
+espied.  Howsoever it be, seeing direction groweth from hence, we cannot
+but blame ourselves, if the effects thereof do not fall out to our
+liking."
+
+That sagacious statesman was too well informed, and too much accustomed
+to penetrate the designs of his antagonists, to expect anything from the
+present intrigues.
+
+To loiter thus, when mortal blows should be struck, was to give the
+Spanish government exactly that of which it was always most gluttonous--
+time; and the Netherlanders had none of it to spare.  "With time and
+myself, there are two of us," was Philip II.'s favourite observation; and
+the Prince of Parma was at this moment sorely perplexed by the parsimony
+and the hesitations of his own government, by which his large, swift and
+most creative genius was so often hampered.
+
+Thus the Spanish soldiers, deep in the trenches, went with bare legs and
+empty stomachs in January; and the Dutchmen, among their broken dykes,
+were up to their ears in mud and water; and German mercenaries, in the
+obedient Provinces, were burning the peasants' houses in order to sell
+the iron to buy food withal; while grave-visaged statesmen, in
+comfortable cabinets, wagged their long white beards at each other from a
+distance, and exchanged grimaces and protocols which nobody heeded.
+
+Walsingham was weary of this solemn trifling.  "I conclude," said he to
+Davison, "that her Majesty--with reverence be it spoken--is ill advised,
+to direct you in a course that is like to work so great peril.  I know
+you will do your best endeavour to keep all things upright, and yet it is
+hard--the disease being now come to this state, or, as the physicians
+term it, crisis--to carry yourself in such sort, but that it will, I
+fear, breed a dangerous alteration in the cause."
+
+He denounced with impatience, almost with indignation, the insincerity
+and injustice of these intolerable hesitations.  "Sorry am I," said he,
+"to see the course that is taken in this weighty cause, for we will
+neither help those poor countries ourselves, nor yet suffer others to
+do it.  I am not ignorant that in time to come the annexing of these
+countries to the crown of France may prove prejudicial to England, but
+if France refuse to deal with them, and the rather for that we shall
+minister some cause of impediment by a kind of dealing underhand, then
+shall they be forced to return into the hands of Spain, which is like to
+breed such a present peril towards her Majesty's self, as never a wise
+man that seeth it, and loveth her, but lamenteth it from the bottom of
+his heart."
+
+Walsingham had made up his mind that it was England, not France, that
+should take up the cause of the Provinces, and defend them at every
+hazard.  He had been overruled, and the Queen's government had decided to
+watch the course of the French negotiation, doing what it could,
+underhand, to prevent that negotiation from being successful.  The
+Secretary did not approve of this disingenuous course.  At the same time
+he had no faith in the good intentions of the French court.
+
+"I could wish," said he, "that the French King were carried with that
+honourable mind into the defence of these countries that her Majesty is,
+but France has not been used to do things for God's sake; neither do they
+mean to use our advice or assistance in making of the bargain.  For they
+still hold a jealous conceit that when Spain and they are together by the
+ears, we will seek underhand to work our own peace."  Walsingham,
+therefore, earnestly deprecated the attitude provisionally maintained by
+England.
+
+Meantime, early in January, (Jan. 3, 1585) the deputation from the
+Provinces had arrived in France.  The progress of their 1585 negotiation
+will soon be related, but, before its result was known, a general
+dissatisfaction had already manifested itself in the Netherlands.  The
+factitious enthusiasm which had been created in favour of France, as well
+as the prejudice against England, began to die out.  It became probable
+in the opinion of those most accustomed to read the signs of the times,
+that the French court was acting in connivance with Philip, and that the
+negotiation was only intended to amuse the Netherlanders, to circumvent
+the English, and to gain time both for France and Spain.  It was not
+believed that the character of Henry or the policy of his mother was
+likely to the cause of any substantial aid to the cause of civil liberty
+or Protestant principles.
+
+"They look for no better fruit from the commission to France," wrote
+Davison, who surveyed the general state of affairs with much keenness and
+breadth of vision, "than a dallying entertainment of the time, neither
+leaving them utterly hopeless, nor at full liberty to seek for relief
+elsewhere, especially in England, or else some pleasing motion of peace,
+wherein the French King will offer his mediation with Spain.  Meantime
+the people, wearied with the troubles, charges, and hazard of the war,
+shall be rocked asleep, the provision for their defence neglected, some
+Provinces nearest the danger seduced, the rest by their defection
+astonished, and the enemy by their decay and confusions, strengthened.
+This is the scope whereto the doings of the French King, not without
+intelligence with the Spanish sovereign, doth aim, whatever is
+pretended."
+
+There was a wide conviction that the French King was dealing falsely with
+the Provinces.  It seemed certain that he must be inspired by intense
+jealousy of England, and that he was unlikely, for the sake of those
+whose "religion, popular liberty, and rebellion against their sovereign,"
+he could not but disapprove, to allow Queen Elizabeth to steal a march
+upon him, and "make her own market with Spain to his cost and
+disadvantage."
+
+In short, it was suspected--whether justly or not will be presently
+shown--that Henry III.  "was seeking to blear the eyes of the world, as
+his brother Charles did before the Massacre of St. Bartholomew."  As the
+letters received from the Dutch envoys in France became less and less
+encouraging, and as the Queen was informed by her ambassador in Paris of
+the tergiversations in Paris, she became the more anxious lest the States
+should be driven to despair.  She therefore wrote to Davison, instructing
+him "to nourish in them underhand some hope--as a thing proceeding from
+himself--that though France should reject them, yet she would not abandon
+them."
+
+He was directed to find out, by circuitous means, what towns they would
+offer to her as security for any advances she might be induced to make,
+and to ascertain the amount of monthly contributions towards the support
+of the war that they were still capable of furnishing.  She was beginning
+to look with dismay at the expatriation of wealthy merchants and
+manufacturers going so rapidly forward, now that Ghent had fallen and
+Brussels and Antwerp were in such imminent peril.  She feared that, while
+so much valuable time had been thrown away, the Provinces had become too
+much impoverished to do their own part in their own defence; and she was
+seriously alarmed at rumours which had become prevalent of a popular
+disposition towards treating for a peace at any price with Spain.  It
+soon became evident that these rumours were utterly without foundation,
+but the other reasons for Elizabeth's anxiety were sufficiently valid.
+
+On the whole, the feeling in favour of England was rapidly gaining
+ground.  In Holland especially there was general indignation against the
+French party.  The letters of the deputies occasioned "murmur and
+mislike" of most persons, who noted them to contain "more ample report of
+ceremonies and compliments than solid argument of comfort."
+
+Sir Edward Stafford, who looked with great penetration into the heart of
+the mysterious proceedings at Paris, assured his government that no
+better result was to be looked for, "after long dalliance and
+entertainment, than either a flat refusal or such a masked embracing of
+their cause, as would rather tend to the increasing of their miseries and
+confusion than relief for their declining estate."  While "reposing upon
+a broken reed," they were, he thought, "neglecting other means more
+expedient for their necessities."
+
+This was already the universal opinion in Holland.  Men now remembered,
+with bitterness, the treachery of the Duke of Anjou, which they had been
+striving so hard to forget, but which less than two years ago had nearly
+proved fatal to the cause of liberty in the Provinces.  A committee of
+the States had an interview with the Queen's envoy at the Hague; implored
+her Majesty through him not to abandon their cause; expressed unlimited
+regret for the course which had been pursued, and avowed a determination
+"to pluck their heads out of the collar," so soon as the opportunity
+should offer.
+
+They stated, moreover, that they had been directed by the assembly to lay
+before him the instructions for the envoys to France, and the articles
+proposed for the acceptance of the King.  The envoy knew his business
+better than not to have secretly provided himself with copies of these
+documents, which he had already laid before his own government.
+
+He affected, however, to feel hurt that he had been thus kept in
+ignorance of papers which he really knew by heart.  "After some pretended
+quarrel," said he, "for their not acquainting me therewith sooner, I did
+accept them, as if.  I had before neither seen nor heard of them."
+
+This then was the aspect of affairs in the provinces during the absence
+of the deputies in France.  It is now necessary to shift the scene to
+that country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+     Reception of the Dutch Envoys at the Louvre--Ignominious Result of
+     the Embassy--Secret Influences at work--Bargaining between the
+     French and Spanish Courts--Claims of Catharine de' Medici upon
+     Portugal--Letters of Henry and Catharine--Secret Proposal by France
+     to invade England--States' Mission to Henry of Navarre--Subsidies
+     of Philip to Guise--Treaty of Joinville--Philip's Share in the
+     League denied by Parma--Philip in reality its Chief--Manifesto of
+     the League--Attitude of Henry III. and of Navarre--The League
+     demands a Royal Decree--Designs of France and Spain against England
+     --Secret Interview of Mendoza and Villeroy--Complaints of English
+     Persecution--Edict of Nemours--Excommunication of Navarre and his
+     Reply.
+
+The King, notwithstanding his apparent reluctance, had, in Sir Edward
+Stafford's language, "nibbled at the bait."  He had, however, not been
+secured at the first attempt, and now a second effort was to be made,
+under what were supposed to be most favourable circumstances.  In
+accordance with his own instructions, his envoy, Des Pruneaux, had been
+busily employed in the States, arranging the terms of a treaty which
+should be entirely satisfactory.  It had been laid down as an
+indispensable condition that Holland and Zeeland should unite in the
+offer of sovereignty, and, after the expenditure of much eloquence,
+diplomacy, and money, Holland and Zeeland had given their consent.  The
+court had been for some time anxious and impatient for the arrival of the
+deputies.  Early in December, Des Pruneaux wrote from Paris to Count
+Maurice, urging with some asperity, the necessity of immediate action.
+
+"When I left you," he said, "I thought that performance would follow
+promises.  I have been a little ashamed, as the time passed by, to hear
+nothing of the deputies, nor of any excuse on the subject.  It would seem
+as though God had bandaged the eyes of those who have so much cause to
+know their own adversity."
+
+To the States his language was still more insolent.  "Excuse me,
+Gentlemen," he said, "if I tell you that I blush at hearing nothing from
+you.  I shall have the shame and you the damage.  I regret much the
+capture of De Teligny, and other losses which are occasioned by your
+delays and want of resolution."
+
+Thus did the French court, which a few months before had imprisoned, and
+then almost ignominiously dismissed the envoys who came to offer the
+sovereignty of the Provinces, now rebuke the governments which had ever
+since been strenuously engaged in removing all obstacles to the entire
+fulfillment of the King's demands.  The States were just despatching a
+solemn embassy to renew that offer, with hardly any limitation as to
+terms.
+
+The envoys arrived on January 3rd, 1585, at Boulogne, after a stormy
+voyage from Brielle.  Yet it seems incredible to relate, that, after all
+the ignominy heaped upon the last, there was nothing but solemn trifling
+in reserve for the present legation; although the object of both
+embassies was to offer a crown.  The deputies were, however, not kept in
+prison, upon this occasion, nor treated like thieves or spies.  They were
+admirably lodged, with plenty of cooks and lacqueys to minister to them;
+they fared sumptuously every day, at Henry's expense, and, after they had
+been six weeks in the kingdom, they at last succeeded in obtaining their
+first audience.
+
+On the 13th February the King sent five "very splendid, richly-gilded,
+court-coach-waggons" to bring the envoys to the palace.  At one o'clock
+they arrived at the Louvre, and were ushered through four magnificent
+antechambers into the royal cabinet.  The apartments through which they
+passed swarmed with the foremost nobles, court-functionaries, and ladies
+of France, in blazing gala costume, who all greeted the envoys with
+demonstrations of extreme respect: The halls and corridors were lined
+with archers, halbardiers, Swiss guards, and grooms "besmeared with
+gold," and it was thought that all this rustle of fine feathers would be
+somewhat startling to the barbarous republicans, fresh from the fens of
+Holland.
+
+Henry received them in his cabinet, where he was accompanied only by the
+Duke of Joyeuse--his foremost and bravest "minion"--by the Count of
+Bouscaige, M. de Valette, and the Count of Chateau Vieux.
+
+The most Christian King was neatly dressed, in white satin doublet and
+hose, and well-starched ruff, with a short cloak on his shoulders, a
+little velvet cap on the side of his head, his long locks duly perfumed
+and curled, his sword at his side, and a little basket, full of puppies,
+suspended from his neck by a broad ribbon.  He held himself stiff and
+motionless, although his face smiled a good-humoured welcome to the
+ambassadors; and he moved neither foot, hand, nor head, as they advanced.
+
+Chancellor Leoninus, the most experienced, eloquent, and tedious of men,
+now made an interminable oration, fertile in rhetoric and barren in
+facts; and the King made a short and benignant reply, according to the
+hallowed formula in such cases provided.  And then there was a
+presentation to the Queen, and to the Queen-Mother, when Leoninus was
+more prolix than before, and Catharine even more affectionate than her
+son; and there were consultations with Chiverny and Villeroy, and Brulart
+and Pruneaux, and great banquets at the royal expense, and bales of
+protocols, and drafts of articles, and conditions and programmes and
+apostilles by the hundred weight, and at last articles of annexation were
+presented by the envoys, and Pruneaux looked at and pronounced them "too
+raw and imperative," and the envoys took them home again, and dressed
+them and cooked them till there was no substance left in them; for
+whereas the envoys originally offered the crown of their country to
+France, on condition that no religion but the reformed religion should be
+tolerated there, no appointments made but by the States, and no security
+offered for advances to be made by the Christian King, save the hearts
+and oaths of his new subjects--so they now ended by proposing the
+sovereignty unconditionally, almost abjectly; and, after the expiration
+of nearly three months, even these terms were absolutely refused, and the
+deputies were graciously permitted to go home as they came.  The
+annexation and sovereignty were definitely declined.  Henry regretted and
+sighed, Catharine de' Medici wept--for tears were ever at her command--
+Chancellor Chiverny and Secretary Brulart wept likewise, and Pruneaux was
+overcome with emotion at the parting interview of the ambassadors with
+the court, in which they were allowed a last opportunity for expressing
+what was called their gratitude.
+
+And then, on the lath March, M. d'Oignon came to them, and presented, on
+the part of the King, to each of the envoys a gold chain weighing twenty-
+one ounces and two grains.
+
+Des Pruneaux, too--Des Pruneaux who had spent the previous summer in the
+Netherlands, who had travelled from province to province, from city to
+city, at the King's command, offering boundless assistance, if they would
+unanimously offer their sovereignty; who had vanquished by his
+importunity the resistance of the stern Hollanders, the last of all the
+Netherlanders to yield to the royal blandishments--Des Pruneaux, who had
+"blushed"--Des Pruneaux who had wept--now thought proper to assume an
+airy tone, half encouragement, half condolence.
+
+"Man proposes, gentlemen," said he "but God disposes.  We are frequently
+called on to observe that things have a great variety of times and terms.
+Many a man is refused by a woman twice, who succeeds the third time," and
+so on, with which wholesome apothegms Des Pruneaux faded away then and
+for ever from the page of Netherland history.
+
+In a few days afterwards the envoys took shipping at Dieppe, and arrived
+early in April at the Hague.
+
+And thus terminated the negotiation of the States with France.
+
+It had been a scene of elaborate trifling on the King's part from
+beginning to end.  Yet the few grains of wheat which have thus been
+extracted from the mountains of diplomatic chaff so long mouldering in
+national storehouses, contain, however dry and tasteless, still something
+for human nourishment.  It is something to comprehend the ineffable
+meanness of the hands which then could hold the destiny of mighty
+empires.  Here had been offered a magnificent prize to France; a great
+extent of frontier in the quarter where expansion was most desirable, a
+protective network of towns and fortresses on the side most vulnerable,
+flourishing, cities on the sea-coast where the marine traffic was most
+lucrative, the sovereignty of a large population, the most bustling,
+enterprising, and hardy in Europe--a nation destined in a few short years
+to become the first naval and commercial power in the world--all this was
+laid at the feet of Henry Valois and Catharine de' Medici, and rejected.
+
+The envoys, with their predecessors, had wasted eight months of most
+precious time; they had heard and made orations, they had read and
+written protocols, they had witnessed banquets, masquerades, and revels
+of stupendous frivolity, in honour of the English Garter, brought
+solemnly to the Valois by Lord Derby, accompanied by one hundred
+gentlemen "marvellously, sumptuously, and richly accoutred," during that
+dreadful winter when the inhabitants of Brussels, Antwerp, Mechlin--to
+save which splendid cities and to annex them to France, was a main object
+of the solemn embassy from the Netherlands--were eating rats, and cats,
+and dogs, and the weeds from the pavements, and the grass from the
+churchyards; and were finding themselves more closely pressed than ever
+by the relentless genius of Farnese; and in exchange for all these losses
+and all this humiliation, the ambassadors now returned to their
+constituents, bringing an account of Chiverny's magnificent banquets and
+long orations, of the smiles of Henry III., the tears of Catharine de'
+Medici, the regrets of M. des Pruneaux, besides sixteen gold chains, each
+weighing twenty-one ounces and two grains.
+
+It is worth while to go for a moment behind the scene; We have seen the
+actors, with mask and cothurn and tinsel crown, playing their well-conned
+parts upon the stage.  Let us hear them threaten, and whimper, and
+chaffer among themselves.
+
+So soon as it was intimated that Henry III. was about to grant the
+Netherland, envoys an audience, the wrath of ambassador Mendoza was
+kindled.  That magniloquent Spaniard instantly claimed an interview with
+the King, before whom, according to the statement of his colleagues,
+doing their best to pry into these secrets, he blustered and bounced, and
+was more fantastical in his insolence than even Spanish envoy had ever
+been before.
+
+"He went presently to court," so Walsingham was informed by Stafford,
+"and dealt very passionately with the King and Queen-Mother to deny them
+audience, who being greatly offended with his presumptuous and malapert
+manner of proceeding, the King did in choler and with some sharp
+speeches, let him plainly understand that he was an absolute king, bound
+to yield account of his doings to no man, and that it was lawful for him
+to give access to any man within his own realm.  The Queen-Mother
+answered him likewise very roundly, whereupon he departed for the time,
+very much discontented."
+
+Brave words, on both sides, if they had ever been spoken, or if there had
+been any action corresponding to their spirit.
+
+But, in truth, from the beginning, Henry and his mother saw in the
+Netherland embassy only the means of turning a dishonest penny.  Since
+the disastrous retreat of Anjou from the Provinces, the city of Cambray
+had remained in the hands of the Seigneur de Balagny, placed there by the
+duke.  The citadel, garrisoned by French troops, it was not the intention
+of Catharine de' Medici to restore to Philip, and a truce on the subject
+had been arranged provisionally for a year.  Philip, taking Parma's
+advice to prevent the French court, if possible, from "fomenting the
+Netherland rebellion," had authorized the Prince to conclude that truce,
+as if done on his own responsibility, and not by royal order.  Meantime,
+Balagny was gradually swelling into a petty potentate, on his own
+account, making himself very troublesome to the Prince of Parma, and
+requiring a great deal of watching.  Cambray was however apparently
+acquired for France.
+
+But, besides this acquisition, there was another way of earning something
+solid, by turning this Netherland matter handsomely to account.  Philip
+II. had recently conquered Portugal.  Among the many pretensions to that
+crown, those of Catherine de' Medici had been put forward, but had been
+little heeded.  The claim went back more than three hundred years, and to
+establish its validity would have been to convert the peaceable
+possession of a long line of sovereigns into usurpation.  To ascend to
+Alphonso III. was like fetching, as it was said, a claim from Evander's
+grandmother.  Nevertheless, ever since Philip had been upon the
+Portuguese throne, Catherine had been watching the opportunity, not
+of unseating that sovereign, but of converting her claim into money.
+
+The Netherland embassy seemed to offer the coveted opportunity.  There
+was, therefore, quite as much warmth at the outset, on the part of
+Mendoza, in that first interview after the arrival of the deputies, as
+had been represented.  There was however less dignity and more cunning on
+the part of Henry and Catherine than was at all suspected.  Even before
+that conference the King had been impatiently expecting overtures from
+the Spanish envoy, and had been disappointed.  "He told me," said Henry,
+"that he would make proposals so soon as Tassis should be gone, but he
+has done nothing yet.  He said to Gondi that all he meant was to get the
+truce of Cambray accomplished.  I hope, however, that my brother, the
+King of Spain, will do what is right in regard to madam my mother's
+pretensions.  'Tis likely that he will be now incited thereto, seeing
+that the deputies of all the Netherland provinces are at present in my
+kingdom, to offer me carte blanche.  I shall hear what they have to say,
+and do exactly what the good of my own affairs shall seem to require.
+The Queen of England, too, has been very pressing and urgent with me for
+several months on this subject.  I shall hear, too, what she has to say,
+and I presume, if the King of Spain will now disclose himself, and do
+promptly what he ought, that we may set Christendom at rest."
+
+Henry then instructed his ambassador in Spain to keep his eyes wide open,
+in order to penetrate the schemes of Philip, and to this end ordered him
+an increase of salary by a third, that he might follow that monarch on
+his journey to Arragon.
+
+Meanwhile Mendoza had audience of his Majesty.  "He made a very pressing
+remonstrance," said the King, "concerning the arrival of these deputies,
+urging me to send them back at once; denouncing them as disobedient
+rebels and heretics.  I replied that my kingdom was free, and that I
+should hear from them all that they had to say, because I could not
+abandon madam my mother in her pretensions, not only for the filial
+obedience which I owe her, but because I am her only heir.  Mendoza
+replied that he should go and make the same remonstrance to the Queen-
+Mother, which he accordingly did, and she will herself write you what
+passed between them.  If they do not act up to their duty down there I
+know how to take my revenge upon them."
+
+This is the King's own statement--his veriest words--and he was surely
+best aware of what occurred between himself and Mendoza, under their four
+eyes only.  The ambassador is not represented as extremely insolent, but
+only pressing; and certainly there is little left of the fine periods on
+Henry's part about listening to the cry of the oppressed, or preventing
+the rays of his ancestors' diadem from growing pale, with which
+contemporary chronicles are filled.
+
+There was not one word of the advancement and glory of the French nation;
+not a hint of the fame to be acquired by a magnificent expansion of
+territory, still less of the duty to deal generously or even honestly
+with an oppressed people, who in good faith were seeking an asylum in
+exchange for offered sovereignty, not a syllable upon liberty of
+conscience, of religious or civil rights; nothing but a petty and
+exclusive care for the interests of his mother's pocket, and of his own
+as his mother's heir.  This farthing-candle was alone to guide the steps
+of "the high and mighty King," whose reputation was perpetually
+represented as so precious to him in all the conferences between his
+ministers and the Netherland deputies.  Was it possible for those envoys
+to imagine the almost invisible meanness of such childish tricks?
+
+The Queen-Mother was still more explicit and unblushing throughout the
+whole affair.
+
+"The ambassador of Spain," she said, "has made the most beautiful
+remonstrances he could think of about these deputies from the
+Netherlands.  All his talk, however, cannot persuade me to anything else
+save to increase my desire to have reparation for the wrong that has been
+done me in regard to my claims upon Portugal, which I am determined to
+pursue by every means within my power.  Nevertheless I have told Don
+Bernardino that I should always be ready to embrace any course likely to
+bring about a peaceful conclusion.  He then entered into a discussion of
+my rights, which, he said, were not thought in Spain to be founded in
+justice.  But when I explained to him the principal points (of which I
+possess all the pieces of evidence and justification), he hardly knew
+what to say, save that he was astounded that I had remained so long
+without speaking of my claims.  In reply, I told him ingenuously the
+truth."
+
+The truth which the ingenuous Catharine thus revealed was, in brief, that
+all her predecessors had been minors, women, and persons in situations
+not to make their rights valid.  Finding herself more highly placed, she
+had advanced her claims, which had been so fully recognized in Portugal,
+that she had been received as Infanta of the kingdom.  All pretensions to
+the throne being now through women only, hers were the best of any.  At
+all this Don Bernardino expressed profound astonishment, and promised to
+send a full account to his master of "the infinite words" which had
+passed between them at this interview!
+
+"I desire," said Catharine, "that the Lord King of Spain should open his
+mind frankly and promptly upon the recompense which he is willing to make
+me for Portugal, in order that things may pass rather with gentleness
+than otherwise."
+
+It was expecting a great deal to look for frankness and promptness from
+the Lord King of Spain, but the Queen-Mother considered that the
+Netherland envoys had put a whip into her hand.  She was also determined
+to bring Philip up to the point, without showing her own game.  "I will
+never say," said Catharine--ingenuous no longer--"I will never say how
+much I ask, but, on the contrary, I shall wait for him to make the offer.
+I expect it to be reasonable, because he has seen fit to seize and occupy
+that which I declare to be my property."
+
+This is the explanation of all the languor and trifling of the French
+court in the Netherland negotiation.  A deep, constant, unseen current
+was running counter to all the movement which appeared upon the surface.
+The tergiversations of the Spanish cabinet in the Portugal matter were
+the cause of the shufflings of the French ministers on the subject of the
+Provinces.
+
+"I know well," said Henry a few days later, "that the people down there,
+and their ambassador here, are leading us on with words, as far as they
+can, with regard to the recompense of madam my mother for her claims upon
+Portugal.  But they had better remember (and I think they will), that out
+of the offers which these sixteen deputies of the Netherlands are
+bringing me--and I believe it to be carte blanche--I shall be able to pay
+myself.  'Twill be better to come promptly to a good bargain and a brief
+conclusion, than to spin the matter out longer."
+
+"Don Bernardino," said the Queen-Mother on the same day, "has been
+keeping us up to this hour in hopes of a good offer, but 'tis to be
+feared, for the good of Christendom, that 'twill be too late.  The
+deputies are come, bringing carte blanche.  Nevertheless, if the King of
+Spain is willing to be reasonable, and that instantly, it will be well,
+and it would seem as if God had been pleased to place this means in our
+hands."
+
+After the conferences had been fairly got under way between the French
+government and the envoys, the demands upon Philip for a good bargain and
+a handsome offer became still more pressing.
+
+"I have given audience to the deputies from the Provinces," wrote Henry,
+"and the Queen-Mother has done the same.  Chancellor Chiverny,
+Villequier, Bellievre, and Brulart, will now confer with them from day
+today.  I now tell you that it will be well, before things go any
+farther, for the King of Spain to come to reason about the pretensions of
+madam mother.  This will be a means of establishing the repose of
+Christendom.  I shall be very willing to concur in such an arrangement,
+if I saw any approximation to it on the part of the King or his
+ministers.  But I fear they will delay too long, and so you had better
+tell them.  Push them to the point as much as possible, without letting
+them suspect that I have been writing about it, for that would make them
+rather draw back than come forward."
+
+At the same time, during this alternate threatening and coaxing between
+the French and the Spanish court, and in the midst of all the solemn and
+tedious protocolling of the ministry and the Dutch envoys, there was a
+most sincere and affectionate intercourse maintained between Henry III.
+and the Prince of Parma.  The Spanish Governor-General was assured that
+nothing but the warmest regard was entertained for him and his master on
+the part of the French court.  Parma had replied, however, that so many
+French troops had in times past crossed the frontier to assist the
+rebels, that he hardly knew what to think.  He expressed the hope, now
+that the Duke of Anjou was dead, that his Christian Majesty would not
+countenance the rebellion, but manifest his good-will.
+
+"How can your Highness doubt it," said Malpierre, Henry's envoy, "for his
+Majesty has given proof enough of his good will, having prevented all
+enterprises in this regard, and preferred to have his own subjects cut
+into pieces rather than that they should carry out their designs.  Had
+his Majesty been willing merely to connive at these undertakings, 'tis
+probable that the affairs of your highness would not have succeeded so
+well as they have done."
+
+With regard to England, also, the conduct of Henry and his mother in
+these negotiations was marked by the same unfathomable duplicity.  There
+was an appearance of cordiality on the surface; but there was deep
+plotting, and bargaining, and even deadly hostility lurking below.  We
+have seen the efforts which Elizabeth's government had been making to
+counteract the policy which offered the sovereignty of the provinces to
+the French monarch.  At the same time there was at least a loyal
+disposition upon the Queen's part to assist the Netherlands, in
+concurrence with Henry.  The demeanour of Burghley and his colleagues was
+frankness itself, compared with the secret schemings of the Valois; for
+at least peace and good-will between the "triumvirate" of France, England
+and the Netherlands, was intended, as the true means of resisting the
+predominant influence of Spain.
+
+Yet very soon after the solemn reception by Henry of the garter brought
+by Lord Derby, and in the midst of the negotiations between the French
+court and the United Provinces, the French king was not only attempting
+to barter the sovereignty offered him by the Netherlanders against a
+handsome recompense for the Portugal claim, but he was actually proposing
+to the King of Spain to join with him in an invasion of England!  Even
+Philip himself must have admired and respected such a complication of
+villany on the part of his most Christian brother.  He was, however, not
+disposed to put any confidence in his schemes.
+
+"With regard to the attempt against England," wrote Philip to Mendoza,
+"you must keep your eyes open--you must look at the danger of letting
+them, before they have got rid of their rivals and reduced their
+heretics, go out of their own house and kingdom, and thus of being made
+fools of when they think of coming back again.  Let them first
+exterminate the heretics of France, and then we will look after those of
+England; because 'tis more important to finish those who are near than
+those afar off.  Perhaps the Queen-Mother proposes this invasion in order
+to proceed more feebly with matters in her own kingdom; and thus Mucio
+(Duke of Guise) and his friends will not have so safe a game, and must
+take heed lest they be deceived."
+
+Thus it is obvious that Henry and Catharine intended, on the whole, to
+deceive the English and the Netherlanders, and to get as good a bargain
+and as safe a friendship from Philip as could be manufactured out of the
+materials placed in the French King's hands by the United Provinces.
+Elizabeth honestly wished well to the States, but allowed Burghley and
+those who acted with him to flatter themselves with the chimera that
+Henry could be induced to protect the Netherlands without assuming the
+sovereignty of that commonwealth.  The Provinces were fighting for their
+existence, unconscious of their latent strength, and willing to trust to
+France or to England, if they could only save themselves from being
+swallowed by Spain.  As for Spain itself, that country was more practised
+in duplicity even than the government of the Medici-Valois, and was of
+course more than a match at the game of deception for the franker
+politicians of England and Holland.
+
+The King of Navarre had meanwhile been looking on at a distance.  Too
+keen an observer, too subtle a reasoner to doubt the secret source of the
+movements then agitating France to its centre, he was yet unable to
+foresee the turn that all these intrigues were about to take.  He could
+hardly doubt that Spain was playing a dark and desperate game with the
+unfortunate Henry III.; for, as we have seen, he had himself not long
+before received a secret and liberal offer from Philip II., if he would
+agree to make war upon the King.  But the Bearnese was not the man to
+play into the hands of Spain, nor could he imagine the possibility of the
+Valois or even of his mother taking so suicidal a course.
+
+After the Netherland deputies had received their final dismissal from the
+King, they sent Calvart, who had been secretary to their embassy, on a
+secret mission to Henry of Navarre, then resident at Chartres.
+
+The envoy communicated to the Huguenot chief the meagre result of the
+long negotiation with the French court.  Henry bade him be of good cheer,
+and assured him of his best wishes for their cause.  He expressed the
+opinion that the King of France would now either attempt to overcome the
+Guise faction by gentle means, or at once make war upon them.  The Bishop
+of Acqs had strongly recommended the French monarch to send the King of
+Navarre, with a strong force, to the assistance of the Netherlands,
+urging the point with much fervid eloquence and solid argument.  Henry
+for a moment had seemed impressed, but such a vigorous proceeding was of
+course entirely beyond his strength, and he had sunk back into his
+effeminate languor so soon as the bold bishop's back was turned.
+
+The Bearnese had naturally conceived but little hope that such a scheme
+would be carried into effect; but he assured Calvart, that nothing could
+give him greater delight than to mount and ride in such a cause.
+
+"Notwithstanding," said the Bearnese, "that the villanous intentions of
+the Guises are becoming plainer and plainer, and that they are obviously
+supplied with Spanish dollars, I shall send a special envoy to the most
+Christian King, and, although 'tis somewhat late, implore him to throw
+his weight into the scale, in order to redeem your country from its
+misery.  Meantime be of good heart, and defend as you have done your
+hearths, your liberty, and the honour of God."
+
+He advised the States unhesitatingly to continue their confidence in the
+French King, and to keep him informed of their plans and movements;
+expressing the opinion that these very intrigues of the Guise party would
+soon justify or even force Henry III. openly to assist the Netherlands.
+
+So far, at that very moment, was so sharp a politician as the Bearnese
+from suspecting the secret schemes of Henry of Valois.  Calvart urged the
+King of Navarre to assist the States at that moment with some slight
+subsidy.  Antwerp was in such imminent danger as to fill the hearts of
+all true patriots with dismay; and a timely succour, even if a slender
+one, might be of inestimable value.
+
+Henry expressed profound regret that his own means were so limited, and
+his own position so dangerous, as to make it difficult for him to
+manifest in broad daylight the full affection which he bore the
+Provinces.
+
+"To my sorrow," said he, "your proposition is made in the midst of such
+dark and stormy weather, that those who have clearest sight are unable to
+see to what issue these troubles of France are tending."
+
+Nevertheless, with much generosity and manliness, he promised Calvart to
+send two thousand soldiers, at his own charges, to the Provinces without
+delay; and authorised that envoy to consult with his agent at the court
+of the French King, in order to obtain the royal permission for the
+troops to cross the frontier.
+
+The crownless and almost houseless King had thus, at a single interview,
+and in exchange for nothing but good wishes, granted what the most
+Christian monarch of France had refused, after months of negotiation, and
+with sovereignty as the purchase-money.  The envoy, well pleased, sped as
+swiftly as possible to Paris; but, as may easily be imagined, Henry of
+Valois forbade the movement contemplated by Henry of Navarre.
+
+"His Majesty," said Villeroy, secretary of state, "sees no occasion, in
+so weighty a business, thus suddenly to change his mind; the less so,
+because he hopes to be able ere long to smooth over these troubles which
+have begun in France.  Should the King either openly or secretly assist
+the Netherlands or allow them to be assisted, 'twould be a reason for all
+the Catholics now sustaining his Majesty's party to go over to the Guise
+faction.  The Provinces must remain firm, and make no pacification with
+the enemy.  Meantime the Queen of England is the only one to whom God has
+given means to afford you succour.  One of these days, when the proper
+time comes, his Majesty will assist her in affording you relief."
+
+Calvart, after this conference with the King of Navarre, and subsequently
+with the government, entertained a lingering hope that the French King
+meant to assist the Provinces.  "I know well who is the author of these
+troubles," said the unhappy monarch, who never once mentioned the name of
+Guise in all those conferences, "but, if God grant me life, I will give
+him as good as he sends, and make him rue his conduct."
+
+They were not aware after how many strange vacillations Henry was one day
+to wreak this threatened vengeance.  As for Navarre, he remained upon the
+watch, good humoured as ever, more merry and hopeful as the tempest grew
+blacker; manifesting the most frank and friendly sentiments towards the
+Provinces, and writing to Queen Elizabeth in the chivalrous style so dear
+to the heart of that sovereign, that he desired nothing better than to be
+her "servant and captain-general against the common enemy."
+
+But, indeed, the French King was not so well informed as he imagined
+himself to be of the authorship of these troubles.  Mucio, upon whose
+head he thus threatened vengeance, was but the instrument.  The concealed
+hand that was directing all these odious intrigues, and lighting these
+flames of civil war which were so long to make France a scene of
+desolation, was that of the industrious letter-writer in the Escorial.
+That which Henry of Navarre shrewdly suspected, when he talked of the
+Spanish dollars in the Balafre's pocket, that which was dimly visible to
+the Bishop of Acqs when he told Henry III. that the "Tagus had emptied
+itself into the Seine and Loire, and that the gold of Mexico was flowing
+into the royal cabinet," was much more certain than they supposed.
+
+Philip, in truth, was neglecting his own most pressing interests that he
+might direct all his energies towards entertaining civil war in France.
+That France should remain internally at peace was contrary to all his
+plans.  He had therefore long kept Guise and his brother, the Cardinal de
+Lorraine, in his pay, and he had been spending large sums of money to
+bribe many of the most considerable functionaries in the kingdom.
+
+The most important enterprises in the Netherlands were allowed to
+languish, that these subterranean operations of the "prudent" monarch of
+Spain should be pushed forward.  The most brilliant and original genius
+that Philip had the good fortune to have at his disposal, the genius of
+Alexander Farnese, was cramped and irritated almost to madness, by the
+fetters imposed upon it, by the sluggish yet obstinate nature of him it
+was bound to obey.  Farnese was at that moment engaged in a most arduous
+military undertaking, that famous siege of Antwerp, the details of which
+will be related in future chapters, yet he was never furnished with men
+or money enough to ensure success to a much more ordinary operation.
+His complaints, subdued but intense, fell almost unheeded on his master's
+ear.  He had not "ten dollars at his command," his cavalry horses were
+all dead of hunger or had been eaten by their riders, who were starving
+to death themselves, his army had dwindled to a "handful," yet he still
+held on to his purpose, in spite of famine, the desperate efforts of
+indefatigable enemies, and all the perils and privations of a deadly
+winter.  He, too, was kept for a long time in profound ignorance of
+Philip's designs.
+
+Meantime, while the Spanish soldiers were starving in Flanders, Philip's
+dollars were employed by Mucio and his adherents in enlisting troops in
+Switzerland and Germany, in order to carry on the civil war in France.
+The French king was held systematically up to ridicule or detestation in
+every village-pulpit in his own kingdom, while the sister of Mucio, the
+Duchess of Montpensier, carried the scissors at her girdle, with which
+she threatened to provide Henry with a third crown, in addition to those
+of France and Poland, which he had disgraced--the coronal tonsure of a
+monk.  The convent should be, it was intimated, the eventual fate of the
+modern Childeric, but meantime it was more important than ever to
+supersede the ultimate pretensions of Henry of Navarre.  To prevent that
+heretic of heretics, who was not to be bought with Spanish gold, from
+ever reigning, was the first object of Philip and Mucio.
+
+Accordingly, on the last day of the year 1584, a secret treaty had been
+signed at Joinville between Henry of Guise and his brother the Duc de
+Mayenne, holding the proxies of their brother the Cardinal and those of
+their uncles, Aumale and Elbeuf, on the one part, and John Baptist Tassis
+and Commander Moreo, on the other, as representatives of Philip.  This
+transaction, sufficiently well known now to the most superficial student
+of history, was a profound mystery then, so far as regarded the action of
+the Spanish king.  It was not a secret, however, that the papistical
+party did not intend that the Bearnese prince should ever come to the
+throne, and the matter of the succession was discussed, precisely as if
+the throne had been vacant.
+
+It was decided that Charles, paternal uncle to Henry of Navarre, commonly
+called the Cardinal Bourbon, should be considered successor to the crown,
+in place of Henry, whose claim was forfeited by heresy.  Moreover, a
+great deal of superfluous money and learning was expended in ordering
+some elaborate legal arguments to be prepared by venal jurisconsults,
+proving not only that the uncle ought to succeed before the nephew, but
+that neither the one nor the other had any claim to succeed at all.  The
+pea having thus been employed to do the work which the sword alone could
+accomplish, the poor old Cardinal was now formally established by the
+Guise faction as presumptive heir to the crown.
+
+A man of straw, a superannuated court-dangler, a credulous trifler, but
+an earnest Papist as his brother Antony had been, sixty-six years old,
+and feeble beyond his years, who, his life long, had never achieved one
+manly action, and had now one foot in the grave; this was the puppet
+placed in the saddle to run a tilt against the Bearnese, the man with
+foot ever in the stirrup, with sword rarely in its sheath.
+
+The contracting parties at Joinville agreed that the Cardinal should
+succeed on the death of the reigning king, and that no heretic should
+ever ascend the throne, or hold the meanest office in the kingdom.
+They agreed further that all heretics should be "exterminated" without
+distinction throughout France and the Netherlands.  In order to procure
+the necessary reforms among the clergy, the council of Trent was to be
+fully carried into effect.  Philip pledged himself to furnish at least
+fifty thousand crowns monthly, for the advancement of this Holy League,
+as it was denominated, and as much more as should prove necessary.  The
+sums advanced were to be repaid by the Cardinal on his succeeding to the
+throne.  All the great officers of the crown, lords and gentlemen,
+cities, chapters, and universities, all Catholics, in short, in the
+kingdom, were deemed to be included in the league.  If any foreign
+Catholic prince desired to enter the union, he should be admitted with
+the consent of both parties.  Neither his Catholic majesty nor the
+confederated princes should treat with the most Christian King, either
+directly or indirectly.  The compact was to remain strictly secret--one
+copy of it being sent to Philip, while the other was to be retained by
+Cardinal Bourbon and his fellow leaguers.
+
+And now--in accordance with this program--Philip proceeded stealthily and
+industriously to further the schemes of Mucio, to the exclusion of more
+urgent business.  Noiseless and secret himself, and delighting in
+clothing so much as to glide, as it were, throughout Europe, wrapped in
+the mantle of invisibility, he was perpetually provoked by the noise, the
+bombast, and the bustle, which his less prudent confederates permitted
+themselves.  While Philip for a long time hesitated to confide the secret
+of the League to Parma, whom it most imported to understand these schemes
+of his master, the confederates were openly boasting of the assistance
+which they were to derive from Parma's cooperation.  Even when the Prince
+had at last been informed as to the state of affairs, he stoutly denied
+the facts of which the leaguers made their vaunt; thus giving to Mucio
+and his friends a lesson in dissimulation."
+
+"Things have now arrived at a point," wrote Philip to Tassis, 15th March,
+1585, "that this matter of the League cannot and ought not to be
+concealed from those who have a right to know it.  Therefore you must
+speak clearly to the Prince of Parma, informing him of the whole scheme,
+and enjoining the utmost secrecy.  You must concert with him as to the
+best means of rendering aid to this cause, after having apprised him of
+the points which regarded him, and also that of the security of Cardinal
+de Bourbon, in case of necessity."
+
+The Prince was anything but pleased, in the midst of his anxiety and
+his almost superhuman labour in the Antwerp siege, to be distracted,
+impoverished, and weakened, in order to carry out these schemes against
+France; but he kept the secret manfully.
+
+To Malpierre, the French envoy in Brussels--for there was the closest
+diplomatic communication between Henry III. and Philip, while each was
+tampering with the rebellious subjects of the other--to Malpierre Parma
+flatly contradicted all complicity on the part of the Spanish King or
+himself with the Holy League, of which he knew Philip to be the
+originator and the chief.
+
+"If I complain to the Prince of Parma," said the envoy, "of the companies
+going from Flanders to assist the League, he will make me no other reply
+than that which the President has done--that there is nothing at all in
+it--until they are fairly arrived in France.  The President (Richardot)
+said that if the Catholic King belonged to the League, as they insinuate,
+his Majesty would declare the fact openly."
+
+And a few days later, the Prince himself averred, as Malpierre had
+anticipated, that "as to any intention on the part of himself or his
+Catholic Majesty, to send succour to the League, according to the boast
+of these gentlemen, he had never thought of such a thing, nor had
+received any order on the subject from his master.  If the King intended
+to do anything of the kind, he would do it openly.  He protested that he
+had never seen anything, or known anything of the League."
+
+Here was a man who knew how to keep a secret, and who had no scruples in
+the matter of dissimulation, however enraged he might be at seeing men
+and money diverted from his own masterly combinations in order to carry
+out these schemes of his master.
+
+Mucio, on the contrary, was imprudent and inclined to boast.  His
+contempt for Henry III, made him blind to the dangers to be apprehended
+from Henry of Navarre.  He did little, but talked a great deal.
+
+Philip was very anxious that the work should be done both secretly and
+thoroughly.  "Let the business be finished before Saint John's day," said
+he to Tassis, when sending fifty thousand dollars for the use of the
+brothers Guise.  "Tell Iniquez to warn them not to be sluggish.  Let them
+not begin in a lukewarm manner, but promise them plenty of assistance
+from me, if they conduct themselves properly.  Let them beware of
+wavering, or of falling into plans of conciliation.  If they do their
+duty, I will do mine."
+
+But the Guise faction moved slowly despite of Philip's secret promptings.
+The truth is, that the means proposed by the Spanish monarch were
+ludicrously inadequate to his plans, and it was idle to suppose that the
+world was to be turned upside down for his benefit, at the very low price
+which he was prepared to pay.
+
+Nothing less than to exterminate all the heretics in Christendom, to
+place himself on the thrones of France and of England, and to extinguish
+the last spark of rebellion in the Netherlands, was his secret thought,
+and yet it was very difficult to get fifty thousand dollars from him from
+month to month.  Procrastinating and indolent himself, he was for ever
+rebuking the torpid movements of the Guises.
+
+"Let Mucio set his game well at the outset," said he; "let him lay the
+axe to the root of the tree, for to be wasting time fruitlessly is
+sharpening the knife for himself."
+
+This was almost prophetic.  When after so much talking and tampering,
+there began to be recrimination among the leaguers, Philip was very angry
+with his subordinate.
+
+"Here is Mucio," said he, "trying to throw the blame of all the
+difficulties, which have arisen, upon us.  Not hastening, not keeping his
+secret, letting the execution of the enterprise grow cold, and lending an
+ear to suggestions about peace, without being sure of its conclusion, he
+has turned his followers into cowards, discredited his cause, and given
+the King of France opportunity to strengthen his force and improve his
+party.  These are all very palpable things.  I am willing to continue
+my friendship for them, but not, if, while they accept it, they permit
+themselves to complain, instead of manifesting gratitude."
+
+On the whole, however, the affairs of the League seemed prosperous.
+There was doubtless too much display among the confederates, but there
+was a growing uneasiness among the royalists.  Cardinal Bourbon,
+discarding his ecclesiastical robes and scarlet stockings, paraded
+himself daily in public, clothed in military costume, with all the airs
+of royalty.  Many persons thought him mad.  On the other hand, Epergnon,
+the haughty minion-in-chief, who governed Henry III., and insulted all
+the world, was becoming almost polite.
+
+"The progress of the League," said Busbecq, "is teaching the Duc
+d' Epergnon manners.  'Tis a youth of such insolence, that without
+uncovering he would talk with men of royal descent, while they were
+bareheaded.  'Tis a common jest now that he has found out where his hat
+is."
+
+Thus, for a long time, a network of secret political combinations had
+been stretching itself over Christendom.  There were great movements of
+troops throughout Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, slowly
+concentrating themselves upon France; yet, on the whole, the great mass
+of the populations, the men and women who were to pay, to fight, to
+starve, to be trampled upon, to be outraged, to be plundered, to be
+burned out of houses and home, to bleed, and to die, were merely
+ignorant, gaping spectators.  That there was something very grave in
+prospect was obvious, but exactly what was impending they knew no more
+than the generation yet unborn.  Very noiselessly had the patient manager
+who sat in the Escorial been making preparations for that European
+tragedy in which most of the actors had such fatal parts assigned them,
+and of which few of the spectators of its opening scenes were doomed to
+witness the conclusion.  A shifting and glancing of lights, a vision of
+vanishing feet, a trampling and bustling of unseen crowds, movements of
+concealed machinery, a few incoherent words, much noise and confusion
+vague and incomprehensible, till at last the tinkling of a small bell,
+and a glimpse of the modest manager stealing away as the curtain was
+rising--such was the spectacle presented at Midsummer 1585,
+
+And in truth the opening picture was effective.  Sixteen black-robed,
+long-bearded Netherland envoys stalking away, discomfited and indignant
+upon one side; Catharine de' Medici on the other, regarding them with a
+sneer, painfully contorted into a pathetic smile; Henry the King, robed
+in a sack of penitence, trembling and hesitating, leaning on the arm of
+Epergnon, but quailing even under the protection of that mighty
+swordsman; Mucio, careering, truncheon in hand, in full panoply, upon his
+war-horse, waving forward a mingled mass of German lanzknechts, Swiss
+musketeers, and Lorraine pikemen; the redoubtable Don Bernardino de
+Mendoza, in front, frowning and ferocious, with his drawn sword in his
+hand; Elizabeth of England, in the back ground, with the white-bearded
+Burghley and the monastic Walsingham, all surveying the scene with eyes
+of deepest meaning; and, somewhat aside, but in full view, silent, calm,
+and imperturbably good-humoured, the bold Bearnese, standing with a
+mischievous but prophetic smile glittering through his blue eyes and
+curly beard--thus grouped were the personages of the drama in the
+introductory scenes.
+
+The course of public events which succeeded the departure of the
+Netherland deputies is sufficiently well known.  The secret negotiations
+and intrigues, however, by which those external facts were preceded or
+accompanied rest mainly in dusty archives, and it was therefore necessary
+to dwell somewhat at length upon them in the preceding pages.
+
+The treaty of Joinville was signed on the last day of the year 1584.
+
+We have seen the real nature of the interview of Ambassador Mendoza with
+Henry III. and his mother, which took place early in January, 1585.
+Immediately after that conference, Don Bernardino betook himself to the
+Duke of Guise, and lost no time in stimulating his confederate to prompt
+but secret action.
+
+The Netherland envoys had their last audience on the 18th March, and
+their departure and disappointment was the signal for the general
+exhibition and explosion.  The great civil war began, and the man who
+refused to annex the Netherlands to the French kingdom soon ceased to be
+regarded as a king.
+
+On the 31st March, the heir presumptive, just manufactured by the Guises,
+sent forth his manifesto.  Cardinal Bourbon, by this document, declared
+that for twenty-four years past no proper measures had been taken to
+extirpate the heresy by which France was infested.  There was no natural
+heir to the King.  Those who claimed to succeed at his death had deprived
+themselves, by heresy, of their rights.  Should they gain their ends, the
+ancient religion would be abolished throughout the kingdom, as it had
+been in England, and Catholics be subjected to the same frightful
+tortures which they were experiencing there.  New men, admitted to the
+confidence of the crown, clothed with the highest honours, and laden with
+enormous emoluments, had excluded the ancient and honoured functionaries
+of the state, who had been obliged to sell out their offices to these
+upstart successors.  These new favourites had seized the finances of the
+kingdom, all of which were now collected into the private coffers of the
+King, and shared by him with his courtiers.  The people were groaning
+under new taxes invented every day, yet they knew nothing of the
+distribution of the public treasure, while the King himself was so
+impoverished as to be unable to discharge his daily debts.  Meantime
+these new advisers of the crown had renewed to the Protestants of the
+kingdom the religious privileges of which they had so justly been
+deprived, yet the religious peace which had followed had not brought with
+it the promised diminution of the popular burthens.  Never had the nation
+been so heavily taxed or reduced to such profound misery.  For these
+reasons, he, Cardinal Bourbon, with other princes of the blood, peers,
+gentlemen, cities, and universities, had solemnly bound themselves by
+oath to extirpate heresy down to the last root, and to save the people
+from the dreadful load under which they were languishing.  It was for
+this that they had taken up arms, and till that purpose was accomplished
+they would never lay them down.
+
+The paper concluded with the hope that his Majesty would not take these
+warlike demonstrations amiss; and a copy of the document was placed in
+the royal hands.
+
+It was very obvious to the most superficial observer, that the manifesto
+was directed almost as much against the reigning sovereign as against
+Henry of Navarre.  The adherents of the Guise faction, and especially
+certain theologians in their employ, had taken very bold grounds upon the
+relations between king and subjects, and had made the public very
+familiar with their doctrines.  It was a duty, they said, "to depose a
+prince who did not discharge his duty.  Authority ill regulated was
+robbery, and it was as absurd to call him a king who knew not how to
+govern, as it was to take a blind man for a guide, or to believe that a
+statue could influence the movements of living men."
+
+Yet to the faction, inspired by such rebellious sentiments, and which was
+thundering in his face such tremendous denunciations, the unhappy Henry
+could not find a single royal or manly word of reply.  He threw himself
+on his knees, when, if ever, he should have assumed an attitude of
+command.  He answered the insolence of the men, who were parading their
+contempt for his authority, by humble excuses, and supplications for
+pardon.  He threw his crown in the dust before their feet, as if such
+humility would induce them to place it again upon his head.  He abandoned
+the minions who had been his pride, his joy, and his defence, and
+deprecated, with an abject whimper, all responsibility for the unmeasured
+ambition and the insatiable rapacity of a few private individuals.  He
+conjured the party-leaders, who had hurled defiance in his face, to lay
+down their arms, and promised that they should find in his wisdom and
+bounty more than all the advantages which they were seeking to obtain by
+war.
+
+Henry of Navarre answered in a different strain.  The gauntlet had at
+last been thrown down to him, and he came forward to take it up; not
+insolently nor carelessly, but with the cold courtesy of a Christian
+knight and valiant gentleman.  He denied the charge of heresy.  He avowed
+detestation of all doctrines contrary to the Word of God, to the decrees
+of the Fathers of the Church, or condemned by the Councils.
+
+The errors and abuses which had from time to time crept into the church,
+had long demanded, in the opinion of all pious persons, some measures of
+reform.  After many bloody wars, no better remedy had been discovered to
+arrest the cause of these dire religious troubles, whether in France or
+Germany, than to permit all men to obey the dictates of their own
+conscience.  The Protestants had thus obtained in France many edicts by
+which the peace of the kingdom had been secured.  He could not himself be
+denounced as a heretic, for he had always held himself ready to receive
+instruction, and to be set right where he had erred.  To call him
+"relapsed" was an outrage.  Were it true, he were indeed unworthy of the
+crown, but the world knew that his change at the Massacre of St.
+Bartholomew had been made under duresse, and that he had returned to the
+reformed faith when he had recovered his liberty.  Religious toleration
+had been the object of his life.  In what the tyranny of the popes and
+the violence of the Spaniards had left him of his kingdom of Navarre,
+Catholics and Protestants enjoyed a perfect religious liberty.  No man
+had the right, therefore, to denounce him as an enemy of the church, or
+a disturber of the public repose, for he had ever been willing to accept
+all propositions of peace which left the rights of conscience protected.
+
+He was a Frenchman, a prince of France, a living member of the kingdom;
+feeling with its pains, and bleeding with its wounds.  They who denounced
+him were alien to France, factitious portions of her body, feeling no
+suffering, even should she be consuming with living fire.  The Leaguers
+were the friends and the servants of the Spaniards, while he had been
+born the enemy, and with too good reason, of the whole Spanish race.
+
+"Let the name of Papist and of Huguenot," he said, "be heard no more
+among us.  Those terms were buried in the edict of peace.  Let us speak
+only of Frenchmen and of Spaniards.  It is the counter-league which we
+must all unite to form, the natural union of the head with all its
+members."
+
+Finally, to save the shedding of so much innocent blood, to spare all the
+countless miseries of civil war, he implored the royal permission to
+terminate this quarrel in person, by single combat with the Duke of
+Guise, one to one, two to two, or in as large a number as might be
+desired, and upon any spot within or without the kingdom that should be
+assigned.  "The Duke of Guise," said Henry of Navarre, "cannot but accept
+my challenge as an honour, coming as it does from a prince infinitely his
+superior in rank; and thus, may God defend the right."
+
+This paper, drawn up by the illustrious Duplessis-Mornay, who was to have
+been the second of the King of Navarre in the proposed duel, was signed
+10 June 1585.
+
+The unfortunate Henry III., not so dull as to doubt that the true object
+of the Guise party was to reduce him to insignificance, and to open their
+own way to the throne, was too impotent of purpose to follow the dictates
+which his wisest counsellors urged and his own reason approved.  His
+choice had lain between open hostility with his Spanish enemy and a more
+terrible combat with that implacable foe wearing the mask of friendship.
+He had refused to annex to his crown the rich and powerful Netherlands,
+from dread of a foreign war; and he was now about to accept for himself
+and kingdom all the horrors of a civil contest, in which his avowed
+antagonist was the first captain of the age, and his nominal allies the
+stipendiaries of Philip II.
+
+Villeroy, his prime minister, and Catharine de' Medici, his mother, had
+both devoted him to disgrace and ruin.  The deputies from the Netherlands
+had been dismissed, and now, notwithstanding the festivities and
+exuberant demonstrations of friendship with which the Earl of Derby's
+splendid embassy had been greeted, it became necessary to bind Henry hand
+and foot to the conspirators, who had sworn the destruction of that
+Queen, as well as his own, and the extirpation of heresy and heretics in
+every realm of Christendom.
+
+On the 9th June the league demanded a royal decree, forbidding the
+practice of all religion but the Roman Catholic, on pain of death.  In
+vain had the clear-sighted Bishop of Acqs uttered his eloquent warnings.
+Despite such timely counsels, which he was capable at once of
+appreciating and of neglecting, Henry followed slavishly the advice of
+those whom he knew in his heart to be his foes, and authorised the great
+conspiracy against Elizabeth, against Protestantism, and against himself.
+
+On the 5th June Villeroy had expressed a wish for a very secret interview
+with Mendoza, on the subject of the invasion of England.
+
+"It needed not this overture," said that magniloquent Spaniard, "to
+engender in a person of my talents, and with the heart of a Mendoza,
+venom enough for vengeance.  I could not more desire than I did already
+to assist in so holy a work; nor could I aspire to greater honour than
+would be gained in uniting those crowns (of France and Spain) in strict
+friendship, for the purpose of extirpating heresy throughout Europe, and
+of chastising the Queen of England--whose abominations I am never likely
+to forget, having had them so long before my eyes--and of satisfying my
+just resentment for the injuries she has inflicted on myself.  It was on
+this subject," continued the ambassador, "that Monsieur de Villeroy
+wished a secret interview with me, pledging himself--if your Majesty
+would deign to unite yourself with this King, and to aid him with your
+forces--to a successful result."
+
+Mendoza accordingly expressed a willingness to meet the ingenuous
+Secretary of State--who had so recently been assisting at the banquets
+and rejoicings with Lord Derby and his companions, which had so much
+enlivened the French capital--and assured him that his most Catholic
+Majesty would be only too glad to draw closer the bonds of friendship
+with the most Christian King, for the service of God and the glory of
+his Church.
+
+The next day the envoy and the Secretary of State met, very secretly, in
+the house of the Signor Gondi.  Villeroy commenced his harangue by an
+allusion to the current opinion, that Mendoza had arrived in France with
+a torch in his hand, to light the fires of civil war in that kingdom, as
+he had recently done in England.
+
+"I do not believe," replied Mendoza, "that discreet and prudent persons
+in France attribute my actions to any such motives.  As for the ignorant
+people of the kingdom, they do not appal me, although they evidently
+imagine that I have imbibed, during my residence in England, something of
+the spirit of the enchanter Merlin, that, by signs and cabalistic words
+alone, I am thought capable of producing such commotions."
+
+After this preliminary flourish the envoy proceeded to complain bitterly
+of the most Christian King and his mother, who, after the propositions
+which they had made him, when on his way to Spain, had, since his return,
+become so very cold and dry towards him.  And on this theme he enlarged
+for some time.
+
+Villeroy replied, by complaining, in his turn, about the dealings of the
+most Catholic King, with the leaguers and the rebels of France; and
+Mendoza rejoined by an intimation that harping upon past grievances and
+suspicions was hardly the way to bring about harmony in present matters.
+
+Struck with the justice of this remark, the French Secretary of State
+entered at once upon business.  He made a very long speech upon the
+tyranny which "that Englishwoman" was anew inflicting upon the Catholics
+in her kingdom, upon the offences which she had committed against the
+King of Spain, and against the King of France and his brothers, and upon
+the aliment which she had been yielding to the civil war in the
+Netherlands and in France for so many years.  He then said that if
+Mendoza would declare with sincerity, and "without any of the duplicity
+of a minister"--that Philip would league himself with Henry for the
+purpose of invading England, in order to reduce the three kingdoms to the
+Catholic faith, and to place their crowns on the head of the Queen of
+Scotland, to whom they of right belonged; then that the King, his master,
+was most ready to join in so holy an enterprise.  He begged Mendoza to
+say with what number of troops the invasion could be made; whether Philip
+could send any from Flanders or from Spain; how many it would be well to
+send from France, and under what chieftain; in what manner it would be
+best to communicate with his most Catholic Majesty; whether it were
+desirable to despatch a secret envoy to him, and of what quality such
+agent ought to be.  He also observed that the most Christian King could
+not himself speak to Mendoza on the subject before having communicated
+the matter to the Queen-Mother, but expressed a wish that a special
+carrier might be forthwith despatched to Spain; for he might be sure
+that, on an affair of such weight, he would not have permitted himself to
+reveal the secret wishes of his master, except by his commands.
+
+Mendoza replied, by enlarging with much enthusiasm on the facility with
+which England could be conquered by the combined power of France and
+Spain.  If it were not a very difficult matter before--even with the
+jealousy between the two crowns--how much less so, now that they could
+join their fleets and armies; now that the arming by the one prince would
+not inspire the other with suspicion; now that they would be certain of
+finding safe harbour in each other's kingdoms, in case of unfavourable
+weather and head-winds, and that they could arrange from what ports to
+sail, in what direction, and under what commanders.  He disapproved,
+however, of sending a special messenger to Spain, on the ground of
+wishing to keep the matter entirely secret, but in reality--as he
+informed Philip--because he chose to keep the management in his own
+hands; because he could always let slip Mucio upon them, in case they
+should play him false; because he feared that the leaking out of the
+secret might discourage the Leaguers, and because he felt that the bolder
+and more lively were the Cardinal of Bourbon and his confederates, the
+stronger was the party of the King, his master, and the more intimidated
+and dispirited would be the mind and the forces of the most Christian
+King.  "And this is precisely the point," said the diplomatist, "at which
+a minister of your Majesty should aim at this season."
+
+Thus the civil war in France--an indispensable part of Philip's policy--
+was to be maintained at all hazards; and although the ambassador was of
+opinion that the most Christian King was sincere in his proposition to
+invade England, it would never do to allow any interval of tranquillity
+to the wretched subjects of that Christian King.
+
+"I cannot doubt," said Mendoza, "that the making of this proposal to me
+with so much warmth was the especial persuasion of God, who, hearing the
+groans of the Catholics of England, so cruelly afflicted, wished to force
+the French King and his minister to feel, in the necessity which
+surrounds them, that the offending Him, by impeding the grandeur of your
+Majesty, would be their total ruin, and that their only salvation is to
+unite in sincerity and truth with your Majesty for the destruction of the
+heretics."
+
+Therefore, although judging from the nature of the French--he might
+imagine that they were attempting to put him to sleep, Mendoza, on the
+whole, expressed a conviction that the King was in earnest, having
+arrived at the conclusion that he could only get rid of the Guise faction
+by sending them over to England.  "Seeing that he cannot possibly
+eradicate the war from his kingdom," said the envoy, "because of the
+boldness with which the Leaguers maintain it, with the strong assistance
+of your Majesty, he has determined to embrace with much fervour, and
+without any deception at all, the enterprise against England, as the only
+remedy to quiet his own dominions.  The subjugation of those three
+kingdoms, in order to restore them to their rightful owner, is a purpose
+so holy, just, and worthy of your Majesty, and one which you have had so
+constantly in view, that it is superfluous for me to enlarge upon the
+subject.  Your Majesty knows that its effects will be the tranquillity
+and preservation of all your realms.  The reasons for making the attempt,
+even without the aid of France, become demonstrations now that she is
+unanimously in favour of the scheme.  The most Christian King is
+resolutely bent--so far as I can comprehend the intrigues of Villeroy--
+to carry out this project on the foundation of a treaty with the Guise
+party.  It will not take much time, therefore, to put down the heretics
+here; nor will it consume much more to conquer England with the armies of
+two such powerful Princes.  The power of that island is of little moment,
+there being no disciplined forces to oppose us, even if they were all
+unanimous in its defence; how much less then, with so many Catholics to
+assist the invaders, seeing them so powerful.  If your Majesty, on
+account of your Netherlands, is not afraid of putting arms into the hands
+of the Guise family in France, there need be less objection to sending
+one of that house into England, particularly as you will send forces of
+your own into that kingdom, by the reduction of which the affairs of
+Flanders will be secured.  To effect the pacification of the Netherlands
+the sooner, it would be desirable to conquer England as early as
+October."
+
+Having thus sufficiently enlarged upon the sincerity of the French King
+and his prime minister, in their dark projects against a friendly power,
+and upon the ease with which that friendly power could be subjected, the
+ambassador begged for a reply from his royal master without delay.  He
+would be careful, meantime, to keep the civil war alive in France--thus
+verifying the poetical portrait of himself, the truth of which he had
+just been so indignantly and rhetorically denying--but it was desirable
+that the French should believe that this civil war was not Philip's sole
+object.  He concluded by drawing his master's attention to the sufferings
+of the English Catholics.  "I cannot refrain," he said, "from placing
+before your eyes the terrible persecutions which the Catholics are
+suffering in England; the blood of the martyrs flowing in so many kinds
+of torments; the groans of the prisoners, of the widows and orphans; the
+general oppression and servitude, which is the greatest ever endured by a
+people of God, under any tyrant whatever.  Your Majesty, into whose hands
+God is now pleased to place the means, so long desired, of extirpating
+and totally destroying the heresies of our time, can alone liberate them
+from their bondage."
+
+The picture of these kings, prime ministers, and ambassadors, thus
+plotting treason, stratagem, and massacre, is a dark and dreary one.
+The description of English sufferings for conscience' sake, under the
+Protestant Elizabeth, is even more painful; for it had unfortunately too
+much, of truth, although as wilfully darkened and exaggerated as could be
+done by religious hatred and Spanish bombast.  The Queen was surrounded
+by legions of deadly enemies.  Spain, the Pope, the League, were united
+in one perpetual conspiracy against her; and they relied on the
+cooperation of those subjects of hers whom her own cruelty was
+converting into traitors.
+
+We read with a shudder these gloomy secrets of conspiracy and wholesale
+murder, which make up the diplomatic history of the sixteenth century,
+and we cease to wonder that a woman, feeling herself so continually the
+mark at which all the tyrants and assassins of Europe were aiming--
+although not possessing perhaps the evidences of her peril so completely
+as they have been revealed to us--should come to consider every English
+Papist as a traitor and an assassin.  It was unfortunate that she was not
+able to rise beyond the vile instincts of the age, and by a magnanimous
+and sublime toleration, to convert her secret enemies into loyal
+subjects.
+
+And now Henry of Valois was to choose between league and counter-league,
+between Henry of Guise and Henry of Navarre, between France and Spain.
+The whole chivalry of Gascony and Guienne, the vast swarm of industrious
+and hardy Huguenot artisans, the Netherland rebels, the great English
+Queen, stood ready to support the cause of French nationality, and of all
+nationalities, against a threatening world-empire, of religious liberty
+against sacerdotal absolutism, and the crown of a King, whose only merit
+had hitherto been to acquiesce in a religious toleration dictated to him
+by others, against those who derided his authority and insulted his
+person.  The bold knight-errant of Christendom, the champion to the
+utterance against Spain, stood there with lance in rest, and the King
+scarcely hesitated.
+
+The League, gliding so long unheeded, now reared its crest in the very
+palace of France, and full in the monarch's face.  With a single shudder
+the victim fell into its coils.
+
+The choice was made.  On the 18th of July (1585) the edict of Nemours was
+published, revoking all previous edicts by which religious peace had been
+secured.  Death and confiscation of property were now proclaimed as the
+penalty of practising any religious rites save those of the Roman
+Catholic Church.  Six months were allowed to the Nonconformists to put
+their affairs in order, after which they were to make public profession
+of the Catholic religion, with regular attendance upon its ceremonies,
+or else go into perpetual exile.  To remain in France without abjuring
+heresy was thenceforth a mortal crime, to be expiated upon the gallows.
+As a matter of course, all Huguenots were instantaneously incapacitated
+from public office, the mixed chambers of justice were abolished, and the
+cautionary towns were to be restored.  On the other hand, the Guise
+faction were to receive certain cities into their possession, as pledges
+that this sanguinary edict should be fulfilled.
+
+Thus did Henry III. abjectly kiss the hand which smote him.  His mother,
+having since the death of Anjou no further interest in affecting to
+favour the Huguenots, had arranged the basis of this treaty with the
+Spanish party.  And now the unfortunate King had gone solemnly down to
+the Parliament of Paris, to be present at the registration of the edict.
+The counsellors and presidents were all assembled, and as they sat there
+in their crimson robes, they seemed, to the excited imagination of those
+who loved their country, like embodiments of the impending and most
+sanguinary tragedy.  As the monarch left the parliament-house a faint cry
+of 'God save the King' was heard in the street.  Henry hung his head, for
+it was long since that cry had met his ears, and he knew that it was a
+false and languid demonstration which had been paid for by the Leaguers.
+
+And thus was the compact signed--an unequal compact.  Madam League was on
+horseback, armed in proof, said a contemporary; the King was on foot, and
+dressed in a shirt of penitence.  The alliance was not an auspicious one.
+Not peace, but a firebrand--'facem, non pacem'--had the King held
+forth to his subjects.
+
+When the news came to Henry of Navarre that the King had really
+promulgated this fatal edict, he remained for a time, with amazement and
+sorrow, leaning heavily upon a table, with his face in his right hand.
+When he raised his head again--so he afterwards asserted--one side of his
+moustachio had turned white.
+
+Meantime Gregory XIII., who had always refused to sanction the League,
+was dead, and Cardinal Peretti, under the name of Sixtus V., now reigned
+in his place.  Born of an illustrious house, as he said--for it was a
+house without a roof--this monk of humble origin was of inordinate
+ambition.  Feigning a humility which was but the cloak to his pride, he
+was in reality as grasping, self-seeking, and revengeful, as he seemed
+gentle and devout.  It was inevitable that a pontiff of this character
+should seize the opportunity offered him to mimic Hildebrand, and to
+brandish on high the thunderbolts of the Church.
+
+With a flaming prelude concerning the omnipotence delegated by Almighty
+God to St. Peter and his successors--an authority infinitely superior to
+all earthly powers--the decrees of which were irresistible alike by the
+highest and the meanest, and which hurled misguided princes from their
+thrones into the abyss, like children of Beelzebub, the Pope proceeded to
+fulminate his sentence of excommunication against those children of
+wrath, Henry of Navarre and Henry of Conde.  They were denounced as
+heretics, relapsed, and enemies of God (28th Aug.1585).  The King was
+declared dispossessed of his principality of Bearne, and of what remained
+to him of Navarre.  He was stripped of all dignities, privileges, and
+property, and especially proclaimed incapable of ever ascending the
+throne of France.
+
+The Bearnese replied by a clever political squib.  A terse and spirited
+paper found its way to Rome, and was soon affixed, to the statutes of
+Pasquin and Marforio, and in other public places of that city, and even
+to the gates of the papal palace.  Without going beyond his own doors,
+his Holiness had the opportunity of reading, to his profound amazement,
+that Mr. Sixtus, calling himself Pope, had foully and maliciously lied in
+calling the King of Navarre a heretic.  This Henry offered to prove
+before any free council legitimately chosen.  If the Pope refused to
+submit to such decision, he was himself no better than excommunicate and
+Antichrist, and the King of Navarre thereby declared mortal and perpetual
+war upon him.  The ancient kings of France had known how to chastise the
+insolence of former popes, and he hoped, when he ascended the throne, to
+take vengeance on Mr. Sixtus for the insult thus offered to all the kings
+of Christendom--and so on, in a vein which showed the Bearnese to be a
+man rather amused than blasted by these papal fireworks.
+
+Sixtus V., though imperious, was far from being dull.  He knew how to
+appreciate a man when he found one, and he rather admired the cheerful
+attitude maintained by Navarre, as he tossed back the thunderbolts.  He
+often spoke afterwards of Henry with genuine admiration, and declared
+that in all the world he knew but two persons fit to wear a crown--Henry
+of Navarre and Elizabeth of England.  "'Twas pity," he said, "that both
+should be heretics."
+
+And thus the fires of civil war had been lighted throughout Christendom,
+and the monarch of France had thrown himself head foremost into the
+flames.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Hibernian mode of expressing himself
+His inordinate arrogance
+His insolence intolerable
+Humility which was but the cloak to his pride
+Longer they delay it, the less easy will they find it
+Oration, fertile in rhetoric and barren in facts
+Round game of deception, in which nobody was deceived
+Wasting time fruitlessly is sharpening the knife for himself
+With something of feline and feminine duplicity
+'Twas pity, he said, that both should be heretics
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v38
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History of The United Netherlands, 1585
+
+
+Alexander Farnese, The Duke of Parma
+
+
+CHAPTER V., Part 1.
+
+     Position and Character of Farnese--Preparations for Antwerp Siege--
+     Its Characteristics--Foresight of William the Silent--Sainte
+     Aldegonde, the Burgomaster--Anarchy in Antwerp--Character of Sainte
+     Aldegonde--Admiral Treslong--Justinus de Nassau--Hohenlo--Opposition
+     to the Plan of Orange--Liefkenshoek--Head--Quarters of Parma at
+     Kalloo--Difficulty of supplying the City--Results of not piercing
+     the Dykes--Preliminaries of the Siege--Successes of the Spaniards--
+     Energy of Farnese with Sword and Pen--His Correspondence with the
+     Antwerpers--Progress of the Bridge--Impoverished Condition of Parma
+     --Patriots attempt Bois-le-Duc--Their Misconduct--Failure of the
+     Enterprise--The Scheldt Bridge completed--Description of the
+     Structure
+
+The negotiations between France and the Netherlands have been massed, in
+order to present a connected and distinct view of the relative attitude
+of the different countries of Europe.  The conferences and diplomatic
+protocolling had resulted in nothing positive; but it is very necessary
+for the reader to understand the negative effects of all this
+dissimulation and palace-politics upon the destiny of the new
+commonwealth, and upon Christendom at large.  The League had now achieved
+a great triumph; the King of France had virtually abdicated, and it was
+now requisite for the King of Navarre, the Netherlands, and Queen
+Elizabeth, to draw more closely together than before, if the last hope
+of forming a counter-league were not to be abandoned.  The next step in
+political combination was therefore a solemn embassy of the States-
+General to England.  Before detailing those negotiations, however, it is
+proper to direct attention to the external public events which had been
+unrolling themselves in the Provinces, contemporaneously with the secret
+history which has been detailed in the preceding chapters.
+
+By presenting in their natural groupings various distinct occurrences,
+rather than by detailing them in strict chronological order, a clearer
+view of the whole picture will be furnished than could be done by
+intermingling personages, transactions, and scenery, according to the
+arbitrary command of Time alone.
+
+The Netherlands, by the death of Orange, had been left without a head.
+On the other hand, the Spanish party had never been so fortunate in their
+chief at any period since the destiny of the two nations had been blended
+with each other.  Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, was a general and a
+politician, whose character had been steadily ripening since he came into
+the command of the country.  He was now thirty-seven years of age--with
+the experience of a sexagenarian.  No longer the impetuous, arbitrary,
+hot-headed youth, whose intelligence and courage hardly atoned for his
+insolent manner and stormy career, he had become pensive, modest, almost
+gentle.  His genius was rapid in conception, patient in combination,
+fertile in expedients, adamantine in the endurance or suffering; for
+never did a heroic general and a noble army of veterans manifest more
+military virtue in the support of an infamous cause than did Parma and
+his handful of Italians and Spaniards.  That which they considered to be
+their duty they performed.  The work before them they did with all their
+might.
+
+Alexander had vanquished the rebellion in the Celtic provinces, by the
+masterly diplomacy and liberal bribery which have been related in a
+former work.  Artois, Hainault, Douay, Orchies, with the rich cities of
+Lille, Tournay, Valenciennes, Arras, and other important places, were now
+the property of Philip.  These unhappy and misguided lands, however, were
+already reaping the reward of their treason.  Beggared, trampled upon,
+plundered, despised, they were at once the prey of the Spaniards, and the
+cause that their sister-states, which still held out, were placed in more
+desperate condition than ever.  They were also, even in their abject
+plight, made still more forlorn by the forays of Balagny, who continued
+in command of Cambray.  Catharine de' Medici claimed that city as her
+property, by will of the Duke of Anjou.  A strange title--founded upon
+the treason and cowardice of her favourite son--but one which, for a
+time, was made good by the possession maintained by Balagny.  That
+usurper meantime, with a shrewd eye to his own interests, pronounced the
+truce of Cambray, which was soon afterwards arranged, from year to year,
+by permission of Philip, as a "most excellent milch-cow;" and he
+continued to fill his pails at the expense of the "reconciled" provinces,
+till they were thoroughly exhausted.
+
+This large south-western section of the Netherlands being thus
+permanently re-annexed to the Spanish crown, while Holland, Zeeland, and
+the other provinces, already constituting the new Dutch republic, were
+more obstinate in their hatred of Philip than ever, there remained the
+rich and fertile territory of Flanders and Brabant as the great
+debateable land.  Here were the royal and political capital, Brussels,
+the commercial capital, Antwerp, with Mechlin, Dendermonde, Vilvoorde,
+and other places of inferior importance, all to be struggled for to the
+death.  With the subjection of this district the last bulwark between the
+new commonwealth and the old empire would be overthrown, and Spain and
+Holland would then meet face to face.
+
+If there had ever been a time when every nerve in Protestant Christendom
+should be strained to weld all those provinces together into one great
+commonwealth, as a bulwark for European liberty, rather than to allow
+them to be broken into stepping-stones, over which absolutism could
+stride across France and Holland into England, that moment had arrived.
+Every sacrifice should have been cheerfully made by all Netherlanders,
+the uttermost possible subsidies and auxiliaries should have been
+furnished by all the friends of civil and religious liberty in every land
+to save Flanders and Brabant from their impending fate.
+
+No man felt more keenly the importance of the business in which he was
+engaged than Parma.  He knew his work exactly, and he meant to execute it
+thoroughly.  Antwerp was the hinge on which the fate of the whole
+country, perhaps of all Christendom, was to turn.  "If we get Antwerp,"
+said the Spanish soldiers--so frequently that the expression passed into
+a proverb--"you shall all go to mass with us; if you save Antwerp, we
+will all go to conventicle with you."
+
+Alexander rose with the difficulty and responsibility of his situation.
+His vivid, almost poetic intellect formed its schemes with perfect
+distinctness.  Every episode in his great and, as he himself termed it,
+his "heroic enterprise," was traced out beforehand with the tranquil
+vision of creative genius; and he was prepared to convert his conceptions
+into reality, with the aid of an iron nature that never knew fatigue or
+fear.
+
+But the obstacles were many.  Alexander's master sat in his cabinet with
+his head full of Mucio, Don Antonio, and Queen Elizabeth; while Alexander
+himself was left neglected, almost forgotten.  His army was shrinking to
+a nullity.  The demands upon him were enormous, his finances delusive,
+almost exhausted.  To drain an ocean dry he had nothing but a sieve.
+What was his position?  He could bring into the field perhaps eight or
+ten thousand men over and above the necessary garrisons.  He had before
+him Brussels, Antwerp, Mechlin, Ghent, Dendermonde, and other powerful
+places, which he was to subjugate.  Here was a problem not easy of
+solution.  Given an army of eight thousand, more or less, to reduce
+therewith in the least possible time, half-a-dozen cities; each
+containing fifteen or twenty thousand men able to bear arms.  To besiege
+these places in form was obviously a mere chimera.  Assault, battery, and
+surprises--these were all out of the question.
+
+Yet Alexander was never more truly heroic than in this position of vast
+entanglement.  Untiring, uncomplaining, thoughtful of others, prodigal of
+himself, generous, modest, brave; with so much intellect and so much
+devotion to what he considered his duty, he deserved to be a patriot and
+a champion of the right, rather than an instrument of despotism.
+
+And thus he paused for a moment--with much work already accomplished,
+but his hardest life-task before him; still in the noon of manhood,
+a fine martial figure, standing, spear in hand, full in the sunlight,
+though all the scene around him was wrapped in gloom--a noble, commanding
+shape, entitled to the admiration which the energetic display of great
+powers, however unscrupulous, must always command.  A dark, meridional
+physiognomy, a quick; alert, imposing head; jet black, close-clipped
+hair; a bold eagle's face, with full, bright, restless eye; a man rarely
+reposing, always ready, never alarmed; living in the saddle, with harness
+on his back--such was the Prince of Parma; matured and mellowed, but
+still unharmed by time.
+
+The cities of Flanders and Brabant he determined to reduce by gaining
+command of the Scheldt.  The five principal ones Ghent, Dendermonde,
+Mechlin, Brussels Antwerp, lie narrow circle, at distances from each
+other varying from five miles to thirty, and are all strung together by
+the great Netherland river or its tributaries.  His plan was immensely
+furthered by the success of Balthasar Gerard, an ally whom Alexander had
+despised and distrusted, even while he employed him.  The assassination
+of Orange was better to Parma than forty thousand men.  A crowd of allies
+instantly started up for him, in the shape of treason, faintheartedness,
+envy, jealousy, insubordination, within the walls of every beleaguered
+city.  Alexander knew well how to deal with those auxiliaries.  Letters,
+artfully concocted, full of conciliation and of promise, were circulated
+in every council-room, in almost every house.
+
+The surrender of Ghent--brought about by the governor's eloquence, aided
+by the golden arguments which he knew so well how to advance--had by the
+middle of September (19th Sept. 1584), put him in possession of West
+Flanders, with the important exception of the coast.  Dendermonde
+capitulated at a still earlier day; while the fall of Brussels, which
+held out till many persons had been starved to death, was deferred till
+the 10th March of the following year, and that of Mechlin till midsummer.
+
+The details of the military or political operations, by which the
+reduction of most of these places were effected, possess but little
+interest.  The siege of Antwerp, however, was one of the most striking
+events of the age; and although the change in military tactics and the
+progress of science may have rendered this leaguer of less technical
+importance than it possessed in the sixteenth century, yet the
+illustration that it affords of the splendid abilities of Parma, of the
+most cultivated mode of warfare in use at that period, and of the
+internal politics by which the country was then regulated, make it
+necessary to dwell upon the details of an episode which must ever possess
+enduring interest.
+
+It is agreeable to reflect, too, that the fame of the general is not
+polluted with the wholesale butchery, which has stained the reputation of
+other Spanish commanders so indelibly.  There was no killing for the mere
+love of slaughter.  With but few exceptions, there was no murder in cold
+blood; and the many lives that were laid down upon those watery dykes
+were sacrificed at least in bold, open combat; in a contest, the ruling
+spirits of which were patriotism, or at least honour.
+
+It is instructive, too, to observe the diligence and accuracy with which
+the best lights of the age were brought to bear upon the great problem
+which Parma had undertaken to solve.  All the science then at command was
+applied both by the Prince and by his burgher antagonists to the
+advancement of their ends.  Hydrostatics, hydraulics, engineering,
+navigation, gunnery, pyrotechnics, mining, geometry, were summoned as
+broadly, vigorously, and intelligently to the destruction or preservation
+of a trembling city, as they have ever been, in more commercial days, to
+advance a financial or manufacturing purpose.  Land converted into water,
+and water into land, castles built upon the breast of rapid streams,
+rivers turned from their beds and taught new courses; the distant ocean
+driven across ancient bulwarks, mines dug below the sea, and canals made
+to percolate obscene morasses--which the red hand of war, by the very
+act, converted into blooming gardens--a mighty stream bridged and
+mastered in the very teeth of winter, floating ice-bergs, ocean-tides,
+and an alert and desperate foe, ever ready with fleets and armies and
+batteries--such were the materials of which the great spectacle was
+composed; a spectacle which enchained the attention of Europe for seven
+months, and on the result of which, it was thought, depended the fate of
+all the Netherlands, and perhaps of all Christendom.
+
+Antwerp, then the commercial centre of the Netherlands and of Europe,
+stands upon the Scheldt.  The river, flowing straight, broad, and full
+along the verge of the city, subtends the arc into which the place
+arranges itself as it falls back from the shore.  Two thousand ships of
+the largest capacity then known might easily find room in its ample
+harbours.  The stream, nearly half a mile in width, and sixty feet in
+depth, with a tidal rise and fall of eleven feet, moves, for a few miles,
+in a broad and steady current between the provinces of Brabant and
+Flanders.  Then, dividing itself into many ample estuaries, and gathering
+up the level isles of Zeeland into its bosom, it seems to sweep out with
+them into the northern ocean.  Here, at the junction of the river and the
+sea, lay the perpetual hope of Antwerp, for in all these creeks and
+currents swarmed the fleets of the Zeelanders, that hardy and amphibious
+race, with which few soldiers or mariners could successfully contend, on
+land or water.
+
+Even from the beginning of the year 1584 Parma had been from time to time
+threatening Antwerp.  The victim instinctively felt that its enemy was
+poising and hovering over head, although he still delayed to strike.
+Early in the summer Sainte Aldegonde, Recorder Martini, and other
+official personages, were at Delft, upon the occasion of the christening
+ceremonies of Frederic Henry, youngest child of Orange.  The Prince,
+at that moment, was aware of the plans of Parma, and held a long
+conversation with his friends upon the measures which he desired to see
+immediately undertaken.  Unmindful of his usual hospitality, he insisted
+that these gentlemen should immediately leave for Antwerp.  Alexander
+Farnese, he assured them, had taken the firm determination to possess
+himself of that place, without further delay.  He had privately signified
+his purpose of laying the axe at once to the root of the tree, believing
+that with the fall of the commercial capital the infant confederacy of
+the United States would fall likewise.  In order to accomplish this
+object, he would forthwith attempt to make himself master of the banks
+of the Scheldt, and would even throw a bridge across the stream, if his
+plans were not instantly circumvented.
+
+William of Orange then briefly indicated his plan; adding that he had no
+fears for the result; and assuring his friends, who expressed much
+anxiety on the subject, that if Parma really did attempt the siege of
+Antwerp it should be his ruin.  The plan was perfectly simple.  The city
+stood upon a river.  It was practicable, although extremely hazardous,
+for the enemy to bridge that river, and by so doing ultimately to reduce
+the place.  But the ocean could not be bridged; and it was quite possible
+to convert Antwerp, for a season, into an ocean-port.  Standing alone
+upon an island, with the sea flowing around it, and with full and free
+marine communication with Zeeland and Holland, it might safely bid
+defiance to the land-forces, even of so great a commander as Parma.  To
+the furtherance of this great measure of defence, it was necessary to
+destroy certain bulwarks, the chief of (10th June, 1584) which was called
+the Blaw-garen Dyke; and Sainte Aldegonde was therefore requested to
+return to the city, in order to cause this task to be executed without
+delay.
+
+Nothing could be more judicious than this advice.  The low lands along
+the Scheldt were protected against marine encroachments, and the river
+itself was confined to its bed, by a magnificent system of dykes, which
+extended along its edge towards the ocean, in parallel lines.  Other
+barriers of a similar nature ran in oblique directions, through the wide
+open pasture lands, which they maintained in green fertility, against the
+ever-threatening sea.  The Blaw-garen, to which the prince mainly
+alluded, was connected with the great dyke upon the right bank of the
+Scheldt.  Between this and the city, another bulwark called the Kowenstyn
+Dyke, crossed the country at right angles to the river, and joined the
+other two at a point, not very far from Lillo, where the States had a
+strong fortress.
+
+The country in this neighbourhood was low, spongy, full of creeks, small
+meres, and the old bed of the Scheldt.  Orange, therefore, made it very
+clear, that by piercing the great dyke just described, such a vast body
+of water would be made to pour over the land as to submerge the Kowenstyn
+also, the only other obstacle in the passage of fleets from Zeeland to
+Antwerp.  The city would then be connected with the sea and its islands,
+by so vast an expanse of navigable water, that any attempt on Parma's
+part to cut off supplies and succour would be hopeless.  Antwerp would
+laugh the idea of famine to scorn; and although this immunity would be
+purchased by the sacrifice of a large amount of agricultural territory
+the price so paid was but a slender one, when the existence of the
+capital, and with it perhaps of the whole confederacy was at stake.
+
+Sainte Aldegonde and Martini suggested, that, as there would be some
+opposition to the measure proposed, it might be as well to make a similar
+attempt on the Flemish side, in preference, by breaking through the dykes
+in the neighbourhood of Saftingen.  Orange replied, by demonstrating that
+the land in the region which he had indicated was of a character to
+ensure success, while in the other direction there were certain very
+unfavourable circumstances which rendered the issue doubtful.  The result
+was destined to prove the sagacity of the Prince, for it will be shown in
+the sequel, that the Saftingen plan, afterwards really carried out, was
+rather advantageous than detrimental to the enemy's projects.
+
+Sainte Aldegonde, accordingly, yielded to the arguments and entreaties of
+his friend, and repaired without delay to Antwerp.
+
+The advice of William the Silent--as will soon be related--was not acted
+upon; and, within a few weeks after it had been given, he was in his
+grave.  Nowhere was his loss more severely felt than in Antwerp.  It
+seemed, said a contemporary, that with his death had died all authority.
+The Prince was the only head which the many-membered body of that very
+democratic city ever spontaneously obeyed.  Antwerp was a small republic
+--in time of peace intelligently and successfully administered--which in
+the season of a great foreign war, amid plagues, tumults, famine, and
+internal rebellion, required the firm hand and the clear brain of a
+single chief.  That brain and hand had been possessed by Orange alone.
+
+Before his death he had desired that Sainte Aldegonde should accept the
+office of burgomaster of the city.  Nominally, the position was not so
+elevated as were many of the posts which that distinguished patriot had
+filled.  In reality, it was as responsible and arduous a place as could
+be offered to any man's acceptance throughout the country.  Sainte
+Aldegonde consented, not without some reluctance.  He felt that there
+was odium to be incurred; he knew that much would be expected of him,
+and that his means would be limited.  His powers would be liable to a
+constant and various restraint.  His measures were sure to be the subject
+of perpetual cavil.  If the city were besieged, there were nearly one
+hundred thousand mouths to feed, and nearly one hundred thousand tongues
+to dispute about furnishing the food.
+
+For the government of Antwerp had been degenerating from a well-organised
+municipal republicanism into anarchy.  The clashing of the various bodies
+exercising power had become incessant and intolerable.  The burgomaster
+was charged with the chief executive authority, both for peace and war.
+Nevertheless he had but a single vote in the board of magistrates, where
+a majority decided.  Moreover, he could not always attend the sessions,
+because he was also member of the council of Brabant.  Important measures
+might therefore be decided by the magistracy, not only against his
+judgment, but without his knowledge.  Then there was a variety of boards
+or colleges, all arrogating concurrent--which in truth was conflicting-
+authority.  There was the board of militia-colonels, which claimed great
+powers.  Here, too, the burgomaster was nominally the chief, but he might
+be voted down by a majority, and of course was often absent.  Then there
+were sixteen captains who came into the colonels' sessions whenever they
+liked, and had their word to say upon all subjects broached.  If they
+were refused a hearing, they were backed by eighty other captains, who
+were ready at any moment to carry every disputed point before the
+"broadcouncil."
+
+There were a college of ward-masters, a college of select men, a college
+of deacons, a college of ammunition, of fortification, of ship-building,
+all claiming equal authority, and all wrangling among themselves; and
+there was a college of "peace-makers," who wrangled more than all the
+rest together.
+
+Once a week there was a session of the board or general council.  Dire
+was the hissing and confusion, as the hydra heads of the multitudinous
+government were laid together.  Heads of colleges, presidents of
+chambers, militia-chieftains; magistrates, ward-masters, deans of
+fishmongers, of tailors, gardeners, butchers, all met together pell-mell;
+and there was no predominant authority.  This was not a convenient
+working machinery for a city threatened with a siege by the first captain
+of the age.  Moreover there was a deficiency of regular troops: The
+burgher-militia were well trained and courageous, but not distinguished
+for their docility.  There was also a regiment of English under Colonel
+Morgan, a soldier of great experience, and much respected; but, as
+Stephen Le Sieur said, "this force, unless seconded with more, was but a
+breakfast for the enemy."  Unfortunately, too, the insubordination, which
+was so ripe in the city, seemed to affect these auxiliaries.  A mutiny
+broke out among the English troops.  Many deserted to Parma, some escaped
+to England, and it was not until Morgan had beheaded Captain Lee and
+Captain Powell, that discipline could be restored.
+
+And into this scene of wild and deafening confusion came Philip de
+Marnix, Lord of Sainte Aldegonde.
+
+There were few more brilliant characters than he in all Christendom.  He
+was a man, of a most rare and versatile genius.  Educated in Geneva at
+the very feet of Calvin, he had drunk, like mother's milk, the strong and
+bitter waters of the stern reformer's, creed; but he had in after life
+attempted, although hardly with success, to lift himself to the height of
+a general religious toleration.  He had also been trained in the severe
+and thorough literary culture which characterised that rigid school.  He
+was a scholar, ripe and rare; no holiday trifler in the gardens of
+learning.  He spoke and wrote Latin like his native tongue.  He could
+compose poignant Greek epigrams.  He was so familiar with Hebrew, that he
+had rendered the Psalms of David out of the original into flowing Flemish
+verse, for the use of the reformed churches.  That he possessed the
+modern tongues of civilized Europe, Spanish, Italian, French, and German,
+was a matter of course.  He was a profound jurisconsult, capable of
+holding debate against all competitors upon any point of theory or
+practice of law, civil, municipal, international.  He was a learned
+theologian, and had often proved himself a match for the doctors,
+bishops, or rabbin of Europe, in highest argument of dogma, creed, or
+tradition.  He was a practised diplomatist, constantly employed in
+delicate and difficult negotiations by William the Silent, who ever
+admired his genius, cherished his friendship, and relied upon his
+character.  He was an eloquent orator, whose memorable harangue, beyond
+all his other efforts, at the diet of Worms, had made the German princes
+hang their heads with shame, when, taking a broad and philosophical view
+of the Netherland matter, he had shown that it was the great question of
+Europe; that Nether Germany was all Germany; that Protestantism could not
+be unravelled into shreds; that there was but one cause in Christendom--
+that of absolutism against national liberty, Papacy against the reform;
+and that the seventeen Provinces were to be assisted in building
+themselves into an eternal barrier against Spain, or that the "burning
+mark of shame would be branded upon the forehead of Germany;" that the
+war, in short, was to be met by her on the threshold; or else that it
+would come to seek her at home--a prophecy which the horrible Thirty
+Years' War was in after time most signally to verify.
+
+He was a poet of vigour and originality, for he had accomplished what has
+been achieved by few; he had composed a national hymn, whose strophes, as
+soon as heard, struck a chord in every Netherland heart, and for three
+centuries long have rung like a clarion wherever the Netherland tongue is
+spoken.  "Wilhelmus van Nassouwe," regarded simply as a literary
+composition, has many of the qualities which an ode demands; an
+electrical touch upon the sentiments, a throb of patriotism, sympathetic
+tenderness, a dash of indignation, with rhythmical harmony and graceful
+expression; and thus it has rung from millions of lips, from generation
+to generation.
+
+He was a soldier, courageous, untiring, prompt in action, useful in
+council, and had distinguished himself in many a hard-fought field.
+Taken prisoner in the sanguinary skirmish at Maaslandssluys, he had been
+confined a year, and, for more than three months, had never laid his
+head, as he declared, upon the pillow without commending his soul as for
+the last time to his Maker, expecting daily the order for his immediate
+execution, and escaping his doom only because William the Silent
+proclaimed that the proudest head among the Spanish prisoners should fall
+to avenge his death; so that he was ultimately exchanged against the
+veteran Mondragon.
+
+From the incipient stages of the revolt he had been foremost among the
+patriots.  He was supposed to be the author of the famous "Compromise of
+the Nobles," that earliest and most conspicuous of the state-papers of
+the republic, and of many other important political documents; and he had
+contributed to general literature many works of European celebrity, of
+which the 'Roman Bee-Hive' was the most universally known.
+
+Scholar, theologian, diplomatist, swordsman, orator, poet, pamphleteer,
+he had genius for all things, and was eminent in all.  He was even famous
+for his dancing, and had composed an intelligent and philosophical
+treatise upon the value of that amusement, as an agent of civilisation,
+and as a counteractor of the grosser pleasures of the table to which
+Upper and Nether Germans were too much addicted.
+
+Of ancient Savoyard extraction, and something of a southern nature, he
+had been born in Brussels, and was national to the heart's core.
+
+A man of interesting, sympathetic presence; of a physiognomy where many
+of the attaching and attractive qualities of his nature revealed
+themselves; with crisp curling hair, surmounting a tall, expansive
+forehead--full of benevolence, idealism, and quick perceptions; broad,
+brown, melancholy eyes, overflowing with tenderness; a lean and haggard
+cheek, a rugged Flemish nose; a thin flexible mouth; a slender moustache,
+and a peaked and meagre beard; so appeared Sainte Aldegonde in the forty-
+seventh year of his age, when he came to command in Antwerp.
+
+Yet after all--many-sided, accomplished, courageous, energetic, as he
+was--it may be doubted whether he was the man for the hour or the post.
+He was too impressionable; he had too much of the temperament of genius.
+Without being fickle, he had, besides his versatility of intellect, a
+character which had much facility in turning; not, indeed, in the breeze
+of self-interest, but because he seemed placed in so high and clear an
+atmosphere of thought that he was often acted upon and swayed by subtle
+and invisible influences.  At any rate his conduct was sometimes
+inexplicable.  He had been strangely fascinated by the ignoble Duke of
+Anjou, and, in the sequel, it will be found that he was destined to
+experience other magnetic or magical impulses, which were once thought
+suspicious, and have remained mysterious even to the present day.
+
+He was imaginative.  He was capable of broad and boundless hopes.  He was
+sometimes prone to deep despair.  His nature was exquisitely tempered;
+too fine and polished a blade to be wielded among those hydra-heads by
+which he was, now surrounded; and for which the stunning sledgehammer of
+arbitrary force was sometimes necessary.
+
+He was perhaps deficient in that gift, which no training and no culture
+can bestow, and which comes from above alone by birth-right divine--that
+which men willingly call master, authority; the effluence which came so
+naturally from the tranquil eyes of William the Silent.
+
+Nevertheless, Sainte Aldegonde was prepared to do his best, and all his
+best was to be tasked to the utmost.  His position was rendered still
+more difficult by the unruly nature of some of his coordinates.
+
+"From the first day to the last," said one who lived in Antwerp during
+the siege, "the mistakes committed in the city were incredible."  It had
+long been obvious that a siege was contemplated by Parma.  A liberal sum
+of money had been voted by the States-General, of which Holland and
+Zeeland contributed a very large proportion (two hundred thousand
+florins); the city itself voted another large subsidy, and an order was
+issued to purchase at once and import into the city at least a year's
+supply of every kind of provisions of life and munitions of war.
+
+William de Blois, Lord of Treslong, Admiral of Holland and Zeeland, was
+requested to carry out this order, and superintend the victualling of
+Antwerp.  But Treslong at once became troublesome.  He was one of the old
+"beggars of the sea," a leader in the wild band who had taken possession
+of the Brill, in the teeth of Alva, and so laid the foundation of the
+republic.  An impetuous noble, of wealthy family, high connections, and
+refractory temper--a daring sailor, ever ready for any rash adventure,
+but possessed of a very moderate share of prudence or administrative
+ability, he fell into loose and lawless courses on the death of Orange,
+whose firm hand was needed to control him.  The French negotiation had
+excited his profound disgust, and knowing Sainte Aldegonde to be heart
+and soul in favour of that alliance, he was in no haste whatever to carry
+out his orders with regard to Antwerp.  He had also an insignificant
+quarrel with President Meetkerk.  The Prince of Parma--ever on the watch
+for such opportunities--was soon informed of the Admiral's discontent,
+and had long been acquainted with his turbulent character.  Alexander at
+once began to inflame his jealousy and soothe his vanity by letters and
+messengers, urging upon him the propriety of reconciling himself with the
+King, and promising him large rewards and magnificent employments in the
+royal service.  Even the splendid insignia of the Golden Fleece were
+dangled before his eyes.  It is certain that the bold Hollander was not
+seduced by these visions, but there is no doubt that he listened to the
+voice of the tempter.  He unquestionably neglected his duty.  Week after
+week he remained, at Ostend, sneering at the French and quaffing huge
+draughts in honour of Queen Elizabeth.  At last, after much time had
+elapsed, he agreed to victual Antwerp if he could be furnished with
+thirty krom-stevens,--a peculiar kind of vessel, not to be found in
+Zeeland.  The krom-stevens were sent to him from Holland.  Then, hearing
+that his negligence had been censured by the States-General, he became
+more obstinate than ever, and went up and down proclaiming that if people
+made themselves disagreeable to him he would do that which should make
+all the women and children in the Netherlands shriek and tremble.  What
+this nameless horror was to be he never divulged, but meantime he went
+down to Middelburg, and swore that not a boat-load of corn should go up
+to Antwerp until two members of the magistracy, whom he considered
+unpleasant, had been dismissed from their office.  Wearied with all this
+bluster, and imbued with grave suspicion as to his motives, the States at
+last rose upon their High Admiral and threw him into prison.  He was
+accused of many high crimes and misdemeanours, and, it was thought, would
+be tried for his life.  He was suspected and even openly accused of
+having been tampered with by Spain, but there was at any rate a
+deficiency of proof.
+
+"Treslong is apprehended," wrote Davison to Burghley, "and, is charged to
+have been the cause that the fleet passed not up to Antwerp.  He is
+suspected to have otherwise forgotten himself, but whether justly or not
+will appear by his trial.  Meantime he is kept in the common prison of
+Middelburg, a treatment which it is thought they would not offer him if
+they had not somewhat of importance against him."
+
+He was subsequently released at the intercession of Queen Elizabeth, and
+passed some time in England.  He was afterwards put upon trial, but no
+accuser appearing to sustain the charges against him, he was eventually
+released.  He never received a command in the navy again, but the very
+rich sinecures of Grand Falconer and Chief Forester of Holland were
+bestowed upon him, and he appears to have ended his days in peace and
+plenty.
+
+He was succeeded in the post of Admiral of Holland and Zeeland by
+Justinus de Nassau, natural son of William the Silent, a young man of
+much promise but of little experience.
+
+General Count Hohenlo, too, lieutenant for young Maurice, and virtual
+commander-in-chief of the States' forces, was apt to give much trouble.
+A German noble, of ancient descent and princely rank; brave to temerity,
+making a jest of danger; and riding into a foray as if to a merry-making;
+often furiously intoxicated, and always turbulent and uncertain; a
+handsome, dissipated cavalier, with long curls floating over his
+shoulders, an imposing aristocratic face, and a graceful, athletic
+figure, he needed some cool brain and steady hand to guide him--valuable
+as he was to fulfil any daring project but was hardly willing to accept
+the authority of a burgomaster.  While the young Maurice yet needed
+tutelage, while "the sapling was growing into the tree," Hohenlo was a
+dangerous chieftain and a most disorderly lieutenant.
+
+With such municipal machinery and such coadjutors had Sainte Aldegonde to
+deal, while, meantime, the delusive French negociation was dragging its
+slow length along, and while Parma was noiselessly and patiently
+proceeding with his preparations.
+
+The burgomaster--for Sainte Aldegonde, in whom vulgar ambition was not a
+foible, had refused the dignity and title of Margrave of Antwerp, which
+had been tendered him--had neglected no effort towards carrying into
+effect the advice of Orange, given almost with his latest breath.  The
+manner in which that advice was received furnished a striking
+illustration of the defective machinery which has been pourtrayed.
+
+Upon his return from Delft, Sainte Aldegonde had summoned a meeting of
+the magistracy of Antwerp.  He laid before the board the information
+communicated by Orange as to Parma's intentions.  He also explained the
+scheme proposed for their frustration, and urged the measures indicated
+with so much earnestness that his fellow-magistrates were convinced.  The
+order was passed for piercing the Blauw-garen Dyke, and Sainte Aldegonde,
+with some engineers, was requested to view the locality, and to take
+order for the immediate fulfilment of the plan.
+
+Unfortunately there were many other boards in session besides that of the
+Schepens, many other motives at work besides those of patriotism.  The
+guild of butchers held a meeting, so soon as the plan suggested was
+known, and resolved with all their strength to oppose its execution.
+
+The butchers were indeed furious.  Twelve thousand oxen grazed annually
+upon the pastures which were about to be submerged, and it was
+represented as unreasonable that all this good flesh and blood should be
+sacrificed.  At a meeting of the magistrates on the following day,
+sixteen butchers, delegates from their guild, made their appearance,
+hoarse with indignation.  They represented the vast damage which would be
+inflicted upon the estates of many private individuals by the proposed
+inundation, by this sudden conversion of teeming meadows, fertile farms,
+thriving homesteads, prolific orchards, into sandy desolation.  Above all
+they depicted, in glowing colours and with natural pathos, the vast
+destruction of beef which was imminent, and they urged--with some show of
+reason--that if Parma were really about to reduce Antwerp by famine, his
+scheme certainly would not be obstructed by the premature annihilation of
+these wholesome supplies.
+
+That the Scheldt could be, closed in any manner was, however, they said,
+a preposterous conception.  That it could be bridged was the dream of a
+lunatic.  Even if it were possible to construct a bridge, and probable
+that the Zeelanders and Antwerpers would look on with folded arms while
+the work proceeded, the fabric, when completed, would be at the mercy of
+the ice-floods of the winter and the enormous power of the ocean-tides.
+The Prince of Orange himself, on a former occasion, when Antwerp was
+Spanish, had attempted to close the river with rafts, sunken piles, and
+other obstructions, but the whole had been swept away, like a dam of
+bulrushes, by the first descent of the ice-blocks of winter.  It was
+witless to believe that Parma contemplated any such measure, and utterly
+monstrous to believe in its success.
+
+Thus far the butchers.  Soon afterwards came sixteen colonels of militia,
+as representatives of their branch of the multiform government.  These
+personages, attended by many officers of inferior degree, sustained the
+position of the butchers with many voluble and vehement arguments.  Not
+the least convincing of their conclusions was the assurance that it would
+be idle for the authorities to attempt the destruction of the dyke,
+seeing that the municipal soldiery itself would prevent the measure by
+main force, at all hazards, and without regard to their own or others'
+lives.
+
+The violence of this opposition, and the fear of a serious internecine
+conflict at so critical a juncture, proved fatal to the project.  Much
+precious time was lost, and when at last the inhabitants of the city
+awoke from their delusion, it was to find that repentance, as usual, had
+come many hours too late.
+
+For Parma had been acting while his antagonists had been wrangling.  He
+was hampered in his means, but he was assisted by what now seems the
+incredible supineness of the Netherlanders.  Even Sainte Aldegonde did
+not believe in the possibility of erecting the bridge; not a man in
+Antwerp seemed to believe it.  "The preparations," said one who lived in
+the city, "went on before our very noses, and every one was ridiculing
+the Spanish commander's folly."
+
+A very great error was, moreover, committed in abandoning Herenthals to
+the enemy.  The city of Antwerp governed Brabant, and it would have been
+far better for the authorities of the commercial capital to succour this
+small but important city, and, by so doing, to protract for a long time
+their own defence.  Mondragon saw and rejoiced over the mistake.  "Now
+'tis easy to see that the Prince of Orange is dead," said the veteran, as
+he took possession, in the Icing's name, of the forsaken Herenthals.
+
+Early in the summer, Parma's operations had been, of necessity,
+desultory.  He had sprinkled forts up and down the Scheldt, and had
+gradually been gaining control of the navigation upon that river.  Thus
+Ghent and Dendermonde, Vilvoorde, Brussels, and Antwerp, had each been
+isolated, and all prevented from rendering mutual assistance.  Below
+Antwerp, however, was to be the scene of the great struggle.  Here,
+within nine miles of the city, were two forts belonging to the States,
+on opposite sides of the stream, Lille, and Liefkenshoek.  It was
+important for the Spanish commander to gain possession of both; before
+commencing his contemplated bridge.
+
+Unfortunately for the States, the fortifications of Liefkenshoek, on the
+Flemish side of the river, had not been entirely completed.  Eight
+hundred men lay within it, under Colonel John Pettin of Arras, an old
+patriotic officer of much experience.  Parma, after reconnoitring the
+place in person, despatched the famous Viscount of Ghent--now called
+Marquis of Roubaix and Richebourg--to carry it by assault.  The Marquis
+sent one hundred men from his Walloon legion, under two officers, in whom
+he had confidence, to attempt a surprise, with orders, if not successful,
+to return without delay.  They were successful.  The one hundred gained
+entrance into the fort at a point where the defences had not been put
+into sufficient repair.
+
+They were immediately followed by Richebourg, at the head of his
+regiment.  The day was a fatal one.  It was the 10th July, 1584 and
+William of Orange was falling at Delft by the hand of Balthazar Gerard.
+Liefkenshoek was carried at a blow.  Of the eight hundred patriots in the
+place, scarcely a man escaped.  Four hundred were put to the sword, the
+others were hunted into the river, when nearly all were drowned.  Of the
+royalists a single man was killed, and two or three more were wounded.
+"Our Lord was pleased," wrote Parma piously to Philip, that we "should
+cut the throats of four hundred of them in a single instant, and that a
+great many more should be killed upon the dykes; so that I believe very
+few to have escaped with life.  We lost one man, besides two or three
+wounded."  A few were taken prisoners, and among them was the commander
+John Pettin.  He was at once brought before Richebourg, who was standing
+in the presence of the Prince of Parma.  The Marquis drew his sword,
+walked calmly up to the captured Colonel, and ran him through the body.
+Pettin fell dead upon the spot.  The Prince was displeased.  "Too much
+choler, Marquis, too much choler,"--said he reprovingly.  "Troppa colera,
+Signor Marchese, a questa."  But Richebourg knew better.  He had, while
+still Viscount of Ghent, carried on a year previously a parallel intrigue
+with the royalists and the patriots.  The Prince of Parma had bid highest
+for his services, and had, accordingly, found him a most effectual
+instrument in completing the reduction of the Walloon Provinces.  The
+Prince was not aware, however, that his brave but venal ally had, at the
+very same moment, been secretly treating with William of Orange; and as
+it so happened that Colonel Pettin had been the agent in the unsuccessful
+negotiation, it was possible that his duplicity would now be exposed.
+The Marquis had, therefore, been prompt to place his old confederate in
+the condition wherein men tell no tales, and if contemporary chronicles
+did not bely him, it was not the first time that he had been guilty of
+such cold-blooded murder.  The choler had not been superfluous.
+
+The fortress of Lille was garrisoned by the Antwerp volunteers, called
+the "Young Bachelors."  Teligny, the brave son of the illustrious "Iron-
+armed" La None, commanded in chief: and he had, besides the militia, a
+company of French under Captain Gascoigne, and four hundred Scotchmen
+under Colonel Morgan--perhaps two thousand men in all.
+
+Mondragon, hero of the famous submarine expeditions of Philipsland and
+Zierickzee, was ordered by Parma to take the place at every hazard.  With
+five thousand men--a large proportion of the Spanish effective force at
+that moment--the veteran placed himself before the fort, taking
+possession, of the beautiful country-house and farm of Lille, where he
+planted his batteries, and commenced a regular cannonade.  The place was
+stronger than Liefkenshoek, however, and Teligny thoroughly comprehended
+the importance of maintaining it for the States.  Mondragon dug mines,
+and Teligny countermined.  The Spanish daily cannonade was cheerfully
+responded to by the besieged, and by the time Mondragon had shot away
+fifty thousand pounds of powder, he found that he had made no impression
+upon the fortress, while the number of his troops had been diminishing
+with great rapidity.  Mondragon was not so impetuous as he had been on
+many former occasions.  He never ventured an assault.  At last Teligny
+made a sortie at the head of a considerable force.  A warm action
+succeeded, at the conclusion of which, without a decided advantage on
+either side, the sluice-gate in the fortress was opened, and the torrent
+of the Scheldt, swollen by a high tide, was suddenly poured upon the
+Spaniards.  Assailed at once by the fire from the Lillo batteries, and by
+the waters of the river, they were forced to a rapid retreat.  This they
+effected with great loss, but with signal courage; struggling breast high
+in the waves, and bearing off their field-pieces in their arms in the
+very face of the enemy.
+
+Three weeks long Mondragon had been before Fort Lille, and two thousand
+of his soldiers had been slain in the trenches.  The attempt was now
+abandoned.  Parma directed permanent batteries to be established at
+Lillo-house, at Oordam, and at other places along the river, and
+proceeded quietly with his carefully-matured plan for closing the river.
+
+His own camp was in the neighbourhood of the villages of Beveren, Kalloo,
+and Borght.  Of the ten thousand foot and seventeen hundred horse, which
+composed at the moment his whole army, about one-half lay with him, while
+the remainder were with Count Peter Ernest Mansfield, in the
+neighbourhood of Stabroek.  Thus the Prince occupied a position on the
+left bank of the Scheldt, nearly opposite Antwerp, while Mansfield was
+stationed upon the right bank, and ten miles farther down the river.
+From a point in the neighbourhood of Kalloo, Alexander intended to throw
+a fortified bridge to the opposite shore.  When completed, all traffic up
+the river from Zeeland would be cut off; and as the country on the land-
+side; abut Antwerp, had been now reduced, the city would be effectually
+isolated.  If the Prince could hold his bridge until famine should break
+the resistance of the burghers, Antwerp would fall into his hands.
+
+His head-quarters were at Kalloo, and this obscure spot soon underwent
+a strange transformation.  A drowsy placid little village--with a modest
+parish spire peeping above a clump of poplars, and with half a dozen
+cottages, with storks nests on their roofs, sprinkled here and there
+among pastures and orchards--suddenly saw itself changed as it were into
+a thriving bustling town; for, saving the white tents which dotted the
+green turf in every direction, the aspect of the scene was, for a time,
+almost pacific.  It was as if, some great manufacturing enterprise had
+been set on foot, and the world had suddenly awoke to the hidden
+capabilities of the situation.
+
+A great dockyard and arsenal suddenly revealed themselves--rising like an
+exhalation--where ship-builders, armourers, blacksmiths, joiners,
+carpenters, caulkers, gravers, were hard at work all day long.  The din
+and hum of what seemed a peaceful industry were unceasing.  From Kalloo,
+Parma dug a canal twelve miles long to a place called Steeken, hundreds
+of pioneers being kept constantly at work with pick and spade till it
+was completed.  Through this artificial channel--so soon as Ghent and
+Dendermonde had fallen--came floats of timber, fleets of boats laden with
+provisions of life and munitions of death, building-materials, and every
+other requisite for the great undertaking, all to be disembarked at
+Kalloo.  The object was a temporary and destructive one, but it remains a
+monument of the great general's energy and a useful public improvement.
+The amelioration of the fenny and barren soil, called the Waesland, is
+dated from that epoch; and the spot in Europe which is the most prolific,
+and which nourishes the largest proportion of inhabitants to the square
+mile, is precisely the long dreary swamp which the Prince thus drained
+for military purposes, and converted into a garden.  Drusus and Corbulo,
+in the days of the Roman Empire, had done the same good service for their
+barbarian foes.
+
+At Kalloo itself, all the shipwrights, cutlers, masons, brass-founders,
+rope-makers, anchor-forgers, sailors, boatmen, of Flanders and Brabant,
+with a herd of bakers, brewers, and butchers, were congregated by express
+order of Parma.  In the little church itself the main workshop was
+established, and all day long, week after week, month after month, the
+sound of saw and hammer, adze and plane, the rattle of machinery, the cry
+of sentinels, the cheers of mariners, resounded, where but lately had
+been heard nothing save the drowsy homily and the devout hymn of rustic
+worship.
+
+Nevertheless the summer and autumn wore on, and still the bridge was
+hardly commenced.  The navigation of the river--although impeded and
+rendered dangerous by the forts which Parma held along the banks--was
+still open; and, so long as the price of corn in Antwerp remained three
+or four times as high as the sum for which it could be purchased in
+Holland and Zeeland, there were plenty of daredevil skippers ready to
+bring cargoes.  Fleets of fly-boats, convoyed by armed vessels, were
+perpetually running the gauntlet.  Sharp actions on shore between the
+forts of the patriots and those of Parma, which were all intermingled
+promiscuously along the banks, and amphibious and most bloody encounters
+on ship-board, dyke, and in the stream itself, between the wild
+Zeelanders and the fierce pikemen of Italy and Spain, were of repeated
+occurrence.  Many a lagging craft fell into the enemy's hands, when, as a
+matter of course, the men, women, and children, on board, were horribly
+mutilated by the Spaniards, and were then sent drifting in their boat
+with the tide--their arms, legs, and ears lopped off up to the city, in
+order that--the dangerous nature of this provision-trade might be fully
+illustrated.
+
+Yet that traffic still went on.  It would have continued until Antwerp
+had been victualled for more than a year, had not the city authorities,
+in the plentitude of their wisdom, thought proper to issue orders for its
+regulation.  On the 25th October (1584) a census was taken, when the
+number of persons inside the walls was found to be ninety thousand.  For
+this population it was estimated that 300,000 veertell, or about 900,000
+bushels of corn, would be required annually.  The grain was coming in
+very fast, notwithstanding the perilous nature of the trade; for wheat
+could be bought in Holland for fifty florins the last, or about fifteen
+pence sterling the bushel, while it was worth five or six florins
+the veertel, or about four shillings the bushel, in Antwerp.
+
+The magistrates now committed a folly more stupendous than it seemed
+possible for human creatures, under such circumstances, to compass.  They
+established a maximum upon corn.  The skippers who had run their cargoes
+through the gauntlet, all the way from Flushing to Antwerp, found on
+their arrival, that, instead of being rewarded, according to the natural
+laws of demand and supply, they were required to exchange their wheat,
+rye, butter, and beef, against the exact sum which the Board of Schepens
+thought proper to consider a reasonable remuneration.  Moreover, in order
+to prevent the accumulation of provisions in private magazines, it was
+enacted, that all consumers of grain should be compelled to make their
+purchases directly from the ships.  These two measures were almost as
+fatal as the preservation of the Blaw-garen Dyke, in the interest of the
+butchers.  Winter and famine were staring the city in the face, and the
+maximum now stood sentinel against the gate, to prevent the admission of
+food.  The traffic ceased without a struggle.  Parma himself could not
+have better arranged the blockade.
+
+Meantime a vast and almost general inundation had taken place.  The
+aspect of the country for many miles around was strange and desolate.
+The sluices had been opened in the neighbourhood of Saftingen, on, the
+Flemish side, so that all the way from Hulst the waters were out, and
+flowed nearly to the gates of Antwerp.  A wide and shallow sea rolled
+over the fertile plains, while church-steeples, the tops of lofty trees,
+and here and there the turrets of a castle, scarcely lifted themselves
+above the black waters; the peasants' houses, the granges, whole rural
+villages, having entirely disappeared.  The high grounds of Doel, of
+Kalloo, and Beveren, where Alexander was established, remained out of
+reach of the flood.  Far below, on the opposite side of the river, other
+sluices had been opened, and the sea had burst over the wide, level
+plain.  The villages of Wilmerdonk, Orderen, Ekeren, were changed to
+islands in the ocean, while all the other hamlets, for miles around, were
+utterly submerged.
+
+Still, however, the Blaw-garen Dyke and its companion the Kowenstyn
+remained obstinately above the waters, forming a present and more fatal
+obstruction to the communication between Antwerp and Zeeland than would
+be furnished even by the threatened and secretly-advancing bridge across
+the Scheldt.  Had Orange's prudent advice been taken, the city had been
+safe.  Over the prostrate dykes, whose destruction he had so warmly
+urged, the ocean would have rolled quite to the gates of Antwerp, and it
+would have been as easy to bridge the North Sea as to control the free
+navigation of the patriots over so wide a surface.
+
+When it was too late, the butchers, and colonels, and captains, became
+penitent enough.  An order was passed, by acclamation, in November, to do
+what Orange had recommended in June.  It was decreed that the Blaw-garen
+and the Kowenstyn should be pierced.  Alas, the hour had long gone by.
+Alexander of Parma was not the man to undertake the construction of a
+bridge across the river, at a vast expense, and at the same time to
+permit the destruction of the already existing barrier.  There had been a
+time for such a deed.  The Seigneur de Kowenstyn, who had a castle and
+manor on and near the dyke which bore his name, had repeatedly urged upon
+the Antwerp magistracy the propriety of piercing this bulwark, even after
+their refusal to destroy the outer barrier.  Sainte Aldegonde, who
+vehemently urged the measure, protested that his hair had stood on end,
+when he found, after repeated entreaty, that the project was rejected.
+The Seigneur de Kowenstyn, disgusted and indignant, forswore his
+patriotism, and went over to Parma.  The dyke fell into the hands of the
+enemy.  And now from Stabroek, where old Mansfeid lay with his army, all
+the way across the flooded country, ran the great bulwark, strengthened
+with new palisade-work and block-houses, bristling with Spanish cannon,
+pike, and arquebus, even to the bank of the Scheldt, in the immediate
+vicinity of Fort Lille.  At the angle of its junction with the main dyke
+of the river's bank, a strong fortress called Holy Cross (Santa Cruz) had
+been constructed.  That fortress and the whole line of the Kowenstyn were
+held in the iron grip of Mondragon.  To wrench it from him would be no
+child's play.  Five new strong redoubts upon the dyke, and five or six
+thousand Spaniards established there, made the enterprise more formidable
+than it would have been in June.  It had been better to sacrifice the
+twelve thousand oxen.  Twelve thousand Hollanders might now be
+slaughtered, and still the dyke remain above the waves.
+
+Here was the key to the fate of Antwerp.
+
+On the other hand, the opening of the Saftingen Sluice had done Parma's
+work for him.  Even there, too, Orange had been prophetic.  Kalloo was
+high and dry, but Alexander had experienced some difficulty in bringing a
+fleet of thirty vessels, laden with cannon and other valuable materials,
+from Ghent along the Scheldt, into his encampment, because it was
+necessary for them, before reaching their destination, to pass in front
+of Antwerp.  The inundation, together with a rupture in the Dyke of
+Borght, furnished him with a watery road; over which his fleet completely
+avoided the city, and came in triumph to Kalloo.
+
+Sainte Aldegonde, much provoked by this masterly movement on the part of
+Parma, had followed the little squadron closely with some armed vessels
+from the city.  A sharp action had succeeded, in which the burgomaster,
+not being properly sustained by the Zeeland ships on which he relied, had
+been defeated.  Admiral Jacob Jacobzoon behaved with so little spirit on
+the occasion that he acquired with the Antwerp populace the name of "Run-
+away Jacob," "Koppen gaet loppen;" and Sainte Aldegonde declared, that,
+but for his cowardice, the fleet of Parma would have fallen into their
+hands.  The burgomaster himself narrowly escaped becoming a prisoner, and
+owed his safety only to the swiftness of his barge, which was called the
+"Flying Devil."
+
+The patriots, in order to counteract similar enterprises in future, now
+erected a sconce, which they called Fort Teligny; upon the ruptured dyke
+of Borght, directly in front of the Borght blockhouse, belonging to the
+Spaniards, and just opposite Fort Hoboken.  Here, in this narrow passage,
+close under the walls of Antwerp, where friends and foes were brought
+closely, face to face, was the scene of many a sanguinary skirmish, from
+the commencement of the siege until its close.
+
+Still the bridge was believed to be a mere fable, a chimaera.  Parma, men
+said, had become a lunatic from pride.  It was as easy to make the
+Netherlands submit to the yoke of the Inquisition as to put a bridle on
+the Scheldt.  Its depth; breadth, the ice-floods of a northern winter,
+the neighbourhood of the Zeeland fleets, the activity of the Antwerp
+authorities, all were pledges that the attempt would be signally
+frustrated.
+
+And they should have been pledges--more than enough.  Unfortunately,
+however, there was dissension within, and no chieftain in the field, no
+sage in the council, of sufficient authority to sustain the whole burthen
+of the war, and to direct all the energies of the commonwealth.  Orange
+was dead.  His son, one day to become the most illustrious military
+commander in Europe, was a boy of seventeen, nominally captain-general,
+but in reality but a youthful apprentice to his art.  Hohenlo was wild,
+wilful, and obstinate.  Young William Lewis Nassau, already a soldier of
+marked abilities, was fully occupied in Friesland, where he was
+stadholder, and where he had quite enough to do in making head against
+the Spanish governor and general, the veteran Verdugo: Military
+operations against Zutphen distracted the attention of the States, which
+should have been fixed upon Antwerp.
+
+Admiral Treslong, as we have seen, was refractory, the cause of great
+delinquency on the part of the fleets, and of infinite disaster to the
+commonwealth.  More than all, the French negotiation was betraying the
+States into indolence and hesitation; and creating a schism between the
+leading politicians of the country.  Several thousand French troops,
+under Monsieur d'Allaynes, were daily expected, but never arrived; and
+thus, while English and French partisans were plotting and counter-
+plotting, while a delusive diplomacy was usurping the place of
+lansquenettes and gun-boats--the only possible agents at that moment to
+preserve Antwerp--the bridge of Parma was slowly advancing.  Before the
+winter had closed in, the preparatory palisades had been finished.
+
+Between Kalloo and Ordam, upon the opposite side, a sandbar had been
+discovered in the river's bed, which diminished the depth of the stream,
+and rendered the pile-driving comparatively easy.  The breadth of the
+Scheldt at this passage was twenty-four hundred feet; its depth, sixty
+feet.  Upon the Flemish side, near Kalloo, a strong fort was erected,
+called Saint Mary, in honour of the blessed Virgin, to whom the whole
+siege of Antwerp had been dedicated from the beginning.  On the opposite
+bank was a similar fort, flamed Philip, for the King.  From each of these
+two points, thus fortified, a framework of heavy timber, supported upon
+huge piles, had been carried so far into the stream on either side that
+the distance between the ends had at last been reduced to thirteen
+hundred feet.  The breadth of the roadway--formed of strong sleepers
+firmly bound together--was twelve feet, along which block-houses of great
+thickness were placed to defend the whole against assault.
+
+Thus far the work had been comparatively easy.  To bridge the remaining
+open portion of the river, however, where its current was deepest and
+strongest, and where the action of tide, tempest, and icebergs, would be
+most formidable, seemed a desperate undertaking; for as the enterprise
+advanced, this narrow open space became the scene of daily amphibious
+encounters between the soldiers and sailors of Parma and the forces of
+the States.  Unfortunately for the patriots, it was only skirmishing.
+Had a strong, concerted attack, in large force, from Holland and Zeeland
+below and from the city above, been agreed upon, there was hardly a
+period, until very late in the winter, when it might not have had the
+best chances of success.  With a vigorous commander against him, Parma,
+weak in men, and at his wits' end for money, might, in a few hours, have
+seen the labour of several months hopelessly annihilated.  On the other
+hand, the Prince was ably seconded by his lieutenant, Marquis Richebourg,
+to whom had been delegated the immediate superintendence of the bridge-
+building in its minutest details.  He was never idle.  Audacious,
+indefatigable, ubiquitous, he at least atoned by energy and brilliant
+courage for his famous treason of the preceding year, while his striking
+and now rapidly approaching doom upon the very scene of his present
+labours, made him appear to have been building a magnificent though
+fleeting monument to his own memory.
+
+Sainte Aldegonde, shut up in Antwerp, and hampered by dissension within
+and obstinate jealousy without the walls, did all in his power to
+frustrate the enemy's enterprise and animate the patriots.  Through the
+whole of the autumn and early winter, he had urged the States of Holland
+and Zeeland to make use of the long winter nights, when moonless and
+stormy, to attempt the destruction of Parma's undertaking, but the fatal
+influences already indicated were more efficient against Antwerp than
+even the genius of Farnese; and nothing came of the burgomaster's
+entreaties save desultory skirmishing and unsuccessful enterprises.  An
+especial misfortune happened in one of these midnight undertakings.
+Teligny ventured forth in a row-barge, with scarcely any companions, to
+notify the Zeelanders of a contemplated movement, in which their co-
+operation was desired.  It was proposed that the Antwerp troops should
+make a fictitious demonstration upon Fort Ordam, while at the same moment
+the States' troops from Fort Lillo should make an assault upon the forts
+on Kowenstyn Dyke; and in this important enterprise the Zeeland vessels
+were requested to assist.  But the brave Teligny nearly forfeited his
+life by his rashness, and his services were, for a long time, lost to the
+cause of liberty.  It had been better to send a less valuable officer
+upon such hazardous yet subordinate service.  The drip of his oars was
+heard in the darkness.  He was pursued by a number of armed barges,
+attacked, wounded severely in the shoulder, and captured.  He threw his
+letters overboard, but they were fished out of the water, carried to
+Parma, and deciphered, so that the projected attack upon the Kowenstyn
+was discovered, and, of necessity, deferred.  As for Teligny, he was
+taken, as a most valuable prize, into the enemy's camp, and was soon
+afterwards thrust into prison at Tournay, where he remained six years--
+one year longer than the period which his illustrious father had been
+obliged to consume in the infamous dungeon at Mons.  Few disasters could
+have been more keenly felt by the States than the loss of this brilliant
+and devoted French chieftain, who, young as he was, had already become
+very dear to the republic; and Sainte Aldegonde was severely blamed for
+sending so eminent a personage on that dangerous expedition, and for
+sending him, too, with an insufficient convoy.
+
+Still Alexander felt uncertain as to the result.  He was determined to
+secure Antwerp, but he yet thought it possible to secure it by
+negotiation.  The enigmatical policy maintained by France perplexed him;
+for it did not seem possible that so much apparent solemnity and
+earnestness were destined to lead to an impotent and infamous conclusion.
+He was left, too, for a long time in ignorance of his own master's secret
+schemes, he was at liberty to guess, and to guess only, as to the
+projects of the league, he was without adequate means to carry out to a
+certain triumph his magnificent enterprise, and he was in constant alarm
+lest he should be suddenly assailed by an overwhelming French force.  Had
+a man sat upon the throne of Henry III., at that moment, Parma's bridge-
+making and dyke-fortifying skilful as they were--would have been all in
+vain.  Meantime, in uncertainty as to the great issue, but resolved to
+hold firmly to his purpose, he made repeated conciliatory offers to the
+States with one hand, while he steadily prosecuted his aggressive schemes
+with the other.
+
+Parma had become really gentle, almost affectionate, towards the
+Netherlanders.  He had not the disposition of an Alva to smite and to
+blast, to exterminate the rebels and heretics with fire and sword, with
+the axe, the rack, and the gallows.  Provided they would renounce the
+great object of the contest, he seemed really desirous that they should
+escape further chastisement; but to admit the worship of God according to
+the reformed creed, was with him an inconceivable idea.  To do so was
+both unrighteous and impolitic.  He had been brought up to believe that
+mankind could be saved from eternal perdition only by believing in the
+infallibility of the Bishop of Rome; that the only keys to eternal
+paradise were in the hands of St. Peter's representative.  Moreover, he
+instinctively felt that within this religious liberty which the
+Netherlanders claimed was hidden the germ of civil liberty; and though no
+bigger than a grain of mustard-seed, it was necessary to destroy it at
+once; for of course the idea of civil liberty could not enter the brain
+of the brilliant general of Philip II.
+
+On the 13th of November he addressed a letter to the magistracy and
+broad-council of Antwerp.  He asserted that the instigators of the
+rebellion were not seeking to further the common weal, but their own
+private ends.  Especially had this been the ruling motive with the prince
+of Orange and the Duke of Anjou, both of whom God had removed from the
+world, in order to manifest to the States their own weakness, and the
+omnipotence of Philip, whose, prosperity the Lord was constantly
+increasing.  It was now more than time for the authorities of the country
+to have regard for themselves, and for the miseries of the poor people.
+The affection Which he had always felt for the Provinces from which he
+had himself sprung and the favours which he had received from them in his
+youth, had often moved him to propose measures, which, before God and his
+conscience, he believed adequate to the restoration of peace.  But his
+letters had been concealed or falsely interpreted by the late Prince of
+Orange, who had sought nothing but to spread desolation over the land,
+and to shed the blood of the innocent.  He now wrote once more, and for
+the last time, in all fervour and earnestness, to implore them to take
+compassion on their own wives and children and forlorn fatherland, to
+turn their eyes backward on the peace and prosperity which they had
+formerly enjoyed when obedient to his Majesty, and to cast a glance
+around them upon the miseries which were so universal since the
+rebellion.  He exhorted them to close their ears to the insidious tongues
+of those who were leading them into delusion as to the benevolence and
+paternal sweetness of their natural lord and master, which were even now
+so boundless that he did not hesitate once more to offer them his entire
+forgiveness.  If they chose to negotiate, they would find everything
+granted that with right and reason could be proposed.  The Prince
+concluded by declaring that he made these advances not from any doubt as
+to the successful issue of the military operations in which he was
+engaged, but simply out of paternal anxiety for the happiness of the
+Provinces.  Did they remain obstinate, their ultimate conditions would be
+rendered still more severe, and themselves, not he, would be responsible
+for the misery and the bloodshed to ensue.
+
+Ten days afterwards, the magistrates, thus addressed--after communication
+with the broad-council--answered Parma's.  23rd Nov., letter manfully,
+copiously, and with the customary but superfluous historical sketch.
+They begged leave to entertain a doubt as to the paternal sweetness of a
+king who had dealt so long in racks and gibbets.  With Parma's own
+mother, as they told the Prince, the Netherlanders had once made a
+treaty, by which the right to worship God according to their consciences
+had been secured; yet for maintaining that treaty they had been devoted
+to indiscriminate destruction, and their land made desolate with fire and
+sword.  Men had been massacred by thousands, who had never been heard in
+their own defence, and who had never been accused of any crime, "save
+that they had assembled together in the name of God, to pray to Him
+through their only mediator and advocate Jesus Christ, according to His
+command."
+
+The axis of the revolt was the religious question; and it was impossible
+to hope anything from a monarch who was himself a slave of the
+Inquisition, and who had less independence of action than that enjoyed by
+Jews and Turks, according to the express permission of the Pope.
+Therefore they informed Parma that they had done with Philip for ever,
+and that in consequence of the extraordinary wisdom, justice, and
+moderation, of the French King, they had offered him the sovereignty of
+their land, and had implored his protection.
+
+They paid a tribute to the character of Farnese, who after gaining
+infinite glory in arms, had manifested so much gentleness and disposition
+to conciliate.  They doubted not that he would, if he possessed the
+power, have guided the royal councils to better and more generous
+results, and protested that they would not have delayed to throw
+themselves into his arms, had they been assured that he was authorized to
+admit that which alone could form the basis of a successful negotiation--
+religious freedom.  They would in such case have been willing to close
+with him, without talking about other conditions than such as his
+Highness in his discretion and sweetness might think reasonable.
+
+Moreover, as they observed in conclusion, they were precluded, by their
+present relations with France, from entering into any other negotiation;
+nor could they listen to any such proposals without deserving to be
+stigmatized as the most lewd, blasphemous, and thankless mortals, that
+ever cumbered the earth.
+
+Being under equal obligations both to the Union and to France, they
+announced that Parma's overtures would be laid before the French
+government and the assembly of the States-General.
+
+A day was to come, perhaps, when it would hardly seem lewdness and
+blasphemy for the Netherlanders to doubt the extraordinary justice and
+wisdom of the French King.  Meantime, it cannot be denied that they were
+at least loyal to their own engagements, and long-suffering where they
+had trusted and given their hearts.
+
+Parma replied by another letter, dated December 3rd.  He assured the
+citizens that Henry III. was far too discreet, and much too good a friend
+to Philip II., to countenance this rebellion.  If he were to take up
+their quarrel, however, the King of Spain had a thousand means of foiling
+all his attempts.  As to the religious question--which they affirmed to
+be the sole cause of the war--he was not inclined to waste words upon
+that subject; nevertheless, so far as he in his simplicity could
+understand the true nature of a Christian, he could not believe that it
+comported with the doctrines of Jesus, whom they called their only
+mediator, nor with the dictates of conscience, to take up arms against
+their lawful king, nor to burn, rob, plunder, pierce dykes, overwhelm
+their fatherland, and reduce all things to misery and chaos, in the name
+of religion.
+
+Thus moralizing and dogmatizing, the Prince concluded his letter, and so
+the correspondence terminated.  This last despatch was communicated at
+once both to the States-General and to the French government, and
+remained unanswered.  Soon afterwards the Netherlands and England, France
+and Spain, were engaged in that vast game of delusion which has been
+described in the preceding chapters.  Meantime both Antwerp and Parma
+remained among the deluded, and were left to fight out their battle on
+their own resources.
+
+Having found it impossible to subdue Antwerp by his rhetoric, Alexander
+proceeded with his bridge.  It is impossible not to admire the steadiness
+and ingenuity with which the Prince persisted in his plans, the courage
+with which he bore up against the parsimony and neglect of his sovereign,
+the compassionate tenderness which he manifested for his patient little
+army.  So much intellectual energy commands enthusiasm, while the
+supineness on the other side sometimes excites indignation.  There is
+even a danger of being entrapped into sympathy with tyranny, when the
+cause of tyranny is maintained by genius; and of being surprised into
+indifference for human liberty, when the sacred interests of liberty are
+endangered by self-interest, perverseness, and folly.
+
+Even Sainte Aldegonde did not believe that the bridge could be completed.
+His fears were that the city would be ruined rather by the cessation of
+its commerce than by want of daily food.  Already, after the capture of
+Liefkenshoek and the death of Orange, the panic among commercial people
+had been so intense that seventy or eighty merchants, representing the
+most wealthy mercantile firms in Antwerp, made their escape from the
+place, as if it had been smitten with pestilence, or were already in the
+hands of Parma.  All such refugees were ordered to return on peril of
+forfeiting their property.  Few came back, however, for they had found
+means of converting and transferring their funds to other more secure
+places, despite the threatened confiscation.  It was insinuated that
+Holland and Zeeland were indifferent to the fate of Antwerp, because in
+the sequel the commercial cities of those Provinces succeeded to the vast
+traffic and the boundless wealth which had been forfeited by the
+Brabantine capital.  The charge was an unjust one.  At the very
+commencement of the siege the States of Holland voted two hundred
+thousand florins for its relief; and, moreover, these wealthy refugees
+were positively denied admittance into the territory of tho United
+States, and were thus forced to settle in Germany or England.  This
+cessation of traffic was that which principally excited the anxiety of
+Aldegonde.  He could not bring himself to believe in the possibility of a
+blockade, by an army of eight or ten thousand men, of a great and wealthy
+city, where at least twenty thousand citizens were capable of bearing
+arms.  Had he thoroughly understood the deprivations under which
+Alexander was labouring, perhaps he would have been even more confident
+as to the result.
+
+"With regard to the affair of the river Scheldt," wrote Parma to Philip,
+"I should like to send your Majesty a drawing of the whole scheme; for
+the work is too vast to be explained by letters.  The more I examine it,
+the more astonished I am that it should have been conducted to this
+point; so many forts, dykes, canals, new inventions, machinery, and
+engines, have been necessarily required."
+
+He then proceeded to enlighten the King--as be never failed to do in all
+his letters--as to his own impoverished, almost helpless condition.
+Money, money, men!  This was his constant cry.  All would be in vain, he
+said, if he were thus neglected.  "'Tis necessary," said he, "for your
+Majesty fully to comprehend, that henceforth the enterprise is your own.
+I have done my work faithfully thus far; it is now for your Majesty to
+take it thoroughly to heart; and embrace it with the warmth with which an
+affair involving so much of your own interests deserves to be embraced."
+
+He avowed that without full confidence in his sovereign's sympathy he
+would never have conceived the project.  "I confess that the enterprise
+is great," he said, "and that by many it will be considered rash.
+Certainly I should not have undertaken it, had I not felt certain of your
+Majesty's full support."
+
+But he was already in danger of being forced to abandon the whole scheme
+--although so nearly carried into effect--for want of funds.  "The
+million promised," he wrote, "has arrived in bits and morsels, and with
+so many ceremonies, that I haven't ten crowns at my disposal.  How I am
+to maintain even this handful of soldiers--for the army is diminished to
+such a mere handful that it would astonish your Majesty--I am unable to
+imagine.  It would move you to witness their condition.  They have
+suffered as much as is humanly possible."
+
+Many of the troops, indeed, were deserting, and making their escape,
+beggared and desperate, into France, where, with natural injustice, they
+denounced their General, whose whole heart was occupied with their
+miseries, for the delinquency of his master, whose mind was full of other
+schemes.
+
+"There past this way many Spanish soldiers," wrote Stafford from Paris,
+"so poor and naked as I ever saw any.  There have been within this
+fortnight two hundred at a time in this town, who report the extremity of
+want of victuals in their camp, and that they have been twenty-four
+months without pay.  They exclaim greatly upon the Prince of Parma.
+Mendoza seeks to convey them away, and to get money for them by all means
+he can."
+
+Stafford urged upon his government the propriety of being at least as
+negligent as Philip had showed himself to be of the Spaniards.  By
+prohibiting supplies to the besieging army, England might contribute,
+negatively, if not otherwise, to the relief of Antwerp.  "There is no
+place," he wrote to Walsingham, "whence the Spaniards are so thoroughly
+victualled as from us.  English boats go by sixteen and seventeen into
+Dunkirk, well laden with provisions."
+
+This was certainly not in accordance with the interests nor the
+benevolent professions of the English ministers.
+
+These supplies were not to be regularly depended upon however.  They were
+likewise not to be had without paying a heavy price for them, and the
+Prince had no money in his coffer.  He lived from hand to mouth, and was
+obliged to borrow from every private individual who had anything to lend.
+Merchants, nobles, official personages, were all obliged to assist in
+eking out the scanty pittance allowed by the sovereign.
+
+"The million is all gone," wrote Parma to his master; "some to Verdugo in
+Friesland; some to repay the advances of Marquis Richebourg and other
+gentlemen.  There is not a farthing for the garrisons.  I can't go on a
+month longer, and, if not supplied, I shall be obliged to abandon the
+work.  I have not money enough to pay my sailors, joiners, carpenters,
+and other mechanics, from week to week, and they will all leave me in the
+lurch, if I leave them unpaid.  I have no resource but to rely on your
+Majesty.  Otherwise the enterprise must wholly fail."
+
+In case it did fail, the Prince wiped his hands of the responsibility.
+He certainly had the right to do so.
+
+One of the main sources of supply was the city of Hertogenbosch, or Bois-
+le-Duc.  It was one of the four chief cities of Brabant, and still held
+for the King, although many towns in its immediate neighbourhood had
+espoused the cause of the republic.  The States had long been anxious to
+effect a diversion for the relief of Antwerp, by making an attack on
+Bois-le-Duc.  Could they carry the place, Parma would be almost
+inevitably compelled to abandon the siege in which he was at present
+engaged, and he could moreover spare no troops for its defence.  Bois-le-
+Duc was a populous, wealthy, thriving town, situate on the Deeze, two
+leagues above its confluence with the Meuse, and about twelve leagues
+from Antwerp.  It derived its name of `Duke's Wood' from a magnificent
+park and forest, once the favourite resort and residence of the old Dukes
+of Brabant, of which some beautiful vestiges still remained.  It was a
+handsome well-built city, with two thousand houses of the better class,
+besides more humble tenements.  Its citizens were celebrated for their
+courage and belligerent skill, both on foot and on horseback.  They were
+said to retain more of the antique Belgic ferocity which Caesar had
+celebrated than that which had descended to most of their kinsmen.  The
+place was, moreover, the seat of many prosperous manufactures.  Its
+clothiers sent the products of their looms over all Christendom, and its
+linen and cutlery were equally renowned.
+
+It would be a most fortunate blow in the cause of freedom to secure so,
+thriving and conspicuous a town, situated thus in the heart of what
+seemed the natural territory of the United States; and, by so doing, to
+render nugatory the mighty preparations of Parma against Antwerp.
+Moreover, it was known that there was no Spanish or other garrison within
+its walls, so that there was no opposition to be feared, except from the
+warlike nature of the citizens.
+
+Count Hohenlo was entrusted, early in January, with this important
+enterprise.  He accordingly collected a force of four thousand infantry,
+together with two hundred mounted lancers; having previously
+reconnoitered the ground.  He relied very much, for the success of the
+undertaking, on Captain Kleerhagen, a Brussels nobleman, whose wife was a
+native of Bois-le-Duc, and who was thoroughly familiar with the locality.
+One dark winter's night, Kleerhagen, with fifty picked soldiers, advanced
+to the Antwerp gate of Bois-le-Duc, while Hohenlo, with his whole force,
+lay in ambuscade as near as possible to the city.
+
+Between the drawbridge and the portcullis were two small guard-houses,
+which, very carelessly, had been left empty.  Kleerhagen, with his fifty
+followers, successfully climbed into these lurking-places, where they
+quietly ensconced themselves for the night.  At eight o'clock of the
+following morning (20th January) the guards of the gate drew up the
+portcullis, and reconnoitered.  At the same instant, the ambushed fifty
+sprang from their concealment, put them to the sword, and made themselves
+masters of the gate.  None of the night-watch escaped with life, save one
+poor old invalided citizen, whose business had been to draw up the
+portcullis, and who was severely wounded, and left for dead.  The fifty
+immediately summoned all of Rohenlo's ambuscade that were within hearing,
+and then, without waiting for them, entered the town pell-mell in the
+best of spirits, and shouting victory! victory! till they were hoarse.  A
+single corporal, with two men, was left to guard the entrance.  Meantime,
+the old wounded gate-opener, bleeding and crippled, crept into a dark
+corner, and laid himself down, unnoticed, to die.
+
+Soon afterwards Hohenlo galloped into the town, clad in complete armour,
+his long curls floating in the wind, with about two hundred troopers
+clattering behind him, closely followed by five hundred pike-men on foot.
+
+Very brutally, foolishly, and characteristically, he had promised his
+followers the sacking of the city so soon as it should be taken.  They
+accordingly set about the sacking, before it was taken.  Hardly had the
+five or six hundred effected their entrance, than throwing off all
+control, they dispersed through the principal streets, and began bursting
+open the doors of the most opulent households.  The cries of "victory!"
+"gained city!"  "down with the Spaniards!"  resounded on all sides.  Many
+of the citizens, panic-struck, fled from their homes, which they thus
+abandoned to pillage, while, meantime, the loud shouts of the assailants
+reached the ears of the sergeant and his two companies who had been left
+in charge of the gate.  Fearing that they should be cheated of their
+rightful share in the plunder, they at once abandoned their post, and set
+forth after their comrades, as fast as their legs could carry them.
+
+Now it so chanced--although there was no garrison in the town--that forty
+Burgundian and Italian lancers, with about thirty foot-soldiers, had come
+in the day before to escort a train of merchandise.  The Seigneur de
+Haultepenne, governor of Breda, a famous royalist commander--son of old
+Count Berlaymont, who first gave the name of "beggars" to the patriots-
+had accompanied them in the expedition.  The little troop were already
+about to mount their horses to depart, when they became aware of the
+sudden tumult.  Elmont, governor of the city, had also flown to the
+rescue, and had endeavoured to rally the burghers.  Not unmindful of
+their ancient warlike fame, they had obeyed his entreaties.  Elmont, with
+a strong party of armed citizens, joined himself to Haultepenne's little
+band of lancers.  They fired a few shots at straggling parties of
+plunderers, and pursued others up some narrow streets.  They were but an
+handful in comparison with the number of the patriots, who had gained
+entrance to the city.  They were, however, compact, united, and resolute.
+The assailants were scattered, disorderly, and bent only upon plunder.
+When attacked by an armed and regular band, they were amazed.  They had
+been told that there was no garrison; and behold a choice phalanx of
+Spanish lancers, led on by one of the most famous of Philip's Netherland
+chieftains.  They thought themselves betrayed by Kleerhagen, entrapped
+into a deliberately arranged ambush.  There was a panic.  The soldiers,
+dispersed and doubtful, could not be rallied.  Hohenlo, seeing that
+nothing was to be done with his five hundred, galloped furiously out of
+the gate, to bring in the rest of his troops who had remained outside the
+walls.  The prize of the wealthy city of  Bois-le-Duc was too tempting to
+be lightly abandoned; but he had much better have thought of making
+himself master of it himself before he should present it as a prey to his
+followers.
+
+During his absence the panic spread.  The States' troops, bewildered,
+astonished, vigorously assaulted, turned their backs upon their enemies,
+and fled helter-skelter towards the gates, through which they had first
+gained admittance.  But unfortunately for them, so soon as the corporal
+had left his position, the wounded old gate-opener, in a dying condition,
+had crawled forth on his hands and knees from a dark hole in the tower,
+cut, with a pocket-knife, the ropes of the portcullis, and then given up
+the ghost.  Most effective was that blow struck by a dead man's hand.
+Down came the portcullis.  The flying plunderers were entrapped.  Close
+behind them came the excited burghers--their antique Belgic ferocity now
+fully aroused--firing away with carbine and matchlock, dealing about them
+with bludgeon and cutlass, and led merrily on by Haultepenne and Elmont
+armed in proof, at the head of their squadron of lancers.  The
+unfortunate patriots had risen very early in the morning only to shear
+the wolf.  Some were cut to pieces in the streets; others climbed the
+walls, and threw themselves head foremost into the moat.  Many were
+drowned, and but a very few effected their escape.  Justinus de Nassau.
+sprang over the parapet, and succeeded in swimming the ditch.
+Kleerhagen, driven into the Holy Cross tower, ascended to its .roof,
+leaped, all accoutred as he was, into the river, and with the assistance
+of a Scotch soldier, came safe to land.  Ferdinand Truchsess, brother of
+the ex-elector of Cologne, was killed.  Four or five hundred of the
+assailants--nearly all who had entered the city--were slain, and about
+fifty of the burghers.
+
+Hohenlo soon came back, with Colonel Ysselstein, and two thousand fresh
+troops.  But their noses, says a contemporary, grew a hundred feet long
+with surprise when they saw the gate shut in their faces.  It might have
+occurred to the Count, when he rushed out of the town for reinforcements,
+that it would be as well to replace the guard, which--as he must have
+seen--had abandoned their post.
+
+
+Cursing his folly, he returned, mavellously discomfited, and deservedly
+censured, to Gertruydenberg.  And thus had a most important enterprise;
+which had nearly been splendidly successful, ended in disaster and
+disgrace.  To the recklessness of the general, to the cupidity which he
+had himself awakened in his followers, was the failure alone to be
+attributed.  Had he taken possession of the city with a firm grasp at the
+head of his four thousand men, nothing could have resisted him;
+Haultepenne, and his insignificant force, would have been dead, or his
+prisoners; the basis of Parma's magnificent operations would have been
+withdrawn; Antwerp would have been saved.
+
+"Infinite gratitude," wrote Parma to Philip, "should be rendered to the
+Lord.  Great thanks are also due to Haultepenne.  Had the rebels
+succeeded in their enterprise against Bolduc, I should have been
+compelled to abandon the siege of Antwerp.  The town; by its strength and
+situation, is of infinite importance for the reduction both of that place
+and of Brussels, and the rebels in possession of Bolduc would have cut
+off my supplies."
+
+The Prince recommended Haultepenne most warmly to the King as deserving
+of a rich "merced."  The true hero of the day, however--at least the
+chief agent in the victory was the poor, crushed, nameless victim who had
+cut the ropes of the portcullis at the Antwerp gate.
+
+Hohenlo was deeply stung by the disgrace which he had incurred.  For a
+time he sought oblivion in hard drinking; but--brave and energetic,
+though reckless--he soon became desirous of retrieving his reputation by
+more successful enterprises.  There was no lack of work, and assuredly
+his hands were rarely idle.
+
+"Hollach (Hohenlo) is gone from hence on Friday last," wrote Davison to
+Walsingham, "he will do what he may to recover his reputation lost in the
+attempt, of Bois-le-Duc; which, for the grief and trouble he hath
+conceived thereof, hath for the time greatly altered him."
+
+Meantime the turbulent Scheldt, lashed by the storms of winter, was
+becoming a more formidable enemy to Parma's great enterprise than the
+military demonstrations of his enemies, or the famine which was making
+such havoc, with his little army.  The ocean-tides were rolling huge ice-
+blocks up and down, which beat against his palisade with the noise of
+thunder, and seemed to threaten its immediate destruction. But the work
+stood firm.  The piles supporting the piers, which had been thrust out
+from each bank into the stream, had been driven fifty feet into the
+river's bed, and did their duty well.  But in the space between, twelve
+hundred and forty feet in width, the current was too deep for pile-
+driving and a permanent bridge was to be established upon boats.  And
+that bridge was to be laid across the icy and tempestuous flood, in the
+depth of winter, in the teeth of a watchful enemy, with the probability
+of an immediate invasion from France, where the rebel envoys were known
+to be negotiating on express invitation of the King--by half-naked, half-
+starving soldiers and sailors, unpaid for years, and for the sake of a
+master who seemed to have forgotten their existence.
+
+"Thank God," wrote Alexander, "the palisade stands firm in spite of the
+ice.  Now with the favour of the Lord, we shall soon get the fruit we
+have been hoping, if your Majesty is not wanting in that to which your
+grandeur, your great Christianity, your own interests, oblige you.  In
+truth 'tis a great and heroic work, worthy the great power of your
+Majesty."  "For my own part," he continued, "I have done what depended
+upon me.  From your own royal hand must emanate the rest;--men, namely,
+sufficient to maintain the posts, and money enough to support them
+there."
+
+He expressed himself in the strongest language concerning the danger to
+the royal cause from the weak and gradually sinking condition of the
+army.  Even without the French intrigues with the rebels, concerning
+which, in his ignorance of the exact state of affairs, he expressed much
+anxiety, it would be impossible, he said, to save the royal cause without
+men and money.
+
+"I have spared myself," said the Prince, "neither day nor night.  Let
+not your Majesty impute the blame to me if we fail.  Verdugo also is
+uttering a perpetual cry out of Friesland for men--men and money."
+
+Yet, notwithstanding all these obstacles, the bridge was finished at
+last.  On the 25th February, (1585) the day sacred to Saint Matthew, and
+of fortunate augury to the Emperor Charles, father of Philip and
+grandfather of Alexander, the Scheldt was closed.
+
+As already stated, from Fort Saint Mary on the Kalloo side, and from Fort
+Philip, not far from Ordain on the Brabant shore of the Scheldt, strong
+structures, supported upon piers, had been projected, reaching,
+respectively, five hundred feet into the stream.  These two opposite ends
+were now connected by a permanent bridge of boats.  There were thirty-two
+of these barges, each of them sixty-two feet in length and twelve in
+breadth, the spaces between each couple being twenty-two feet wide, and
+all being bound together, stem, stern, and midships, by quadruple hawsers
+and chains.  Each boat was anchored at stem and stern with loose cables.
+Strong timbers, with cross rafters, were placed upon the boats, upon
+which heavy frame-work the planked pathway was laid down.  A thick
+parapet of closely-fitting beams was erected along both the outer edges
+of the whole fabric.  Thus a continuous and well-fortified bridge, two
+thousand four hundred feet in length, was stretched at last from shore to
+shore.  Each of the thirty-two boats on which the central portion of the
+structure reposed, was a small fortress provided with two heavy pieces of
+artillery, pointing, the one up, the other down the stream, and manned by
+thirty-two soldiers and four sailors, defended by a breastwork formed of
+gabions of great thickness.
+
+The forts of Saint Philip and St. Mary, at either end of the bridge, had
+each ten great guns, and both were filled with soldiers.  In front of
+each fort, moreover, was stationed a fleet of twenty armed vessels,
+carrying heavy pieces of artillery; ten anchored at the angle towards
+Antwerp, and as many looking down the river.  One hundred and seventy
+great guns, including the armaments of the boats under the bridge of the
+armada and the forts, protected the whole structure, pointing up and down
+the stream.
+
+But, besides these batteries, an additional precaution had been taken.
+On each side, above and below the bridge, at a moderate distance--a bow
+shot--was anchored a heavy, raft floating upon empty barrels.  Each raft
+was composed of heavy timbers, bound together in bunches of three, the
+spaces between being connected by ships' masts and lighter spar-work, and
+with a tooth-like projection along the whole outer edge, formed of strong
+rafters, pointed and armed with sharp prongs and hooks of iron.  Thus a
+serried phalanx, as it were, of spears stood ever on guard to protect the
+precious inner structure.  Vessels coming from Zeeland or Antwerp, and
+the floating ice-masses, which were almost as formidable, were obliged to
+make their first attack upon these dangerous outer defences.  Each raft;
+floating in the middle of the stream, extended twelve hundred, and fifty-
+two feet across, thus protecting the whole of the bridge of boats and a
+portion of that resting upon piles.
+
+Such was the famous bridge of Parma.  The magnificent undertaking has
+been advantageously compared with the celebrated Rhine-bridge of Julius
+Caesar.  When it is remembered; however; that the Roman work was
+performed in summer, across a river only half as broad as the Scheldt,
+free from the disturbing, action of the tides; and flowing through an
+unresisting country; while the whole character of the structure; intended
+only to, serve for the single passage of an army, was far inferior to the
+massive solidity of Parma's bridge; it seems not unreasonable to assign
+the superiority to the general who had surmounted all the obstacles of a
+northern winter, vehement ebb and flow from the sea, and enterprising and
+desperate enemies at every point.
+
+When the citizens, at last, looked upon the completed fabric, converted
+from the "dream," which they had pronounced it to be, into a terrible
+reality; when they saw the shining array of Spanish and Italian legions
+marching and counter-marching upon their new road; and trampling, as it
+were; the turbulent river beneath their feet; when they witnessed the
+solemn military spectacle with which the Governor-General celebrated his
+success, amid peals of cannon and shouts of triumph from his army, they
+bitterly bewailed their own folly.  Yet even then they could hardly
+believe that the work had been accomplished by human agency, but they
+loudly protested that invisible demons had been summoned to plan and
+perfect this fatal and preter-human work.  They were wrong.  There had
+been but one demon--one clear, lofty intelligence, inspiring a steady
+and untiring hand.  The demon was the intellect of Alexander Farnese;
+but it had been assisted in its labour by the hundred devils of envy,
+covetousness, jealousy, selfishness, distrust, and discord, that had
+housed, not, in his camp, but in the ranks of those who were contending
+for their hearths and altars.
+
+And thus had the Prince arrived at success in spite of every obstacle.
+He took a just pride in the achievement, yet he knew by how many dangers
+he was still surrounded, and he felt hurt at his sovereign's neglect.
+"The enterprise at Antwerp," he wrote to Philip on the day the bridge was
+completed, "is so great and heroic that to celebrate it would require me
+to speak more at large than I like, to do, for fear of being tedious to
+your Majesty.  What I will say, is that the labours and difficulties have
+been every day so, great, that if your Majesty knew them, you would
+estimate, what we have done more highly than-you do; and not forget us so
+utterly, leaving us to die of hunger."
+
+He considered the fabric in itself almost impregnable, provided he were
+furnished with the means to maintain what he had so painfully
+constructed.
+
+"The whole is in such condition," said he, "that in opinion of all
+competent military judges it would stand though all Holland and Zeeland
+should come to destroy our, palisades.  Their attacks must be made at
+immense danger, and disadvantage, so severely can we play upon them with
+our artillery and musketry.  Every boat is, garnished with the most
+dainty captains and soldiers, so that if the enemy should attempt to
+assail us now, they would come back with broken heads."
+
+Yet in the midst of his apparent triumph he had, at times, almost despair
+in his heart.  He felt really at the last gasp.  His troops had dwindled
+to the mere shadow of an army, and they were forced to live almost upon
+air.  The cavalry had nearly vanished.  The garrisons in the different
+cities were starving.  The burghers had no food for the soldiers nor for
+themselves.  "As for the rest of the troops," said Alexander, "they are
+stationed where they have nothing to subsist upon, save salt water and
+the dykes, and if the Lord does not grant a miracle, succour, even if
+sent by your Majesty, will arrive too late."  He assured his master, that
+he could not go on more than five or six days longer, that he had been
+feeding his soldiers for a long time from hand to mouth, and that it
+would soon be impossible for him to keep his troops together.  If he did
+not disband them they would run away.
+
+His pictures were most dismal, his supplications for money very moving
+but he never alluded to himself.  All his anxiety, all his tenderness,
+were for his soldiers.  "They must have food," he said: "'Tis impossible
+to sustain them any longer by driblets, as I have done for a long time.
+Yet how can I do it without money?  And I have none at all, nor do I see
+where to get a single florin."
+
+But these revelations were made only to his master's most secret ear.
+His letters, deciphered after three centuries, alone make manifest the
+almost desperate condition in which the apparently triumphant general was
+placed, and the facility with which his antagonists, had they been well
+guided and faithful to themselves, might have driven him into the sea.
+
+But to those adversaries he maintained an attitude of serene and smiling
+triumph.  A spy, sent from the city to obtain intelligence for the
+anxious burghers, had gained admission into his lines, was captured and
+brought before the Prince.  He expected, of course, to be immediately
+hanged.  On the contrary, Alexander gave orders that he should be
+conducted over every part of the encampment.  The forts, the palisades,
+the bridge, were all to be carefully exhibited and explained to him as if
+he had been a friendly visitor entitled to every information.  He was
+requested to count the pieces of artillery in the forts, on the bridge,
+in the armada.  After thoroughly studying the scene he was then dismissed
+with a safe-conduct to the city.
+
+"Go back to those who sent you," said the Prince.  "Convey to them the
+information in quest of which you came.  Apprize them of every thing
+which you have inspected, counted, heard explained.  Tell them further,
+that the siege will never be abandoned, and that this bridge will be my
+sepulcher or my pathway into Antwerp."
+
+And now the aspect of the scene was indeed portentous.  The chimera had
+become a very visible bristling reality.  There stood the bridge which
+the citizens had ridiculed while it was growing before their faces.
+There scowled the Kowenstyn--black with cannon, covered all over with
+fortresses which the butchers had so sedulously preserved.  From Parma's
+camp at Beveren and Kalloo a great fortified road led across the river
+and along the fatal dyke all the way to the entrenchments at Stabroek,
+where Mansfeld's army lay.  Grim Mondragon held the "holy cross" and the
+whole Kowenstyn in his own iron grasp.  A chain of forts, built and
+occupied by the contending hosts of the patriots and the Spaniards, were
+closely packed together along both banks of the Scheldt, nine miles long
+from Antwerp to Lillo, and interchanged perpetual cannonades.  The
+country all around, once fertile as a garden, had been changed into a
+wild and wintry sea where swarms of gun-boats and other armed vessels
+manoeuvred and contended with each other over submerged villages and
+orchards, and among half-drowned turrets and steeples.  Yet there rose
+the great bulwark--whose early destruction would have made all this
+desolation a blessing--unbroken and obstinate; a perpetual obstacle to
+communication between Antwerp and Zeeland.  The very spirit of the
+murdered Prince of Orange seemed to rise sadly and reproachfully out of
+the waste of waters, as if to rebuke the men who had been so deaf to his
+solemn warnings.
+
+Brussels, too, wearied and worn, its heart sick with hope deferred, now
+fell into despair as the futile result of the French negotiation became
+apparent.  The stately and opulent city had long been in a most abject
+condition.  Many of its inhabitants attempted to escape from the horrors
+of starving by flying from its walls.  Of the fugitives, the men were
+either scourged back by the Spaniards into the city, or hanged up along
+the road-side.  The women were treated, leniently, even playfully, for it
+was thought an excellent jest to cut off the petticoats of the
+unfortunate starving creatures up to their knees, and then command them
+to go back and starve at home with their friends and fellow-citizens.  A
+great many persons literally died of hunger.  Matrons with large families
+poisoned their children and themselves to avoid the more terrible death
+by starving.  At last, when Vilvoorde was taken, when the baseness of the
+French King was thoroughly understood, when Parma's bridge was completed
+and the Scheldt bridled, Brussels capitulated on as favourable terms as
+could well have been expected.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+College of "peace-makers," who wrangled more than all
+Military virtue in the support of an infamous cause
+Not distinguished for their docility
+Repentance, as usual, had come many hours too late
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v39
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, 1585
+
+
+Alexander Farnese, The Duke of Parma
+
+
+CHAPTER V., Part 2.
+
+
+     Position of Alexander and his Army--La Motte attempts in vain
+     Ostend--Patriots gain Liefkenshoek--Projects of Gianibelli--Alarm on
+     the Bridge--The Fire Ships--The Explosion--Its Results--Death of the
+     Viscount of Ghent--Perpetual Anxiety of Farnese--Impoverished State
+     of the Spaniards--Intended Attack of the Kowenstyn--Second Attack of
+     the Kowenstyn--A Landing effected--A sharp Combat--The Dyke pierced
+     --Rally of the Spaniards--Parma comes to the Rescue--Fierce Struggle
+     on the Dyke--The Spaniards successful--Premature Triumph at Antwerp
+     --Defeat of the Patriots--The Ship War's End--Despair of the Citizens
+
+Notwithstanding these triumphs, Parma was much inconvenienced by not
+possessing the sea-coast of Flanders.  Ostend was a perpetual stumbling-
+block to him.  He therefore assented, with pleasure to a proposition made
+by La Motte, one of the most experienced and courageous of the Walloon
+royalist, commanders, to attempt the place by surprise.  And La Motte; at
+the first blow; was more than half successful.
+
+On the night of the 29th March, (1585) with two thousand foot and twelve
+hundred cavalry, he carried the whole of the old port of Ostend.  Leaving
+a Walloon officer, in whom he had confidence, to guard the position
+already gained, he went back in person for reinforcements.  During his
+advance, the same ill luck attended his enterprise which had blasted
+Hohenlo's achievement at Bois-le-Duc.  The soldiers he left behind him
+deserted their posts for the sake of rifling the town.  The officer in
+command, instead of keeping them to their duty, joined in the chase.  The
+citizens roused themselves, attacked their invaders, killed many of them,
+and put the rest to flight.  When La Motte returned; he found the panic
+general.  His whole force, including the fresh soldiers just brought to
+the rescue, were beside themselves with fear.  He killed several with his
+own hand, but the troops were not to be rallied.  His quick triumph was
+changed into an absolute defeat.
+
+Parma, furious at the ignominious result of a plan from which so much had
+been expected, ordered the Walloon captain, from whose delinquency so
+much disaster had resulted, to be forthwith hanged.  "Such villainy,"
+said he, "must never go unpunished."
+
+It was impossible for the Prince to send a second expedition to attempt
+the reduction of Ostend, for the patriots were at last arousing
+themselves to the necessity of exertion.  It was very obvious--now that
+the bridge had been built, and the Kowenstyn fortified--that one or the
+other was to be destroyed, or Antwerp abandoned to its fate.
+
+The patriots had been sleeping, as it were, all the winter, hugging the
+delusive dream of French sovereignty and French assistance.  No language
+can exaggerate the deadly effects from the slow poison of that
+negotiation.  At any rate, the negotiation was now concluded.  The dream
+was dispelled.  Antwerp must now fall, or a decisive blow must be struck
+by the patriots themselves, and a telling blow had been secretly and
+maturely meditated.  Certain preparatory steps were however necessary.
+
+The fort of Liefkenshoek, "darling's corner," was a most important post.
+The patriots had never ceased to regret that precious possession, lost,
+as we have seen, in so tragical a manner on the very day of Orange's
+death.  Fort Lillo, exactly opposite, on the Brabant shore of the
+Scheldt, had always been securely held by them; and was their strongest
+position.  Were both places in their power, the navigation of the river,
+at least as far as the bridge, would be comparatively secure.
+
+A sudden dash was made upon Liefkenshoek.  A number of armed vessels
+sailed up from Zeeland, under command of Justinus de Nassau.  They were
+assisted from Fort Lillo by a detachment headed by Count Hohenlo.  These
+two officers were desirous of retrieving the reputation which they had
+lost at Bois-le-Duc.  They were successful, and the "darling" fort was
+carried at a blow.  After a brief cannonade, the patriots made a breach,
+effected a landing, and sprang over the ramparts.  The Walloons and
+Spaniards fled in dismay; many of them were killed in the fort, and along
+the dykes; others were hurled into the Scheldt.  The victors followed up
+their success by reducing, with equal impetuosity, the fort of Saint
+Anthony, situate in the neighbourhood farther down the river.  They thus
+gained entire command of all the high ground, which remained in that
+quarter above the inundation, and was called the Doel.
+
+The dyke, on which Liefkenshoek stood, led up the river towards Kalloo,
+distant less than a league.  There were Parma's head-quarters and the
+famous bridge.  But at Fort Saint Mary; where the Flemish head of that
+bridge rested, the dyke was broken.  Upon that broken end the commanders
+of the expedition against Liefkenshoek were ordered to throw up an
+entrenchment, without loss of a moment, so soon as they should have
+gained the fortresses which they were ordered first to assault.  Sainte
+Aldegonde had given urgent written directions to this effect.  From a
+redoubt situated thus, in the very face of Saint Mary's, that position,
+the palisade-work, the whole bridge, might be battered with all the
+artillery that could be brought from Zeeland.
+
+But Parma was beforehand with them.  Notwithstanding his rage and
+mortification that Spanish soldiers should have ignominiously lost the
+important fortress which Richebourg had conquered so brilliantly nine
+months before, he was not the man to spend time in unavailing regrets.
+His quick eye instantly, detected the flaw which might soon be fatal.
+In the very same night of the loss of Liefkenshoek, he sent as strong a
+party as could be spared, with plenty of sappers and miners, in flat-
+bottomed boats across from Kalloo.  As the morning dawned, an improvised
+fortress, with the Spanish flag waving above its bulwarks, stood on the
+broken end of the dyke.  That done, he ordered one of the two captains
+who had commanded in Liefkenshoek and Saint Anthony to be beheaded on the
+same dyke.  The other was dismissed with ignominy.  Ostend was, of
+course, given up; "but it was not a small matter," said Parma, "to
+fortify ourselves that very night upon the ruptured place, and so prevent
+the rebels from doing it, which would have been very mal-a-propos."
+
+Nevertheless, the rebels had achieved a considerable success; and now or
+never the telling blow, long meditated, was to be struck.
+
+There lived in Antwerp a subtle Mantuan, Gianibelli by name, who had
+married and been long settled in the city.  He had made himself busy with
+various schemes for victualling the place.  He had especially urged upon
+the authorities, at an early period of the siege, the propriety of making
+large purchases of corn and storing it in magazines at a time when
+famine-price had by no means been reached.  But the leading men had then
+their heads full of a great ship, or floating castle, which they were
+building, and which they had pompously named the 'War's End,' 'Fin de la
+Guerre.'  We shall hear something of this phenomenon at a later period.
+Meanwhile, Gianibelli, who knew something of shipbuilding, as he did of
+most other useful matters, ridiculed the design, which was likely to
+cost, in itself before completion, as much money as would keep the city
+in bread for a third of a year.
+
+Gianibelli was no patriot.  He was purely a man of science and of great
+acquirements, who was looked upon by the ignorant populace alternately as
+a dreamer and a wizard.  He was as indifferent to the cause of freedom as
+of despotism, but he had a great love for chemistry.  He was also a
+profound mechanician, second to no man of his age in theoretic and
+practical engineering.
+
+He had gone from Italy to Spain that he might offer his services to
+Philip, and give him the benefit of many original and ingenious
+inventions.  Forced to dance attendance, day after day, among sneering
+courtiers and insolent placemen, and to submit to the criticism of
+practical sages and philosophers of routine, while, he was constantly
+denied an opportunity of explaining his projects, the quick-tempered
+Italian had gone away at last, indignant.  He had then vowed revenge upon
+the dulness by which his genius had been slighted, and had sworn that the
+next time the Spaniards heard the name of the man whom they had dared to
+deride, they should hear it with tears.
+
+He now laid before the senate of Antwerp a plan for some vessels likely
+to prove more effective than the gigantic 'War's End,' which he had
+prophesied would prove a failure.  With these he pledged himself to
+destroy the bridge.  He demanded three ships which he had selected from
+the city fleet; the 'Orange,' the 'Post,' and the 'Golden Lion,'
+measuring, respectively, one hundred and fifty, three hundred and fifty,
+and five hundred tons.  Besides these, he wished sixty flat-bottomed
+scows, which he proposed to send down the river, partially submerged,
+disposed in the shape of a half moon, with innumerable anchors and
+grapnel's thrusting themselves out of the water at every point.  This
+machine was intended to operate against the raft.
+
+Ignorance and incredulity did their work, as usual, and Gianbelli's
+request was refused.  As a quarter-measure, nevertheless, he was allowed
+to take two smaller vessels of seventy and eighty tons.  The Italian was
+disgusted with parsimony upon so momentous an occasion, but he at the
+same time determined, even with these slender materials, to give an
+exhibition of his power.
+
+Not all his the glory, however, of the ingenious project.  Associated
+with him were two skilful artizans of Antwerp; a clockmaker named Bory,
+and a mechanician named Timmerman--but Gianibelli was the chief and
+superintendent of the whole daring enterprise.
+
+He gave to his two ships the cheerful names of the 'Fortune' and the
+'Hope,' and set himself energetically to justify their titles by their
+efficiency.  They were to be marine volcanos, which, drifting down the
+river with tide, were to deal destruction where the Spaniards themselves
+most secure.
+
+In the hold of each vessel, along the whole length, was laid down a solid
+flooring of brick and mortar, one foot thick and five feet wide.  Upon
+this was built a chamber of marble mason-work, forty feet long, three and
+a half feet broad, as many high, and with side-walks [walls? D.W.] five
+feet in thickness.
+
+This was the crater.  It was filled with seven thousand of gunpowder, of
+a kind superior to anything known, and prepared  by Gianibelli himself.
+It was covered with a roof, six feet in thickness, formed of blue
+tombstones, placed edgewise.  Over this crater, rose a hollow cone, or
+pyramid, made of heavy marble slabs, and filled with mill-stones, cannon
+balls, blocks of marble, chain-shot, iron hooks, plough-coulters, and
+every dangerous missile that could be imagined.  The spaces between the
+mine and the sides of each ship were likewise filled with paving stones,
+iron-bound stakes, harpoons, and other projectiles.  The whole fabric was
+then covered by a smooth light flooring of planks and brick-work, upon
+which was a pile of wood: This was to be lighted at the proper time, in
+order that the two vessels might present the appearance of simple fire-
+ships, intended only to excite a conflagration of the bridge.  On the
+'Fortune' a slow match, very carefully prepared, communicated with the
+submerged mine, which was to explode at a nicely-calculated moment.  The
+eruption of the other floating volcano was to be regulated by an
+ingenious piece of clock-work, by which, at the appointed time, fire,
+struck from a flint, was to inflame the hidden mass of gunpowder below.
+
+In addition to these two infernal machines, or "hell-burners," as they
+were called, a fleet of thirty-two smaller vessels was prepared.  Covered
+with tar, turpentine, rosin, and filled with inflammable and combustible
+materials, these barks were to be sent from Antwerp down the river in
+detachments of eight every half hour with the ebb tide.  The object was
+to clear the way, if possible, of the raft, and to occupy the attention
+of the Spaniards, until the 'Fortune' and the `Hope' should come down
+upon the bridge.
+
+The 5th April, (1885) being the day following that on which the
+successful assault upon Liefkenshoek and Saint Anthony had taken place,
+was fixed for the descent of the fire-ships.  So soon as it should be
+dark, the thirty-two lesser burning-vessels, under the direction of
+Admiral Jacob Jacobzoon, were to be sent forth from the neighborhood of
+the 'Boor's Sconce'--a fort close to the city walls--in accordance with
+the Italian's plan.  "Run-a-way Jacob," however, or "Koppen Loppen," had
+earned no new laurels which could throw into the shade that opprobrious
+appellation.  He was not one of Holland's naval heroes, but, on the
+whole, a very incompetent officer; exactly the man to damage the best
+concerted scheme which the genius of others could invent.  Accordingly,
+Koppen-Loppen began with a grave mistake.  Instead of allowing the
+precursory fire-ships to drift down the stream, at the regular intervals
+agreed upon, he despatched them all rapidly, and helter skelter, one
+after another, as fast as they could be set forth on their career.  Not
+long afterwards, he sent the two "hellburners," the 'Fortune' and the
+'Hope,' directly in their wake.  Thus the whole fiery fleet had set
+forth, almost at once, upon its fatal voyage.
+
+It was known to Parma that preparations for an attack were making at
+Antwerp, but as to the nature of the danger he was necessarily in the
+dark.  He was anticipating an invasion by a fleet from the city in
+combination with a squadron of Zeelanders coming up from below.  So soon
+as the first vessels, therefore, with their trains not yet lighted, were
+discovered bearing down from the city, he was confirmed in his
+conjecture.  His drama and trumpets instantly called to arms, and the
+whole body of his troops was mustered upon the bridge; the palisades, and
+in the nearest forts.  Thus the preparations to avoid or to contend with
+the danger, were leading the Spaniards into the very jaws of destruction.
+Alexander, after crossing and recrossing the river, giving minute
+directions for repelling the expected assault, finally stationed himself
+in the block-house at the point of junction, on the Flemish aide, between
+the palisade and the bridge of boats.  He was surrounded by a group of
+superior officers, among whom Richebourg, Billy, Gaetano, Cessis, and the
+Englishman Sir Rowland Yorke, were conspicuous.
+
+It was a dark, mild evening of early spring.  As the fleet of vessels
+dropped slowly down the river, they suddenly became luminous, each ship
+flaming out of the darkness, a phantom of living fire.  The very waves of
+the Scheldt seemed glowing with the conflagration, while its banks were
+lighted up with a preternatural glare.  It was a wild, pompous,
+theatrical spectacle.  The array of soldiers on both aides the river,
+along the dykes and upon the bridge, with banners waving, and spear and
+cuirass glancing in the lurid light; the demon fleet, guided by no human
+hand, wrapped in flames, and flitting through the darkness, with
+irregular movement; but portentous aspect, at the caprice of wind and
+tide; the death-like silence of expectation, which had succeeded the
+sound of trumpet and the shouts of the soldiers; and the weird glow which
+had supplanted the darkness-all combined with the sense of imminent and
+mysterious danger to excite and oppress the imagination.
+
+Presently, the Spaniards, as they gazed from the bridge, began to take
+heart again.  One after another, many of the lesser vessels drifted
+blindly against the raft, where they entangled themselves among the hooks
+and gigantic spearheads, and burned slowly out without causing any
+extensive conflagration.  Others grounded on the banks of the river,
+before reaching their destination.  Some sank in the stream.
+
+Last of all came the two infernal ships, swaying unsteadily with the
+current; the pilots of course, as they neared the bridge, having
+noiselessly effected their escape in the skiffs.  The slight fire upon
+the deck scarcely illuminated the dark phantom-like hulls.  Both were
+carried by the current clear of the raft, which, by a great error of
+judgment, as it now appeared, on the part of the builders, had only been
+made to protect the floating portion of the bridge.  The 'Fortune' came
+first, staggering inside the raft, and then lurching clumsily against
+the dyke, and grounding near Kalloo, without touching the bridge.  There
+was a moment's pause of expectation.  At last the slow match upon the
+deck burned out, and there was a faint and partial explosion, by which
+little or no damage was produced.
+
+Parma instantly called for volunteers to board the mysterious vessel.
+The desperate expedition was headed by the bold Roland York, a Londoner,
+of whom one day there was more to be heard in Netherland history.  The
+party sprang into the deserted and now harmless volcano, extinguishing
+the slight fires that were smouldering on the deck, and thrusting spears
+and long poles into the hidden recesses of the hold.  There was, however,
+little time to pursue these perilous investigations, and the party soon
+made their escape to the bridge.
+
+The troops of Parma, crowding on the palisade, and looking over the
+parapets, now began to greet the exhibition with peals of derisive
+laughter.  It was but child's play, they thought, to threaten a Spanish
+army, and a general like Alexander Farnese, with such paltry fire-works
+as these.  Nevertheless all eyes were anxiously fixed upon the remaining
+fire-ship, or "hell-burner," the 'Hope,' which had now drifted very near
+the place of its destination.  Tearing her way between the raft and the
+shore, she struck heavily against the bridge on the Kalloo side, close to
+the block-house at the commencement of the floating portion of the
+bridge.  A thin wreath of smoke was seen curling over a slight and
+smouldering fire upon her deck.
+
+Marquis Richebourg, standing on the bridge, laughed loudly at the
+apparently impotent conclusion of the whole adventure.  It was his last
+laugh on earth.  A number of soldiers, at Parma's summons, instantly
+sprang on board this second mysterious vessel, and occupied themselves,
+as the party on board the 'Fortune' had done, in extinguishing, the
+flames, and in endeavoring to ascertain the nature of the machine.
+Richebourg boldly directed from the bridge their hazardous experiments.
+
+At the same moment a certain ensign De Vega, who stood near the Prince of
+Parma, close to the block-house, approached him with vehement entreaties
+that he should retire.  Alexander refused to stir from the spot, being
+anxious to learn the result of these investigations.  Vega, moved by some
+instinctive and irresistible apprehension, fell upon his knees, and
+plucking the General earnestly by the cloak, implored him with such
+passionate words and gestures to leave the place, that the Prince
+reluctantly yielded.
+
+It was not a moment too soon.  The clockwork had been better adjusted
+than the slow match in the 'Fortune.' Scarcely had Alexander reached the
+entrance of Saint Mary's Fort, at the end of the bridge, when a horrible
+explosion was heard.  The 'Hope' disappeared, together with the men who
+had boarded her, and the block-house, against which she had struck, with
+all its garrison, while a large portion of the bridge, with all the
+troops stationed upon it, had vanished into air.  It was the work of a
+single instant.  The Scheldt yawned to its lowest depth, and then cast
+its waters across the dykes, deep into the forts, and far over the land.
+The earth shook as with the throb of a volcano.  A wild glare lighted up
+the scene for one moment, and was then succeeded by pitchy darkness.
+Houses were toppled down miles away, and not a living thing, even in
+remote places, could keep its feet.  The air was filled with a rain of
+plough-shares, grave-stones, and marble balls, intermixed with the heads,
+limbs, and bodies, of what had been human beings.  Slabs of granite,
+vomited by the flaming ship, were found afterwards at a league's
+distance, and buried deep in the earth.  A thousand soldiers were
+destroyed in a second of time; many of them being torn to shreds, beyond
+even the semblance of humanity.
+
+Richebourg disappeared, and was not found until several days later, when
+his body was discovered; doubled around an iron chain, which hung from
+one of the bridge-boats in the centre of the river.  The veteran Robles,
+Seigneur de Billy, a Portuguese officer of eminent service and high
+military rank, was also destroyed.  Months afterwards, his body was
+discovered adhering to the timber-work of the bridge, upon the ultimate
+removal of that structure, and was only recognized by a peculiar gold
+chain which he habitually wore.  Parma himself was thrown to the ground,
+stunned by a blow on the shoulder from a flying stake.  The page, who was
+behind him, carrying his helmet, fell dead without a wound, killed by the
+concussion of the air.
+
+Several strange and less tragical incidents occurred.  The Viscomte de
+Bruxelles was blown out of a boat on the Flemish side, and descended safe
+and, sound into another in the centre of the stream.  Captain Tucci, clad
+in complete armour, was whirled out of a fort, shot perpendicularly into
+the air, and then fell back into the river.  Being of a cool temperament,
+a good swimmer, and very pious, he skilfully divested himself of cuirass
+and helmet, recommended himself to the Blessed Virgin, and swam safely
+ashore.  Another young officer of Parma's body-guard, Francois de Liege
+by name, standing on the Kalloo end of the bridge, rose like a feather
+into the clouds, and, flying quite across the river, alighted on the
+opposite bank with no further harm than a contused shoulder.  He imagined
+himself (he said afterwards) to have been changed into a cannon-ball, as
+he rushed through the pitchy atmosphere, propelled by a blast of
+irresistible fury.
+
+     [The chief authorities used in the foregoing account of this famous
+     enterprise are those already cited on a previous page, viz.: the MS.
+     Letters of the Prince of Parma in the Archives of Simancas; Bor, ii.
+     596, 597; Strada, H. 334 seq.; Meteren, xii.  223; Hoofd Vervolgh,
+     91; Baudartii Polemographia, ii.  24-27; Bentivoglio, etc., I have
+     not thought it necessary to cite them step by step; for all the
+     accounts, with some inevitable and unimportant discrepancies, agree
+     with each other.  The most copious details are to be found in Strada
+     and in Bor.]
+
+It had been agreed that Admiral Jacobzoon should, immediately after the
+explosion of the fire-ships, send an eight-oared barge to ascertain the
+amount of damage.  If a breach had been effected, and a passage up to the
+city opened, he was to fire a rocket.  At this signal, the fleet
+stationed at Lillo, carrying a heavy armament, laden with provisions
+enough to relieve Antwerp from all anxiety, and ready to sail on the
+instant, was at once to force its way up the river.
+
+The deed was done.  A breach, two hundred feet in width was made.  Had
+the most skilful pilot in Zeeland held the helm of the 'Hope,' with a
+choice crew obedient to his orders, he could not have guided her more
+carefully than she had been directed by wind and tide.  Avoiding the raft
+which lay in her way, she had, as it were, with the intelligence of a
+living creature, fulfilled the wishes of the daring genius that had
+created her; and laid herself alongside the bridge, exactly at the most
+telling point.  She had then destroyed herself, precisely at the right
+moment.  All the effects, and more than all, that had been predicted by
+the Mantuan wizard had come to pass.  The famous bridge was cleft through
+and through, and a thousand picked men--Parma's very "daintiest"--were
+blown out of existence.  The Governor-General himself was lying stark and
+stiff upon the bridge which he said should be his triumphal monument or
+his tomb.  His most distinguished officers were dead, and all the
+survivors were dumb and blind with astonishment at the unheard of,
+convulsion.  The passage was open for the fleet, and the fleet, lay below
+with sails spread, and oars in the rowlocks, only waiting for the signal
+to bear up at once to the scene of action, to smite out of existence all
+that remained of the splendid structure, and to carry relief and triumph
+into Antwerp.
+
+Not a soul slept in the city.  The explosion had shook its walls, and
+thousands of people thronged the streets, their hearts beating high with
+expectation.  It was a moment of exquisite triumph.  The 'Hope,' word of
+happy augury, had not been relied upon in vain, and Parma's seven months
+of patient labour had been annihilated in a moment.  Sainte Aldegonde and
+Gianibelli stood in the 'Boors' Sconce' on the edge of the river.  They
+had felt and heard the explosion, and they were now straining their eyes
+through the darkness to mark the flight of the welcome rocket.
+
+That rocket never rose.  And it is enough, even after the lapse of three
+centuries, to cause a pang in every heart that beats for human liberty to
+think of the bitter disappointment which crushed these great and
+legitimate hopes.  The cause lay in the incompetency and cowardice of the
+man who had been so unfortunately entrusted with a share in a noble
+enterprise.
+
+Admiral Jacobzoon, paralyzed by the explosion, which announced his own
+triumph, sent off the barge, but did not wait for its return.  The
+boatmen, too, appalled by the sights and sounds which they had witnessed,
+and by the murky darkness which encompassed them, did not venture near
+the scene of action, but, after rowing for a short interval hither and
+thither, came back with the lying report that nothing had been
+accomplished, and that the bridge remained unbroken.  Sainte Aldegonde
+and Gianibelli were beside themselves with rage, as they surmised the
+imbecility of the Admiral, and devoted him in their hearts to the
+gallows, which he certainly deserved.  The wrath of the keen Italian may
+be conceived, now that his ingenious and entirely successful scheme was
+thus rendered fruitless by the blunders of the incompetent Fleming.
+
+On the other side, there was a man whom no danger could appall.
+Alexander had been thought dead, and the dismay among his followers
+was universal.  He was known to have been standing an instant before the
+explosion on the very block-house where the 'Hope' had struck.  After the
+first terrible moments had passed, his soldiers found their general
+lying, as if in a trance, on the threshold of St. Mary's Fort, his drawn
+sword in his hand, with Cessis embracing his knees, and Gaetano extended
+at his side, stunned with a blow upon the head.
+
+Recovering from his swoon, Parma was the first to spring to his feet.
+Sword in hand, he rushed at once upon the bridge to mark the extent of
+the disaster.  The admirable structure, the result of so much patient and
+intelligent energy, was fearfully shattered; the bridge, the river, and
+the shore, strewed with the mangled bodies of his soldiers.  He expected,
+as a matter of certainty, that the fleet from below would instantly force
+its passage, destroy, the remainder of his troops-stunned as they were
+with the sudden catastrophe complete the demolition of the bridge, and
+then make its way to Antwerp, with ample reinforcements and supplies.
+And Alexander saw that the expedition would be successful.  Momently
+expecting the attack, he maintained his courage and semblance of
+cheerfulness, with despair in his heart.
+
+His winter's work seemed annihilated, and it was probable that he should
+be obliged to raise the siege.  Nevertheless, he passed in person from
+rank to rank, from post to post, seeing that the wounded were provided
+for, encouraging those that remained unhurt, and endeavouring to infuse a
+portion of his own courage into the survivors of his panic-stricken army.
+
+Nor was he entirely unsuccessful, as the night wore on and the expected
+assault was still delayed.  Without further loss of time, he employed his
+men to collect the drifting boats, timber, and spar-work, and to make a
+hasty and temporary restoration--in semblance at least--of the ruined
+portion of his bridge.  And thus he employed himself steadily all the
+night, although expecting every instant to hear the first broadside of
+the Zeeland cannon.  When morning broke, and it became obvious that the
+patriots were unable or unwilling to follow up their own success, the
+Governor-General felt as secure as ever.  He at once set about the
+thorough repairs of his great work, and--before he could be again
+molested--had made good the damage which it had sustained.
+
+It was not till three days afterwards that the truth was known in
+Antwerp.  Hohenlo then sent down a messenger, who swam, under the bridge,
+ascertained the exact state of affairs, and returned, when it was too
+late, with the first intelligence of the triumph which had been won and
+lost.  The disappointment and mortification were almost intolerable.  And
+thus had.  Run-a-way Jacob, 'Koppen Loppen,' blasted the hopes of so many
+wiser and braver spirits than his own.
+
+The loss to Parma and to the royalist cause in Marquis Richebourg, was
+very great.  The death of De Billy, who was a faithful, experienced, and
+courageous general, was also much lamented.  "The misfortune from their
+death," said Parma, "is not to be exaggerated.  Each was ever ready to do
+his duty in your Majesty's service, and to save me much fatigue in all my
+various affairs.  Nevertheless," continued the Prince, with great piety,
+"we give the Lord thanks for all, and take as a favour everything which
+comes from His hand."
+
+Alexander had indeed reason to deplore the loss of Robert de Melun,
+Viscount of Ghent, Marquis of Roubaix and Richebourg.  He was a most
+valuable officer.  His wealth was great.  It had been recently largely
+increased by the confiscation of his elder brother's estates for his
+benefit, a measure which at Parma's intercession had been accorded by the
+King.  That brother was the patriotic Prince of Espinoy, whom we have
+recently seen heading the legation of the States to France.  And
+Richebourg was grateful to Alexander, for besides these fraternal spoils,
+he had received two marquisates through his great patron, in addition to
+the highest military offices.  Insolent, overbearing, truculent to all
+the world, to Parma he was ever docile, affectionate, watchful,
+obsequious.  A man who knew not fatigue, nor fear, nor remorse, nor
+natural affection, who could patiently superintend all the details of a
+great military work, or manage a vast political intrigue by alternations
+of browbeating and bribery, or lead a forlorn hope, or murder a prisoner
+in cold blood, or leap into the blazing crater of what seemed a marine
+volcano, the Marquis of Richebourg had ever made himself most actively
+and unscrupulously useful to his master.  Especially had he rendered
+invaluable services in the reduction, of the Walloon Provinces, and in
+the bridging of the Scheldt, the two crowning triumphs of Alexander's
+life.  He had now passed from the scene where he had played so energetic
+and dazzling a part, and lay doubled round an iron cable beneath the
+current of the restless river.
+
+And in this eventful night, Parma, as always, had been true to himself
+and to his sovereign.  "We expected," said he, "that the rebels would
+instantly attack us on all sides after the explosion.  But all remained
+so astonished by the unheard-of accident, that very few understood what
+was going on.  It seemed better that I--notwithstanding the risk of
+letting myself be seen--should encourage the people not to run away.
+I did so, and remedied matters a little but not so much as that--if the
+enemy had then attacked us--we should not have been in the very greatest
+risk and peril.  I did not fail to do what I am obliged to do, and always
+hope to do; but I say no more of what passed, or what was done by myself,
+because it does not become me to speak of these things."
+
+Notwithstanding this discomfiture, the patriots kept up heart, and
+were incessantly making demonstrations against Parma's works.  Their
+proceedings against the bridge, although energetic enough to keep the
+Spanish commander in a state of perpetual anxiety, were never so
+efficient however as on the memorable occasion when the Mantuan engineer
+and the Dutch watchmaker had exhausted all their ingenuity.
+Nevertheless, the rebel barks swarmed all over the submerged territory,
+now threatening this post, and now that, and effecting their retreat at
+pleasure; for nearly the whole of Parma's little armada was stationed at
+the two extremities of his bridge.  Many fire-ships were sent down from
+time to time, but Alexander had organized a systematic patrol of a few
+sentry-boats, armed with scythes and hooks, which rowed up and down in
+front of the rafts, and protected them against invasion.
+
+Some little effect was occasionally produced, but there was on the whole
+more anxiety excited than damage actually inflicted.  The perturbation of
+spirit among the Spaniards when any of these 'demon fine-ships,' as they
+called them, appeared bearing down upon their bridge, was excessive.  It
+could not be forgotten, that the `Hope' had sent into space a thousand of
+the best soldiers of the little army within one moment of time.
+
+Such rapid proceedings had naturally left an uneasy impression on the
+minds of the survivors.  The fatigue of watching was enormous.  Hardly an
+officer or soldier among the besieging forces knew what it was to sleep.
+There was a perpetual exchanging of signals and beacon-fires and rockets
+among the patriots--not a day or night, when a concerted attack by the
+Antwerpers from above, and the Hollanders from below, with gun-boats and
+fire-ships, and floating mines, and other devil's enginry, was not
+expected.
+
+"We are always upon the alert," wrote Parma, "with arms in our hands.
+Every one must mount guard, myself as well as the rest, almost every
+night, and the better part of every day."
+
+He was quite aware that something was ever in preparation; and the
+nameless, almost sickening apprehension which existed among his stout-
+hearted veterans, was a proof that the Mantuan's genius--notwithstanding
+the disappointment as to the great result--had not been exercised
+entirely in vain.  The image of the Antwerp devil-ships imprinted itself
+indelibly upon the Spanish mind, as of something preternatural, with
+which human valour could only contend at a disadvantage; and a day was
+not very far distant--one of the memorable days of the world's history,
+big with the fate of England, Spain, Holland, and all Christendom--when
+the sight of a half-dozen blazing vessels, and the cry of "the Antwerp
+fireships," was to decide the issue of a most momentous enterprise.  The
+blow struck by the obscure Italian against Antwerp bridge, although
+ineffective then, was to be most sensibly felt after a few years had
+passed, upon a wider field.
+
+Meantime the uneasiness and the watchfulness in the biesieging army were
+very exhausting.  "They are never idle in the city," wrote Parma.  "They
+are perpetually proving their obstinacy and pertinacity by their
+industrious genius and the machines which they devise.  Every day we are
+expecting some new invention.  On our side we endeavour to counteract
+their efforts by every human means in our power.  Nevertheless, I confess
+that our merely human intellect is not competent to penetrate the designs
+of their diabolical genius.  Certainly, most wonderful and extraordinary
+things have been exhibited, such as the oldest soldiers here have never
+before witnessed."
+
+Moreover, Alexander saw himself growing weaker and weaker.  His force
+had dwindled to a mere phantom of an army.  His soldiers, ill-fed, half-
+clothed, unpaid, were fearfully overworked.  He was obliged to
+concentrate all the troops at his disposal around Antwerp.  Diversions
+against Ostend, operations in Friesland and Gelderland, although most
+desirable, had thus been rendered quite impossible.
+
+"I have recalled my cavalry and infantry from Ostend," he wrote, "and Don
+Juan de Manrique has fortunately arrived in Stabroek with a thousand good
+German folk.  The commissary-general of the cavalry has come in, too,
+with a good lot of the troops that had been encamped in the open country.
+Nevertheless, we remain wretchedly weak--quite insufficient to attempt
+what ought to be done.  If the enemy were more in force, or if the French
+wished to make trouble, your Majesty would see how important it had been
+to provide in time against such contingencies.  And although our
+neighbours, crestfallen, and rushing upon their own destruction, leave us
+in quiet, we are not without plenty of work.  It would be of inestimable
+advantage to make diversions in Gelderland and Friesland, because, in
+that case, the Hollanders, seeing the enemy so near their own borders,
+would be obliged to withdraw their assistance from Antwerp.  'Tis pity to
+see how few Spaniards your Majesty has left, and how diminished is our
+army.  Now, also, is the time to expect sickness, and this affair of
+Antwerp is obviously stretching out into large proportions.  Unless soon
+reinforced, we must inevitably go to destruction.  I implore your Majesty
+to ponder the matter well, and not to defer the remedy."
+
+His Majesty was sure to ponder the matter well, if that had been all.
+Philip was good at pondering; but it was equally certain that the remedy
+would be deferred.  Meantime Alexander and his starving but heroic little
+army were left to fight their battles as they could.
+
+His complaints were incessant, most reasonable, but unavailing.  With all
+the forces he could muster, by withdrawing from the neighbourhood of
+Ghent, Brussels, Vilvoorde, and from all the garrisons, every man that
+could be spared, he had not strength enough to guard his own posts.  To
+attempt to win back the important forts recently captured by the rebels
+on the Doel, was quite out of the question.  The pictures he painted of
+his army were indeed most dismal.
+
+The Spaniards were so reduced by sickness that it was pitiful to see
+them.  The Italians were not in much better condition, nor the Germans.
+"As for the Walloons," said he, "they are deserting, as they always do.
+In truth, one of my principal dangers is that the French civil wars are
+now tempting my soldiers across the frontier; the country there is so
+much richer, and offers so much more for the plundering."
+
+During the few weeks which immediately followed them famous descent of
+the 'Hope' and the 'Fortune,' there had accordingly been made a variety
+of less elaborate, but apparently mischievous, efforts against the
+bridge.  On the whole, however, the object was rather to deceive and
+amuse the royalists, by keeping their attention fixed in that quarter,
+while a great attack was, in reality, preparing against the Kowenstyn.
+That strong barrier, as repeatedly stated, was even a more formidable
+obstacle than the bridge to the communication between the beleagured city
+and their allies upon the outside.  Its capture and demolition, even at
+this late period, would open the navigation to all the fleets of Zeeland.
+
+In the undertaking of the 5th of April all had been accomplished that
+human ingenuity could devise; yet the triumph had been snatched away even
+at the very moment when it was complete.  A determined and vigorous
+effort was soon to be made upon the Kowenstyn, in the very face of Parma;
+for it now seemed obvious that the true crisis was to come upon that
+fatal dyke.  The great bulwark was three miles long.  It reached from
+Stabroek in Brabant, near which village Mansfeld's troops were encamped,
+across the inundated country, up to the line of the Scheldt.  Thence,
+along the river-dyke, and across the bridge to Kalloo and Beveren, where
+Parma's forces lay, was a continuous fortified road some three leagues in
+length; so that the two divisions of the besieging army, lying four
+leagues apart, were all connected by this important line.
+
+Could the Kowenstyn be pierced, the water, now divided by that great
+bulwark into two vast lakes, would flow together in one continuous sea.
+Moreover the Scheldt, it was thought, would, in that case, return to its
+own cannel through Brabant, deserting its present bed, and thus leaving
+the famous bridge high and dry.  A wide sheet of navigable water would
+then roll between Antwerp and the Zeeland coasts, and Parma's bridge, the
+result of seven months' labour, would become as useless as a child's
+broken toy.
+
+Alexander had thoroughly comprehended the necessity of maintaining the
+Kowenstyn.  All that it was possible to do with the meagre forces at his
+disposal, he had done.  He had fringed both its margins, along its whole
+length, with a breastwork of closely-driven stakes.  He had strengthened
+the whole body of the dyke with timber-work and piles.  Upon its river-
+end, just at the junction with the great Scheldt dyke, a strong fortress,
+called the Holy Cross, had been constructed, which was under the special
+command of Mondragon.  Besides this, three other forts had been built, at
+intervals of about a mile, upon the dyke.  The one nearest to Mondragon
+was placed at the Kowenstyn manor-house, and was called Saint James.
+This was entrusted to Camillo Bourbon del Monte, an Italian officer, who
+boasted the blood royal of France in his veins, and was disposed on all
+occasions to vindicate that proud pedigree by his deeds.  The next fort
+was Saint George's, sometimes called the Black Sconce.  It had been built
+by La Motte, but it was now in command of the Spanish officer, Benites.
+The third was entitled the Fort of the Palisades, because it had been
+necessary to support it by a stockade-work in the water, there being
+absolutely not earth enough to hold the structure.  It was placed in the
+charge of Captain Gamboa.  These little castles had been created, as it
+were, out of water and upon water, and under a hot fire from the enemy's
+forts and fleets, which gave the pioneers no repose.
+
+"'Twas very hard work," said Parma, "our soldiers are so exposed during
+their labour, the rebels playing upon them perpetually from their musket-
+proof vessels.  They fill the submerged land with their boats, skimming
+everywhere as they like, while we have none at all.  We have been obliged
+to build these three forts with neither material nor space; making land
+enough for the foundation by bringing thither bundles of hurdles and of
+earth.  The fatigue and anxiety are incredible.  Not a man can sleep at
+night; not an officer nor soldier but is perpetually mounting guard.  But
+they are animated to their hard work by seeing that I share in it, like
+one of themselves.  We have now got the dyke into good order, so far as
+to be able to give them a warm reception, whenever they choose to come."
+
+Quite at the farther or land end of the Kowenstyn, was another fort,
+called the Stabroek, which commanded and raked the whole dyke, and was in
+the neighbourhood of Mansfeld's head-quarters.
+
+Placed as were these little citadels upon a slender, and--at brief
+distance--invisible thread of land, with the dark waters rolling around
+them far and near, they presented an insubstantial dream-like aspect,
+seeming rather like castles floating between air and ocean than actual
+fortifications--a deceptive mirage rather than reality.  There was
+nothing imaginary, however, in the work which they were to perform.
+
+A series of attacks, some serious, others fictitious, had been made, from
+time to time, upon both bridge and dyke; but Alexander was unable to
+inspire his soldiers with his own watchfulness.  Upon the 7th of May a
+more determined attempt was made upon the Kowenstyn, by the fleet from
+Lillo.  Hohenlo and Colonel Ysselstein conducted the enterprise.  The
+sentinels at the point selected--having recently been so often threatened
+by an enemy, who most frequently made a rapid retreat, as to have grown
+weary and indifferent-were surprised, at dawn of day, and put to the
+sword.  "If the truth must be told," said Parma, "the sentries were sound
+asleep."  Five hundred Zeelanders, with a strong party of sappers and
+miners, fairly established themselves upon the dyke, between St.
+George's and Fort Palisade.  The attack, although spirited at its
+commencement, was doomed to be unsuccessful.  A co-operation, agreed upon
+by the fleet from Antwerp, failed through a misunderstanding.  Sainte
+Aldegonde had stationed certain members of the munition-chamber in the
+cathedral tower, with orders to discharge three rockets, when they should
+perceive a beacon-fire which he should light in Fort Tholouse.  The
+watchmen mistook an accidental camp-fire in the neighbourhood for the
+preconcerted signal, and sent up the rockets.  Hohenlo understanding,
+accordingly, that the expedition was on the point of starting from
+Antwerp, hastened to perform his portion of the work, and sailed up from
+Lillo.  He did his duty faithfully and well, and established himself upon
+the dyke, but found himself alone and without sufficient force to
+maintain his position.  The Antwerp fleet never sailed.  It was even
+whispered that the delinquency was rather intended than accidental; the
+Antwerpers being supposed desirous to ascertain the result of Hohenlo's
+attempt before coming forth to share his fate.  Such was the opinion
+expressed by Farnese in his letters to Philip, but it seems probable
+that he was mistaken.  Whatever the cause, however, the fact of the
+Zeelanders' discomfiture was certain.  The St. George battery and that of
+the Palisade were opened at once upon them, the balls came plunging among
+the sappers and miners before they had time to throw up many spade-fulls
+of earth, and the whole party were soon dead or driven from the dyke.
+The survivors effected their retreat as they best could, leaving four of
+their ships behind them and three or four hundred men.
+
+"Forty rebels lay dead on the dyke," said Parma, "and one hundred and
+fifty more, at least, were drowned.  The enemy confess a much larger loss
+than the number I state, but I am not a friend of giving details larger
+than my ascertained facts; nor do I know how many were killed in the
+boats."
+
+This enterprise was but a prelude, however, to the great undertaking
+which had now been thoroughly matured.  Upon the 26th May, another and
+most determined attack was to be made upon the Kowenstyn, by the
+Antwerpers and Hollanders acting in concert.  This time, it was to be
+hoped, there would be no misconception of signals.  "It was a
+determination," said Parma, "so daring and desperate that there was no
+substantial reason why we should believe they would carry it out; but
+they were at last solemnly resolved to die or to effect their purpose."
+
+Two hundred ships in all had been got ready, part of them under Hohenlo
+and Justinus de Nassau, to sail up from Zeeland; the others to advance
+from Antwerp under Sainte Aldegonde.  Their destination was the Kowenstyn
+Dyke.  Some of the vessels were laden with provisions, others with
+gabions, hurdles, branches, sacks of sand and of wool, and with other
+materials for the rapid throwing up of fortifications.
+
+It was two o'clock, half an hour before the chill dawn of a May morning,
+Sunday, the 26th of the month.  The pale sight of a waning moon was
+faintly perceptible in the sky.  Suddenly the sentinels upon the
+Kowenstyn--this time not asleep--descried, as they looked towards Lillo,
+four fiery apparitions gliding towards them across the waves.  The alarm
+was given, and soon afterwards the Spaniards began to muster, somewhat
+reluctantly, upon the dyke, filled as they always were with the
+mysterious dread which those demon-vessels never failed to inspire.
+
+The fire-ships floated slowly nearer, and at last struck heavily against
+the stockade-work.  There, covered with tar, pitch, rosin, and gunpowder,
+they flamed, flared, and exploded, during a brief period, with much
+vigour, and then burned harmlessly out.  One of the objects for which
+they had been sent--to set fire to the palisade--was not accomplished.
+The other was gained; for the enemy, expecting another volcanic shower of
+tombstones and plough-coulters, and remembering the recent fate of their
+comrades on the bridge, had retired shuddering into the forts.  Meantime,
+in the glare of these vast torches, a great swarm of gunboats and other
+vessels, skimming across the leaden-coloured waters, was seen gradually
+approaching the dyke.  It was the fleet of Hohenlo and Justinus de
+Nassau, who had been sailing and rowing since ten o'clock of the
+preceding night.  The burning ships lighted them on their way, while it
+had scared the Spaniards from their posts.
+
+The boats ran ashore in the mile-long space between forts St. George and
+the Palisade, and a party of Zeelanders, Admiral Haultain, governor of
+Walcheren, at their head, sprang upon the dyke.  Meantime, however, the
+royalists, finding that the fire-ships had come to so innocent an end,
+had rallied and emerged from their forts.  Haultain and his Zeelanders,
+by the time they had fairly mounted the dyke, found themselves in the
+iron embrace of several hundred Spaniards.  After a brief fierce
+struggle, face to face, and at push of pike, the patriots reeled backward
+down tile bank, and took refuge in their boats.  Admiral Haultain slipped
+as he left the shore, missed a rope's end which was thrown to him, fell
+into the water, and, borne down by the weight of his armour, was drowned.
+The enemy, pursuing them, sprang to the waist in the ooze on the edge of
+the dyke, and continued the contest.  The boats opened a hot fire, and
+there was a severe skirmish for many minutes, with no certain result.  It
+was, however, beginning to go hard with the Zeelanders, when, just at the
+critical moment, a cheer from the other side of the dyke was heard, and
+the Antwerp fleet was seen coming swiftly to the rescue.  The Spaniards,
+taken between the two bands of assailants, were at a disadvantage, and it
+was impossible to prevent the landing of these fresh antagonists.  The
+Antwerpers sprang ashore.  Among the foremost was Sainte Aldegonde, poet,
+orator, hymn-book maker, burgomaster, lawyer, polemical divine--now armed
+to the teeth and cheering on his men, in the very thickest of the fight.
+The diversion was successful, and Sainte Aldegonde gallantly drove the
+Spaniards quite off the field.  The whole combined force from Antwerp and
+Zeeland now effected their landing.  Three thousand men occupied all the
+space between Fort George and the Palisade.
+
+With Sainte Aldegonde came the unlucky Koppen Loppen, and all that could
+be spared of the English and Scotch troops in Antwerp, under Balfour and
+Morgan.  With Hohenlo and Justinus de Nassau came Reinier Kant, who had
+just succeeded Paul Buys as Advocate of Holland.  Besides these came two
+other men, side by side, perhaps in the same boat, of whom the world was
+like to hear much, from that time forward, and whose names are to be most
+solemnly linked together, so long as Netherland history shall endure;
+one, a fair-faced flaxen-haired boy of eighteen, the other a square-
+visaged, heavy-browed man of forty--Prince Maurice and John of Olden-
+Barneveldt.  The statesman had been foremost to urge the claim of William
+the Silent's son upon the stadholderate of Holland and Zeeland, and had
+been, as it were, the youth's political guardian.  He had himself borne
+arms more than once before, having shouldered his matchlock under
+Batenburg, and marched on that officer's spirited but disastrous
+expedition for the relief of Haarlem.  But this was the life of those
+Dutch rebels.  Quill-driving, law-expounding, speech-making, diplomatic
+missions, were intermingled with very practical business in besieged
+towns or open fields, with Italian musketeers and Spanish pikemen.  And
+here, too, young Maurice was taking his first solid lesson in the art of
+which he was one day to be so distinguished a professor.  It was a sharp
+beginning.  Upon this ribband of earth, scarce six paces in breadth, with
+miles of deep water on both sides--a position recently fortified by the
+first general of the age, and held by the famous infantry of Spain and
+Italy--there was likely to be no prentice-work.
+
+To assault such a position was in truth, as Alexander had declared it to
+be, a most daring and desperate resolution on the part of the States.
+"Soldiers, citizens, and all," said Parma, "they are obstinate as dogs to
+try their fortune."
+
+With wool-sacks, sand-bags, hurdles, planks, and other materials brought
+with them, the patriots now rapidly entrenched themselves in the position
+so brilliantly gained; while, without deferring for an instant the great
+purpose which they had come to effect, the sappers and miners fastened
+upon the ironbound soil of the dyke, tearing it with pick, mattock, and
+shovel, digging, delving, and throwing up the earth around them, busy as
+human beavers, instinctively engaged in a most congenial task.
+
+But the beavers did not toil unmolested.  The large and determined force
+of Antwerpers and English, Hollanders and Zeelanders, guarded the
+fortifications as they were rapidly rising, and the pioneers as they were
+so manfully delving; but the enemy was not idle.  From Fort Saint James,
+next beyond Saint George, Camillo del Monte led a strong party to the
+rescue.  There was a tremendous action, foot to foot, breast to breast,
+with pike and pistol, sword and dagger.  Never since the beginning of the
+war had there been harder fighting than now upon that narrow isthmus.
+"'Twas an affair of most brave obstinacy on both sides," said Parma,
+who rarely used strong language.  "Soldiers, citizens, and all--they
+were like mad bulldogs."  Hollanders, Italians, Scotchmen, Spaniards,
+Englishmen, fell thick and fast.  The contest was about the entrenchments
+before they were completed, and especially around the sappers and miners,
+in whose picks and shovels lay the whole fate of Antwerp.  Many of the
+dyke-breakers were digging their own graves, and rolled, one after
+another, into the breach which they were so obstinately creating.
+Upon that slender thread of land the hopes of many thousands were
+hanging.  To tear it asunder, to roll the ocean-waves up to Antwerp,
+and thus to snatch the great city triumphantly from the grasp of Philip
+--to accomplish this, the three thousand had come forth that May morning.
+To prevent it, to hold firmly that great treasure entrusted to them, was
+the determination of the Spaniards.  And so, closely pent and packed,
+discharging their carbines into each other's faces, rolling, coiled
+together, down the slimy sides of the dyke into the black waters,
+struggling to and fro, while the cannon from the rebel fleet and from the
+royal forts mingled their roar with the sharp crack of the musketry,
+Catholics and patriots contended for an hour, while still, through all
+the confusion and uproar, the miners dug and delved.
+
+At last the patriots were victorious.  They made good their
+entrenchments, drove the Spaniards, after much slaughter, back to the
+fort of Saint George on the one side, and of the Palisade on the other,
+and cleared the whole space between the two points.  The centre of the
+dyke was theirs; the great Kowenstyn, the only key by which the gates of
+Antwerp could be unlocked, was in the deliverers' hands.  They pursued
+their victory, and attacked the Palisade Fort.  Gamboa, its commandant,
+was severely wounded; many other officers dead or dying; the outworks
+were in the hands of the Hollanders; the slender piles on which the
+fortress rested in the water were rudely shaken; the victory was almost
+complete.
+
+And now there was a tremendous cheer of triumph.  The beavers had done
+their work, the barrier was bitten through and through, the salt water
+rushed like a river through the ruptured dyke.  A few moments later, and
+a Zeeland barge, freighted with provisions, floated triumphantly into the
+waters beyond, now no longer an inland sea.  The deed was done--the
+victory achieved.  Nothing more was necessary than to secure it, to tear
+the fatal barrier to fragments, to bury it, for its whole length, beneath
+the waves.  Then, after the isthmus had been utterly submerged, when the
+Scheldt was rolled back into its ancient bed, when Parma's famous bridge
+had become useless, when the maritime communication between Antwerp and
+Holland had been thoroughly established, the Spaniards would have nothing
+left for it but to drown like rats in their entrenchments or to abandon
+the siege in despair.  All this was in the hands of the patriots.  The
+Kowenstyn was theirs.  The Spaniards were driven from the field, the
+batteries of their forts silenced.  For a long period the rebels were
+unmolested, and felt themselves secure.
+
+"We remained thus some three hours," says Captain James, an English
+officer who fought in the action, and described it in rough, soldierly
+fashion to Walsingham the same day, "thinking all things to be secure."
+Yet in the very supreme moment of victory, the leaders, both of the
+Hollanders and of the Antwerpers, proved themselves incompetent to their
+position.  With deep regret it must be admitted, that not only the
+reckless Hohenlo, but the all-accomplished Sainte Aldegonde, committed
+the gravest error.  In the hour of danger, both had comported themselves
+with perfect courage and conduct.  In the instant of triumph, they gave
+way to puerile exultation.  With a celerity as censurable as it seems
+incredible, both these commanders sprang into the first barge which had
+thus floated across the dyke, in order that they might, in person, carry
+the news of the victory to Antwerp, and set all the bells ringing and the
+bonfires blazing.  They took with them Ferrante Spinola, a mortally-
+wounded Italian officer of rank, as a trophy of their battle, and a
+boatload of beef and flour, as an earnest of the approaching relief.
+
+While the conquerors were thus gone to enjoy their triumph, the
+conquered, though perplexed and silenced, were not yet disposed to accept
+their defeat.  They were even ignorant that they were conquered.  They
+had been forced to abandon the field, and the patriots had entrenched
+themselves upon the dyke, but neither Fort Saint George nor the Palisade
+had been carried, although the latter was in imminent danger.
+
+Old Count Peter Ernest Mansfeld--a grizzled veteran, who had passed his
+childhood, youth, manhood, and old age, under fire--commanded at the
+land-end of the dyke, in the fortress of Stabroek, in which neighbourhood
+his whole division was stationed.  Seeing how the day was going, he
+called a council of war.  The patriots had gained a large section of the
+dyke.  So much was certain.  Could they succeed in utterly demolishing
+that bulwark in the course of the day?  If so, how were they to be
+dislodged before their work was perfected?  It was difficult to assault
+their position.  Three thousand Hollanders, Antwerpers, Englishmen--
+"mad bulldogs all," as Parma called them--showing their teeth very
+mischievously, with one hundred and sixty Zeeland vessels throwing in
+their broadsides from both margins of the dyke, were a formidable company
+to face.
+
+"Oh for one half hour of Alexander in the field!" sighed one of the
+Spanish officers in council.  But Alexander was more than four leagues
+away, and it was doubtful whether he even knew of the fatal occurrence.
+Yet how to send him a messenger.  Who could reach him through that valley
+of death?  Would it not be better to wait till nightfall?  Under the
+cover of darkness something might be attempted, which in the daylight
+would be hopeless.  There was much anxiety, and much difference of
+opinion had been expressed, when Camillo Capizucca, colonel of the
+Italian Legion, obtained a hearing.  A man bold in words as in deeds, he
+vehemently denounced the pusillanimity which would wait either for Parma
+or for nightfall.  "What difference will it make," he asked, "whether we
+defer our action until either darkness or the General arrives?  In each
+case we give the enemy time enough to destroy the dyke, and thoroughly to
+relieve the city.  That done, what good can be accomplished by our arms?
+Then our disheartened soldiers will either shrink from a fruitless combat
+or march to certain death."  Having thus, very warmly but very
+sagaciously, defined the position in which all were placed, he proceeded
+to declare that he claimed, neither for himself nor for his legion, any
+superiority over the rest of the army.  He knew not that the Italians
+were more to be relied upon than others in the time of danger, but this
+he did know, that no man in the world was so devoted as he was to the
+Prince of Parma.  To show that devotion by waiting with folded arms
+behind a wall until the Prince should arrive to extricate his followers,
+was not in his constitution.  He claimed the right to lead his Italians
+against the enemy at once--in the front rank, if others chose to follow;
+alone, if the rest preferred to wait till a better leader should arrive.
+
+The words of the Italian colonel sent a thrill through all who heard him.
+Next in command under Capizucca was his camp-marshal, an officer who bore
+the illustrious name of Piccolomini--father of the Duke Ottavio, of whom
+so much was to be heard at a later day throughout the fell scenes of that
+portion of the eighty years' tragedy now enacting, which was to be called
+the Thirty Years' War of Germany.  The camp-marshal warmly seconded the
+proposition of his colonel.  Mansfeld, pleased with such enthusiasm among
+his officers, yielded to their wishes, which were, in truth, his own.
+Six companies of the Italian Legion were in his encampment while the
+remainder were stationed, far away, upon the bridge, under command of his
+son, Count Charles.  Early in the morning, before the passage across the
+dyke had been closed the veteran condottiere, pricking his ears as he
+snuffed the battle from afar, had contrived to send a message to his son.
+
+"Charles, my boy," were his words, "to-day we must either beat them or
+burst."
+
+Old Peter Ernest felt that the long-expected, long-deferred assault was
+to be made that morning in full force, and that it was necessary for the
+royalists, on both bridge and dyke, to hold their own.  Piccolomini now
+drew up three hundred of his Italians, picked veterans all, and led them
+in marching order to Mansfeld.  That general at the same moment, received
+another small but unexpected reinforcement.  A portion of the Spanish
+Legion, which had long been that of Pedro Pacchi, lay at the extreme
+verge of the Stabroek encampment, several miles away.  Aroused by the
+distant cannonading, and suspecting what had occurred, Don Juan d'Aquila,
+the colonel in command, marched without a moment's delay to Mansfeld's
+head-quarters, at the head of all the force he could muster--about two
+hundred strong.  With him came Cardona, Gonzales de Castro, Toralva, and
+other distinguished officers.  As they arrived, Capizucca was just
+setting forth for the field.  There arose a dispute for precedence
+between the Italians and the Spaniards.  Capizucca had first demanded the
+privilege of leading what seemed a forlorn hope, and was unwilling to
+yield his claim to the new comer.  On the other hand, the Spaniards were
+not disposed to follow where they felt entitled to lead.  The quarrel was
+growing warm, when Aquila, seizing his Italian rival by the hand,
+protested that it was not a moment for friends to wrangle for precedence.
+
+"Shoulder to shoulder," said he, "let us go into this business, and let
+our blows rather fall on our enemies' heads than upon each other's."
+This terminated the altercation.  The Italians and Spaniards--in battle
+array as they were--all dropped on their knees, offered a brief prayer to
+the Holy Virgin, and then, in the best possible spirits, set forth along
+the dyke.  Next to fort Stabroek--whence they issued--was the Palisade
+Fort, nearly a mile removed, which the patriots had nearly carried, and
+between which and St. George, another mile farther on, their whole force
+was established.
+
+The troops under Capizucca and Aquila soon reached the Palisade, and
+attacked the besiegers, while the garrison, cheered by the unexpected
+relief, made a vigorous sortie.  There was a brief sharp contest, in
+which many were killed on both sides; but at last the patriots fell back
+upon their own entrenchments, and the fort was saved.  Its name was
+instantly changed to Fort Victory, and the royalists then prepared to
+charge the fortified camp of the rebels, in the centre of which the dyke-
+cutting operations were still in progress.  At the same moment, from the
+opposite end of the bulwark, a cry was heard along the whole line of the
+dyke.  From Fort Holy Cross, at the Scheldt end, the welcome intelligence
+was suddenly communicated--as if by a magnetic impulse--that Alexander
+was in the field!
+
+It was true.  Having been up half the night, as usual, keeping watch
+along his bridge, where he was ever expecting a fatal attack, he had
+retired for a few hours' rest in his camp at Beveren.  Aroused at day-
+break by the roar of the cannon, he had hastily thrown on his armour,
+mounted his horse, and, at the head of two hundred pikemen, set forth for
+the scene of action.  Detained on the bridge by a detachment of the
+Antwerp fleet, which had been ordered to make a diversion in that
+quarter, he had, after beating off their vessels with his boat-artillery,
+and charging Count Charles Mansfeld to heed well the brief injunction of
+old Peter Ernest, made all the haste he could to the Kowenstyn.  Arriving
+at Fort Holy Cross, he learned from Mondragon how the day was going.
+Three thousand rebels, he learned, were established on the dyke, Fort
+Palisade was tottering, a fleet from both sides was cannonading the
+Spanish entrenchments, the salt water was flowing across the breach
+already made.  His seven months' work, it seemed, had come to nought.
+The navigation was already open from the sea to Antwerp, the Lowenstyn
+was in the rebels' hands.  But Alexander was not prone to premature
+despair.  "I arrived," said he to Philip in a letter written on the same
+evening, "at the very nick of time."  A less hopeful person might have
+thought that he had arrived several hours too late.  Having brought with
+him every man that could be spared from Beveren and from the bridge,
+he now ordered Camillo del Monte to transport some additional pieces of
+artillery from Holy Cross and from Saint James to Fort Saint Georg.  At
+the same time a sharp cannonade was to be maintained upon the rebel fleet
+from all the forts.
+
+Mondragon, with a hundred musketeers and pikemen, was sent forward
+likewise as expeditiously as possible to Saint George.  No one could be
+more alert.  The battered veteran, hero of some of the most remarkable
+military adventures that history has ever recorded,' fought his way on
+foot, in the midst of the fray, like a young ensign who had his first
+laurels to win.  And, in truth, the day was not one for cunning
+manoeuvres, directed, at a distance, by a skillful tactician.  It was
+a brisk close contest, hand to hand and eye to eye--a Homeric encounter,
+in which the chieftains were to prove a right to command by their
+personal prowess.  Alexander, descending suddenly--dramatically, as it
+were--when the battle seemed lost--like a deity from the clouds-was to
+justify, by the strength of his arm, the enthusiasm which his name always
+awakened.  Having, at a glance, taken in the whole situation, he made his
+brief arrangements, going from rank to rank, and disposing his troops in
+the most effective manner.  He said but few words, but his voice had
+always a telling effect.
+
+"The man who refuses, this day, to follow me," he said, "has never had
+regard to his own honour, nor has God's cause or the King's ever been
+dear to his heart."
+
+His disheartened Spaniards and Italians--roused as by a magic trumpet--
+eagerly demanded to be led against the rebels.  And now from each end of
+the dyke, the royalists were advancing toward the central position
+occupied by the patriots.  While Capizucca and Aquila were occupied at
+Fort Victory, Parma was steadily cutting his way from Holy Cross to Saint
+George.  On foot, armed with sword and shield, and in coat of mail, and
+marching at the head of his men along the dyke, surrounded by Bevilacqua,
+Bentivoglio, Manriquez, Sforza, and other officers of historic name and
+distinguished courage, now upon the summit of the causeway, now on its
+shelving banks, now breast-high in the waters, through which lay the
+perilous path, contending at every inch with the scattered bands of the
+patriots, who slowly retired to their entrenched camp, and with the
+Antwerp and Zeeland vessels, whose balls tore through the royalist ranks,
+the General at last reached Saint George.  On the preservation of that
+post depended the whole fortune of the day, for Parma had already
+received the welcome intelligence that the Palisade--now Fort Victory--
+had been regained.  He instantly ordered an outer breast-work of wool-
+sacks and sand-bags to be thrown up in front of Saint George, and planted
+a battery to play point-blank at the enemy's entrenchments.  Here the
+final issue was to be made.
+
+The patriots and Spaniards were thus all enclosed in the mile-long space
+between St.  George and the Palisade.  Upon that narrow strip of earth,
+scarce six paces in width, more than five thousand men met in mortal
+combat--a narrow arena for so many gladiators, hemmed in on both sides by
+the sea.  The patriots had, with solemn ceremony, before starting upon
+their enterprise, vowed to destroy the dyke and relieve Antwerp, or to
+perish in the attempt.  They were true to their vow.  Not the ancient
+Batavians or Nervii had ever manifested more tenacity against the Roman
+legions than did their descendants against the far-famed Spanish infantry
+upon this fatal day.  The fight on the Kowenstyn was to be long
+remembered in the military annals of Spain and Holland.  Never, since the
+curtain first rose upon the great Netherland tragedy, had there been a
+fiercer encounter.  Flinching was impossible.  There was scant room for
+the play of pike and dagger, and, close packed as were the combatants,
+the dead could hardly fall to the ground.  It was a mile-long series of
+separate mortal duels, and the oozy dyke was soon slippery with blood.
+
+From both sides, under Capizucca and Aquila on the one band, and under
+Alexander on the other, the entrenchments of the patriots were at last
+assaulted, and as the royalists fell thick and fast beneath the breast-
+work which they were storming, their comrades clambered upon their
+bodies, and attempted, from such vantage-ground, to effect an entrance.
+Three times the invaders were beaten back with heavy loss, and after each
+repulse the attack was renewed with fresh vigour, while within the
+entrenchments the pioneers still plied the pick and shovel, undismayed by
+the uproar around them.
+
+A fourth assault, vigorously made, was cheerfully repelled by the
+Antwerpers and Hollanders, clustering behind their breast-works, and
+looking steadily into their enemies' eyes.  Captain Heraugiere--of whom
+more was to be heard one day--had led two hundred men into action, and
+now found himself at the head of only thirteen.  The loss had been as
+severe among many other patriot companies, as well as in the Spanish
+ranks, and again the pikemen of Spain and Italy faltered before the iron
+visages and cordial blows of the Hollanders.
+
+This work had lasted a good hour and a half, when at last, on the fifth
+assault, a wild and mysterious apparition renewed the enthusiasm of the
+Spaniards.  The figure of the dead commander of the old Spanish Legion,
+Don Pedro Pacchi, who had fallen a few months before at the siege of
+Dendermonde was seen charging in front of his regiment, clad in his well-
+known armour, and using the gestures which had been habitual with him in
+life.  No satisfactory explanation was ever made of this singular
+delusion, but it was general throughout the ranks, and in that
+superstitious age was as effective as truth.  The wavering Spaniards
+rallied once more under the guidance of their phantom leader, and again
+charged the breast-work of the patriots.  Toralva, mounting upon the back
+of one of his soldiers, was first to vault into the entrenchments.  At
+the next instant he lay desperately wounded on the ground, but was close
+followed by Capizucca, sustained by a determined band.  The entrenchment
+was carried, but the furious conflict still continued.  At nearly the
+same moment, however, several of the patriot vessels were observed to
+cast off their moorings, and to be drifting away from the dyke.  A large
+number of the rest had been disabled by the hot fire, which by
+Alexander's judicious orders had been directed upon the fleet.  The
+ebbing tide left no choice to the commander of the others but to retreat
+or to remain and fall into the enemy's hands, should he gain the day.
+Had they risked the dangerous alternative, it might have ensured the
+triumph of the whole enterprise, while their actual decision proved most
+disastrous in the end.
+
+"We have conquered," cried Alexander, stretching his arm towards the
+receding waters.  "The sea deserts the impious heretics.  Strike from
+them now their last hope, and cut off their retreat to the departing
+ships."  The Spaniards were not slow to perceive their advantage, while
+the courage of the patriots at last began to ebb with the tide.  The day
+was lost.  In the hour of transitory triumph the leaders of the
+expedition had turned their backs on their followers, and now, after so
+much heroism had been exhibited, fortune too had averted her face.  The
+grim resistance changed to desperate panic, and a mad chase began along
+the blood-stained dyke.  Some were slain with spear and bullet, others
+were hunted into the sea, many were smothered in the ooze along the edge
+of the embankment.  The fugitives, making their way to the retreating
+vessels, were pursued by the Spaniards, who swam after them, with their
+swords in their teeth, and engaged them in mortal combat in the midst of
+the waves.
+
+"And so we cut all their throats," said Parma, "the rebels on every side
+remaining at our mercy, and I having no doubt that my soldiers would
+avenge the loss of their friends."
+
+The English and the Scotch, under Balfour and Morgan, were the very last
+to abandon the position which they had held so manfully seven hours long.
+Honest Captain James, who fought to the last, and described the action
+the same night in the fewest possible words, was of opinion that the
+fleet had moved away only to obtain a better position.  "They put off to
+have more room to play on the enemy," said he; "but the Hollanders and
+Zeelanders, seeing the enemy come on so hotly, and thinking our galleys
+would leave them, abandoned their string.  The Scots, seeing them to
+retire, left their string.  The enemy pursued very hotly; the Englishmen
+stood to repulse, and are put most to the sword.  In this shameful
+retreat there were slain or drowned to the number of two thousand."
+The blunt Englishman was justly indignant that an enterprise, so nearly
+successful, had been ruined by the desertion of its chiefs.  "We had cut
+the dyke in three places," said he; "but left it most shamefully for want
+of commandment."
+
+Poor Koppen Loppen--whose blunders on former occasions had caused so much
+disaster--was now fortunate enough to expiate them by a soldier's death.
+Admiral Haultain had, as we have seen, been drowned at the commencement
+of the action.  Justinus de Nassau, at its close, was more successful in
+his retreat to the ships.  He, too, sprang into the water when the
+overthrow was absolute; but, alighting in some shallows, was able to
+conceal himself among weeds and waterlilies till he had divested himself
+of his armour, when he made his escape by swimming to a boat, which
+conveyed him to Lillo.  Roelke van Deest, an officer of some note, was so
+horribly wounded in the face, that he was obliged to wear a mask for the
+remainder of his life.
+
+Parma, overjoyed at his victory, embraced Capizucca before the whole
+army, with warm expressions of admiration for his conduct.  Both the
+Italian colonel and his Spanish rival Aquila were earnestly recommended
+to Philip for reward and promotion.  The wounded Toralva was carried to
+Alexander's own quarters, and placed in Alexander's own bed, where he
+remained till his recovery, and was then presented--a distinction which
+he much valued--with the armour which the Prince had worn on the day of
+the battle.  Parma himself, so soon as the action was concluded, went
+with his chief officers straight from the field to the little village-
+church of Stabroek, where he fell upon his knees and offered up fervent
+thanks for his victory.  He next set about repairing the ruptured dyke,
+damaged in many places but not hopelessly ruined, and for this purpose
+the bodies of the rebels, among other materials, were cast by hundreds
+into the ditches which their own hands had dug.
+
+Thus ended the eight hours' fight on the Kowenstyn.  "The feast lasted
+from seven to eight hours," said Parma, "with the most brave obstinacy on
+both sides that has been seen for many a long day."  A thousand royalists
+were killed and twice as many patriots, and the issue of the conflict was
+most uncertain up to the very last.
+
+"Our loss is greater than I wish it was," wrote Alexander to Philip: "It
+was a very close thing, and I have never been more anxious in my life as
+to the result for your Majesty's service.  The whole fate of the battle
+was hanging all the time by a thread."  More than ever were
+reinforcements necessary, and it was only by a miracle that the victory
+had at last been gained with such slender resources.  "'Tis a large,
+long, laborious, expensive, and most perilous war," said Parma, when
+urging the claims of Capizucca and Aquila, "for we have to fight every
+minute; and there are no castles and other rewards, so that if soldiers
+are not to have promotion, they will lose their spirit."  Thirty-two of
+the rebel vessels grounded, and fell into the hands of the Spaniards, who
+took from them many excellent pieces of artillery.  The result was most
+conclusive and most disheartening for the patriots.
+
+Meantime--as we have seen--Hohenlo and Sainte Aldegonde had reached
+Antwerp in breathless haste to announce their triumph.  They had been met
+on the quay by groups of excited citizens, who eagerly questioned the two
+generals arriving thus covered with laurels from the field of battle, and
+drank with delight all the details of the victory.  The poor dying
+Spinola was exhibited in triumph, the boat-load of breadstuffs received
+with satisfaction, and vast preparations were made to receive, on wharves
+and in storehouses, the plentiful supplies about to arrive.  Beacons and
+bonfires were lighted, the bells from all the steeples rang their
+merriest peals, cannon thundered in triumph not only in Antwerp itself,
+but subsequently at Amsterdam and other more distant cities.  In due time
+a magnificent banquet was spread in the town-house to greet the
+conquering Hohenlo.  Immense gratification was expressed by those of the
+reformed religion; dire threats were uttered against the Catholics.  Some
+were for hanging them all out of hand, others for throwing them into the
+Scheldt; the most moderate proposed packing them all out of town so soon
+as the siege should be raised--an event which could not now be delayed
+many days longer.
+
+Hohenlo, placed on high at the head of the banquet-table, assumed the
+very god of war.  Beside and near him sat the loveliest dames of Antwerp,
+rewarding his bravery with their brightest smiles.  The Count drained
+huge goblets to their health, to the success of the patriots, and to the
+confusion of the royalists, while, as he still drank and feasted, the
+trumpet, kettle-drum, and cymbal, and merry peal of bell without, did
+honour to his triumph.  So gay and gallant was the victor, that he
+announced another banquet on the following day, still further to
+celebrate the happy release of Antwerp, and invited the fair ladies
+around him again to grace the board.  It is recorded that the gentlewoman
+next him responded with a sigh, that, if her presentiments were just, the
+morrow would scarcely be so joyful as the present day had been, and that
+she doubted whether the triumph were not premature.
+
+Hardly had she spoken when sinister sounds were heard in the streets.
+The first few stragglers, survivors of the deadly fight, had arrived with
+the fatal news that all was lost, the dyke regained, the Spaniards
+victorious, the whole band of patriots cut to pieces.  A few frightfully-
+wounded and dying sufferers were brought into the banqueting-hall.
+Hohenlo sprang from the feast--interrupted in so ghastly a manner--
+pursued by shouts and hisses.  Howls of execration, saluted him in the
+streets, and he was obliged to conceal himself for a time, to escape the
+fury of the populace.
+
+On the other hand, Parma was, not unnaturally, overjoyed at the
+successful issue to the combat, and expressed himself on the subject in
+language of (for him) unusual exultation.  "To-day, Sunday, 26th of
+June," said he, in a letter to Philip, despatched by special courier on
+the very same night, "the Lord has been pleased to grant to your Majesty
+a great and most signal victory.  In this conjuncture of so great
+importance it may be easily conceived that the best results that can be
+desired will be obtained if your Majesty is now ready to do what is
+needful.  I congratulate your Majesty very many times on this occasion,
+and I desire to render infinite thanks to Divine Providence."
+
+He afterwards proceeded, in a rapid and hurried manner, to give his
+Majesty the outlines of the battle, mentioning, with great encomium,
+Capizucca and Aquila, Mondragon and Vasto, with many other officers, and
+recommending them for reward and promotion; praising, in short, heartily
+and earnestly, all who had contributed to the victory, except himself, to
+whose personal exertions it was chiefly due.  "As for good odd Mansfeld,"
+said he, "he bore himself like the man he is, and he deserves that your
+Majesty should send him a particular mark of your royal approbation,
+writing to him yourself pleasantly in Spanish, which is that which will
+be most highly esteemed by him."  Alexander hinted also that Philip would
+do well to bestow upon Mansfeld the countship of Biart, as a reward for
+his long years of faithful service!
+
+This action on the Kowenstyn terminated the effective resistance of
+Antwerp.  A few days before, the monster-vessel, in the construction of
+which so much time and money had been consumed, had at last been set
+afloat.  She had been called the War's End, and, so far as Antwerp was
+concerned, the fates that presided over her birth seemed to have been
+paltering in a double sense when the ominous name was conferred.  She was
+larger than anything previously known in naval architecture; she had four
+masts and three helms.  Her bulwarks were ten feet thick; her tops were
+musket-proof.  She had twenty guns of largest size, besides many other
+pieces of artillery of lesser calibre, the lower tier of which was almost
+at the water's level.  She was to carry one thousand men, and she was so
+supported on corks and barrels as to be sure to float under any
+circumstances.  Thus she was a great swimming fortress which could not be
+sunk, and was impervious to shot.  Unluckily, however, in spite of her
+four masts and three helms, she would neither sail nor steer, and she
+proved but a great, unmanageable and very ridiculous tub, fully
+justifying all the sarcasms that had been launched upon her during the
+period of her construction, which had been almost as long as the siege
+itself.
+
+The Spaniards called her the Bugaboo--a monster to scare children withal.
+The patriots christened her the Elephant, the Antwerp Folly, the Lost
+Penny, with many similar appellations.  A small army might have been
+maintained for a month, they said, on the money she had cost, or the
+whole city kept in bread for three months.  At last, late in May, a few
+days before the battle of the Kowenstyn, she set forth from Antwerp,
+across the submerged land, upon her expedition to sweep all the Spanish
+forts out of existence, and to bring the war to its end.  She came to her
+own end very briefly, for, after drifting helplessly about for an hour,
+she stuck fast in the sand in the neighbourhood of Ordam, while the crew
+and soldiers made their escape, and came back to the city to share in the
+ridicule which, from first to last, had attached itself to the monster-
+ship.
+
+Two days after the Kowenstyn affair, Alexander sent an expedition under
+Count Charles Mansfeld to take possession of the great Bugaboo.  The
+boat, in which were Count Charles, Count Aremberg, his brother de
+Barbancon, and other noble volunteers, met with an accident: a keg of gun
+powder accidentally exploding, blowing Aremberg into the water, whence he
+escaped unharmed by swimming, and frightfully damaging Mansfeld in the
+face.  This indirect mischief--the only injury ever inflicted by the
+War's End upon the enemy--did not prevent the rest of the party in the
+boats from taking possession of the ship, and bringing her in triumph to
+the Prince of Parma.  After being thoroughly examined and heartily
+laughed at by the Spaniards, she was broken up--her cannon, munitions,
+and other valuable materials, being taken from her--and then there was an
+end of the War's End.
+
+This useless expenditure-against the judgment and entreaties of many
+leading personages--was but a type of the difficulties with which Sainte
+Aldegonde had been obliged to contend from the first day of the siege to
+the last.  Every one in the city had felt himself called on to express an
+opinion as to the proper measures for defence.  Diversity of humours,
+popular license, anarchy, did not constitute the best government for a
+city beleagured by Alexander Farnese.  We have seen the deadly injury
+inflicted upon the cause at the outset by the brutality of the butchers,
+and the manful struggle which Sainte Aldegonde had maintained against
+their cupidity and that of their friends.  He had dealt with the thousand
+difficulties which rose up around him from day to day, but his best
+intentions were perpetually misconstrued, his most strenuous exertions
+steadily foiled.  It was a city where there was much love of money, and
+where commerce--always timid by nature, particularly when controlled by
+alien residents--was often the cause of almost abject cowardice.
+
+From time to time there had been threatening demonstrations made against
+the burgomaster, who, by protracting the resistance of Antwerp, was
+bringing about the absolute destruction of a worldwide trade, and the
+downfall of the most opulent capital in Christendom.  There were also
+many popular riots--very easily inflamed by the Catholic portion of the
+inhabitants--for bread.  "Bread, bread, or peace!"  was hoarsely shouted
+by ill-looking mischievous crowds, that dogged the steps and besieged the
+doors of Sainte Aldegonde; but the burgomaster had done his best by
+eloquence of tongue and personal courage, both against mobs and against
+the enemy, to inspire the mass of his fellow-citizens with his own
+generous spirit.  He had relied for a long time on the negotiation with
+France, and it would be difficult to exaggerate the disastrous effects
+produced by the treachery of the Valois court.  The historian Le Petit,
+a resident of Antwerp at the time of the siege, had been despatched on
+secret mission to Paris, and had communicated to the States' deputies
+Sainte Aldegonde's earnest adjurations that they should obtain, if
+possible, before it should be too late, an auxiliary force and a
+pecuniary subsidy.  An immediate assistance, even if slight, might be
+sufficient to prevent Antwerp and its sister cities from falling into the
+hands of the enemy.  On that messenger's return, the burgomaster, much
+encouraged by his report, had made many eloquent speeches in the senate,
+and for a long time sustained the sinking spirits of the citizens.
+
+The irritating termination to the triumph actually achieved against the
+bridge, and the tragical result to the great enterprise against the
+Kowenstyn, had now thoroughly broken the heart of Antwerp.  For the last
+catastrophe Sainte Aldegonde himself was highly censurable, although the
+chief portion of the blame rested on the head of Hohenlo.  Nevertheless
+the States of Holland were yet true to the cause of the Union and of
+liberty.  Notwithstanding their heavy expenditures, and their own loss of
+men, they urged warmly and earnestly the continuance of the resistance,
+and promised, within at latest three months' time, to raise an army of
+twelve thousand foot and seven thousand horse, with which they pledged
+themselves to relieve the city, or to perish in the endeavour.  At the
+same time, the legation, which had been sent to England to offer the
+sovereignty to Queen Elizabeth, sent encouraging despatches to Antwerp,
+assuring the authorities that arrangements for an auxiliary force had
+been effected; while Elizabeth herself wrote earnestly upon the subject
+with her own hand.
+
+"I am informed," said that Princess, "that through the closing of the
+Scheldt you are likely to enter into a treaty with the Prince of Parma,
+the issue of which is very much to be doubted, so far as the maintenance
+of your privileges is concerned.  Remembering the warm friendship which
+has ever existed between this crown and the house of Burgundy, in the
+realms of which you are an important member, and considering that my
+subjects engaged in commerce have always met with more privilege and
+comity in the Netherlands than in any other country, I have resolved to
+send you at once, assistance, comfort, and aid.  The details of the plan
+will be stated by your envoys; but be assured that by me you will never
+be forsaken or neglected."
+
+The negotiations with Queen Elizabeth--most important for the
+Netherlands, for England, and for the destinies of Europe--which
+succeeded the futile diplomatic transactions with France, will be laid
+before the reader in a subsequent chapter.  It is proper that they should
+be massed by themselves, so that the eye can comprehend at a single
+glance their whole progress and aspect, as revealed both by public and
+official, and by secret and hitherto unpublished records.  Meantime, so
+far as regards Antwerp, those negotiations had been too deliberately
+conducted for the hasty and impatient temper of the citizens.
+
+The spirit of the commercial metropolis, long flagging, seemed at last
+broken.  Despair was taking possession of all hearts.  The common people
+did nothing but complain, the magistrates did nothing but wrangle.  In
+the broad council the debates and dissensions were discouraging and
+endless.  Six of the eight militia-colonels were for holding out at all
+hazards, while a majority of the eighty captains were for capitulation.
+The populace was tumultuous and threatening, demanding peace and bread at
+any price.  Holland sent promises in abundance, and Holland was sincere;
+but there had been much disappointment, and there was now infinite
+bitterness.  It seemed obvious that a crisis was fast approaching, and--
+unless immediate aid should come from Holland or from England--that a
+surrender was inevitable.  La None, after five years' imprisonment, had
+at last been exchanged against Count Philip Egmont.  That noble, chief of
+an ancient house, cousin of the Queen of France, was mortified at being
+ransomed against a simple Huguenot gentleman--even though that gentleman
+was the illustrious "iron-armed" La Noue--but he preferred to sacrifice
+his dignity for the sake of his liberty.  He was still more annoyed that
+one hundred thousand crowns as security were exacted from La Noue--for
+which the King of Navarre became bondsman--that he would never again bear
+arms in the Netherlands except in obedience to the French monarch, while
+no such pledges were required of himself.  La None visited the Prince of
+Parma at Antwerp, to take leave, and was received with the courtesy due
+to his high character and great distinction.  Alexander took pleasure in
+showing him all his fortifications, and explaining to him the whole
+system of the siege, and La Noue was filled with honest amazement.  He
+declared afterwards that the works were superb and impregnable; and that
+if he had been on the outside at the head of twelve thousand troops, he
+should have felt obliged to renounce the idea of relieving the city.
+"Antwerp cannot escape you," confessed the veteran Huguenot, "but must
+soon fall into your hands.  And when you enter, I would counsel you to
+hang up your sword at its gate, and let its capture be the crowning
+trophy in your list of victories."
+
+"You are right," answered Parma, "and many of my friends have given me
+the same advice; but how am I to retire, engaged as I am for life in the
+service of my King?"
+
+Such was the opinion of La None, a man whose love for the reformed
+religion and for civil liberty can be as little doubted as his competency
+to form an opinion upon great military subjects.  As little could he be
+suspected just coming as he did from an infamous prison, whence he had
+been at one time invited by Philip II. to emerge, on condition of
+allowing his eyes to be put out--of any partiality for that monarch or
+his representative.
+
+Moreover, although the States of Holland and the English government were
+earnestly desirous of relieving the city, and were encouraging the
+patriots with well-founded promises, the Zeeland authorities were
+lukewarm.  The officers of the Zeeland navy, from which so much was
+expected, were at last discouraged.  They drew up, signed, and delivered
+to Admiral Justinus de Nassau, a formal opinion to the effect that the
+Scheldt had now so many dry and dangerous places, and that the tranquil
+summer-nights--so different from those long, stormy ones of winter--were
+so short as to allow of no attempt by water likely to be successful to
+relieve the city.
+
+Here certainly was much to discourage, and Sainte Aldegonde was at length
+discouraged.  He felt that the last hope of saving Antwerp was gone, and
+with it all possibility of maintaining the existence of a United
+Netherland commonwealth.  The Walloon Provinces were lost already; Ghent,
+Brussels, Mechlin, had also capitulated, and, with the fall of Antwerp,
+Flanders and Brabant must fall.  There would be no barrier left even to
+save Holland itself.  Despair entered the heart of the burgomaster, and
+he listened too soon to its treacherous voice.  Yet while he thought a
+free national state no longer a possibility, he imagined it practicable
+to secure religious liberty by negotiation with Philip II.  He abandoned
+with a sigh one of the two great objects for which he had struggled side
+by side with Orange for twenty years, but he thought it possible to
+secure the other.  His purpose was now to obtain a favourable
+capitulation for Antwerp, and at the same time to bring about the
+submission of Holland, Zeeland, and the other United Provinces, to the
+King of Spain.  Here certainly was a great change of face on the part of
+one so conspicuous, and hitherto so consistent, in the ranks of
+Netherland patriots, and it is therefore necessary, in order thoroughly
+to estimate both the man and the crisis, to follow carefully his steps
+through the secret path of negotiation into which he now entered, and in
+which the Antwerp drama was to find its conclusion.  In these
+transactions, the chief actors are, on the one side, the Prince of Parma,
+as representative of absolutism and the Papacy; on the other, Sainte
+Aldegonde, who had passed his life as the champion of the Reformation.
+
+No doubt the pressure upon the burgomaster was very great.  Tumults were
+of daily occurrence.  Crowds of rioters beset his door with cries of
+denunciations and demands for bread.  A large and turbulent mob upon one
+occasion took possession of the horse-market, and treated him with
+personal indignity and violence, when be undertook to disperse them.
+On the other hand, Parma had been holding out hopes of pardon with more
+reasonable conditions than could well be expected, and had, with a good
+deal of art, taken advantage of several trivial circumstances to inspire
+the burghers with confidence in his good-will.  Thus, an infirm old lady
+in the city happened to imagine herself so dependent upon asses milk as
+to have sent her purveyor out of the city, at the peril of his life, to
+procure a supply from the neighbourhood.  The young man was captured,
+brought to Alexander, from whose hands he very naturally expected the
+punishment of a spy.  The prince, however, presented him, not only with
+his liberty, but with a she-ass; and loaded the animal with partridges
+and capons, as a present for the invalid.  The magistrates, hearing of
+the incident, and not choosing to be outdone in courtesy, sent back a
+waggon-load of old wine and remarkable confectionary as an offering to
+Alexander, and with this interchange of dainties led the way to the
+amenities of diplomacy.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Courage and semblance of cheerfulness, with despair in his heart
+Demanding peace and bread at any price
+Not a friend of giving details larger than my ascertained facts
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v40
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, v41, 1584
+
+
+Alexander Farnese, The Duke of Parma
+
+
+CHAPTER V., Part 3.
+
+
+     Sainte Aldegonde discouraged--His Critical Position--His
+     Negotiations with the Enemy--Correspondence with Richardot--
+     Commotion in the City--Interview of Marnix with Parma--Suspicious
+     Conduct of Marnix--Deputation to the Prince--Oration of Marnix--
+     Private Views of Parma--Capitulation of Antwerp--Mistakes of Marnix
+     --Philip on the Religious Question--Triumphal Entrance of Alexander--
+     Rebuilding of the Citadel--Gratification of Philip--Note on Sainte
+     Aldegonde
+
+Sainte Aldegonde's position had become a painful one.  The net had been
+drawn closely about the city.  The bridge seemed impregnable, the great
+Kowenstyn was irrecoverably in the hands of the enemy, and now all the
+lesser forts in the immediate vicinity of Antwerp-Borght, Hoboken,
+Cantecroix, Stralen, Berghen, and the rest--had likewise fallen into his
+grasp.  An account of grain, taken on the 1st of June, gave an average of
+a pound a-head for a month long, or half a pound for two months.  This
+was not the famine-point, according to the standard which had once been
+established in Leyden; but the courage of the burghers had been rapidly
+oozing away, under the pressure of their recent disappointments.  It
+seemed obvious to the burgomaster, that the time for yielding had
+arrived.
+
+"I had maintained the city,"  he said, "for a long period, without any
+excessive tumult or great effusion of blood--a city where there was such
+a multitude of inhabitants, mostly merchants or artisans deprived of all
+their traffic, stripped of their manufactures, destitute of all
+commodities and means of living.  I had done this in the midst of a great
+diversity of humours and opinions, a vast popular license, a confused
+anarchy, among a great number of commanders, most of them inexperienced
+in war; with very little authority of my own, with slender forces of
+ships, soldiers, and sailors; with alight appearance of support from king
+or prince without, or of military garrison within; and under all these
+circumstances I exerted myself to do my uttermost duty in preserving the
+city, both in regard to its internal government, and by force of arms by
+land and sea, without sparing myself in any labour or peril.
+
+"I know very well that there are many persons, who, finding themselves
+quite at their ease, and far away from the hard blows that are passing,
+are pleased to exhibit their wisdom by sitting in judgment upon others,
+founding their decision only upon the results.  But I demand to be judged
+by equity and reason, when passion has been set aside.  I claim that my
+honour shall be protected against my calumniators; for all should
+remember that I am not the first man, nor shall I be the last, that has
+been blamed unjustly.  All persons employed in public affairs are subject
+to such hazards, but I submit myself to Him who knows all hearts, and who
+governs all.  I take Him to witness that in the affair of Antwerp, as in
+all my other actions since my earliest youth, I have most sincerely
+sought His glory and the, welfare of His poor people, without regard to
+my own private interests."
+
+For it is not alone the fate of Antwerp that is here to be recorded.  The
+fame of Sainte Aldegonde was now seriously compromised.  The character of
+a great man must always be closely scanned and scrutinised; protected, if
+needful, against calumny, but always unflinchingly held up to the light.
+Names illustrious by genius and virtue are History's most precious
+treasures, faithfully to be guarded by her, jealously to be watched; but
+it is always a misfortune when her eyes are deceived by a glitter which
+is not genuine.
+
+Sainte Aldegonde was a man of unquestionable genius.  His character had
+ever been beyond the reproach of self-seeking or ignoble ambition.  He
+had multiplied himself into a thousand forms to serve the cause of the
+United Netherland States, and the services so rendered had been brilliant
+and frequent.  A great change in his conduct and policy was now
+approaching, and it is therefore the more necessary to examine closely at
+this epoch his attitude and his character.
+
+Early in June, Richardot, president of the council of Artois, addressed a
+letter to Sainte Aldegonde, by command of Alexander of Parma, suggesting
+a secret interview between the burgomaster and the Prince.
+
+On the 8th of June, Sainte Aldegonde replied, in favourable terms,
+as to the interview; but observed, that, as he was an official personage,
+it was necessary for him to communicate the project to the magistracy of
+the city.  He expressed likewise the hope that Parma would embrace the
+present opportunity for making a general treaty with all the Provinces.
+A special accord with Antwerp, leaving out Holland and Zeeland, would,
+he said, lead to the utter desolation of that city, and to the
+destruction of its commerce and manufactures, while the occasion now
+presented itself to the Prince of "winning praise and immortal glory by
+bringing back all the country to a voluntary and prompt obedience to his
+Majesty."  He proposed, that, instead of his coming alone, there should
+be a number of deputies sent from Antwerp to confer with Alexander.
+
+On the 11th June, Richardot replied by expressing, his own regrets and
+those of the Prince, that the interview could not have been with the
+burgomaster alone, but acknowledging the weight of his reasons, and
+acquiescing in the proposition to send a larger deputation.  Three days
+afterwards, Sainte Aldegonde, on private consultation with some
+confidential personages, changed his ground; announced his preference
+for a private interview, under four eyes, with Parma; and requested that
+a passport might be sent.  The passport was accordingly forwarded the
+same day, with an expression of Alexander's gratification, and with the
+offer, on the part of Richardot, to come himself to Antwerp as hostage
+during the absence of the burgomaster in Parma's camp at Beveren.
+
+Sainte Aldegonde was accordingly about to start on the following day
+(16th of June), but meantime the affair had got wind.  A secret
+interview, thus projected, was regarded by the citizens as extremely
+suspicious.  There was much bitter insinuation against the burgomaster--
+many violent demonstrations.  "Aldegonde, they say, is going to see
+Parma," said one of the burghers, "which gives much dissatisfaction,
+because, 'tis feared that he will make a treaty according to the appetite
+and pleasure of his Highness, having been gained over to the royal cause
+by money.  He says that it would be a misfortune to send a large number
+of burghers.  Last Sunday (16th June) there was a meeting of the broad
+council.  The preachers came into the assembly and so animated the
+citizens by demonstrations of their religion, that all rushed from the
+council-house, crying with loud voices that they did not desire peace but
+war."
+
+This desire was a healthy and a reasonable one; but, unfortunately,
+the Antwerpers had not always been so vigorous or so united in their
+resistance to Parma.  At present, however, they were very furious, so
+soon as the secret purpose of Sainte Aldegonde became generally known.
+The proposed capitulation, which great mobs had been for weeks long
+savagely demanding at the hands of the burgomaster, was now ascribed to
+the burgomaster's unblushing corruption.  He had obviously, they thought,
+been purchased by Spanish ducats to do what he had hitherto been so
+steadily refusing.  A certain Van Werne had gone from Antwerp into
+Holland a few days before upon his own private affairs, with a safe-
+conduct from Parma.  Sainte Aldegonde had not communicated to him the
+project then on foot, but he had permitted him to seek a secret interview
+with Count Mansfeld.  If that were granted, Van Werne was to hint that in
+case the Provinces could promise themselves a religious peace it would be
+possible, in the opinion of Sainte Aldegonde, to induce Holland and
+Zealand and all the rest of the United Provinces, to return to their
+obedience.  Van Werne, on his return to Antwerp, divulged these secret
+negotiations, and so put a stop to Sainte Aldegonde's scheme of going
+alone to Parma.  "This has given a bad suspicion to the people," wrote
+the burgomaster to Richardot, "so much so that I fear to have trouble.
+The broad council has been in session, but I don't know what has taken
+place there, and I do not dare to ask."
+
+Sainte Aldegonde's motive, as avowed by himself, for seeking a private
+interview, was because he had received no answer to the main point in his
+first letter, as to the proposition for a general accord.  In order
+therefore to make the deliberations more rapid, he had been disposed to
+discuss that preliminary question in secret.  "But now," said he to
+Richardot, "as the affair had been too much divulged, as well by diverse
+reports and writings sown about, very inopportunely, as by the arrival
+of M. Van Werne, I have not found it practicable to set out upon my road,
+without communication with the members of the government.  This has been
+done, however, not in the way of consultation, but as the announcement of
+a thing already resolved upon."
+
+He proceeded to state, that great difficulties had arisen, exactly as he
+had foreseen.  The magistrates would not hear of a general accord, and it
+was therefore necessary that a delay should be interposed before it would
+be possible for him to come.  He begged Richardot to persuade Alexander,
+that he was not trifling with him.  "It is not," said he, "from
+lightness, or any other passion, that I am retarding this affair.  I will
+do all in my power to obtain leave to make a journey to the camp of his
+Highness, at whatever price it may cost and I hope before long to arrive
+at my object.  If I fail, it must be ascribed to the humours of the
+people; for my anxiety to restore all the Provinces to obedience to his
+Majesty is extreme."
+
+Richardot, in reply, the next day, expressed regret, without
+astonishment, on the part of Alexander and himself, at the intelligence
+thus received.  People had such difference of humour, he said, and all
+men were not equally capable of reason.  Nevertheless the citizens were
+warned not to misconstrue Parma's gentleness, because he was determined
+to die, with his whole army, rather than not take Antwerp.  "As for the
+King," said Richardot, "he will lay down all his crowns sooner than
+abandon this enterprise."  Van Werne was represented as free from blame,
+and sincerely desirous of peace.  Richardot had only stated to him, in
+general terms, that letters had been received from Sainte Aldegonde,
+expressing an opinion in favour of peace.  As for the royalists, they
+were quite innocent of the reports and writings that had so inopportunely
+been circulated in the city.  It was desirable, however, that the
+negotiation should not too long be deferred, for otherwise Antwerp might
+perish, before a general accord with Holland and Zeeland could be made.
+He begged Sainte Aldegonde to banish all anxiety as to Parma's sentiments
+towards himself or the community.  "Put yourself, Sir, quite at your
+ease," said he.  "His Highness is in no respects dissatisfied with you,
+nor prone to conceive any indignation against this poor people."  He
+assured the burgomaster that he was not suspected of lightness, nor of a
+wish to delay matters, but he expressed solicitude with regard to the
+threatening demonstrations which had been made against him in Antwerp.
+"For," said he, "popular governments are full of a thousand hazards, and
+it would be infinitely painful to me, if you should come to harm."
+
+Thus it would appear that it was Sainte Aldegonde who was chiefly anxious
+to effect the reconciliation of Holland and Zeeland with the King.  The
+initiative of this project to include all the United Provinces in one
+scheme with the reduction of Antwerp came originally from him, and was
+opposed, at the outset, by the magistrates of that city, by the Prince of
+Parma and his councillors, and, by the States of Holland and Zeeland.
+The demonstrations on the part of the preachers, the municipal
+authorities, and the burghers, against Sainte Aldegonde and his plan for
+a secret interview, so soon as it was divulged, made it impossible to
+carry that project into effect.
+
+"Aldegonde, who governs Antwerp," wrote Parma to Philip,
+"was endeavouring, eight days ago, to bring about some kind of
+negotiation for an accord.  He manifested a desire to come hither
+for the sake of a personal interview with me, which I permitted.  It was
+to have taken place last Sunday, 16th of this month, but by reason of a
+certain popular tumult, which arose out of these circumstances, it has
+been necessary to defer the meeting."
+
+There was much disappointment felt by the royalist at this unsatisfactory
+result.  "These bravadoes and impertinent demonstrations on the part of
+some of your people," wrote Richardot, ten days later, "will be the
+destruction of the whole country, and will convert the Prince's
+gentleness into anger.  'Tis these good and zealous patriots, trusting to
+a little favourable breeze that blew for a few days past, who have been
+the cause of all this disturbance, and who are ruining their miserable
+country--miserable, I say, for having produced such abortions as
+themselves."
+
+Notwithstanding what had passed, however, Richardot intimated that
+Alexander was still ready to negotiate.  "And if you, Sir," he concluded,
+in his letter to Aldegonde, "concerning whom many of our friends have at
+present a sinister opinion, as if your object was to circumvent us, are
+willing to proceed roundly and frankly, as I myself firmly believe that
+you will do, we may yet hope for a favourable issue."
+
+Thus the burgomaster was already the object of suspicion to both parties.
+The Antwerpers denounced him as having been purchased by Spanish gold;
+the royalists accused him of intending to overreach the King.  It was not
+probable therefore that all were correct in their conjectures.
+
+At last it was arranged that deputies should be appointed by the broad
+council to commence a negotiation with Parma.  Sainte Aldegonde informed
+Richardot, that he would (5th July, 1585) accompany them, if his affairs
+should permit.  He  protested his sincerity and frankness throughout the
+whole affair.  "They try to calumniate me," he said, "as much on one side
+as on the other, but I will overcome by my innocence all the malice of my
+slanderers.  If his Highness should be pleased to grant us some liberty
+for our religion, I dare to promise such faithful service as will give
+very great satisfaction."
+
+Four days later, Sainte Aldegonde himself, together with M. de Duffel,
+M. de Schoonhoven, and Adrian Hesselt, came to Parma's camp at Beveren,
+as deputies on the part of the Antwerp authorities.  They were
+courteously received by the Prince, and remained three days as his
+guests.  During the period of this visit, the terms of a capitulation
+were thoroughly discussed, between Alexander and his councillors upon one
+part, and the four deputies on the other.  The envoys endeavoured, with
+all the arguments at their command, to obtain the consent of the Prince
+to three preliminary points which they laid down as indispensable.
+Religious liberty must be granted, the citadel must not be reconstructed,
+a foreign garrison must not be admitted; they said.  As it was the firm
+intention of the King, however, not to make the slightest concession on
+any one of these points, the discussion was not a very profitable one.
+Besides the public interviews at which all the negotiators were present,
+there was a private conference between Parma and Sainte Aldegonde which
+lasted more than four hours, in which each did his best to enforce his
+opinions upon the other.  The burgomaster endeavoured to persuade the
+Prince with all the eloquence for which he was so renowned, that the
+hearts not of the Antwerpers only, but of the Hollanders and Zeelanders,
+were easily to be won at that moment.  Give them religious liberty, and
+attempt to govern them by gentleness rather than by Spanish garrisons,
+and the road was plain to a complete reconciliation of all the Provinces
+with his Majesty.
+
+Alexander, who knew his master to be inexorable upon these three points,
+was courteous but peremptory in his statements.  He recommended that the
+rebels should take into consideration their own declining strength, the
+inexhaustible resources of the King, the impossibility of obtaining
+succour from France, and the perplexing dilatoriness of England, rather
+than waste their time in idle expectations of a change in the Spanish
+policy.  He also intimated, obliquely but very plainly, to Sainte
+Aldegonde, that his own fortune would be made, and that he had everything
+to hope from his Majesty's bounty, if he were now willing to make himself
+useful in carrying into effect the royal plans.
+
+The Prince urged these views with so much eloquence, that he seemed,
+in his own words, to have been directly inspired by the Lord for this
+special occasion!  Sainte Aldegonde, too, was signally impressed by
+Alexander's language, and thoroughly fascinated-magnetized, as it were
+--by his character.  He subsequently declared, that he had often
+conversed familiarly with many eloquent personages, but that he had never
+known a man more powerful or persuasive than the Prince of Parma.  He
+could honestly say of him--as Hasdrubal had said of Scipio--that Farnese
+was even more admirable when seen face to face, than he had seemed when
+one only heard of his glorious achievements.
+
+"The burgomaster and three deputies," wrote Parma to Philip, "were here
+until the 12th July.  We discussed (30th July, 1585) the points and form
+of a capitulation, and they have gone back thoroughly satisfied.  Sainte
+Aldegonde especially was much pleased with the long interview which he
+had with me, alone, and which lasted more than three hours.  I told him,
+as well as my weakness and suffering from the tertian fever permitted,
+all that God inspired me to say on our behalf."
+
+Nevertheless, if Sainte Aldegonde and his colleagues went away thoroughly
+satisfied, they had reason, soon after their return, to become thoroughly
+dejected.  The magistrates and burghers would not listen to a proposition
+to abandon the three points, however strongly urged to do so by arguments
+drawn from the necessity of the situation, and by representations of
+Parma's benignity.  As for the burgomaster, he became the target for
+calumny, so soon as his three hours' private interview became known; and
+the citizens loudly declared that his head ought to be cut off, and sent
+in a bag, as a present, to Philip, in order that the traitor might meet
+the sovereign with whom he sought a reconciliation, face to face, as soon
+as possible.
+
+The deputies, immediately after their return, made their report to the
+magistrates, as likewise to the colonels and captains, and to the deans
+of guilds.  Next day, although it was Sunday, there was a session of the
+broad council, and Sainte Aldegonde made a long address, in which--as he
+stated in a letter to Richardot--he related everything that had passed in
+his private conversation with Alexander.  An answer was promised to Parma
+on the following Tuesday, but the burgomaster spoke very discouragingly
+as to the probability of an accord.
+
+"The joy with which our return was greeted," he said, "was followed by a
+general disappointment and sadness, so soon as the result was known.  The
+want of a religious toleration, as well as the refusal to concede on the
+other two points, has not a little altered the hearts of all, even of the
+Catholics.  A citadel and a garrison are considered ruin and desolation
+to a great commercial city.  I have done what I can to urge the
+acceptance of such conditions as the Prince is willing to give, and have
+spoken in general terms of his benign intentions.  The citizens still
+desire peace.  Had his Highness been willing to take both religions under
+his protection, he might have won all hearts, and very soon all the other
+Provinces would have returned to their obedience, while the clemency and
+magnanimity of his Majesty would thus have been rendered admirable
+throughout the world."
+
+The power to form an accurate conception as to the nature of Philip and
+of other personages with whom he was dealing, and as to the general signs
+of his times, seems to have been wanting in the character of the gifted
+Aldegonde.  He had been dazzled by the personal presence of Parma, and he
+now spoke of Philip II., as if his tyranny over the Netherlands--which
+for twenty years had been one horrible and uniform whole--were the
+accidental result of circumstances, not the necessary expression of his
+individual character, and might be easily changed at will--as if Nero,
+at a moment's warning, might transform himself into Trajan.  It is true
+that the innermost soul of the Spanish king could by no possibility be
+displayed to any contemporary, as it reveals itself, after three
+centuries, to those who study the record of his most secret thoughts;
+but, at any rate, it would seem that his career had been sufficiently
+consistent, to manifest the amount of "clemency and magnanimity" which he
+might be expected to exercise.
+
+"Had his Majesty," wrote Sainte Aldegonde, "been willing, since the year
+sixty-six, to pursue a course of toleration, the memory of his reign
+would have been sacred to all posterity, with an immortal praise of
+sapience, benignity, and sovereign felicity."
+
+This might be true, but nevertheless a tolerating Philip, in the year
+1585, ought to have seemed to Sainte Aldegonde an impossible idea.
+
+"The emperors," continued the burgomaster, "who immediately succeeded
+Tiberius were the cause of the wisdom which displayed itself in the good
+Trajan--also a Spaniard--and in Antoninus, Verus, and the rest: If you
+think that this city, by the banishment of a certain number of persons,
+will be content to abandon the profession of the reformed faith, you are
+much mistaken.  You will see, with time, that the exile of this religion
+will be accompanied by a depopulation and a sorrowful ruin and desolation
+of this flourishing city.  But this will be as it pleases God.  Meantime
+I shall not fail to make all possible exertions to induce the citizens to
+consent to a reconciliation with his Majesty.  The broad council will
+soon give their answer, and then we shall send a deputation.  We shall
+invite Holland and Zeeland to join with us, but there is little hope of
+their consent."
+
+Certainly there was little hope of their consent.  Sainte Aldegonde was
+now occupied in bringing about the capitulation of Antwerp, without any
+provision for religious liberty--a concession which Parma had most
+distinctly refused--and it was not probable that Holland and Zeeland,
+after twenty years of hard fighting, and with an immediate prospect of
+assistance from England--could now be induced to resign the great object
+of the contest without further struggle.
+
+It was not until a month had elapsed that the authorities of Antwerp sent
+their propositions to the Prince of Parma.  On the 12th August, however,
+Sainte Aldegonde, accompanied by the same three gentlemen who had been
+employed on the first mission, and by seventeen others besides, proceeded
+with safe-conduct to the camp at Beveren.  Here they were received with
+great urbanity, and hospitably entertained by Alexander, who received
+their formal draft of articles for a capitulation, and referred it to be
+reported upon to Richardot, Pamel, and Vanden Burgh.  Meantime there were
+many long speeches and several conferences, sometimes between all the
+twenty-one envoys and the Prince together; on other occasions, more
+secret ones, at which only Aldegonde and one or two of his colleagues
+were present.  It had been obvious, from the date of the first interview,
+in the preceding month, that the negotiation would be of no avail until
+the government of Antwerp was prepared to abandon all the conditions
+which they had originally announced as indispensable.  Alexander had not
+much disposition and no authority whatever to make concessions.
+
+"So far as I can understand," Parma had written on the 30th July, "they
+are very far from a conclusion.  They have most exorbitant ideas, talking
+of some kind of liberty of conscience, besides refusing on any account to
+accept of garrisons, and having many reasons to allege on such subjects."
+
+The discussions, therefore, after the deputies had at last arrived,
+though courteously conducted, could scarcely be satisfactory to both
+parties.  "The articles were thoroughly deliberated upon," wrote
+Alexander, "by all the deputies, nor did I fail to have private
+conferences with Aldegonde, that most skilful and practised lawyer and
+politician, as well as with two or three of the others.  I did all in my
+power to bring them to a thorough recognition of their errors, and to
+produce a confidence in his Majesty's clemency, in order that they might
+concede what was needful for the interests of the Catholic religion and
+the security of the city.  They heard all I had to say without
+exasperating themselves, and without interposing any strong objections,
+except in the matter of religion, and, still more, in the matter of the
+citadel and the garrison.  Aldegonde took much pains to persuade me that
+it would be ruinous for a great, opulent, commercial city to submit to a
+foreign military force.  Even if compelled by necessity to submit now,
+the inhabitants would soon be compelled by the same necessity to abandon
+the place entirely, and to leave in ruins one of the most splendid and
+powerful cities in the world, and in this opinion Catholics and heretics
+unanimously concurred.  The deputies protested, with one accord, that so
+pernicious and abominable a thing as a citadel and garrison could not
+even be proposed to their constituents.  I answered, that, so long as the
+rebellion of Holland and Zeeland lasted, it would be necessary for your
+Majesty to make sure of Antwerp, by one or the other of those means, but
+promised that the city should be relieved of the incumbrance so soon as
+those islands should be reduced.
+
+"Sainte Aldegonde was not discouraged by this statement, but in the hope
+of convincing others, or with the wish of showing that he had tried his
+best, desired that I would hear him before the council of state.  I
+granted the request, and Sainte Aldegonde then made another long and very
+elegant oration, intended to divert me from my resolution."
+
+It must be confessed--if the reports, which have come down to us of that
+long and elegant oration be correct--that the enthusiasm of the
+burgomaster for Alexander was rapidly degenerating into idolatry.
+
+"We are not here, O invincible Prince," he said, "that we may excuse, by
+an anxious legation, the long defence which we have made of our homes.
+Who could have feared any danger to the most powerful city in the
+Netherlands from so moderate a besieging force?  You would yourself have
+rather wished for, than approved of, a greater facility on our part, for
+the brave cannot love the timid.  We knew the number of your troops, we
+had discovered the famine in your camp, we were aware of the paucity of
+your ships, we had heard of the quarrels in your army, we were expecting
+daily to hear of a general mutiny among your soldiers.  Were we to
+believe that with ten or eleven thousand men you would be able to block
+up the city by land and water, to reduce the open country of Brabant, to
+cut off all aid as well from the neighbouring towns as from the powerful
+provinces of Holland and Zeeland, to oppose, without a navy, the whole
+strength of our fleets, directed against the dyke?  Truly, if you had
+been at the head of fifty thousand soldiers, and every soldier had
+possessed one hundred hands, it would have seemed impossible for you to
+meet so many emergencies in so many places, and under so many
+distractions.  What you have done we now believe possible to do, only
+because we see that it has been done.  You have subjugated the Scheldt,
+and forced it to bear its bridge, notwithstanding the strength of its
+current, the fury of the ocean-tides, the tremendous power of the
+icebergs, the perpetual conflicts with our fleets.  We destroyed your
+bridge, with great slaughter of your troops.  Rendered more courageous
+by that slaughter, you restored that mighty work.  We assaulted the great
+dyke, pierced it through and through, and opened a path for our ships.
+You drove us off when victors, repaired the ruined bulwark, and again
+closed to us the avenue of relief.  What machine was there that we did
+not employ? what miracles of fire did we not invent? what fleets and
+floating cidadels did we not put in motion?  All that genius, audacity,
+and art, could teach us we have executed, calling to our assistance
+water, earth, heaven, and hell itself.  Yet with all these efforts, with
+all this enginry, we have not only failed to drive you from our walls,
+but we have seen you gaining victories over other cities at the same
+time.  You have done a thing, O Prince, than which there is nothing
+greater either in ancient or modern story.  It has often occurred, while
+a general was besieging one city that he lost another situate farther
+off.  But you, while besieging Antwerp, have reduced simultaneously
+Dendermonde, Ghent, Nymegen, Brussels, and Mechlin."
+
+All this, and much more, with florid rhetoric, the burgomaster pronounced
+in honour of Farnese, and the eulogy was entirely deserved.  It was
+hardly becoming, however, for such lips, at such a moment, to sound the
+praise of him whose victory had just decided the downfall of religious
+liberty, and of the national independence of the Netherlands.  His
+colleagues certainly must have winced, as they listened to commendations
+so lavishly bestowed upon the representative of Philip, and it is not
+surprising that Sainte Aldegonde's growing unpopularity should, from that
+hour, have rapidly increased.  To abandon the whole object of the siege,
+when resistance seemed hopeless, was perhaps pardonable, but to offer
+such lip-homage to the conqueror was surely transgressing the bounds of
+decorum.
+
+His conclusion, too, might to Alexander seem as insolent as the whole
+tenor of his address had been humble; for, after pronouncing this solemn
+eulogy upon the conqueror, he calmly proposed that the prize of the
+contest should be transferred to the conquered.
+
+"So long as liberty of religion, and immunity from citadel and garrison
+can be relied upon," he said, "so long will Antwerp remain the most
+splendid and flourishing city in Christendom; but desolation will ensue
+if the contrary policy is to prevail."
+
+But it was very certain that liberty of religion, as well as immunity
+from citadel and garrison, were quite out of the question.  Philip and
+Parma had long been inexorably resolved upon all the three points.
+
+"After the burgomaster had finished his oration," wrote Alexander to his
+sovereign, "I discussed the matter with him in private, very distinctly
+and minutely."
+
+The religious point was soon given up, Sainte Aldegonde finding it waste
+of breath to say anything more about freedom of conscience.  A suggestion
+was however made on the subject of the garrison, which the prince
+accepted, because it contained a condition which it would be easy to
+evade.
+
+"Aldegonde proposed," said Parma, "that a garrison might be admissible
+if I made my entrance into the city merely with infantry and cavalry of
+nations which were acceptable--Walloons, namely, and Germans--and in no
+greater numbers than sufficient for a body-guard.  I accepted, because,
+in substance, this would amount to a garrison, and because, also, after
+the magistrates shall have been changed, I shall have no difficulty in
+making myself master of the people, continuing the garrison, and
+rebuilding the citadel."
+
+The Prince proceeded to give his reasons why he was willing to accept the
+capitulation on what he considered so favourable terms to the besieged.
+Autumn was approaching.  Already the fury of the storms had driven
+vessels clean over the dykes; the rebels in Holland and Zeeland were
+preparing their fleets--augmented by many new ships of war and fire-
+machines--for another desperate attack upon the Palisades, in which there
+was great possibility of their succeeding; an auxiliary force from
+England was soon expected; so that, in view of all these circumstances,
+he had resolved to throw himself at his Majesty's feet and implore his
+clemency.  "If this people of Antwerp, as the head, is gained," said he,
+"there will be tranquillity in all the members."
+
+These reasons were certainly conclusive; nor is it easy to believe, that,
+under the circumstances thus succinctly stated by Alexander, it would
+have been impossible for the patriots to hold out until the promised
+succour from Holland and from England should arrive.  In point of fact,
+the bridge could not have stood the winter which actually ensued; for it
+was the repeatedly expressed opinion of the Spanish officers in Antwerp,
+that the icebergs which then filled the Scheldt must inevitably have
+shattered twenty bridges to fragments, had there been so many.  It
+certainly was superfluous for the Prince to make excuses to Philip for
+accepting the proposed capitulation.  All the prizes of victory had been
+thoroughly secured, unless pillage, massacre, and rape, which had been
+the regular accompaniments of Alva's victories, were to be reckoned among
+the indispensable trophies of a Spanish triumph.
+
+Nevertheless, the dearth in the city had been well concealed from the
+enemy; for, three days after the surrender, not a loaf of bread was to be
+had for any money in all Antwerp, and Alexander declared that he would
+never have granted such easy conditions had he been aware of the real
+condition of affairs.
+
+The articles of capitulation agreed upon between Parma and the deputies
+were brought before the broad council on the 9th August.  There was much
+opposition to them, as many magistrates and other influential personages
+entertained sanguine expectations from the English negotiation, and were
+beginning to rely with confidence upon the promises of Queen Elizabeth.
+The debate was waxing warm, when some of the councillors, looking out of
+window of the great hall, perceived that a violent mob had collected in
+the streets.  Furious cries for bread were uttered, and some meagre-
+looking individuals were thrust forward to indicate the famine which was
+prevailing, and the necessity of concluding the treaty without further
+delay.  Thus the municipal government was perpetually exposed to
+democratic violence, excited by diametrically opposite influences.
+Sometimes the burgomaster was denounced for having sold himself and his
+country to the Spaniards, and was assailed with execrations for being
+willing to conclude a sudden and disgraceful peace.  At other moments he
+was accused of forging letters containing promises of succour from the
+Queen of England and from the authorities of Holland, in order to
+protract the lingering tortures of the war.  Upon this occasion the
+peace-mob carried its point.  The councillors, looking out of window,
+rushed into the hall with direful accounts of the popular ferocity;
+the magistrates and colonels who had been warmest in opposition suddenly
+changed their tone, and the whole body of the broad council accepted the
+articles of capitulation by a unanimous vote.
+
+The window was instantly thrown open, and the decision publicly
+announced.  The populace, wild with delight, rushed through the streets,
+tearing down the arms of the Duke of Anjou, which had remained above the
+public edifices since the period of that personage's temporary residence
+in the Netherlands, and substituting, with wonderful celerity, the
+escutcheon of Philip the Second.  Thus suddenly could an Antwerp mob pass
+from democratic insolence to intense loyalty.
+
+The articles, on the whole, were as liberal as could have been expected.
+The only hope for Antwerp and for a great commonwealth of all the
+Netherlands was in holding out, even to the last gasp, until England and
+Holland, now united, had time to relieve the city.  This was,
+unquestionably, possible.  Had Antwerp possessed the spirit of Leyden,
+had William of Orange been alive, that Spanish escutcheon, now raised
+with such indecent haste, might have never been seen again on the outside
+wall of any Netherland edifice.  Belgium would have become at once a
+constituent portion of a great independent national realm, instead of
+languishing until our own century, the dependency of a distant and a
+foreign metropolis.  Nevertheless, as the Antwerpers were not disposed to
+make themselves martyrs, it was something that they escaped the nameless
+horrors which had often alighted upon cities subjected to an enraged
+soldiery.  It redounds to the eternal honour of Alexander Farnese--when
+the fate of Naarden and Haarlem and Maestricht, in the days of Alva, and
+of Antwerp itself in the horrible "Spanish fury," is remembered--that
+there were no scenes of violence and outrage in the populous and wealthy
+city, which was at length at his mercy after having defied him so long.
+
+Civil and religious liberty were trampled in the dust, commerce and
+manufactures were destroyed, the most valuable portion of the citizens
+sent into hopeless exile, but the remaining inhabitants were not
+butchered in cold blood.
+
+The treaty was signed on the 17th August.  Antwerp was to return to its
+obedience.  There was to be an entire amnesty and oblivion for the past,
+without a single exception.  Royalist absentees were to be reinstated in
+their possessions.  Monasteries, churches, and the King's domains were to
+be restored to their former proprietors.  The inhabitants of the city
+were to practise nothing but the Catholic religion.  Those who refused to
+conform were allowed to remain two years for the purpose of winding up
+their affairs and selling out their property, provided that during that
+period they lived "without scandal towards the ancient religion"--a very
+vague and unsatisfactory condition.  All prisoners were to be released
+excepting Teligny.  Four hundred thousand florins were to be paid by the
+authorities as a fine.  The patriot garrison was to leave the city with
+arms and baggage and all the honours of war.
+
+This capitulation gave more satisfaction to the hungry portion of the
+Antwerpers than to the patriot party of the Netherlands.  Sainte
+Aldegonde was vehemently and unsparingly denounced as a venal traitor.
+It is certain, whatever his motives, that his attitude had completely
+changed.  For it was not Antwerp alone that he had reconciled or was
+endeavouring to reconcile with the King of Spain, but Holland and Zeeland
+as well, and all the other independent Provinces.  The ancient champion
+of the patriot army, the earliest signer of the 'Compromise,' the bosom
+friend of William the Silent, the author of the 'Wilhelmus' national
+song, now avowed his conviction, in a published defence of his conduct
+against the calumnious attacks upon it, "that it was impossible, with a
+clear conscience, for subjects, under any circumstances, to take up arms
+against Philip, their king."  Certainly if he had always entertained that
+opinion he must have suffered many pangs of remorse during his twenty
+years of active and illustrious rebellion.  He now made himself secretly
+active in promoting the schemes of Parma and in counteracting the
+negotiation with England.  He flattered himself, with an infatuation
+which it is difficult to comprehend, that it would be possible to obtain
+religious liberty for the revolting Provinces, although he had consented
+to its sacrifice in Antwerp.  It is true that he had not the privilege of
+reading Philip's secret letters to Parma, but what was there in the
+character of the King--what intimation had ever been given by the
+Governor-General--to induce a belief in even the possibility of such a
+concession?
+
+Whatever Sainte Aldegonde's opinions, it is certain that Philip had no
+intention of changing his own policy.  He at first suspected the
+burgomaster of a wish to protract the negotiations for a perfidious
+purpose.
+
+"Necessity has forced Antwerp," he wrote on the 17th of August--the very
+day on which the capitulation was actually signed--"to enter into
+negotiation.  I understand the artifice of Aldegonde in seeking to
+prolong and make difficult the whole affair, under pretext of treating
+for the reduction of Holland and Zeeland at the same time.  It was
+therefore very adroit in you to defeat this joint scheme at once, and
+urge the Antwerp matter by itself, at the same time not shutting the door
+on the others.  With the prudence and dexterity with which this business
+has thus far been managed I am thoroughly satisfied."
+
+The King also expressed his gratification at hearing from Parma that the
+demand for religious liberty in the Netherlands would soon be abandoned.
+
+"In spite of the vehemence," he said, "which they manifest in the
+religious matter, desiring some kind of liberty, they will in the end,
+as you say they will, content themselves with what the other cities,
+which have returned to obedience, have obtained.  This must be done in
+all cases without flinching, and without permitting any modification."
+
+What "had been obtained" by Brussels, Mechlin, Ghent, was well known.
+The heretics had obtained the choice of renouncing their religion or of
+going into perpetual exile, and this was to be the case "without
+flinching" in Holland and Zeeland, if those provinces chose to return to
+obedience.  Yet Sainte Aldegonde deluded himself with the thought of a
+religious peace.
+
+In another and very important letter of the same date Philip laid down
+his policy very distinctly.  The Prince of Parma, by no means such a
+bigot as his master, had hinted at the possibility of tolerating the
+reformed religion in the places recovered from the rebels, sub silentio,
+for a period not defined, and long enough for the heretics to awake from
+their errors.
+
+"You have got an expression of opinion, I see," wrote the King to
+Alexander, "of some grave men of wisdom and conscience, that the
+limitation of time, during which the heretics may live without scandal,
+may be left undefined; but I feel very keenly the danger of such a
+proposition.  With regard to Holland and Zeeland, or any other provinces
+or towns, the first step must be for them to receive and maintain alone
+the exercise of the Catholic religion, and to subject themselves to the
+Roman church, without tolerating the exercise of any other religion, in
+city, village, farm-house, or building thereto destined in the fields, or
+in any place whatsoever; and in this regulation there is to be no flaw,
+no change, no concession by convention or otherwise of a religious peace,
+or anything of the sort.  They are all to embrace the Roman Catholic
+religion, and the exercise of that is alone to be permitted."
+
+This certainly was distinct enough, and nothing had been ever said in
+public to induce a belief in any modification of the principles on which
+Philip had uniformly acted.  That monarch considered himself born to
+suppress heresy, and he had certainly been carrying out this work during
+his whole lifetime.
+
+The King was willing, however, as Alexander had intimated in his
+negotiations with Antwerp, and previously in the capitulation of
+Brussels, Ghent, and other places, that there should be an absence of
+investigation into the private chambers of the heretics, during the
+period allotted them for choosing between the Papacy and exile.
+
+"It may be permitted," said Philip, "to abstain from inquiring as to what
+the heretics are doing within their own doors, in a private way, without
+scandal, or any public exhibition of their rites during a fixed time.
+But this connivance, and the abstaining from executing the heretics,
+or from chastising them, even although they may be living very
+circumspectly, is to be expressed in very vague terms."
+
+Being most anxious to provide against a second crop of heretics to
+succeed the first, which he was determined to uproot, he took pains to
+enjoin with his own hand upon Parma the necessity of putting in Catholic
+schoolmasters and mistresses to the exclusion of reformed teachers into
+all the seminaries of the recovered Provinces, in order that all the boys
+and girls might grow up in thorough orthodoxy.
+
+Yet this was the man from whom Sainte Aldegonde imagined the possibility
+of obtaining a religious peace.
+
+Ten days after the capitulation, Parma made his triumphal entrance into
+Antwerp; but, according to his agreement, he spared the citizens the
+presence of the Spanish and Italian soldiers, the military procession
+being composed of the Germans and Walloons.  Escorted by his body-guard,
+and surrounded by a knot of magnates and veterans, among whom the Duke of
+Arschot, the Prince of Chimay, the Counts Mansfeld, Egmont, and Aremberg,
+were conspicuous, Alexander proceeded towards the captured city.  He was
+met at the Keyser Gate by a triumphal chariot of gorgeous workmanship,
+in which sat the fair nymph Antwerpia, magnificently bedizened, and
+accompanied by a group of beautiful maidens.  Antwerpia welcomed the
+conqueror with a kiss, recited a poem in his honour, and bestowed upon
+him the keys of the city, one of which was in gold.  This the Prince
+immediately fastened to the chain around his neck, from which was
+suspended the lamb of the golden fleece, with which order he had just
+been, amid great pomp and ceremony, invested.
+
+On the public square called the Mere, the Genoese merchants had erected
+two rostral columns, each surmounted by a colossal image, representing
+respectively Alexander of Macedon and Alexander of Parma.  Before the
+house of Portugal was an enormous phoenix, expanding her wings quite
+across the street; while, in other parts of the town, the procession was
+met by ships of war, elephants, dromedaries, whales, dragons, and other
+triumphal phenomena.  In the market-place were seven statues in copper,
+personifying the seven planets, together with an eighth representing
+Bacchus; and perhaps there were good mythological reasons why the god of
+wine, together with so large a portion of our solar system, should be
+done in copper by Jacob Jongeling, to honour the triumph of Alexander,
+although the key to the enigma has been lost.
+
+The cathedral had been thoroughly fumigated with frankincense, and
+besprinkled with holy water, to purify the sacred precincts from their
+recent pollution by the reformed rites; and the Protestant pulpits which
+had been placed there, had been soundly beaten with rods, and then burned
+to ashes.  The procession entered within its walls, where a magnificent
+Te Deum was performed, and then, after much cannon-firing, bell-ringing,
+torch-light exhibition, and other pyrotechnics, the Prince made his way
+at last to the palace provided for him.  The glittering display, by which
+the royalists celebrated their triumph, lasted three days' long, the city
+being thronged from all the country round with eager and frivolous
+spectators, who were never wearied with examining the wonders of the
+bridge and the forts, and with gazing at the tragic memorials which still
+remained of the fight on the Kowenstyn.
+
+During this interval, the Spanish and Italian soldiery, not willing to be
+outdone in demonstrations of respect to their chief, nor defrauded of
+their rightful claim to a holiday amused themselves with preparing a
+demonstration of a novel character.  The bridge, which, as it was well
+known, was to be destroyed within a very few days, was adorned with
+triumphal arches, and decked with trees and flowering plants; its roadway
+was strewed with branches; and the palisades, parapets, and forts, were
+garnished with wreaths, emblems, and poetical inscriptions in honour of
+the Prince.  The soldiers themselves, attired in verdurous garments of
+foliage and flower-work, their swart faces adorned with roses and lilies,
+paraded the bridge and the dyke in fantastic procession with clash of
+cymbal and flourish of trumpet, dancing, singing, and discharging their
+carbines, in all the delirium of triumph.  Nor was a suitable termination
+to the festival wanting, for Alexander, pleased with the genial character
+of these demonstrations, repaired himself to the bridge, where he was
+received with shouts of rapture by his army, thus whimsically converted
+into a horde of fauns and satyrs.  Afterwards, a magnificent banquet was
+served to the soldiers upon the bridge.  The whole extent of its surface,
+from the Flemish to the Brabant shore--the scene so lately of deadly
+combat, and of the midnight havoc caused by infernal enginery--was
+changed, as if by the stroke of a wand, into a picture of sylvan and
+Arcadian merry-making, and spread with tables laden with delicate viands.
+Here sat that host of war--bronzed figures, banqueting at their ease,
+their heads crowned with flowers, while the highest magnates of the army,
+humouring them in their masquerade, served them with dainties, and filled
+their goblets with wine.
+
+After these festivities had been concluded, Parma set himself to
+practical business.  There had been a great opposition, during the
+discussion of the articles of capitulation to the reconstruction of the
+famous citadel.  That fortress had been always considered, not as a
+defence of the place against a foreign enemy, but as an instrument to
+curb the burghers themselves beneath a hostile power.  The city
+magistrates, however, as well as the dean and chief officers in all the
+guilds and fraternities, were at once changed by Parma--Catholics being
+uniformly substituted for heretics.  In consequence, it was not difficult
+to bring about a change of opinion in the broad council.  It is true that
+neither Papists nor Calvinists regarded with much satisfaction the
+prospect of military violence being substituted for civic rule, but
+in the first effusion of loyalty, and in the triumph of the ancient
+religion, they forgot the absolute ruin to which their own action was now
+condemning their city.  Champagny, who had once covered himself with
+glory by his heroic though unsuccessful efforts to save Antwerp from the
+dreadful "Spanish fury" which had descended from that very citadel, was
+now appointed governor of the town, and devoted himself to the
+reconstruction of the hated fortress.  "Champagny has particularly aided
+me," wrote Parma, "with his rhetoric and clever management, and has
+brought the broad council itself to propose that the citadel should be
+rebuilt.  It will therefore be done, as by the burghers themselves,
+without your Majesty or myself appearing to desire it."
+
+This was, in truth, a triumph of "rhetoric and clever management," nor
+could a city well abase itself more completely, kneeling thus cheerfully
+at its conqueror's feet, and requesting permission to put the yoke upon
+its own neck.  "The erection of the castle has thus been determined
+upon," said Parma, "and I am supposed to know nothing of the resolution."
+
+A little later he observed that they, were "working away most furiously
+at the citadel, and that within a month it would be stronger than it ever
+had been before."
+
+The building went on, indeed, with astonishing celerity, the fortress
+rising out of its ruins almost as rapidly, under the hands of the
+royalists, as it had been demolished, but a few years before, by the
+patriots.  The old foundations still remained, and blocks of houses,
+which had been constructed out of its ruins, were thrown down that the
+materials might be again employed in its restoration.
+
+The citizens, impoverished and wretched, humbly demanded that the expense
+of building the citadel might be in part defrayed by the four hundred
+thousand florins in which they had been mulcted by the capitulation.
+"I don't marvel at this," said Parma, "for certainly the poor city is
+most forlorn and poverty-stricken, the heretics having all left it."
+It was not long before it was very satisfactorily established, that the
+presence of those same heretics and liberty of conscience for all men,
+were indispensable conditions for the prosperity of the great capital.
+Its downfall was instantaneous.  The merchants and industrious artisans
+all wandered away from the place which had been the seat of a world-wide
+traffic.  Civilisation and commerce departed, and in their stead were the
+citadel and the Jesuits.  By express command of Philip, that order,
+banished so recently, was reinstated in Antwerp, as well as throughout
+the obedient provinces; and all the schools and colleges were placed
+under its especial care.  No children could be thenceforth instructed
+except by the lips of those fathers.  Here was a curb more efficacious
+even than the citadel.  That fortress was at first garrisoned with
+Walloons and Germans.  "I have not yet induced the citizens," said Parma,
+"to accept a Spanish garrison, nor am I surprised; so many of them
+remembering past events (alluding to the 'Spanish fury,' but not
+mentioning it by name), and observing the frequent mutinies at the
+present time.  Before long, I expect, however, to make the Spaniards as
+acceptable and agreeable as the inhabitants of the country themselves."
+
+It may easily be supposed that Philip was pleased with the triumphs that
+had thus been achieved.  He was even grateful, or affected to be
+grateful, to him who had achieved them.  He awarded great praise to
+Alexander for his exertions, on the memorable occasions of the attack
+upon the bridge, and the battle of the Kowenstyn; but censured him
+affectionately for so rashly exposing his life.  "I have no words,"
+he said, "to render the thanks which are merited for all that you have
+been doing.  I recommend you earnestly however to have a care for the
+security of your person, for that is of more consequence than all the
+rest."
+
+After the news of the reduction of the city, he again expressed
+gratification, but in rather cold language.  "From such obstinate
+people," said he, "not more could be extracted than has been extracted;
+therefore the capitulation is satisfactory."  What more he wished to
+extract it would be difficult to say, for certainly the marrow had been
+extracted from the bones, and the dead city was thenceforth left to
+moulder under the blight of a foreign garrison and an army of Jesuits.
+"Perhaps religious affairs will improve before long," said Philip.
+They did improve very soon, as he understood the meaning of improvement.
+A solitude of religion soon brought with it a solitude in every other
+regard, and Antwerp became a desert, as Sainte Aldegonde had foretold
+would be the case.
+
+The King had been by no means so calm, however, when the intelligence
+of the capitulation first reached him at Madrid.  On the contrary, his
+oldest courtiers had never seen him exhibit such marks of hilarity.
+
+When he first heard of the glorious victory at Lepanto, his countenance
+had remained impassive, and he had continued in the chapel at the
+devotional exercises which the messenger from Don John had interrupted.
+Only when the news of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew first reached him,
+had he displayed an amount of cheerfulness equal to that which he
+manifested at the fall of Antwerp.  "Never," said Granvelle, "had the
+King been so radiant with joy as when he held in his hand the despatches
+which announced the capitulation."  The letters were brought to him after
+he had retired to rest, but his delight was so great that he could not
+remain in his bed.  Rushing from his chamber, so soon as he had read
+them, to that of his dearly-beloved daughter, Clara Isabella, he knocked
+loudly at the door, and screaming through the keyhole the three words,
+"Antwerp is ours," returned precipitately again to his own apartment.
+
+It was the general opinion in Spain, that the capture of this city had
+terminated the resistance of the Netherlands.  Holland and Zeeland would,
+it was thought, accept with very little hesitation the terms which Parma
+had been offering, through the agency of Sainte Aldegonde; and, with the
+reduction of those two provinces, the Spanish dominion over the whole
+country would of course become absolute.  Secretary Idiaquez observed,
+on drawing up instructions for Carlo Coloma, a Spanish financier then
+departing on special mission for the Provinces, that he would soon come
+back to Spain, for the Prince of Parma was just putting an end to the
+whole Belgic war.
+
+Time was to show whether Holland and Zeeland were as malleable as
+Antwerp, and whether there would not be a battle or two more to fight
+before that Belgic war would come to its end.  Meantime Antwerp was
+securely fettered, while the spirit of commerce--to which its unexampled
+prosperity had been due--now took its flight to the lands where civil and
+religious liberty had found a home.
+
+
+             =====================================
+
+
+NOTE on MARNIX DE SAINTE ALDEGONDE.
+
+As every illustration of the career and character of this eminent
+personage excites constant interest in the Netherlands, I have here
+thrown together, in the form of an Appendix, many important and entirely
+unpublished details, drawn mainly from the Archives of Simancas, and from
+the State Paper Office and British Museum in London.
+
+The ex-burgomaster seemed determined to counteract the policy of those
+Netherlanders who wished to offer the sovereignty of the Provinces to the
+English Queen.  He had been earnestly in favour of annexation to France,
+for his sympathies and feelings were eminently French.  He had never been
+a friend to England, and he was soon aware that a strong feeling of
+indignation--whether just or unjust--existed against him both in that
+country and in the Netherlands, on account of the surrender of Antwerp.
+
+"I have had large conference with Villiers," wrote Sir John Norris to
+Walsingham, "he condemneth Ste. Aldegonde's doings, but will impute it to
+fear and not to malice.  Ste. Aldegonde, notwithstanding that he was
+forbidden to come to Holland, and laid for at the fleet, yet stole
+secretly to Dort, where they say he is staid, but I doubt he will be
+heard speak, and then assuredly he will do great hurt."
+
+It was most certainly Sainte Aldegonde's determination, so soon as the
+capitulation of Antwerp had been resolved upon, to do his utmost to
+restore all the independent Provinces to their ancient allegiance.
+Rather Spanish than English was his settled resolution.  Liberty of
+religion, if possible--that was his cherished wish--but still more
+ardently, perhaps, did he desire to prevent the country from falling
+into the hands of Elizabeth.
+
+"The Prince of Parma hath conceived such an assured hope of the fidelity
+of Aldegonde," wrote one of Walsingham's agents, Richard Tomson, "in
+reducing the Provinces, yet enemies, into a perfect subjection, that the
+Spaniards are so well persuaded of the man as if he had never been
+against them.  They say, about the middle of this month, he departed for
+Zeeland and Holland, to prosecute the effect of his promises, and I am
+the more induced to believe that he is become altogether Spanish, for
+that the common bruit goeth that he hastened the surrendering of the town
+of Antwerp, after he had intelligence of the coming of the English
+succours."
+
+There was naturally much indignation felt in the independent Provinces,
+against all who had been thought instrumental in bringing about the
+reduction of the great cities of Flanders.  Famars, governor of Mechlin,
+Van den Tympel, governor of Brussels, Martini, who had been active in
+effecting the capitulation of Antwerp, were all arrested in Holland.
+"From all that I can hear," said Parma, "it is likely that they will be
+very severely handled, which is the reason why Ste. Aldegonde, although
+he sent his wife and children to Holland, has not ventured thither
+himself: It appears that they threaten him there, but he means now to go,
+under pretext of demanding to justify himself from the imputations
+against him.  Although he tells me freely that, without some
+amplification of the concessions hitherto made on the point of religion,
+he hopes for no good result, yet I trust that he will do good offices in
+the meantime, in spite of the difficulties which obstruct his efforts.
+On my part, every exertion will be made, and not without hope of some
+fruit, if not before, at least after, these people have become as tired
+of the English as they were of the French."
+
+Of this mutual ill-feeling between the English and the burgomaster, there
+can be no doubt whatever.  The Queen's government was fully aware of his
+efforts to counteract its negotiation with the Netherlands, and to bring
+about their reconciliation with Spain.  When the Earl of Leicester--as
+will soon be related--arrived in the Provinces, he was not long in
+comprehending his attitude and his influence.
+
+"I wrote somewhat of Sir Aldegonde in putting his case," wrote Leicester,
+"but this is certain, I have the copy of his very letters sent hither to
+practise the peace not two days before I came, and this day one hath told
+me that loves him well, that he hates our countrymen unrecoverably.  I am
+sorry for it."
+
+On the other hand, the Queen was very indignant with the man whom she
+looked upon as the paid agent of Spain.  She considered him a renegade,
+the more dangerous because his previous services had been so illustrious.
+"Her Majesty's mislike towards Ste. Aldegonde continueth," wrote
+Walsingham to Leicester, "and she taketh offence that he was not
+restrained of his liberty by your Lordship's order." It is unquestionable
+that the exburgomaster intended to do his best towards effecting the
+reconciliation of all the Provinces with Spain; and it is equally certain
+that the King had offered to pay him well, if he proved successful in his
+endeavours.  There is no proof, however, and no probability that Sainte
+Aldegonde ever accepted or ever intended to accept the proffered bribe.
+On the contrary, his whole recorded career ought to disprove the
+supposition.  Yet it is painful, to find him, at this crisis, assiduous
+in his attempts to undo the great work of his own life, and still more
+distressing to find that great rewards were distinctly offered to him
+for such service.  Immense promises had been frequently made no doubt to
+William the Silent; nor could any public man, in such times, be so pure
+that an attempt to tamper with him might not be made: but when the
+personage, thus solicited, was evidently acting in the interests of the
+tempters, it is not surprising that he should become the object of grave
+suspicion.
+
+"It does not seem to me bad," wrote Philip to Parma, "this negotiation
+which you have commenced with Ste. Aldegonde, in order to gain him, and
+thus to employ his services in bringing about a reduction of the islands
+(Holland and Zeeland).  In exchange for this work, any thing which you
+think proper to offer to him as a reward, will be capital well invested;
+but it must not be given until the job is done."
+
+But the job was hard to do, and Sainte Aldegonde cared nothing for the
+offered bribe.  He was, however, most strangely confident of being able
+to overcome, on the one hand, the opposition of Holland and Zeeland to
+the hated authority of Spain, and, on the other, the intense abhorrence
+entertained by Philip to liberty of conscience.
+
+Soon after the capitulation, he applied for a passport to visit those two
+Provinces.  Permission to come was refused him. Honest men from Antwerp,
+he was informed, would be always welcome, but there was no room for him.
+There was, however--or Parma persuaded himself that there was--
+a considerable party in those countries in favour of reconciliation
+with Spain. If the ex-burgomaster could gain a hearing, it was thought
+probable that his eloquence would prove very effective.
+
+"We have been making efforts to bring about negotiations with Holland
+and Zeeland," wrote Alexander to Philip.  "Gelderland and Overyssel
+likewise show signs of good disposition, but I have not soldiers enough
+to animate the good and terrify the bad.  As for Holland and Zeeland,
+there is a strong inclination on the part of the people to a
+reconciliation, if some concession could be made on the religious
+question, but the governors oppose it, because they are perverse, and
+are relying on assistance from England.  Could this religious concession
+be made, an arrangement could, without doubt, be accomplished, and more
+quickly than people think.  Nevertheless, in such a delicate matter, I am
+obliged to await your Majesty's exact instructions and ultimatum."
+
+He then proceeded to define exactly the position and intentions of the
+burgomaster.
+
+"The government of Holland and Zeeland," he said, "have refused a
+passport to Ste. Aldegonde, and express dissatisfaction with him for
+having surrendered Antwerp so soon.  They know that he has much credit
+with the people and with the ministers of the sects, and they are in much
+fear of him because he is inclined for peace, which is against their
+interests.  They are, therefore, endeavouring to counteract my
+negotiations with him.  These have been, thus far, only in general terms.
+I have sought to induce him to perform the offices required, without
+giving him reason to expect any concession as to the exercise of
+religion.  He persuades himself that, in the end, there will be some
+satisfaction obtained upon this point, and, under this impression he
+considers the peace as good as concluded, there remaining no doubt as to
+other matters.  He has sent his wife to Zeeland, and is himself going to
+Germany, where, as he says, he will do all the good service that he can.
+He hopes that very shortly the Provinces will not only invite, but
+implore him to come to them; in which case, he promises me to perform
+miracles."
+
+Alexander then proceeded to pay a distinct tribute to Sainte Aldegonde's
+motives; and, when it is remembered that the statement thus made is
+contained in a secret despatch, in cipher, to the King, it may be assumed
+to convey the sincere opinion of the man most qualified to judge
+correctly as to this calumniated person's character.
+
+"Ste. Aldegonde offers me wonders," he said, "and I have promised him
+that he shall be recompensed very largely; yet, although he is poor, I do
+not find him influenced by mercenary or selfish considerations, but only
+very set in opinions regarding his religion."
+
+The Prince had however no doubt of Sainte Aldegonde's sincerity, for
+sincerity was a leading characteristic of the man.  His word, once given,
+was sacred, and he had given his word to do his best towards effecting a
+reconciliation of the Provinces with Spain, and frustrating the efforts
+of England.  "Through the agency of Ste. Aldegonde and that of others"
+wrote Parma, "I shall watch, day and night, to bring about a reduction of
+Holland and Zeeland, if humanly possible.  I am quite persuaded that they
+will soon be sick of the English, who are now arriving, broken down,
+without arms or money, and obviously incapable of holding out very long.
+Doubtless, however, this English alliance, and the determination of the
+Queen to do her utmost against us, complicates matters, and assists the
+government of Holland and Zeeland in opposing the inclinations of their
+people."
+
+Nothing ever came of these intended negotiations.  The miracles were
+never wrought, and even had Sainte Aldegonde been as venal as he was
+suspected of being--which we have thus proof positive that he was not--
+he never could have obtained the recompense, which, according to Philip's
+thrifty policy, was not to be paid until it had been earned.  Sainte
+Aldegonde's hands were clean.  It is pity that we cannot render the same
+tribute to his political consistency of character.  It is also certain
+that he remained--not without reason--for a long time under a cloud.  He
+became the object of unbounded and reckless calumny.  Antwerp had fallen,
+and the necessary consequence of its reduction was the complete and
+permanent prostration of its commerce and manufactures.  These were
+transferred to the new, free, national, independent, and prosperous
+commonwealth that had risen in the "islands" which Parma and Sainte
+Aldegonde had vainly hoped to restore to their ancient servitude.  In a
+very few years after the subjugation of Antwerp, it appeared by
+statistical documents that nearly all the manufactures of linen, coarse
+and fine cloths, serges, fustians, tapestry, gold-embroidery, arms-work,
+silks, and velvets, had been transplanted to the towns of Holland and
+Zeeland, which were flourishing and thriving, while the Flemish and
+Brabantine cities had become mere dens of thieves and beggars.  It was in
+the mistaken hope of averting this catastrophe--as melancholy as it was
+inevitable and in despair of seeing all the Netherlands united, unless
+united in slavery, and in deep-rooted distrust of the designs and policy
+of England, that this statesman, once so distinguished, had listened to
+the insidious tongue of Parma.  He had sought to effect a general
+reconciliation with Spain, and the only result of his efforts was a
+blight upon his own illustrious name.
+
+He published a defence of his conduct, and a detailed account of the
+famous siege.  His apology, at the time, was not considered conclusive,
+but his narrative remains one of the clearest and most trustworthy
+sources for the history of these important transactions.  He was never
+brought to trial, but he discovered, with bitterness, that he had
+committed a fatal error, and that his political influence had passed
+away.  He addressed numerous private epistles to eminent persons,
+indignantly denying the imputations against his character, and demanding
+an investigation.  Among other letters he observed in one to Count
+Hohenlo, that he was astonished and grieved to find that all his faithful
+labours and sufferings in the cause of his fatherland had been forgotten
+in an hour.  In place of praise and gratitude, he had reaped nothing but
+censure and calumny; because men ever judged, not by the merits, but by
+the issue.  That common people should be so unjust, he said, was not to
+be wondered at, but of men like Hohenlo be had hoped better things.  He
+asserted that he had saved Antwerp from another "Spanish fury," and from
+impending destruction--a city in which there was not a single regular
+soldier, and in which his personal authority was so slight that he was
+unable to count the number of his masters.  If a man had ever performed a
+service to his country, be claimed to have done so in this capitulation.
+Nevertheless, he declared that he was the same Philip Marnix, earnestly
+devoted to the service of God, the true religion, and the fatherland;
+although he avowed himself weary of the war, and of this perpetual
+offering of the Netherland sovereignty to foreign potentates.  He was now
+going, he said, to his estates in Zeeland; there to turn farmer again;
+renouncing public affairs, in the administration of which he had
+experienced so much ingratitude from his countrymen.  Count Maurice and
+the States of Holland and Zeeland wrote to him, however, in very plain
+language, describing the public indignation as so strong as to make it
+unsafe for him to visit the country.
+
+The Netherlands and England--so soon as they were united in policy--were,
+not without reason, indignant with the man who had made such strenuous
+efforts to prevent that union.  The English were, in truth, deeply
+offended.  He had systematically opposed their schemes, and to his
+prejudice against their country, and distrust of their intentions, they
+attributed the fall of Antwerp.  Envoy Davison, after his return to
+Holland, on the conclusion of the English treaty, at once expressed his
+suspicions of the ex-burgomaster, and the great dangers to be apprehended
+from his presence in the free States.  "Here is some working underhand,"
+said he to Walsingham, "to draw hither Sainte Aldegonde, under a pretext
+of his justification, which--as it has hitherto been denied him--so is
+the sequel suspected, if he should obtain it before they were well
+settled here, betwixt her Majesty and them, considering the manifold
+presumptions that the subject of his journey should be little profitable
+or advantageous to the state of these poor countries, as tending, at the
+best, to the propounding of some general reconcilement."  It was
+certainly not without substantial grounds that the English and
+Hollanders, after concluding their articles of alliance, felt uneasy at
+the possibility of finding their plans reversed by the intrigues of a man
+whom they knew to be a mediator between Spain and her revolted Provinces,
+and whom they suspected of being a venal agent of the Catholic King.
+It was given out that Philip had been induced to promise liberty of
+religion, in case of reconciliation.  We have seen that Parma was at
+heart in favour of such a course, and that he was very desirous of
+inducing Marnix to believe in the possibility of obtaining such a boon,
+however certain the Prince had been made by the King's secret letters,
+that such a belief was a delusion.  "Martini hath been examined," wrote
+Davison, "who confesseth both for himself and others, to become hither
+by direction of the Prince of Parma and intelligence of Sainte Aldegonde,
+from whom he was first addressed by Villiers and afterwards to others for
+advice and assistance.  That the scope of this direction was to induce
+them here to hearken to a peace, wherein the Prince of Parma promiseth
+them toleration of religion, although he confesseth yet to have no
+absolute power in that behalf, but hath written thereof to the King
+expressly, and holdeth himself assured thereof by the first post, as I
+have likewise been advertised from Rowland York, which if it had been
+propounded openly here before things had been concluded with her Majesty,
+and order taken for her assurance, your honour can judge what confusion
+it must of necessity have brought forth."
+
+At last, when Marnix had become convinced that the toleration would not
+arrive "by the very next mail from Spain," and that, in truth, such a
+blessing was not to be expected through the post-office at all, he felt
+an inward consciousness of the mistake which he had committed.  Too
+credulously had he inclined his ear to the voice of Parma; too
+obstinately had he steeled his heart against Elizabeth, and he was now
+the more anxious to clear himself at least from the charges of corruption
+so clamorously made against him by Holland and by England.  Conscious of
+no fault more censurable than credulity and prejudice, feeling that his
+long fidelity to the reformed religion ought to be a defence for him
+against his calumniators, he was desirous both to clear his own honour,
+and to do at least a tardy justice to England.  He felt confident that
+loyal natures, like those of Davison and his colleagues at home, would
+recognize his own loyalty.  He trusted, not without cause, to English
+honour, and coming to his manor-house of Zoubourg, near Flushing, he
+addressed a letter to the ambassador of Elizabeth, in which the strong
+desire to vindicate his aspersed integrity is quite manifest.
+
+"I am very joyous," said he, "that coming hither in order to justify
+myself against the false and malignant imputations with which they charge
+me, I have learned your arrival here on the part of her Majesty, as well
+as the soon expected coming of the Earl of Leicester.  I see, in truth,
+that the Lord God is just, and never abandons his own.  I have never
+spared myself in the service of my country, and I would have sacrificed
+my life, a thousand times, had it been possible, in her cause.  Now, I am
+receiving for all this a guerdon of blame and calumny, which is cast upon
+me in order to cover up faults which have been committed by others in
+past days.  I hope, however, to come soon to give you welcome, and to
+speak more particularly to you of all these things.  Meantime demanding
+my justification before these gentlemen, who ought to have known me
+better than to have added faith to such villanous imputations, I will
+entreat you that my definite justification, or condemnation, if I have
+merited it, may be reserved till the arrival of Lord Leicester."
+
+This certainly was not the language of a culprit, Nevertheless, his words
+did not immediately make a deep impression on the hearts of those who
+heard him.  He had come secretly to his house at Zoubourg, having
+previously published his memorable apology; and in accordance with the
+wishes of the English government, he was immediately confined to his own
+house.  Confidence in the intention of a statesman, who had at least
+committed such grave errors of judgment, and who had been so deeply
+suspected of darker faults, was not likely very soon to revive.  So far
+from shrinking from an investigation which would have been dangerous,
+even to his life, had the charges against his honour been founded in
+fact, he boldly demanded to be confronted with his accusers, in order
+that he might explain his conduct before all the world.  "Sir,
+yesternight, at the shutting of the gates," wrote Davison to Walsingham,
+transmitting the little note from Marnix, which has just been cited--
+"I was advertised that Ste.  Aldegonde was not an hour before secretly
+landed at the head on the other side the Rammekens, and come to his house
+at Zoubourg, having prepared his way by an apology, newly published in
+his defence, whereof I have as yet recovered one only copy, which
+herewith I send your honour.  This day, whilst I was at dinner, he sent
+his son unto me, with a few lines, whereof I send you the copy,
+advertising me of his arrival (which he knew I understood before),
+together with the desire he had to see me, and speak with me, if the
+States, before whom he was to come to purge himself of the crimes
+wherewith he stood, as he with, unjustly charged, would vouchsafe him so
+much liberty.  The same morning, the council of Zeeland, taking knowledge
+of his arrival, sent unto him the pensioner of Middelburgh and this town,
+to sound the causes of his coming, and to will him, in their behalf, to
+keep his house, and to forbear all meddling by word or writing, with any
+whatsoever, till they should further advise and determine in his cause.
+In defence thereof, he fell into large and particular discourse with the
+deputies, accusing his enemies of malice and untruth, offering himself to
+any trial, and to abide what punishment the laws should lay upon him, if
+he were found guilty of the crimes imputed to him.  Touching the cause of
+his coming, he pretended and protested that he had no other end than his
+simple justification, preferring any hazard he might incur thereby, to
+his honour and good fame."  As to the great question at issue, Marnix
+had at last become conscious that he had been a victim to Spanish
+dissimulation, and that Alexander Fainese was in reality quite powerless
+to make that concession of religious liberty, without which a
+reconciliation between Holland and Philip was impossible.  "Whereas,"
+said Davison, "it was supposed that Ste. Aldegonde had commission from
+the Prince of Parma to make some offer of peace, he assured them of the
+contrary as a thing which neither the Prince had any power to yield unto
+with the surety of religion, or himself would, in conscience, persuade
+without it; with a number of other particularities in his excuse; amongst
+the rest, allowing and commending in his speech, the course they had
+taken with her Majesty, as the only safe way of deliverance for these
+afflicted countries--letting them understand how much the news thereof--
+specially since the entry of our garrison into this place (which before
+they would in no sort believe), hath troubled the enemy, who doth what he
+may to suppress the bruit thereof, and yet comforteth himself with the
+hope that between the factions and partialities nourished by his
+industry, and musters among the towns, especially in Holland and Zeeland
+(where he is persuaded to find some pliable to a reconcilement) and the
+disorders and misgovernment of our people, there will be yet occasion
+offered him to make his profit and advantage.  I find that the gentleman
+hath here many friends indifferently persuaded of his innocency,
+notwithstanding the closing up of his apology doth make but little for
+him.  Howsoever it be, it falleth out the better that the treaty with her
+Majesty is finished, and the cautionary towns assured before his coming,
+which, if he be ill affected, will I hope either reform his judgment or
+restrain his will.  I will not forget to do the best I can to sift and
+decipher him yet more narrowly and particularly."
+
+Thus, while the scales had at length fallen from the eyes of Marnix, it
+was not strange that the confidence which he now began to entertain in
+the policy of England, should not be met, at the outset, with a
+corresponding sentiment on the part of the statesman by whom that policy
+was regulated.  "Howsoever Ste. Aldegonde would seem to purge himself,"
+said Davison, "it is suspected that his end is dangerous.  I have done
+what I may to restrain him, so nevertheless as it may not seem to come
+from me."  And again--"Ste.  Aldegonde," he wrote, "contimieth still our
+neighbor at his house between this and Middelburg; yet unmolested.  He
+findeth many favourers, and, I fear, doth no good offices.  He desireth
+to be reserved till the coming of my Lord of Leicester, before whom he
+pretends a desired trial."
+
+This covert demeanour on the part of the ambassador was in accordance
+with, the wishes of his government.  It was thought necessary that Sainte
+Aldegonde should be kept under arrest until the arrival of the Earl, but
+deemed preferable that the restraint should proceed from the action of
+the States rather than from the order of the Queen.  Davison was
+fulfilling orders in attempting, by underhand means, to deprive Marnix,
+for a time, of his liberty.  "Let him, I pray you, remain in good safety
+in any wise," wrote Leicester, who was uneasy at the thought of so
+influential, and, as he thought, so ill-affected a person being at large,
+but at the same time disposed to look dispassionately upon his past
+conduct, and to do justice, according to the results of an investigation.
+"It is thought meet," wrote Walsingham to Davison, "that you should do
+your best endeavour to procure that Ste. Aldegonde may be restrained,
+which in mine opinion were fit to be handled in such sort, as the
+restraint might rather proceed from themselves than by your solicitation.
+And yet rather than he should remain at liberty to practise underhand,
+whereof you seem to stand in great doubt, it is thought meet that you
+should make yourself a partizan, to seek by all the means that you may to
+have him restrained under the guard of some well affected patriot until
+the Earl's coming, at what time his cause may receive examination."
+
+This was, however, a result somewhat difficult to accomplish; for twenty
+years of noble service in the cause of liberty had not been utterly in
+vain, and there were many magnanimous spirits to sympathize with a great
+man struggling thus in the meshes of calumny.  That the man who
+challenged rather than shunned investigation, should be thrown into
+prison, as if he were a detected felon upon the point of absconding,
+seemed a heartless and superfluous precaution.  Yet Davison and others
+still feared the man whom they felt obliged to regard as a baffled
+intriguer.  "Touching the restraint of Ste. Aldegonde," wrote Davison to
+Lord Burghley, "which I had order from Mr. Secretary to procure
+underhand, I find the difficulty will be great in regard of his many
+friends and favourers, preoccupied with some opinion of his innocence,
+although I have travailled with divers of them underhand, and am promised
+that some order shall be taken in that behalf, which I think will be
+harder to execute as long as Count Maurice is here.  For Ste.
+Aldegonde's affection, I find continual matter to suspect it inclined to
+a peace, and that as one notably prejudging our scope and proceeding in
+this cause, doth lie in wait for an occasion to set it forward, being, as
+it seems, fed with a hope of 'telle quelle liberte de conscience,' which
+the Prince of Parma and others of his council have, as he confesseth,
+earnestly solicited at the King's hands.  This appeareth, in truth, the
+only apt and easy way for them to prevail both against religion and the
+liberty of these poor countries, having thereby once recovered the
+authority which must necessarily follow a peace, to renew and alter the
+magistrates of the particular towns, which, being at their devotion, may
+turn, as we say, all upside down, and so in an instant being under their
+servitude, if not wholly, at the least in a great part of the country,
+leaving so much the less to do about the rest, a thing confessed and
+looked for of all men of any judgment here, if the drift of our peace-
+makers may take effect."
+
+Sainte Aldegonde had been cured of his suspicions of England, and at last
+the purity of his own character shone through the mists.
+
+One winter's morning, two days after Christmas, 1585, Colonel Morgan, an
+ingenuous Welshman, whom we have seen doing much hard fighting on
+Kowenstyn Dyke, and at other places, and who now commanded the garrison
+at Flushing, was taking a walk outside the gates, and inhaling the salt
+breezes from the ocean.  While thus engaged he met a gentleman coming
+along, staff in hand, at a brisk pace towards the town, who soon proved
+to be no other than the distinguished and deeply suspected Sainte
+Aldegonde.  The two got at once into conversation.  "He began," said
+Morgan, "by cunning insinuations, to wade into matters of state, and at
+the last fell to touching the principal points, to wit, her Majesty's
+entrance into the cause now in hand, which, quoth he, was an action of
+high importance, considering how much it behoved her to go through the
+same, as well in regard of the hope that thereby was given to the
+distressed people of these parts, as also in consideration of that worthy
+personage whom she hath here placed, whose estate and credit may not be
+suffered to quail, but must be upholden as becometh the lieutenant of
+such a princess as her Majesty."
+
+"The opportunity thus offered," continued honest Morgan, "and the way
+opened by himself, I thought good to discourse with him to the full,
+partly to see the end and drift of his induced talk, and consequently to
+touch his quick in the suspected cause of Antwerp."  And thus, word for
+word, taken down faithfully the same day, proceeded the dialogue that
+wintry morning, near three centuries ago.  From that simple record--
+mouldering unseen and unthought of for ages, beneath piles of official
+dust--the forms of the illustrious Fleming and the bold Welsh colonel,
+seem to start, for a brief moment, out of the three hundred years of
+sleep which have succeeded their energetic existence upon earth.  And so,
+with the bleak winds of December whistling over the breakers of the North
+Sea, the two discoursed together, as they paced along the coast.
+
+Morgan.--"I charge you with your want of confidence in her Majesty's
+promised aid.  'Twas a thing of no small moment had it been embraced when
+it was first most graciously offered."
+
+Sainte Aldegonde.--"I left not her prince-like purpose unknown to the
+States, who too coldly and carelessly passed over the benefit thereof,
+until it was too late to put the same in practice.  For my own part,
+I acknowledge that indeed I thought some further advice would either
+alter or at least detract from the accomplishment of her determination.
+I thought this the rather because she had so long been wedded to peace,
+and I supposed it impossible to divorce her from so sweet a spouse.
+But, set it down that she were resolute, yet the sickness of Antwerp was
+so dangerous, as it was to be doubted the patient would be dead before
+the physician could come.  I protest that the state of the town was much
+worse than was known to any but myself and some few private persons.  The
+want of victuals was far greater than they durst bewray, fearing lest the
+common people, perceiving the plague of famine to be at hand, would
+rather grow desperate than patiently expect some happy event.  For as
+they were many in number, so were they wonderfully divided: some being
+Martinists, some Papists, some neither the one nor the other, but
+generally given to be factious, so that the horror at home was equal to
+the hazard abroad."
+
+Morgan.--"But you forget the motion made by the martial men for putting
+out of the town such as were simple artificers, with women and children,
+mouths that consumed meat, but stood in no stead for defence."
+
+Sainte Aldegonde.--"Alas, alas!  would you have had me guilty of the
+slaughter of so many innocents, whose lives were committed to my charge,
+as well as the best?  Or might I have answered my God when those
+massacred creatures should have stood up against me, that the hope of
+Antwerp's deliverance was purchased with the blood of so many simple
+souls?  No, no.  I should have found my conscience such a hell and
+continual worm as the gnawing thereof would have been more painful and
+bitter than the possession of the whole world would have been pleasant."
+
+Morgan continued to press the various points which had created suspicion
+as to the character and motives of Marnix, and point by point Marnix
+answered his antagonist, impressing him, armed as he had been in
+distrust, with an irresistible conviction as to the loftiness of the
+nature which had been so much calumniated.
+
+Sainte Aldegonde (with vehemence).--"I do assure you, in conclusion, that
+I have solemnly vowed service and duty to her Majesty, which I am ready
+to perform where and when it may best like her to use the same.  I will
+add moreover that I have oftentimes determined to pass into England to
+make my own purgation, yet fearing lest her Highness would mislike so
+bold a resolution, I have checked that purpose with a resolution to tarry
+the Lord's leisure, until some better opportunity might answer my desire.
+For since I know not how I stand in her grace, unwilling I am to attempt
+her presence without permission; but might it please her to command my
+attendance, I should not only most joyfully accomplish the same, but also
+satisfy her of and in all such matters as I stand charged with, and
+afterwards spend life, land, and goods, to witness my duty towards her
+Highness."
+
+Morgan.--"I tell you plainly, that if you are in heart the same man that
+you seem outwardly to be, I doubt not but her Majesty might easily be
+persuaded to conceive a gracious opinion of you.  For mine own part, I
+will surely advertise Sir Francis Walsingham of as much matter as this
+present conference hath ministered.
+
+"Hereof," said the Colonel--when, according to his promise, faithfully
+recording the conversation in all its details for Mr. Secretary's
+benefit," he seemed not only content but most glad.  Therefore I beseech
+your honour to vouchsafe some few lines herein, that I may return him
+some part of your mind.  I have already written thereof to Sir Philip
+Sidney, lord governor of Flushing, with request that his Excellency the
+Earl of Leicester may presently be made acquainted with the cause."
+
+Indeed the brave Welshman was thoroughly converted from his suspicions by
+the earnest language and sympathetic presence of the fallen statesman.
+This result of the conference was creditable to the ingenuous character
+of both personages.
+
+"Thus did he," wrote Morgan to Sir Francis, "from point to point, answer
+all objections from the first to the last, and that  in such sound and
+substantial manner, with a strong show of truth, as I think his very
+enemies, having heard his tale, would be satisfied.  And truly, Sir, as
+heretofore I have thought hardly of him, being led by a superficial
+judgment of things as they stood in outward appearance; so now, having
+pierced deep, and weighed causes by a sounder and more deliberate
+consideration, I find myself somewhat changed in conceit--not so much
+carried away by the sweetness of his speech, as confirmed by the force of
+his religious profession, wherein he remaineth constant, without wavering
+--an argument of great strength to set him free from treacherous
+attempts; but as I am herein least able and most unworthy to yield any
+censure, much less to give advice, so I leave the man and the matter to
+your honour's opinion.  Only (your graver judgment reserved) thus I
+think, that it were good either to employ him as a friend, or as an enemy
+to remove him farther from us, being a man of such action as the world
+knoweth he is.  And to conclude," added Morgan, "this was the upshot
+between us."
+
+Nevertheless, he remained in this obscurity for a long period.  When,
+towards the close of the year 1585, the English government was
+established in Holland, he was the object of constant suspicion.
+
+"Here is Aldegonde," wrote Sir Philip Sidney to Lord Leicester from
+Flushing, "a man greatly suspected, but by no man charged.  He lives
+restrained to his own house, and for aught I can find, deals with
+nothing, only desiring to have his cause wholly referred to your
+Lordship, and therefore, with the best heed I can to his proceedings,
+I will leave him to his clearing or condemning, when your Lordship shall
+hear him."
+
+In another letter, Sir Philip again spoke of Sainte Aldegonde as "one of
+whom he kept a good opinion, and yet a suspicious eye."
+
+Leicester himself was excessively anxious on the subject, deeply fearing
+the designs of a man whom he deemed so mischievous, and being earnestly
+desirous that he should not elude the chastisement which he seemed to
+deserve.
+
+"Touching Ste. Aldegonde," he wrote to Davison, "I grieve that he is at
+his house without good guard.  I do earnestly pray you to move such as
+have power presently to commit a guard about him, for I know he is a
+dangerous and a bold man, and presumes yet to carry all, for he hath made
+many promises to the Prince of Parma.  I would he were in Fort Rammekyns,
+or else that Mr. Russell had charge of him, with a recommendation from me
+to Russell to look well to him till I shall arrive.  You must have been
+so commanded in this from her Majesty, for she thinks he is in close and
+safe guard.  If he is not, look for a turn of all things, for he hath
+friends, I know."
+
+But very soon after his arrival, the Earl, on examining into the matter,
+saw fit to change his opinions and his language.  Persuaded, in spite of
+his previous convictions, even as the honest Welsh colonel had been, of
+the upright character of the man, and feeling sure that a change had come
+over the feelings of Marnix himself in regard to the English alliance,
+Leicester at once interested himself in removing the prejudices
+entertained towards him by the Queen.
+
+"Now a few words for Ste. Aldegonde," said he in his earliest despatches
+from Holland; "I will beseech her Majesty to stay her judgment till I
+write next.  If the man be as he now seemeth, it were pity to lose him,
+for he is indeed marvellously friended.  Her Majesty will think, I know,
+that I am easily pacified or led in such a matter, but I trust so to deal
+as she shall give me thanks.  Once if he do offer service it is sure
+enough, for he is esteemed that way above all the men in this country for
+his word, if he give it.  His worst enemies here procure me to win him,
+for sure, just matter for his life there is none.  He would fain come
+into England, so far is he come already, and doth extol her Majesty for
+this work of hers to heaven, and confesseth, till now an angel could not
+make him believe it."
+
+Here certainly was a noble tribute paid unconsciously, as it were, to the
+character of the maligned statesman.  "Above all the men in the country
+for his word, if he give it."  What wonder that Orange had leaned upon
+him, that Alexander had sought to gain him, and how much does it add to
+our bitter regret that his prejudices against England should not have
+been removed until too late for Antwerp and for his own usefulness.  Had
+his good angel really been present to make him believe in that "work of
+her Majesty," when his ear was open to the seductions of Parma, the
+destiny of Belgium and his own subsequent career might have been more
+fortunate than they became.
+
+The Queen was slow to return from her prejudices.  She believed--not
+without reason--that the opposition of Ste. Aldegonde to her policy had
+been disastrous to the cause both of England and the Netherlands; and it
+had been her desire that he should be imprisoned, and tried for his life.
+Her councillors came gradually to take a more favourable view of the
+case, and to be moved by the pathetic attitude of the man who had once
+been so conspicuous.
+
+"I did acquaint Sir Christopher Hatton," wrote Walsingham to Leicester,
+"with the letter which Ste. Aldegonde wrote to your Lordship, which,
+carrying a true picture of an afflicted mind, cannot but move an honest
+heart, weighing the rare parts the gentleman is endowed withal, to pity
+his distressed estate, and, to procure him relief and comfort, which Mr.
+Vice-Chamberlain (Hatton) bath promised on his part to perform.  I
+thought good to send Ste. Aldegonde's letter unto the Lord Treasurer
+(Burghley), who heretofore has carried a hard conceit of the gentleman,
+hoping that the view of his letter will breed some remorse towards him.
+I have also prayed his Lordship, if he see cause, to acquaint her Majesty
+with the said letter."
+
+But his high public career was closed.  He lived down calumny; and put
+his enemies to shame, but the fatal error which he had committed, in
+taking the side of Spain rather than of England at so momentous a crisis,
+could never be repaired.  He regained the good opinion of the most
+virtuous and eminent personages in Europe, but in the noon of life he
+voluntarily withdrew from public affairs.  The circumstances just
+detailed had made him impossible as a political leader, and it was
+equally impossible for him to play a secondary part.  He occasionally
+consented to be employed in special diplomatic missions, but the serious
+avocations of his life now became theological and literary.  He sought--
+in his own words--to penetrate himself still more deeply than ever with
+the spirit of the reformation, and to imbue the minds of the young with
+that deep love for the reformed religion which had been the guiding
+thought of his own career.  He often spoke with a sigh of his compulsory
+exile from the field where he had been so conspicuous all his lifetime;
+he bitterly lamented the vanished dream of the great national union
+between Belgium and Holland, which had flattered his youth and his
+manhood; and he sometimes alluded with bitterness to the calumny which
+had crippled him of his usefulness.  He might have played a distinguished
+part in that powerful commonwealth which was so steadily and splendidly
+arising out of the lagunes of Zeeland and Holland, but destiny and
+calumny and his own error had decided otherwise.
+
+"From the depth of my exile--" he said, "for I am resolved to retire,
+I know not where, into Germany, perhaps into Sarmatia, I shall look from
+afar upon the calamities of my country.  That which to me is most
+mournful is no longer to be able to assist my fatherland by my counsels
+and my actions."  He did not go into exile, but remained chiefly at his
+mansion of Zoubourg, occupied with agriculture and with profound study.
+Many noble works conspicuous in the literature of the epoch--were the
+results of his learned leisure; and the name of Marnix of Sainte
+Aldegonde will be always as dear to the lovers of science and letters as
+to the believers in civil and religious liberty.  At the request of the
+States of Holland he undertook, in 1593, a translation of the Scriptures
+from the original, and he was at the same time deeply engaged with a
+History of Christianity, which he intended for his literary master-piece.
+The man whose sword had done knightly service on many a battle-field for
+freedom, whose tongue had controlled mobs and senates, courts and
+councils, whose subtle spirit had metamorphosed itself into a thousand
+shapes to do battle with the genius of tyranny, now quenched the feverish
+agitation of his youth and manhood in Hebrew and classical lore.  A grand
+and noble figure always: most pathetic when thus redeeming by vigorous
+but solitary and melancholy hard labor, the political error which had
+condemned him to retirement.  To work, ever to work, was the primary law
+of his nature.  Repose in the other world, "Repos ailleurs" was the
+device which he assumed in earliest youth, and to which he was faithful
+all his days.
+
+A great and good man whose life had been brim-full of noble deeds,
+and who had been led astray from the path, not of virtue, but of sound
+policy, by his own prejudices and by the fascination of an intellect even
+more brilliant than his own, he at least enjoyed in his retirement
+whatever good may come from hearty and genuine labor, and from the high
+regard entertained for him by the noblest spirits among his
+contemporaries.
+
+"They tell me," said La Noue, "that the Seigneur de Ste. Aldegonde has
+been suspected by the Hollanders and the English.  I am deeply grieved,
+for 'tis a personage worthy to be employed.  I have always known him to
+be a zealous friend of his religion and his country, and I will bear him
+this testimony, that his hands and his heart are clean.  Had it been
+otherwise, I must have known it.  His example has made me regret the
+less the promise I was obliged to make, never to bear arms again in the
+Netherlands.  For I have thought that since this man, who has so much
+credit and authority among your people, after having done his duty well,
+has not failed to be calumniated and ejected from service, what would
+they have done with me, who am a stranger, had I continued in their
+employment?  The consul Terentius Varro lost, by his fault, the battle of
+Canna; nevertheless, when he returned to Rome, offering the remainder of
+his life in the cause of his Republic reduced to extremity, he was not
+rejected, but well received, because he hoped well for the country.
+It is not to be imputed as blame to Ste. Aldegonde that he lost Antwerp,
+for he surrendered when it could not be saved.  What I now say is drawn
+from me by the compassion I feel when persons of merit suffer without
+cause at the hands of their fellow citizens.  In these terrible tempests,
+as it is a duty rigorously to punish the betrayers of their country, even
+so it is an obligation upon us to honor good patriots, and to support
+them in venial errors, that we may all encourage each other to do the
+right."
+
+Strange too as it may now seem to us, a reconciliation of the Netherlands
+with Philip was not thought an impossibility by other experienced and
+sagacious patriots, besides Marnix.  Even Olden-Barneveld, on taking
+office as Holland's Advocate, at this period, made it a condition that
+his service was to last only until the reunion of the Provinces with
+Spain.
+
+There was another illustrious personage in a foreign land who ever
+rendered homage to the character of the retired Netherland statesman.
+Amid the desolation of France, Duplessis Mornay often solaced himself by
+distant communion with that kindred and sympathizing spirit.
+
+"Plunged in public annoyances," he wrote to Sainte Aldegonde, "I find no
+consolation, except in conference with the good, and among the good I
+hold you for one of the best.  With such men I had rather sigh profoundly
+than laugh heartily with others.  In particular, Sir, do me the honor to
+love me, and believe that I honor you singularly.  Impart to me something
+from your solitude, for I consider your deserts to be more fruitful and
+fertile than our most cultivated habitations.  As for me, think of me as
+of a man drowning in the anxieties of the time, but desirous, if
+possible, of swimming to solitude."
+
+Thus solitary, yet thus befriended,--remote from public employment, yet
+ever employed, doing his daily work with all his soul and strength,
+Marnix passed the fifteen years yet remaining to him.  Death surprised
+him at last, at Leyden, in the year 1598, while steadily laboring upon
+his Flemish translation of the Old Testament, and upon the great
+political, theological, controversial, and satirical work on the
+differences of religion, which remains the most stately, though
+unfinished, monument of his literary genius.  At the age of sixty
+he went at last to the repose which he had denied to himself on earth.
+"Repos ailleurs."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Honor good patriots, and to support them in venial errors
+Possible to do, only because we see that it has been done
+Repose in the other world, "Repos ailleurs"
+Soldiers enough to animate the good and terrify the bad
+To work, ever to work, was the primary law of his nature
+When persons of merit suffer without cause
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v41
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 42, 1585
+
+
+CHAPTER VI., Part 1.
+
+     Policy of England--Diplomatic Coquetry--Dutch Envoys in England--
+     Conference of Ortel and Walsingham--Interview with Leicester--
+     Private Audience of the Queen--Letters of the States--General--
+     Ill Effects of Gilpin's Despatch--Close Bargaining of the Queen and
+     States--Guarantees required by England--England's comparative
+     Weakness--The English characterised--Paul Hentzner--The Envoys in
+     London--Their Characters--Olden-Barneveldt described--Reception at
+     Greenwich--Speech of Menin--Reply of the Queen--Memorial of the
+     Envoys--Discussions with the Ministers--Second Speech of the Queen
+     --Third Speech of the Queen
+
+England as we have seen--had carefully watched the negotiations between
+France and the Netherlands.  Although she had--upon the whole, for that
+intriguing age--been loyal in her bearing towards both parties, she was
+perhaps not entirely displeased with the result.  As her cherished
+triumvirate was out of the question, it was quite obvious that, now or
+never, she must come forward to prevent the Provinces from falling back
+into the hands of Spain.  The future was plainly enough foreshadowed, and
+it was already probable, in case of a prolonged resistance on the part of
+Holland, that Philip would undertake the reduction of his rebellious
+subjects by a preliminary conquest of England.  It was therefore quite
+certain that the expense and danger of assisting the Netherlands must
+devolve upon herself, but, at the same time it was a consolation that her
+powerful next-door neighbour was not to be made still more powerful by
+the annexation to his own dominion of those important territories.
+
+Accordingly, so soon as the deputies in France had received their
+definite and somewhat ignominious repulse from Henry III. and his mother,
+the English government lost no time in intimating to the States that they
+were not to be left without an ally.  Queen Elizabeth was however
+resolutely averse from assuming that sovereignty which she was not
+unwilling to see offered for her acceptance; and her accredited envoy at
+the Hague, besides other more secret agents, were as busily employed in
+the spring of 1585--as Des Pruneaux had been the previous winter on the
+part of France--to bring about an application, by solemn embassy, for her
+assistance.
+
+There was, however, a difference of view, from the outset, between the
+leading politicians of the Netherlands and the English Queen.  The
+Hollanders were extremely desirous of becoming her subjects; for the
+United States, although they had already formed themselves into an
+independent republic, were quite ignorant of their latent powers.  The
+leading personages of the country--those who were soon to become the
+foremost statesmen of the new commonwealth--were already shrinking from
+the anarchy which was deemed inseparable from a non-regal form of
+government, and were seeking protection for and against the people under
+a foreign sceptre.  On the other hand, they were indisposed to mortgage
+large and important fortified towns, such as Flushing, Brill, and others,
+for the repayment of the subsidies which Elizabeth might be induced to
+advance.  They preferred to pay in sovereignty rather than in money.
+The Queen, on the contrary, preferred money to sovereignty, and was not
+at all inclined to sacrifice economy to ambition.  Intending to drive a
+hard bargain with the States, whose cause was her own, and whose demands
+for aid she; had secretly prompted, she meant to grant a certain number
+of soldiers for as brief a period as possible, serving at her expense,
+and to take for such outlay a most ample security in the shape of
+cautionary towns.
+
+Too intelligent a politician not to feel the absolute necessity of at
+last coming into the field to help the Netherlanders to fight her own
+battle, she was still willing, for a season longer, to wear the mask of
+coyness and coquetry, which she thought most adapted to irritate the
+Netherlanders into a full compliance with her wishes.  Her advisers in
+the Provinces were inclined to take the same view.  It seemed obvious,
+after the failure in France, that those countries must now become either
+English or Spanish; yet Elizabeth, knowing the risk of their falling
+back, from desperation, into the arms of her rival, allowed them to
+remain for a season on the edge of destruction--which would probably have
+been her ruin also--in the hope of bringing them to her feet on her own
+terms.  There was something of feminine art in this policy, and it was
+not without the success which often attends such insincere manoeuvres.
+At the same time, as the statesmen of the republic knew that it was the
+Queen's affair, when so near a neighbour's roof was blazing, they
+entertained little doubt of ultimately obtaining her alliance.  It was
+pity--in so grave an emergency--that a little frankness could not have
+been substituted for a good deal of superfluous diplomacy.
+
+Gilpin, a highly intelligent agent of the English government in Zeeland,
+kept Sir Francis Walsingham thoroughly informed of the sentiments
+entertained by the people of that province towards England.  Mixing
+habitually with the most influential politicians, he was able to render
+material assistance to the English council in the diplomatic game which
+had been commenced, and on which a no less important stake than the crown
+of England was to be hazarded.
+
+"In conference," he said, "with particular persons that bear any rule or
+credit, I find a great inclination towards her Majesty, joined
+notwithstanding with a kind of coldness.  They allege that matters of
+such importance are to be maturely and thoroughly pondered, while some of
+them harp upon the old string, as if her Majesty, for the security of her
+own estate, was to have the more care of theirs here."
+
+He was also very careful to insinuate the expediency of diplomatic
+coquetry into the mind of a Princess who needed no such prompting.
+"The less by outward appearance," said he, "this people shall perceive
+that her Majesty can be contented to take the protection of them upon
+her, the forwarder they will be to seek and send unto her, and the larger
+conditions in treaty may be required.  For if they see it to come from
+herself, then do they persuade themselves that it is for the greater
+security of our own country and her Highness to fear the King of Spain's
+greatness.  But if they become seekers unto her Majesty, and if they may,
+by outward show, deem that she accounteth not of the said King's might,
+but able and sufficient to defend her own realms, then verily I think
+they may be brought to whatsoever points her Majesty may desire."
+
+Certainly it was an age of intrigue, in which nothing seemed worth
+getting at all unless it could be got by underhand means, and in which
+it was thought impossible for two parties to a bargain to meet together
+except as antagonists, who believed that one could not derive a profit
+from the transaction unless the other had been overreached.  This was
+neither good morality nor sound diplomacy, and the result of such
+trifling was much loss of time and great disaster.  In accordance with
+this crafty system, the agent expressed the opinion that it would "be
+good and requisite for the English government somewhat to temporise,"
+and to dally for a season longer, in order to see what measures the
+States would take to defend themselves, and how much ability and
+resources they would show for belligerent purposes.  If the Queen were
+too eager, the Provinces would become jealous, "yielding, as it were,
+their power, and yet keeping the rudder in their own hands."
+
+At the same time Gilpin was favourably impressed with the character both
+of the country and the nation, soon to be placed in such important
+relations with England.  "This people," he said, "is such as by fair
+means they will be won to yield and grant any reasonable motion or
+demand.  What these islands of Zeeland are her Majesty and all my lords
+of her council do know.  Yet for their government thus much I must write;
+that during these troubles it never was better than now.  They draw, in a
+manner, one line, long and carefully in their resolution; but the same
+once taken and promises made, they would perform them to the uttermost."
+
+Such then was the character of the people, for no man was better enabled
+to form an opinion on the subject than was Gilpin.  Had it not been as
+well, then, for Englishmen--who were themselves in that age, as in every
+other, apt to "perform to the uttermost promises once taken and made,"
+and to respect those endowed with the same wholesome characteristic--to
+strike hands at once in a cause which was so vital to both nations?
+
+So soon as the definite refusal of Henry III, was known in England,
+Leicester and Walsingham wrote at once to the Netherlands.  The Earl
+already saw shining through the distance a brilliant prize for his own
+ambition, although he was too haughty, perhaps too magnanimous, but
+certainly far too crafty, to suffer such sentiments as yet to pierce to
+the surface.
+
+"Mr. Davison," he wrote, "you shall perceive by Mr. Secretary's letters
+how the French have dealt with these people.  They are well enough
+served; but yet I think, if they will heartily and earnestly seek it, the
+Lord hath appointed them a far better defence.  But you must so use the
+matter as that they must seek their own good, although we shall be
+partakers thereof also.  They may now, if they will effectually and
+liberally deal, bring themselves to a better end than ever France would
+have brought them."
+
+At that moment there were two diplomatic agents from the States resident
+in England--Jacques de Gryze; whom Paul Buys had formerly described as
+having thrust himself head and shoulders into the matter without proper
+authority, and Joachim Ortel, a most experienced and intelligent man,
+speaking and writing English like a native, and thoroughly conversant
+with English habits and character.  So soon as the despatches from France
+arrived, Walsingham, 18th March, 1585, sent for Ortel, and the two held a
+long conference.
+
+Walsingham.--"We have just received letters from Lord Derby and Sir
+Edward Stafford, dated the 13th March.  They inform us that your
+deputies--contrary to all expectation and to the great hopes that had
+been hold out to them--have received, last Sunday, their definite answer
+from the King of France.  He tells them, that, considering the present
+condition of his kingdom, he is unable to undertake the protection of the
+Netherlands; but says that if they like, and if the Queen of England be
+willing to second his motion, he is disposed to send a mission of
+mediation to Spain for the purpose of begging the King to take the
+condition of the provinces to heart, and bringing about some honourable
+composition, and so forth, and so forth.
+
+"Moreover the King of France has sent Monsieur de Bellievre to Lord Derby
+and Mr. Stafford, and Bellievre has made those envoys a long oration.
+He explained to them all about the original treaty between the States and
+Monsieur, the King's brother, and what had taken place from that day to
+this, concluding, after many allegations and divers reasons, that the
+King could not trouble himself with the provinces at present; but hoped
+her Majesty would make the best of it, and not be offended with him.
+
+"The ambassadors say further, that they have had an interview with your
+deputies, who are excessively provoked at this most unexpected answer
+from the King, and are making loud complaints, being all determined to
+take themselves off as fast as possible.  The ambassadors have
+recommended that some of the number should come home by the way of
+England."
+
+Ortel.--"It seems necessary to take active measures at once, and to leave
+no duty undone in this matter.  It will be advisable to confer, so soon
+as may be, with some of the principal counsellors of her Majesty, and
+recommend to them most earnestly the present condition of the provinces.
+They know the affectionate confidence which the States entertain towards
+England, and must now, remembering the sentiments of goodwill which they
+have expressed towards the Netherlands, be willing to employ their
+efforts with her Majesty in this emergency."
+
+Walsingham (with much show of vexation).--"This conduct on the part of
+the French court has been most pernicious.  Your envoys have been
+delayed, fed with idle hopes, and then disgracefully sent away, so that
+the best part of the year has been consumed, and it will be most
+difficult now, in a great hurry, to get together a sufficient force of
+horse and foot folk, with other necessaries in abundance.  On the
+contrary, the enemy, who knew from the first what result was to be
+expected in France, has been doing his best to be beforehand with you in
+the field: add, moreover, that this French negotiation has given other
+princes a bad taste in their mouths.  This is the case with her Majesty.
+The Queen is, not without reason, annoyed that the States have not only
+despised her friendly and good-hearted offers, but have all along been
+endeavouring to embark her in this war, for the defence of the Provinces,
+which would have cost her several millions, without offering to her the
+slightest security.  On the contrary, others, enemies of the religion,
+who are not to be depended upon--who had never deserved well of the
+States or assisted them in their need, as she has done--have received
+this large offer of sovereignty without any reserve whatever."
+
+Ortel (not suffering himself to be disconcerted at this unjust and
+somewhat insidious attack).--"That which has been transacted with France
+was not done except with the express approbation and full foreknowledge
+of her Majesty, so far back as the lifetime of his Excellency (William of
+Orange), of high and laudable memory.  Things had already gone so far,
+and the Provinces had agreed so entirely together, as to make it
+inexpedient to bring about a separation in policy.  It was our duty to
+hold together, and, once for all, thoroughly to understand what the King
+of France, after such manifold presentations through Monsieur Des
+Pruneaulx and others, and in various letters of his own, finally intended
+to do.  At the same time, notwithstanding these negotiations, we had
+always an especial eye upon her Majesty.  We felt a hopeful confidence
+that she would never desert us, leaving us without aid or counsel, but
+would consider that these affairs do not concern the Provinces alone or
+even especially, but are just as deeply important to her and to all other
+princes of the religion."
+
+After this dialogue, with much more conversation of a similar character,
+the Secretary and the envoy set themselves frankly and manfully to work.
+It was agreed between them that every effort should be made with the
+leading members of the Council to induce the Queen "in this terrible
+conjuncture, not to forsake the Provinces, but to extend good counsel and
+prompt assistance to them in their present embarrassments."
+
+There was, however, so much business in Parliament just then, that it was
+impossible to obtain immediately the desired interviews.
+
+On the 20th, Ortel and De Gryze had another interview with Walsingham at
+the Palace of Greenwich.  The Secretary expressed the warmest and most
+sincere affection for the Provinces, and advised that one of the two
+envoys should set forth at once for home in order to declare to the
+States, without loss of time, her Majesty's good inclination to assume
+the protection of the land, together with the maintenance of the reformed
+religion and the ancient privileges.  Not that she was seeking her own
+profit, or wished to obtain that sovereignty which had just been offered
+to another of the contrary religion, but in order to make manifest her
+affectionate solicitude to preserve the Protestant faith and to support
+her old allies and neighbours.  Nevertheless, as she could not assume
+this protectorate without embarking in a dangerous war with the King of
+Spain, in which she would not only be obliged to spend the blood of her
+subjects, but also at least two millions of gold, there was the more
+reason that the States should give her certain cities as security.  Those
+cities would be held by certain of her gentlemen, nominated thereto, of
+quality, credit, and religion, at the head of good, true, and well-paid
+garrisons, who should make oath never to surrender them to the King of
+Spain or to any one else without consent of the States.  The Provinces
+were also reciprocally to bind themselves by oath to make no treaty with
+the King, without the advice and approval of her Majesty.  It was
+likewise thoroughly to be understood that such cautionary towns should be
+restored to the States so soon as payment should be made of all moneys
+advanced during the war.
+
+Next day the envoys had an interview with the Earl of Leicester, whom
+they found as amicably disposed towards their cause as Secretary
+Walsingham had been.  "Her Majesty," said the Earl, "is excessively
+indignant with the King of France, that he should so long have abused the
+Provinces, and at last have dismissed their deputies so contemptuously.
+Nevertheless," he continued, "'tis all your own fault to have placed your
+hopes so entirely upon him as to entirely forget other princes, and more
+especially her Majesty.  Notwithstanding all that has passed, however, I
+find her fully determined to maintain the cause of the Provinces.  For my
+own part, I am ready to stake my life, estates, and reputation, upon this
+issue, and to stand side by side with other gentlemen in persuading her
+Majesty to do her utmost for the assistance of your country."
+
+He intimated however, as Walsingham had done, that the matter of
+cautionary towns would prove an indispensable condition, and recommended
+that one of the two envoys should proceed homeward at once, in order to
+procure, as speedily as possible, the appointment of an embassy for that
+purpose to her Majesty.  "They must bring full powers," said the Earl,
+"to give her the necessary guarantees, and make a formal demand for
+protection; for it would be unbecoming, and against her reputation,
+to be obliged to present herself, unsought by the other party."
+
+In conclusion, after many strong expressions of good-will, Leicester
+promised to meet them next day at court, where he would address the Queen
+personally on the subject, and see that they spoke with her as well.
+Meantime he sent one of his principal gentlemen to keep company with the
+envoys, and make himself useful to them.  This personage, being "of good
+quality and a member of Parliament," gave them much useful information,
+assuring them that there was a strong feeling in England in favour of the
+Netherlands, and that the matter had been very vigorously taken up in the
+national legislature.  That assembly had been strongly encouraging her
+Majesty boldly to assume the protectorate, and had manifested a
+willingness to assist her with the needful.  "And if," said he, "one
+subsidy should not be enough, she shall have three, four, five, or six,
+or as much as may be necessary."
+
+The same day, the envoys had an interview with Lord Treasurer Burghley,
+who held the same language as Walsingham and Leicester had done.  "The
+Queen, to his knowledge," he said, "was quite ready to assume the
+protectorate; but it was necessary that it should be formally offered,
+with the necessary guarantees, and that without further loss of time."
+
+On the 22nd March, according to agreement, Ortel and De Gryze went to the
+court at Greenwich.  While waiting there for the Queen, who had ridden
+out into the country, they had more conversation with Walsingham, whom
+they found even more energetically disposed in their favour than ever,
+and who assured them that her Majesty was quite ready to assume the
+protectorate so soon as offered.  "Within a month," he said, "after the
+signing of a treaty, the troops would be on the spot, under command of
+such a personage of quality and religion as would be highly
+satisfactory."  While they were talking, the Queen rode into the court-
+yard, accompanied by the Earl of Leicester and other gentlemen.  Very
+soon afterwards the envoys were summoned to her presence, and allowed to
+recommend the affairs of the Provinces to her consideration.  She
+lamented the situation of their country, and in a few words expressed her
+inclination to render assistance, provided the States would manifest full
+confidence in her.  They replied by offering to take instant measures to
+gratify all her demands, so soon as those demands should be made known;
+and the Queen finding herself surrounded by so many gentlemen and by a
+crowd of people, appointed them accordingly to come to her private
+apartments the same afternoon.
+
+At that interview none were present save Walsingham and Lord Chamberlain
+Howard.  The Queen showed herself "extraordinarily resolute" to take up
+the affairs of the Provinces.  "She had always been sure," she said,
+"that the French negotiation would have no other issue than the one which
+they had just seen.  She was fully aware what a powerful enemy she was
+about to make--one who could easily create mischief for her in Scotland
+and Ireland; but she was nevertheless resolved, if the States chose to
+deal with her frankly and generously, to take them under her protection.
+She assured the envoys that if a deputation with full powers and
+reasonable conditions should be immediately sent to her, she would not
+delay and dally with them, as had been the case in France, but would
+despatch them back again at the speediest, and would make her good
+inclination manifest by deeds as well as words.  As she was hazarding
+her treasure together with the blood and repose of her subjects, she was
+not at liberty to do this except on receipt of proper securities."
+
+Accordingly De Gryze went to the Provinces, provided with complimentary
+and affectionate letters from the Queen, while Ortel remained in England.
+So far all was plain and above-board; and Walsingham, who, from the
+first, had been warmly in favour of taking up the Netherland cause, was
+relieved by being able to write in straightforward language.  Stealthy
+and subtle, where the object was to get within the guard of an enemy who
+menaced a mortal blow, he was, both by nature and policy, disposed to
+deal frankly with those he called his friends.
+
+"Monsieur de Gryze repaireth presently," he wrote to Davison, "to try if
+he can induce the States to send their deputies hither, furnished with
+more ample instructions than they had to treat with the French King,
+considering that her Majesty carryeth another manner of princely
+disposition than that sovereign.  Meanwhile, for that she doubteth lest
+in this hard estate of their affairs, and the distrust they have
+conceived to be relieved from hence, they should from despair throw
+themselves into the course of Spain, her pleasure therefore is--though by
+Burnham I sent you directions to put them in comfort of relief, only as
+of yourself--that you shall now, as it were, in her name, if you see
+cause sufficient, assure some of the aptest instruments that you shall
+make choice of for that purpose, that her Majesty, rather than that they
+should perish, will be content to take them under her protection."
+
+He added that it was indispensable for the States, upon their part, to
+offer "such sufficient cautions and assurances as she might in reason
+demand."
+
+Matters were so well managed that by the 22nd April the States-General
+addressed a letter to the Queen, in which they notified her, that the
+desired deputation was on the point of setting forth.  "Recognizing,"
+they said, "that there is no prince or potentate to whom they are more
+obliged than they are to your Majesty, we are about to request you very
+humbly to accept the sovereignty of these Provinces, and the people of
+the same for your very humble vassals and subjects."  They added that,
+as the necessity of the case was great, they hoped the Queen would send,
+so soon as might be, a force of four or five thousand men for the purpose
+of relieving the siege of Antwerp.
+
+A similar letter was despatched by the same courier to the Earl of
+Leicester.
+
+On the 1st of May, Ortel had audience of the Queen, to deliver the
+letters from the States-General.  He found that despatches, very
+encouraging and agreeable in their tenor, had also just arrived from
+Davison.  The Queen was in good humour.  She took the letter from Ortel,
+read it attentively, and paused a good while.  Then she assured him that
+her good affection towards the Provinces was not in the least changed,
+and that she thanked the States for the confidence in her that they were
+manifesting.  "It is unnecessary," said the Queen, "for me to repeat over
+and over again sentiments which I have so plainly declared.  You are to
+assure the States that they shall never be disappointed in the trust that
+they have reposed in my good intentions.  Let them deal with me
+sincerely, and without holding open any back-door.  Not that I am seeking
+the sovereignty of the Provinces, for I wish only to maintain their
+privileges and ancient liberties, and to defend them in this regard
+against all the world.  Let them ripely consider, then, with what
+fidelity I am espousing their cause, and how, without fear of any one,
+I am arousing most powerful enemies."
+
+Ortel had afterwards an interview with Leicester, in which the Earl
+assured him that her Majesty had not in the least changed in her
+sentiments towards the Provinces.  "For myself," said he, "I am ready, if
+her Majesty choose to make use of me, to go over there in person, and to
+place life, property, and all the assistance I can gain from my friends,
+upon the issue.  Yea, with so good a heart, that I pray the Lord may be
+good to me, only so far as I serve faithfully in this cause."  He added a
+warning that the deputies to be appointed should come with absolute
+powers, in order that her Majesty's bountiful intentions might not be
+retarded by their own fault.
+
+Ortel then visited Walsingham at his house, Barn-Elms, where he was
+confined by illness.  Sir Francis assured the envoy that he would use
+every effort, by letter to her Majesty and by verbal instructions to his
+son-in-law, Sir Philip Sidney, to further the success of the negotiation,
+and that he deeply regretted his enforced absence from the court on so
+important an occasion.
+
+Matters were proceeding most favourably, and the all-important point of
+sending an auxiliary force of Englishmen to the relief of Antwerp--before
+it should be too late, and in advance of the final conclusion of the
+treaty between the countries-had been nearly conceded.  Just at that
+moment, however, "as ill-luck would have it," said Ortel, "came a letter
+from Gilpin.  I don't think he meant it in malice, but the effect was
+most pernicious.  He sent the information that a new attack was to
+be made by the 10th May upon the Kowenstyn, that it was sure to be
+successful, and that the siege of Antwerp was as good as raised.  So Lord
+Burghley informed me, in presence of Lord Leicester, that her Majesty was
+determined to await the issue of this enterprise.  It was quite too late
+to get troops in readiness; to co-operate with the States' army, so soon
+as the 10th May, and as Antwerp was so sure to be relieved, there was no
+pressing necessity for haste.  I uttered most bitter complaints to these
+lords and to other counsellors of the Queen, that she should thus draw
+back, on account of a letter from a single individual, without paying
+sufficient heed to the despatches from the States-General, who certainly
+knew their own affairs and their own necessities better than any one else
+could do, but her Majesty sticks firm to her resolution."
+
+Here were immense mistakes committed on all sides.  The premature
+shooting up of those three rockets from the cathedral-tower, on the
+unlucky 10th May, had thus not only ruined the first assault against the
+Kowenstyn, but also the second and the more promising adventure.  Had the
+four thousand bold Englishmen there enlisted, and who could have reached
+the Provinces in time to cooperate in that great enterprise, have stood
+side by side with the Hollanders, the Zeelanders, and the Antwerpers,
+upon that fatal dyke, it is almost a certainty that Antwerp would have
+been relieved, and the whole of Flanders and Brabant permanently annexed
+to the independent commonwealth, which would have thus assumed at once
+most imposing proportions.
+
+It was a great blunder of Sainte Aldegonde to station in the cathedral,
+on so important an occasion, watchmen in whose judgment he could not
+thoroughly rely.  It was a blunder in Gilpin, intelligent as he generally
+showed himself, to write in such sanguine style before the event.  But it
+was the greatest blunder of all for Queen Elizabeth to suspend her
+cooperation at the very instant when, as the result showed, it was likely
+to prove most successful.  It was a chapter of blunders from first to
+last, but the most fatal of all the errors was the one thus prompted by
+the great Queen's most traitorous characteristic, her obstinate
+parsimony.
+
+And now began a series of sharp chafferings on both sides, not very
+much to the credit of either party.  The kingdom of England, and the
+rebellious Provinces of Spain, were drawn to each other by an
+irresistible law of political attraction.  Their absorption into each
+other seemed natural and almost inevitable; and the weight of the strong
+Protestant organism, had it been thus completed, might have balanced the
+great Catholic League which was clustering about Spain.
+
+It was unfortunate that the two governments of England and the
+Netherlands should now assume the attitude of traders driving a hard
+bargain with each other, rather than that of two important commonwealths,
+upon whose action, at that momentous epoch, the weal and wo of
+Christendom was hanging.  It is quite true that the danger to England was
+great, but that danger in any event was to be confronted--Philip was to
+be defied, and, by assuming the cause of the Provinces to be her own,
+which it unquestionably was, Elizabeth was taking the diadem from her
+head--as the King of Sweden well observed--and adventuring it upon the
+doubtful chance of war.  Would it not have been better then--her mind
+being once made up--promptly to accept all the benefits, as well as all
+the hazards, of the bold game to which she was of necessity a party?
+But she could not yet believe in the incredible meanness of Henry III.
+"I asked her Majesty" (3rd May, 1585), said Ortel, "whether, in view of
+these vast preparations in France, it did not behove her to be most
+circumspect and upon her guard.  For, in the opinion of many men,
+everything showed one great scheme already laid down--a general
+conspiracy throughout Christendom against the reformed religion.  She
+answered me, that thus far she could not perceive this to be the case;
+'nor could she believe,' she said, 'that the King of France could be so
+faint-hearted as to submit to such injuries from the Guises.'"
+
+Time was very soon to show the nature of that unhappy monarch with regard
+to injuries, and to prove to Elizabeth the error she had committed in
+doubting his faint-heartedness.  Meanwhile, time was passing, and the
+Netherlands were shivering in the storm.  They, needed the open sunshine
+which her caution kept too long behind the clouds.  For it was now
+enjoined upon Walsingham to manifest a coldness upon the part of the
+English government towards the States.  Davison was to be allowed to
+return; "but," said Sir Francis, "her Majesty would not have you
+accompany the commissioners who are coming from the Low Countries; but to
+come over, either before them or after them, lest it be thought they come
+over by her Majesty's procurement."
+
+As if they were not coming over by her Majesty's most especial
+procurement, and as if it would matter to Philip--the union once made
+between England and Holland--whether the invitation to that union came
+first from the one party or the other!
+
+"I am retired for my health from the court to mine own house," said
+Walsingham, "but I find those in whose judgment her Majesty reposeth
+greatest trust so coldly affected unto the cause, as I have no great hope
+of the matter; and yet, for that the hearts of princes are in the hands
+of God, who both can will and dispose them at his pleasure, I would be
+loath to hinder the repair of the commissioners."
+
+Here certainly, had the sun gone most suddenly into a cloud.  Sir Francis
+would be loath to advise the commissioners to stay at home, but he
+obviously thought them coming on as bootless an errand as that which had
+taken their colleagues so recently into France.
+
+The cause of the trouble was Flushing.  Hence the tears, and the
+coldness, and the scoldings, on the part of the imperious and the
+economical Queen.  Flushing was the patrimony--a large portion of that
+which was left to him--of Count Maurice.  It was deeply mortgaged for the
+payment of the debts of William the Silent, but his son Maurice, so long
+as the elder brother Philip William remained a captive in Spain, wrote
+himself Marquis of Flushing and Kampveer, and derived both revenue and
+importance from his rights in that important town.  The States of
+Zeeland, while desirous of a political fusion of the two countries, were
+averse from the prospect of converting, by exception, their commercial,
+capital into an English city, the remainder of the Provinces remaining
+meanwhile upon their ancient footing.  The negociations on the subject
+caused a most ill-timed delay.  The States finding the English government
+cooling, affected to grow tepid themselves.  This was the true mercantile
+system, perhaps, for managing a transaction most thriftily, but frankness
+and promptness would have been more statesmanlike at such a juncture.
+
+"I am sorry to understand," wrote Walsingham, "that the States are not
+yet grown to a full resolution for the delivering of the town of Flushing
+into her Majesty's hands.  The Queen finding the people of that island so
+wavering and inconstant, besides that they can hardly, after the so long
+enjoying a popular liberty, bear a regal authority, would be loath to
+embark herself into so dangerous a war without some sufficient caution
+received from them.  It is also greatly to be doubted, that if, by
+practice and corruption, that town might be recovered by the Spaniards,
+it would put all the rest of the country in peril.  I find her Majesty,
+in case that town may be gotten, fully resolved to receive them into her
+protection, so as it may also be made probable unto her that the promised
+three hundred thousand guilders the month will be duly paid."
+
+A day or two after writing this letter, Walsingham sent one afternoon, in
+a great hurry, for Ortel, and informed him very secretly, that, according
+to information just received, the deputies from the States were coming
+without sufficient authority in regard to this very matter.  Thus all the
+good intentions of the English government were likely to be frustrated,
+and the Provinces to be reduced to direful extremity.
+
+"What can we possibly advise her Majesty to do?"  asked Walsingham,
+"since you are not willing to put confidence in her intentions.  You are
+trying to bring her into a public war, in which she is to risk her
+treasure and the blood of her subjects against the greatest potentates of
+the world, and you hesitate meantime at giving her such security as is
+required for the very defence of the Provinces themselves.  The deputies
+are coming hither to offer the sovereignty to her Majesty, as was
+recently done in France, or, if that should not prove acceptable, they
+are to ask assistance in men and money upon a mere 'taliter qualiter'
+guaranty.  That's not the way.  And there are plenty of ill-disposed
+persons here to take advantage of this position of affairs to ruin the
+interest of the Provinces now placed on so good a footing.  Moreover, in
+this perpetual sending of despatches back and forth, much precious time
+is consumed; and this is exactly what our enemies most desire."
+
+In accordance with Walsingham's urgent suggestions, Ortel wrote at once
+to his constituents, imploring them to remedy this matter.  Do not
+allow," he said, any, more time to be wasted.  Let us not painfully,
+build a wall only to knock our own heads against it, to the dismay of our
+friends and the gratification of our enemies."
+
+It was at last arranged that an important blank should be left in the
+articles to be brought by the deputies, upon which vacant place the names
+of certain cautionary towns, afterwards to be agreed upon, were to be
+inscribed by common consent.
+
+Meantime the English ministers were busy in preparing to receive the
+commissioners, and to bring the Netherland matter handsomely before the
+legislature.
+
+The integrity, the caution, the thrift, the hesitation, which
+characterized Elizabeth's government, were well pourtrayed in the
+habitual language of the Lord Treasurer, chief minister of a third-rate
+kingdom now called on to play a first-rate part, thoroughly acquainted
+with the moral and intellectual power of the nation whose policy he
+directed, and prophetically conscious of the great destinies which were
+opening upon her horizon.  Lord Burghley could hardly be censured--least
+of all ridiculed--for the patient and somewhat timid attributes of his
+nature: The ineffable ponderings, which might now be ludicrous, on the
+part of a minister of the British Empire, with two hundred millions of
+subjects and near a hundred millions of revenue, were almost inevitable
+in a man guiding a realm of four millions of people with half a million
+of income.
+
+It was, on the whole, a strange negotiation, this between England and
+Holland.  A commonwealth had arisen, but was unconscious of the strength
+which it was to find in the principle of states' union, and of religious
+equality.  It sought, on the contrary, to exchange its federal
+sovereignty for provincial dependence, and to imitate, to a certain
+extent, the very intolerance by which it had been driven into revolt.
+It was not unnatural that the Netherlanders should hate the Roman
+Catholic religion, in the name of which they had endured such infinite
+tortures, but it is, nevertheless, painful to observe that they requested
+Queen Elizabeth, whom they styled defender, not of "the faith" but of the
+"reformed religion," to exclude from the Provinces, in case she accepted
+the sovereignty, the exercise of all religious rites except those
+belonging to the reformed church.  They, however, expressly provided
+against inquisition into conscience.  Private houses were to be sacred,
+the, papists free within their own walls, but the churches were to be
+closed to those of the ancient faith.  This was not so bad as to hang,
+burn, drown, and bury alive nonconformists, as had been done by Philip
+and the holy inquisition in the name of the church of Rome; nor is it
+very surprising that the horrible past should have caused that church to
+be regarded with sentiments of such deep-rooted hostility as to make the
+Hollanders shudder at the idea of its re-establishment.  Yet, no doubt,
+it was idle for either Holland or England, at that day, to talk of a
+reconciliation with Rome.  A step had separated them, but it was a step
+from a precipice.  No human power could bridge the chasm.  The steep
+contrast between the league and the counter-league, between the systems
+of Philip and Mucio, and that of Elizabeth and Olden-Barneveld, ran
+through the whole world of thought, action, and life.
+
+But still the negociation between Holland and England was a strange one.
+Holland wished to give herself entirely, and England feared to accept.
+Elizabeth, in place of sovereignty, wanted mortgages; while Holland was
+afraid to give a part, although offering the whole.  There was no great
+inequality between the two countries.  Both were instinctively conscious,
+perhaps, of standing on the edge of a vast expansion.  Both felt that
+they were about to stretch their wings suddenly for a flight over the
+whole earth.  Yet each was a very inferior power, in comparison with the
+great empires of the past or those which then existed.
+
+It is difficult, without a strong effort of the imagination, to reduce
+the English empire to the slender proportions which belonged to her in
+the days of Elizabeth.  That epoch was full of light and life.  The
+constellations which have for centuries been shining in the English
+firmament were then human creatures walking English earth.  The captains,
+statesmen, corsairs, merchant-adventurers, poets, dramatists, the great
+Queen herself, the Cecils, Raleigh, Walsingham, Drake, Hawkins, Gilbert,
+Howard, Willoughby, the Norrises, Essex, Leicester, Sidney, Spenser,
+Shakspeare and the lesser but brilliant lights which surrounded him; such
+were the men who lifted England upon an elevation to which she was not
+yet entitled by her material grandeur.  At last she had done with Rome,
+and her expansion dated from that moment.
+
+Holland and England, by the very condition of their existence, were sworn
+foes to Philip.  Elizabeth stood excommunicated of the Pope.  There was
+hardly a month in which intelligence was not sent by English agents out
+of the Netherlands and France, that assassins, hired by Philip, were
+making their way to England to attempt the life of the Queen.  The
+Netherlanders were rebels to the Spanish monarch, and they stood, one
+and all, under death-sentence by Rome.  The alliance was inevitable and
+wholesome.  Elizabeth was, however, consistently opposed to the
+acceptance of a new sovereignty.  England was a weak power.  Ireland was
+at her side in a state of chronic rebellion--a stepping-stone for Spain
+in its already foreshadowed invasion.  Scotland was at her back with a
+strong party of Catholics, stipendiaries of Philip, encouraged by the
+Guises and periodically inflamed to enthusiasm by the hope of rescuing
+Mary Stuart from her imprisonment, bringing her rival's head to the
+block, and elevating the long-suffering martyr upon the throne of all the
+British Islands.  And in the midst of England itself, conspiracies were
+weaving every day.  The mortal duel between the two queens was slowly
+approaching its termination.  In the fatal form of Mary was embodied
+everything most perilous to England's glory and to England's Queen.
+Mary Stuart meant absolutism at home, subjection to Rome and Spain
+abroad.  The uncle Guises were stipendiaries of Philip, Philip was the
+slave of the Pope.  Mucio had frightened the unlucky Henry III. into
+submission, and there was no health nor hope in France.  For England,
+Mary Stuart embodied the possible relapse into sloth, dependence,
+barbarism.  For Elizabeth, Mary Stuart embodied sedition, conspiracy,
+rebellion, battle, murder, and sudden death.
+
+It was not to be wondered at that the Queen thus situated should be
+cautious, when about throwing down the gauntlet to the greatest powers of
+the earth.  Yet the commissioners from the United States were now on
+their way to England to propose the throwing of that gauntlet.  What now
+was that England?
+
+Its population was, perhaps, not greater than the numbers which dwell
+to-day within its capital and immediate suburbs.  Its revenue was perhaps
+equal to the sixtieth part of the annual interest on the present national
+debt.  Single, highly-favoured individuals, not only in England but in
+other countries cis- and trans-Atlantic, enjoy incomes equal to more than
+half the amount of Elizabeth's annual budget.  London, then containing
+perhaps one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, was hardly so
+imposing a town as Antwerp, and was inferior in most material respects to
+Paris and Lisbon.  Forty-two hundred children were born every year within
+its precincts, and the deaths were nearly as many.  In plague years,
+which were only too frequent, as many as twenty and even thirty thousand
+people had been annually swept away.
+
+At the present epoch there are seventeen hundred births every week, and
+about one thousand deaths.
+
+It is instructive to throw a glance at the character of the English
+people as it appeared to intelligent foreigners at that day; for the
+various parts of the world were not then so closely blended, nor did
+national colours and characteristics flow so liquidly into each other,
+as is the case in these days of intimate juxta-position.
+
+"The English are a very clever, handsome, and well-made people," says a
+learned Antwerp historian and merchant, who had resided a long time in
+London, "but, like all islanders, by nature weak and tender.  They are
+generally fair, particularly the women, who all--even to the peasant
+women--protect their complexions from the sun with fans and veils, as
+only the stately gentlewomen do in Germany and the Netherlands.  As a
+people they are stout-hearted, vehement, eager, cruel in war, zealous in
+attack, little fearing: death; not revengeful, but fickle, presumptuous,
+rash, boastful, deceitful, very suspicious, especially of strangers, whom
+they despise.  They are full of courteous and hypocritical gestures and
+words, which they consider to imply good manners, civility, and wisdom.
+They are well spoken, and very hospitable.  They feed well, eating much
+meat, which-owing to the rainy climate and the ranker character of the
+grass--is not so firm and succulent as the meat of France and the
+Netherlands.  The people are not so laborious as the French and
+Hollanders, preferring to lead an indolent life, like the Spaniards.
+The most difficult and ingenious of the handicrafts are in the hands
+of foreigners, as is the case with the lazy inhabitants of Spain.
+They feed many sheep, with fine wool, from which, two hundred years ago,
+they learned to make cloth.  They keep many idle servants, and many wild
+animals for their pleasure, instead of cultivating the sail.  They have
+many ships, but they do not even catch fish enough for their own
+consumption, but purchase of their neighbours.  They dress very
+elegantly.  Their costume is light and costly, but they are very
+changeable and capricious, altering their fashions every year, both the
+men and the women.  When they go away from home, riding or travelling,
+they always wear their best clothes, contrary to the habit of other
+nations.  The English language is broken Dutch, mixed with French and
+British terms and words, but with a lighter pronunciation.  They do not
+speak from the chest, like the Germans, but prattle only with the
+tongue."
+
+Here are few statistical facts, but certainly it is curious to see how
+many national traits thus photographed by a contemporary, have quite
+vanished, and have been exchanged for their very opposites.  Certainly
+the last physiological criticism of all would indicate as great a
+national metamorphosis, during the last three centuries, as is offered by
+many other of the writer's observations.
+
+"With regard to the women," continues the same authority, "they are
+entirely in the power of the men, except in matters of life and death,
+yet they are not kept so closely and strictly as in Spain and elsewhere.
+They are not locked up, but have free management of their household,
+like the Netherlanders and their other neighbours.  They are gay in
+their clothing, taking well their ease, leaving house-work to the
+servant-maids, and are fond of sitting, finely-dressed, before their
+doors to see the passers-by and to be seen of them.  In all banquets and
+dinner-parties they have the most honour, sitting at the upper end of the
+board, and being served first.
+
+"Their time is spent in riding, lounging, card-playing, and making merry
+with their gossips at child-bearings, christenings, churchings, and
+buryings; and all this conduct the men wink at, because such are the
+customs of the land.  They much commend however the industry and careful
+habits of the German and Netherland women, who do the work which in
+England devolves upon the men.  Hence, England is called the paradise of
+married women, for the unmarried girls are kept much more strictly than
+upon the continent.  The women are, handsome, white, dressy, modest;
+although they go freely about the streets without bonnet, hood, or veil;
+but lately learned to cover their faces with a silken mask or vizard with
+a plumage of feathers, for they change their fashions every year, to the
+astonishment of many."
+
+Paul Hentzner, a tourist from Germany at precisely the same epoch,
+touches with equal minuteness on English characteristics.  It may be
+observed, that, with some discrepancies, there is also much similarity,
+in the views of the two critics.
+
+"The English," says the whimsical Paul, are serious, like the Germans,
+lovers of show, liking to be followed, wherever they go, by troops of
+servants, who wear their master's arms, in silver, fastened to their left
+sleeves, and are justly ridiculed for wearing tails hanging down their
+backs.  They excel in dancing and music, for they are active and lively,
+although they are of thicker build than the Germans.  They cut their hair
+close on the forehead, letting it hang down on either side.  They are
+good sailors, and better pirates, cunning, treacherous, thievish.  Three
+hundred and upwards are hanged annually in London.  Hawking is the
+favourite sport of the nobility.  The English are more polite in eating
+than the French, devouring less bread, but more meat, which they roast in
+perfection.  They put a great deal of sugar in their drink.  Their beds
+are covered with tapestry, even those of farmers.  They are powerful in
+the field, successful against their enemies, impatient of anything like
+slavery, vastly fond of great ear-filling noises, such as cannon-firing,
+drum-beating, and bell-ringing; so that it is very common for a number of
+them, when they have got a cup too much in their heads, to go up to some
+belfry, and ring the bells for an hour together, for the sake of the
+amusement.  If they see a foreigner very well made or particularly
+handsome, they will say "'tis pity he is not an Englishman."
+
+It is also somewhat amusing, at the present day, to find a German
+elaborately explaining to his countrymen the mysteries of tobacco-
+smoking, as they appeared to his unsophisticated eyes in England.  "At
+the theatres and everywhere else," says the traveller, "the English are
+constantly smoking tobacco in the following manner.  They have pipes,
+made on purpose, of clay.  At the further end of these is a bowl.  Into
+the bowl they put the herb, and then setting fire to it, they draw the
+smoke into their mouths, which they puff out again through their
+nostrils, like funnels," and so on; conscientious explanations which a
+German tourist of our own times might think it superfluous to offer to
+his compatriots.
+
+It is also instructive to read that the light-fingered gentry of the
+metropolis were nearly as adroit in their calling as they are at present,
+after three additional centuries of development for their delicate craft;
+for the learned Tobias Salander, the travelling companion of Paul
+Hentzner, finding himself at a Lord Mayor's Show, was eased of his purse,
+containing nine crowns, as skilfully as the feat could have been done by
+the best pickpocket of the nineteenth century, much to that learned
+person's discomfiture.
+
+Into such an England and among such English the Netherland envoys had now
+been despatched on their most important errand.
+
+After twice putting back, through stress of weather, the commissioners,
+early in July, arrived at London, and were "lodged and very worshipfully
+appointed at charges of her Majesty in the Clothworkers' Hall in Pynchon-
+lane, near Tower-street."  About the Tower and its faubourgs the
+buildings were stated to be as elegant as they were in the city itself,
+although this was hardly very extravagant commendation.  From this
+district a single street led along the river's strand to Westminster,
+where were the old and new palaces, the famous hall and abbey, the
+Parliament chambers, and the bridge to Southwark, built of stone, with
+twenty arches, sixty feet high, and with rows of shops and dwelling-
+houses on both its sides.  Thence, along the broad and beautiful river,
+were dotted here and there many stately mansions and villas, residences
+of bishops and nobles, extending farther and farther west as the city
+melted rapidly into the country.  London itself was a town lying high
+upon a hill--the hill of Lud--and consisted of a coil of narrow,
+tortuous, unseemly streets, each with a black, noisome rivulet running
+through its centre, and with rows of three-storied, leaden-roofed houses,
+built of timber-work filled in with lime, with many gables, and with the
+upper stories overhanging and darkening the basements.  There were one
+hundred and twenty-one churches, small and large, the most conspicuous of
+which was the Cathedral.  Old Saint Paul's was not a very magnificent
+edifice--but it was an extremely large one, for it was seven hundred and
+twenty feet long, one hundred and thirty broad, and had a massive
+quadrangular tower, two hundred and sixty feet high.  Upon this tower had
+stood a timber-steeple, rising, to a height of five hundred and thirty-
+four feet from the ground, but it had been struck by lightning in the
+year 1561, and consumed to the stone-work.
+
+The Queen's favourite residence was Greenwich Palace, the place of her
+birth, and to this mansion, on the 9th of July, the Netherland envoys
+were conveyed, in royal barges, from the neighbourhood of Pynchon-lane,
+for their first audience.
+
+The deputation was a strong one.  There was Falck of Zeeland, a man
+of consummate adroitness, perhaps not of as satisfactory integrity;
+"a shrewd fellow and a fine," as Lord Leicester soon afterwards
+characterised him.  There was Menin, pensionary of Dort, an eloquent and
+accomplished orator, and employed on this occasion as chief spokesman of
+the legation--"a deeper man, and, I think, an honester," said the same
+personage, adding, with an eye to business, "and he is but poor, which
+you must consider, but with great secrecy."  There was Paul Buys, whom we
+have met with before; keen, subtle, somewhat loose of life, very
+passionate, a most most energetic and valuable friend to England, a
+determined foe to France, who had resigned the important post of
+Holland's Advocate, when the mission offering sovereignty to Henry III.
+had been resolved upon, and who had since that period been most
+influential in procuring the present triumph of the English policy.
+Through his exertions the Province of Holland had been induced at an
+early moment to furnish the most ample instructions to the commissioners
+for the satisfaction of Queen Elizabeth in the great matter of the
+mortgages.  "Judge if this Paul Buys has done his work well," said a
+French agent in the Netherlands, who, despite the infamous conduct of his
+government towards the Provinces, was doing his best to frustrate the
+subsequent negotiation with England, "and whether or no he has Holland
+under his thumb."  The same individual had conceived hopes from Falck of
+Zeeland.  That Province, in which lay the great bone of contention
+between the Queen and the States--the important town of Flushing--was
+much slower than Holland to agree to the English policy.  It is to be
+feared that Falck was not the most ingenuous and disinterested politician
+that could be found even in an age not distinguished for frankness or
+purity; for even while setting forth upon the mission to Elizabeth, he
+was still clingihg, or affecting to cling, to the wretched delusion of
+French assistance.  "I regret infinitely," said Falck to the French agent
+just mentioned, "that I am employed in this affair, and that it is
+necessary in our present straits to have recourse to England.  There is--
+so to speak--not a person in our Province that is inclined that way, all
+recognizing very well that France is much more salutary for us, besides
+that we all bear her a certain affection.  Indeed, if I were assured that
+the King still felt any goodwill towards us, I would so manage matters
+that neither the Queen of England, nor any other prince whatever except
+his most Christian-Majesty should take a bite at this country, at least
+at this Province, and with that view, while waiting for news from France,
+I will keep things in suspense, and spin them out as long as it is
+possible to do."
+
+The news from France happened soon to be very conclusive, and it then
+became difficult even for Falek to believe--after intelligence received
+of the accord between Henry III. and the Guises--that his Christian
+Majesty, would be inclined for a bite at the Netherlands.  This duplicity
+on the part of so leading a personage furnishes a key to much of the
+apparent dilatoriness on the part of the English government: It has been
+seen that Elizabeth, up to the last moment, could not fairly comprehend
+the ineffable meanness of the French monarch.  She told Ortel that she
+saw no reason to believe in that great Catholic conspiracy against
+herself and against all Protestantism which was so soon to be made public
+by the King's edict of July, promulgated at the very instant of the
+arrival in England of the Netherland envoys.  Then that dread fiat had
+gone forth, the most determined favourer of the French alliance could no
+longer admit its possibility, and Falck became the more open to that
+peculiar line of argument which Leicester had suggested with regard to
+one of the other deputies.  "I will do my best," wrote Walsingham, "to
+procure that Paul Buys and Falck shall receive underhand some reward."
+
+Besides Menin, Falck, and Buys, were Noel de Caron, an experienced
+diplomatist; the poet-soldier, Van der Does; heroic defender of Leyden;
+De Gryze, Hersolte, Francis Maalzoon, and three legal Frisians of pith
+and substance, Feitsma, Aisma, and Jongema;  a dozen Dutchmen together--
+as muscular champions as ever little republic sent forth to wrestle with
+all comers in the slippery ring of diplomacy.  For it was instinctively
+felt that here were conclusions to be tried with a nation of deep, solid
+thinkers, who were aware that a great crisis in the world's history had
+occurred, and would put forth their most substantial men to deal with it:
+Burghley and Walsingham, the great Queen herself, were no feather-weights
+like the frivolous Henry III., and his minions.  It was pity, however,
+that the discussions about to ensue presented from the outset rather the
+aspect of a hard hitting encounter of antagonists than that of a frank
+and friendly congress between two great parties whose interests were
+identical.
+
+Since the death of William the Silent, there was no one individual in the
+Netherlands to impersonate the great struggle of the Provinces with Spain
+and Rome, and to concentrate upon his own head a poetical, dramatic, and
+yet most legitimate interest.  The great purpose of the present history
+must be found in its illustration of the creative power of civil and
+religious freedom.  Here was a little republic, just born into the world,
+suddenly bereft of its tutelary saint, left to its own resources, yet
+already instinct with healthy vigorous life, and playing its difficult
+part among friends and enemies with audacity, self-reliance, and success.
+To a certain extent its achievements were anonymous, but a great
+principle manifested itself through a series of noble deeds.  Statesmen,
+soldiers, patriots, came forward on all sides to do the work which was to
+be done, and those who were brought into closest contact with the
+commonwealth acknowledged in strongest language the signal ability with
+which, self-guided, she steered her course.  Nevertheless, there was at
+this moment one Netherlander, the chief of the present mission to
+England, already the foremost statesman of his country, whose name will
+not soon be effaced from the record of the sixteenth and seventeenth
+centuries.  That man was John of Olden-Barneveld.
+
+He was now in his thirty-eighth year, having been born at Amersfoot on
+the 14th of September, 1547.  He bore an imposing name, for the Olden-
+Barnevelds of Gelderland were a race of unquestionable and antique
+nobility.  His enemies, however, questioned his right to the descent
+which he claimed.  They did not dispute that the great grandfather, Class
+van Olden-Barneveld, was of distinguished lineage and allied to many
+illustrious houses, but they denied that Class was really the great
+grandfather of John.  John's father, Gerritt, they said, was a nameless
+outcast, a felon, a murderer, who had escaped the punishment due to his
+crimes, but had dragged out a miserable existence in the downs, burrowing
+like a rabbit in the sand.  They had also much to say in disparagement of
+all John's connections.  Not only was his father a murderer, but his
+wife, whom he had married for money, was the child of a most horrible
+incest, his sisters were prostitutes, his sons and brothers were
+debauchees and drunkards, and, in short, never had a distinguished man a
+more uncomfortable and discreditable family-circle than that which
+surrounded Barneveld, if the report of his enemies was to be believed.
+Yet it is agreeable to reflect that, with all the venom which they had
+such power of secreting, these malignant tongues had been unable to
+destroy the reputation of the man himself.  John's character was
+honourable and upright, his intellectual power not disputed even by those
+who at a later period hated him the most bitterly.  He had been a
+profound and indefatigable student from his earliest youth.  He had read
+law at Leyden, in France, at Heidelberg.  Here, in the head-quarters of
+German Calvinism, his youthful mind had long pondered the dread themes of
+foreknowledge, judgment absolute, free will, and predestination: To
+believe it worth the while of a rational and intelligent Deity to create
+annually several millions of thinking beings, who were to struggle for a
+brief period on earth, and to consume in perpetual brimstone afterwards,
+while others were predestined to endless enjoyment, seemed to him an
+indifferent exchange for a faith in the purgatory and paradise of Rome.
+Perplexed in the extreme, the youthful John bethought himself of an
+inscription over the gateway of his famous but questionable great
+grandfather's house at Amersfort--'nil scire tutissima fides.'  He
+resolved thenceforth to adopt a system of ignorance upon matters beyond
+the flaming walls of the world; to do the work before him manfully and
+faithfully while he walked the earth, and to trust that a benevolent
+Creator would devote neither him nor any other man to eternal hellfire.
+For this most offensive doctrine he was howled at by the strictly pious,
+while he earned still deeper opprobrium by daring to advocate religious
+toleration: In face of the endless horrors inflicted by the Spanish
+Inquisition upon his native land, he had the hardihood--although a
+determined Protestant himself--to claim for Roman Catholics the right to
+exercise their religion in the free States on equal terms with those of
+the reformed faith.  "Anyone," said his enemies, "could smell what that
+meant who had not a wooden nose."  In brief, he was a liberal Christian,
+both in theory and practice, and he nobly confronted in consequence the
+wrath of bigots on both sides.  At a later period the most zealous
+Calvinists called him Pope John, and the opinions to which he was to owe
+such appellations had already been formed in his mind.
+
+After completing his very thorough legal studies, he had practised as
+an advocate in Holland and Zeeland.  An early defender of civil and
+religious freedom, he had been brought at an early day into contact with
+William the Silent, who recognized his ability.  He had borne a snap-
+hance on his shoulder as a volunteer in the memorable attempt to relieve
+Haarlem, and was one of the few survivors of that bloody night.  He had
+stood outside the walls of Leyden in company of the Prince of Orange when
+that magnificent destruction of the dykes had taken place by which the
+city had been saved from the fate impending over it.  At a still more
+recent period we have seen him landing from the gun-boats upon the
+Kowenstyn, on the fatal 26th May.  These military adventures were,
+however, but brief and accidental episodes in his career, which was
+that of a statesman and diplomatist.  As pensionary of Rotterdam, he was
+constantly a member of the General Assembly, and had already begun to
+guide the policy of the new commonwealth.  His experience was
+considerable, and he was now in the high noon of his vigour and his
+usefulness.
+
+He was a man of noble and imposing presence, with thick hair pushed from
+a broad forehead rising dome-like above a square and massive face; a
+strong deeply-coloured physiognomy, with shaggy brow, a chill blue eye,
+not winning but commanding, high cheek bones, a solid, somewhat scornful
+nose, a firm mouth and chin, enveloped in a copious brown beard;
+the whole head not unfitly framed in the stiff formal ruff of the period;
+and the tall stately figure well draped in magisterial robes of velvet
+and sable--such was John of Olden-Barneveld.
+
+The Commissioners thus described arrived at Greenwich Stairs, and were at
+once ushered into the palace, a residence which had been much enlarged
+and decorated by Henry VIII.
+
+They were received with stately ceremony.  The presence-chamber was hung
+with Gobelin tapestry, its floor strewn with rushes.  Fifty-gentlemen
+pensioners, with gilt battle-ages, and a throng of 'buffetiers', or beef-
+eaters, in that quaint old-world garb which has survived so many
+centuries, were in attendance, while the counsellors of the Queen, in
+their robes of state, waited around the throne.
+
+There, in close skull-cap and dark flowing gown, was the subtle,
+monastic-looking Walsingham, with long, grave, melancholy face and
+Spanish eyes.  There too, white staff in hand, was Lord High Treasurer
+Burghley, then sixty-five years of age, with serene blue eye, large,
+smooth, pale, scarce-wrinkled face and forehead; seeming, with his
+placid, symmetrical features, and great velvet bonnet, under which such
+silver hairs as remained were soberly tucked away, and with his long dark
+robes which swept the ground, more like a dignified gentlewoman than a
+statesman, but for the wintery beard which lay like a snow-drift on his
+ancient breast.
+
+The Queen was then in the fifty-third year of her age, and considered
+herself in the full bloom of her beauty.  Her, garments were of satin and
+velvet, with fringes of pearl as big as beans.  A small gold crown was
+upon her head, and her red hair, throughout its multiplicity of curls,
+blazed with diamonds and emeralds.  Her forehead was tall, her face long,
+her complexion fair, her eyes small, dark, and glittering, her nose high
+and hooked, her lips thin, her teeth black, her bosom white and liberally
+exposed.  As she passed through the ante-chamber to the presence-hall,
+supplicants presented petitions upon their knees.  Wherever she glanced,
+all prostrated themselves on the ground.  The cry of "Long live Queen
+Elizabeth" was spontaneous and perpetual; the reply; "I thank you, my
+good people," was constant and cordial.  She spoke to various foreigners
+in their respective languages, being mistress, besides the Latin and
+Greek, of French, Spanish, Italian, and German.  As the Commissioners
+were presented to her by Lord Buckhurst it was observed that she was
+perpetually gloving and ungloving, as if to attract attention to her
+hand, which was esteemed a wonder of beauty.  She spoke French with
+purity and elegance, but with a drawling, somewhat affected accent,
+saying "Paar maa foi; paar le Dieeu vivaant," and so forth, in a style
+which was ridiculed by Parisians, as she sometimes, to her extreme
+annoyance, discovered.
+
+Joos de Menin, pensionary of Dort, in the name of all the envoys, made an
+elaborate address.  He expressed the gratitude which the States
+entertained for her past kindness, and particularly for the good offices
+rendered by Ambassador Davison after the death of the Prince of Orange,
+and for the deep regret expressed by her Majesty for their disappointment
+in the hopes they had founded upon France.
+
+"Since the death of the Prince of Orange," he said, "the States have lost
+many important cities, and now, for the preservation of their existence,
+they have need of a prince and sovereign lord to defend them against the
+tyranny and iniquitous oppression of the Spaniards and their adherents,
+who are more and more determined utterly to destroy their country, and
+reduce the poor people to a perpetual slavery worse than that of Indians,
+under the insupportable and detestable yoke of the Spanish Inquisition.
+We have felt a confidence that your Majesty will not choose to see us
+perish at the hands of the enemy against whom we have been obliged to
+sustain this long and cruel war.  That war we have undertaken in order to
+preserve for the poor people their liberty, laws, and franchises,
+together with the exercise of the true Christian religion, of which your
+Majesty bears rightfully the title of defender, and against which the
+enemy and his allies have made so many leagues and devised so many
+ambushes and stratagems, besides organizing every day so many plots
+against the life of your Majesty and the safety of your realms--schemes
+which thus far the good God has averted for the good of Christianity and
+the maintenance of His churches.  For these reasons, Madam, the States
+have taken a firm resolution to have recourse to your Majesty, seeing
+that it is an ordinary thing for all oppressed nations to apply in their
+calamity to neighbouring princes, and especially to such as are endowed
+with piety, justice, magnanimity, and other kingly virtues.  For this
+reason we have been deputed to offer to your Majesty the sovereignty over
+these Provinces, under certain good and equitable conditions, having
+reference chiefly to the maintenance of the reformed religion and of our
+ancient liberties and customs.  And although, in the course of these long
+and continued wars, the enemy has obtained possession of many cities and
+strong places within our couniry, nevertheless the Provinces of Holland,
+Zeeland, Utrecht, and Friesland, are, thank God, still entire.  And in
+those lands are many large and stately cities, beautiful and deep rivers,
+admirable seaports, from which your Majesty and your successors can
+derive much good fruit and commodity, of which it is scarcely, necessary
+to make a long recital.  This point, however, beyond the rest, merits a
+special consideration; namely, that the conjunction of those Provinces of
+Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, and Friesland, together with the cities of
+Sluys and Ostend, with the kingdoms of your Majesty, carries with it the
+absolute empire of the great ocean, and consequently an assurance of
+perpetual felicity for your subjects.  We therefore humbly entreat you to
+agree to our conditions, to accept the sovereign seignory of these
+Provinces, and consequently to receive the people of the same as your
+very humble and obedient subjects, under the perpetual safeguard of your
+crown--a people certainly as faithful and loving towards their princes
+and sovereign lords, to speak without boasting, as any in all
+Christendom.
+
+"So doing, Madam, you will preserve many beautiful churches which it has
+pleased God to raise up in these lands, now much afflicted and shaken,
+and you will deliver this country and people--before the iniquitous
+invasion of the Spaniards, so rich and flourishing by the great Commodity
+of the sea, their ports and rivers, their commerce and manufactures, for
+all which they have such natural advantages--from ruin and perpetual
+slavery of body and soul.  This will be a truly excellent work, agreeable
+to God, profitable to Christianity, worthy of immortal praise, and
+comporting with the heroic virtues of your Majesty, and ensuring the
+prosperity of your country and people.  With this we present to your
+Majesty our articles and conditions, and pray that the King of Kings may
+preserve you from all your enemies and ever have you in His holy
+keeping."
+
+The Queen listened intently and very courteously to the delivery of this
+address, and then made answer in French to this effect:--"Gentlemen,--Had
+I a thousand tongues I should not be able to express my obligation to you
+for the great and handsome offers which you have just made.  I firmly
+believe that this proceeds from the true zeal, devotion, and affection,
+which you have always borne me, and I am certain that you have ever
+preferred me to all the princes and potentates in the world.  Even when
+you selected the late Duke of Anjou, who was so dear to me, and to whose
+soul I hope that God has been merciful, I know that you would sooner have
+offered your country to me if I had desired that you should do so.
+Certainly I esteem it a great thing that you wish to be governed by me,
+and I feel so much obliged to you in consequence that I will never
+abandon you, but, on the contrary, assist you till the last sigh of my
+life.  I know very well that your princes have treated you ill, and that
+the Spaniards are endeavouring to ruin you entirely; but I will come to
+your aid, and I will consider what I can do, consistently with my honour,
+in regard to the articles which you have brought me.  They shall be
+examined by the members of my council, and I promise that I will not keep
+you three or four months, for I know very well that your affairs require
+haste, and that they will become ruinous if you are not assisted.  It is
+not my custom to procrastinate, and upon this occasion I shall not dally,
+as others have done, but let you have my answer very soon."
+
+Certainly, if the Provinces needed a king, which they had most
+unequivocally declared to be the case, they might have wandered the
+whole earth over, and, had it been possible, searched through the whole
+range of history, before finding a monarch with a more kingly spirit
+than the great Queen to whom they had at last had recourse.
+
+Unfortunately, she was resolute in her refusal to accept the offered
+sovereignty.  The first interview terminated with this exchange of
+addresses, and the deputies departed in their barges for their lodgings
+in Pynchon-lane.
+
+The next two days were past in perpetual conferences, generally at Lord
+Burghley's house, between the envoys and the lords of the council, in
+which the acceptance of the sovereignty was vehemently urged on the part
+of the Netherlanders, and steadily declined in the name of her Majesty.
+
+"Her Highness," said Burghley, "cannot be induced, by any writing or
+harangue that you can make, to accept the principality or proprietorship
+as sovereign, and it will therefore be labour lost for you to exhibit any
+writing for the purpose of changing her intention.  It will be better to
+content yourselves with her Majesty's consent to assist you, and to take
+you under her protection."
+
+Nevertheless, two days afterwards, a writing was exhibited, drawn up by
+Menin, in which another elaborate effort was made to alter the Queen's
+determination.  This anxiety, on the part of men already the principal
+personages in a republic, to merge the independent existence of their
+commonwealth in another and a foreign political organism, proved, at any
+rate; that they were influenced by patriotic motives alone.  It is also
+instructive to observe the intense language with which the necessity
+of a central paramount sovereignty for all the Provinces, and the
+inconveniences of the separate States' right principle were urged by a
+deputation, at the head of which stood Olden-Barneveld.  "Although it is
+not becoming in us," said they, "to enquire into your Majesty's motives
+for refusing the sovereignty of our country, nevertheless, we cannot help
+observing that your consent would be most profitable, as well to your
+Majesty, and your successors, as to the Provinces themselves.  By your
+acceptance of the sovereignty the two peoples would be, as it were,
+united in one body.  This would cause a fraternal benevolence between
+them, and a single reverence, love, and obedience to your Majesty.--The
+two peoples being thus under the government of the same sovereign prince,
+the intrigues and practices which the enemy could attempt with persons
+under a separate subjection, would of necessity surcease.  Moreover,
+those Provinces are all distinct duchies, counties, seignories, governed
+by their own magistrates, laws, and ordinances; each by itself, without
+any authority or command to be exercised by one Province over another.
+To this end they have need of a supreme power and of one sovereign prince
+or seignor, who may command all equally, having a constant regard to the
+public weal--considered as a generality, and not with regard to the
+profit of the one or the other individual Province--and, causing promptly
+and universally to be executed such ordinances as may be made in the
+matter of war or police, according to various emergencies.  Each
+Province, on the contrary, retaining its sovereignty over its own
+inhabitants, obedience will not be so promptly and completely rendered
+to the commands of the lieutenant-general of your Majesty, and many,
+a good enterprise and opportunity, will be lost.  Where there is not a
+single authority it is always found that one party endeavours to usurp
+power over another, or to escape doing his duty so thoroughly as the
+others.  And this has notoriously been the case in the matter of
+contributions, imposts, and similar matters."
+
+Thus much, and more of similar argument, logically urged, made it
+sufficiently evident that twenty years of revolt and of hard fighting
+against one king, had not destroyed in the minds of the leading
+Netherlanders their conviction of the necessity of kingship.  If the new
+commonwealth was likely to remain a republic, it was, at that moment at
+any rate, because they could not find a king.  Certainly they did their
+best to annex themselves to England, and to become loyal subjects of
+England's Elizabeth.  But the Queen, besides other objections to the
+course proposed by the Provinces, thought that she could do a better
+thing in the way of mortgages.  In this, perhaps, there was something of
+the penny-wise policy, which sprang from one great defect in her
+character.  At any rate much mischief was done by the mercantile spirit
+which dictated the hard chaffering on both sides the Channel at this
+important juncture; for during this tedious flint-paring, Antwerp, which
+might have been saved, was falling into the hands of Philip.  It should
+never be forgotten, however, that the Queen had no standing army, and but
+a small revenue.  The men to be sent from England to the Netherland wars
+were first to be levied wherever it was possible to find them.  In truth,
+many were pressed in the various wards of London, furnished with red
+coats and matchlocks at the expense of the citizens, and so despatched,
+helter-skelter, in small squads as opportunity offered.  General Sir John
+Norris was already superintending these operations, by command of the
+Queen, before the present formal negotiation with the States had begun.
+
+Subsequently to the 11th July, on which day the second address had been
+made to Elizabeth, the envoys had many conferences with Leicester,
+Burghley, Walsingham, and other councillors, without making much
+progress.  There was perpetual wrangling about figures and securities.
+
+"What terms will you pledge for the repayment of the monies to be
+advanced?"  asked Burghley and Walsingham.
+
+"But if her Majesty takes the sovereignty," answered the deputies, "there
+will be no question of guarantees.  The Queen will possess our whole
+land, and there will be no need of any repayment."
+
+"And we have told you over and over again," said the Lord Treasurer,
+"that her Majesty will never think of accepting the sovereignty.  She
+will assist you in money and men, and must be repaid to the last farthing
+when the war is over; and, until that period, must have solid pledges in
+the shape of a town in each Province."
+
+Then came interrogatories as to the amount of troops and funds to be
+raised respectively by the Queen and the States for the common cause.
+The Provinces wished her Majesty to pay one-third of the whole expense,
+while her Majesty was reluctant to pay one-quarter.  The States wished
+a permanent force to be kept on foot in the Netherlands of thirteen
+thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry for the field, and twenty-
+three thousand for garrisons.  The councillors thought the last item too
+much.  Then there were queries as to the expense of maintaining a force
+in the Provinces.  The envoys reckoned one pound sterling, or ten
+florins, a month for the pay of each foot soldier, including officers;
+and for the cavalry, three times as much.  This seemed reasonable, and
+the answers to the inquiries touching the expense of the war-vessels and
+sailors were equally satisfactory.  Nevertheless it was difficult to
+bring the Queen up to the line to which the envoys had been limited by
+their instructions.  Five thousand foot and one thousand horse serving at
+the Queen's expense till the war should be concluded, over and above the
+garrisons for such cautionary towns as should be agreed upon; this was
+considered, by the States, the minimum.  The Queen held out for giving
+only four thousand foot and four hundred horse, and for deducting the
+garrisons even from this slender force.  As guarantee for the expense
+thus to be incurred, she required that Flushing and Brill should be
+placed in her hands.  Moreover the position of Antwerp complicated the
+negotiation.  Elizabeth, fully sensible of the importance of preserving
+that great capital, offered four thousand soldiers to serve until that
+city should be relieved, requiring repayment within three months after
+the object should have been accomplished.  As special guarantee for such
+repayment she required Sluys and Ostend.  This was sharp bargaining,
+but, at any rate, the envoys knew that the Queen, though cavilling to
+the ninth-part of a hair, was no trifler, and that she meant to perform
+whatever she should promise.
+
+There was another exchange of speeches at the Palace of Nonesuch, on the
+5th August; and the position of affairs and the respective attitudes of
+the Queen and envoys were plainly characterized by the language then
+employed.
+
+After an exordium about the cruelty of the Spanish tyranny and the
+enormous expense entailed by the war upon the Netherlands, Menin, who,
+as usual, was the spokesman, alluded to the difficulty which the States
+at last felt in maintaining themselves.
+
+"Five thousand foot and one thousand horse," he said, "over and above the
+maintenance of garrisons in the towns to be pledged as security to your
+Majesty, seemed the very least amount of succour that would be probably
+obtained from your royal bounty.  Considering the great demonstrations
+of affection and promises of support, made as well by your Majesty's own
+letters as by the mouth of your ambassador Davison, and by our envoys De
+Gryse and Ortel, who have all declared publicly that your Majesty would
+never forsake us, the States sent us their deputies to this country in
+full confidence that such reasonable demands as we had been authorized to
+make would be satisfied."
+
+The speaker then proceeded to declare that the offer made by the royal
+councillors of four thousand foot and four hundred horse, to serve during
+the war, together with a special force of four thousand for the relief of
+Antwerp, to be paid for within three months after the siege should be
+raised, auninst a concession of the cities of Flushing, Brill, Sluys, and
+Ostend, did not come within the limitations of the States-General.  They
+therefore begged the Queen to enlarge her offer to the number of five
+thousand foot and one thousand horse, or at least to allow the envoys to
+conclude the treaty provisionally, and subject to approval of their
+constituents.
+
+So soon as Menin had concluded his address, her Majesty instantly
+replied, with much earnestness and fluency of language.
+
+"Gentlemen," she said, "I will answer you upon the first point, because
+it touches my honour.  You say that I promised you, both by letters and
+through my agent Davison, and also by my own lips, to assist you and
+never to abandon you, and that this had moved you to come to me at
+present.  Very well, masters, do you not think I am assisting you when I
+am sending you four thousand foot and four hundred horse to serve during
+the war?  Certainly, I think yes; and I say frankly that I have never
+been wanting to my word.  No man shall ever say, with truth, that the
+Queen of England had at any time and ever so slightly failed in her
+promises, whether to the mightiest monarch, to republics, to gentlemen,
+or even to private persons of the humblest condition.  Am I, then, in
+your opinion, forsaking you when I send you English blood, which I love,
+and which is my own blood, and which I am bound to defend?  It seems to
+me, no.  For my part I tell you again that I will never forsake you.
+
+"'Sed de modo?'  That is matter for agreement.  You are aware, gentlemen,
+that I have storms to fear from many quarters--from France, Scotland,
+Ireland, and within my own kingdom.  What would be said if I looked only
+on one side, and if on that side I employed all my resources.  No, I will
+give my subjects no cause for murmuring.  I know that my counsellors
+desire to manage matters with prudence; 'sed aetatem habeo', and you are
+to believe, that, of my own motion, I have resolved not to extend my
+offer of assistance, at present, beyond the amount already stated.  But
+I don't say that at another time I may not be able to do more for you.
+For my intention is never to abandon your cause, always to assist you,
+and never more to suffer any foreign nation to have dominion over you.
+
+"It is true that you present me with two places in each of your
+Provinces.  I thank you for them infinitely, and certainly it is a great
+offer.  But it will be said instantly, the Queen of England wishes to
+embrace and devour everything; while, on the contrary, I only wish to
+render you assistance.  I believe, in truth, that if other monarchs
+should have this offer, they would not allow such an opportunity to
+escape.  I do not let it slip because of fears that I entertain for any
+prince whatever.  For to think that I am not aware--doing what I am
+doing--that I am embarking in a war against the King of Spain, is a great
+mistake.  I know very well that the succour which I am affording you will
+offend him as much as if I should do a great deal more.  But what care I?
+Let him begin, I will answer him.  For my part, I say again, that never
+did fear enter my heart.  We must all die once.  I know very well that
+many princes are my enemies, and are seeking my ruin; and that where
+malice is joined with force, malice often arrives at its ends.  But I am
+not so feeble a princess that I have not the means and the will to defend
+myself against them all.  They are seeking to take my life, but it
+troubles me not.  He who is on high has defended me until this hour,
+and will keep me still, for in Him do I trust.
+
+"As to the other point, you say that your powers are not extensive enough
+to allow your acceptance of the offer I make you.  Nevertheless, if I am
+not mistaken, I have remarked in passing--for princes look very close to
+words--that you would be content if I would give you money in place of
+men, and that your powers speak only of demanding a certain proportion
+of infantry and another of cavalry.  I believe this would be, as you say,
+an equivalent, 'secundum quod'.  But I say this only because you govern
+yourselves so precisely by the measure of your instructions. Nevertheless
+I don't wish to contest these points with you.  For very often 'dum Romae
+disputatur Saguntum perit.'  Nevertheless, it would be well for you to
+decide; and, in any event, I do not think it good that you should all
+take your departure, but that, on the contrary, you should leave some of
+your number here.  Otherwise it would at once be said that all was broken
+off, and that I had chosen to nothing for you; and with this the bad
+would comfort themselves, and the good would be much discouraged.
+
+"Touching the last point of your demand--according to which you desire a
+personage of quality--I know, gentlemen, that you do not always agree
+very well among yourselves, and that it would be good for you to have
+some one to effect such agreement.  For this reason I have always
+intended, so soon as we should have made our treaty, to send a lord of
+name and authority to reside with you, to assist you in governing, and to
+aid, with his advice, in the better direction of your affairs.
+
+"Would to God that Antwerp were relieved!  Certainly I should be very
+glad, and very well content to lose all that I am now expending if that
+city could be saved.  I hope, nevertheless, if it can hold out six weeks
+longer, that we shall see something good.  Already the two thousand men
+of General Norris have crossed, or are crossing, every day by companies.
+I will hasten the rest as much as possible; and I assure you, gentlemen,
+that I will spare no diligence.  Nevertheless you may, if you choose,
+retire with my council, and see if together you can come to some good
+conclusion."
+
+Thus spoke Elizabeth, like the wise, courageous, and very parsimonious
+princess that she was.  Alas, it was too true, that Saguntum was
+perishing while the higgling went on at Rome.  Had those two thousand
+under Sir John Norris and the rest of the four thousand but gone a few
+weeks earlier, how much happier might have been the result!
+
+Nevertheless, it was thought in England that Antwerp would still hold
+out; and, meantime, a treaty for its relief, in combination with another
+for permanent assistance to the Provinces, was agreed upon between the
+envoys and the lords of council.
+
+On the 12th August, Menin presented himself at Nonesuch at the head of
+his colleagues, and, in a formal speech, announced the arrangement which
+had thus been entered into, subject to the approval of the States.  Again
+Elizabeth, whose "tongue," in the homely phrase of the Netherlanders,
+"was wonderfully well hung," replied with energy and ready eloquence.
+
+"You see, gentlemen," she said, "that I have opened the door; that I am
+embarking once for all with you in a war against the King of Spain.  Very
+well, I am not anxious about the matter.  I hope that God will aid us,
+and that we shall strike a good blow in your cause.  Nevertheless, I pray
+you, with all my heart, and by the affection you bear me, to treat my
+soldiers well; for they are my own Englishmen, whom I love as I do
+myself.  Certainly  it would be a great cruelty, if you should treat
+them ill, since they are about to hazard their lives so freely in your
+defence, and I am sure that my request in this regard will be received by
+you as it deserves.
+
+"In the next place, as you know that I am sending, as commander of these
+English troops, an honest gentleman, who deserves most highly for his
+experience in arms, so I am also informed that you have on your side a
+gentleman of great valour.  I pray you, therefore, that good care be
+taken lest there be misunderstanding between these two, which might
+prevent them from agreeing well together, when great exploits of war
+are to be taken in hand.  For if that should happen--which God forbid--
+my succour would be rendered quite useless to you.  I name Count Hohenlo,
+because him alone have I heard mentioned.  But I pray you to make the
+same recommendation to all the colonels and gentlemen in your army;
+for I should be infinitely sad, if misadventures should arise from
+such a cause, for your interest and my honour are both at stake.
+
+"In the third place, I beg you, at your return, to make a favourable
+report of me, and to thank the States, in my behalf, for their great
+offers, which I esteem so highly as to be unable to express my thanks.
+Tell them that I shall remember them for ever.  I consider it a great
+honour, that from the commencement, you have ever been so faithful to me,
+and that with such great constancy you have preferred me to all other
+princes, and have chosen me for your Queen.  And chiefly do I thank the
+gentlemen of Holland and Zeeland, who, as I have been informed, were the
+first who so singularly loved me.  And so on my own part I will have a
+special care of them, and will do my best to uphold them by every
+possible means, as I will do all the rest who have put their trust in me.
+But I name Holland and Zeeland more especially, because they have been so
+constant and faithful in their efforts to assist the rest in shaking off
+the yoke of the enemy.
+
+"Finally, gentlemen, I beg you to assure the States that I do not decline
+the sovereignty of your country from any dread of the King of Spain.  For
+I take God to witness that I fear him not; and I hope, with the blessing
+of God, to make such demonstrations against him, that men shall say the
+Queen of England does not fear the Spaniards."
+
+Elizabeth then smote herself upon the breast, and cried, with great
+energy, "'Illa que virgo viri;' and is it not quite the same to you,
+even if I do not assume the sovereignty, since I intend to protect you,
+and since therefore the effects will be the same?  It is true that the
+sovereignty would serve to enhance my grandeur, but I am content to do
+without it, if you, upon your own part, will only do your duty.
+
+"For myself, I promise you, in truth, that so long as I live, and even to
+my last sigh, I will never forsake you.  Go home and tell this boldly to
+the States which sent you hither."
+
+Menin then replied with fresh expressions of thanks and compliments, and
+requested, in conclusion, that her Majesty would be pleased to send, as
+soon as possible, a personage of quality to the Netherlands.
+
+"Gentlemen," replied Elizabeth, "I intend to do this, so soon as our
+treaty shall be ratified, for, in contrary case, the King of Spain,
+seeing your government continue on its present footing, would do nothing
+but laugh at us.  Certainly I do not mean this year to provide him with
+so fine a banquet."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Anarchy which was deemed inseparable from a non-regal form
+Dismay of our friends and the gratification of our enemies
+Her teeth black, her bosom white and liberally exposed (Eliz.)
+Holland was afraid to give a part, although offering the whole
+Resolved thenceforth to adopt a system of ignorance
+Say "'tis pity he is not an Englishman
+Seeking protection for and against the people
+Three hundred and upwards are hanged annually in London
+We must all die once
+Wrath of bigots on both sides
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v42
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 43, 1585
+
+
+CHAPTER VI., Part 2.
+
+     Sir John Norris sent to Holland--Parsimony of Elizabeth--Energy of
+     Davison--Protracted Negotiations--Friendly Sentiments of Count
+     Maurice--Letters from him and Louisa de Coligny--Davison vexed by
+     the Queen's Caprice--Dissatisfaction of Leicester--His vehement
+     Complaints--The Queen's Avarice--Perplexity of Davison--Manifesto
+     of Elizabeth--Sir Philip Sidney--His Arrival at Flushing.
+
+
+The envoys were then dismissed, and soon afterwards a portion of the
+deputation took their departure from the Netherlands with the proposed
+treaty.  It was however, as we know, quite too late for Saguntum.  Two
+days after the signing of the treaty, the remaining envoys were at the
+palace of Nonesuch, in conference with the Earl of Leicester, when a
+gentleman rushed suddenly into the apartment, exclaiming with great
+manifestations of anger:
+
+"Antwerp has fallen!  A treaty has been signed with the Prince of Parma.
+Aldegonde is the author of it all.  He is the culprit, who has betrayed
+us;" with many more expressions of vehement denunciation.
+
+The Queen was disappointed, but stood firm.  She had been slow in taking
+her resolution, but she was unflinching when her mind was made up.
+Instead of retreating from her, position, now that it became doubly
+dangerous, she advanced several steps nearer towards her allies.  For
+it was obvious, if more precious time should be lost, that Holland and
+Zeeland would share the fate of Antwerp.  Already the belief, that, with
+the loss of that city, all had been lost, was spreading both in the
+Provinces and in England, and Elizabeth felt that the time had indeed
+come to confront the danger.
+
+Meantime the intrigues of the enemy in the independent Provinces were
+rife.  Blunt Roger Williams wrote in very plain language to Walsingham,
+a very few days after the capitulation of Antwerp:
+
+"If her Majesty means to have Holland and Zeeland," said he, "she must
+resolve presently.  Aldegonde hath promised the enemy to bring them to
+compound.  Here arrived already his ministers which knew all his dealings
+about Antwerp from first to last.  Count Maurice is governed altogether
+by Villiers, and Villiers was never worse for the English than at this
+hour.  To be short, the people say in general, they will accept a peace,
+unless her Majesty do sovereign them presently.  All the men of war will
+be at her Highness' devotion, if they be in credit in time.  What you do,
+it must be done presently, for I do assure your honour there is large
+offers presented unto them by the enemies.  If her Majesty deals not
+roundly and resolutely with them now, it will be too late two months
+hence."
+
+Her Majesty meant to deal roundly and resolutely.  Her troops had already
+gone in considerable numbers.  She wrote encouraging letters with her own
+hand to the States, imploring them not to falter now, even though the
+great city had fallen.  She had long since promised never to desert them,
+and she was, if possible, more determined than ever to redeem her pledge.
+She especially recommended to their consideration General Norris,
+commander of the forces that had been despatched to the relief of
+Antwerp.
+
+A most accomplished officer, sprung of a house renowned for its romantic
+valour, Sir John was the second of the six sons of Lord Norris of Rycot,
+all soldiers of high reputation, "chickens of Mars," as an old writer
+expressed himself.  "Such a bunch of brethren for eminent achievement,"
+said he, "was never seen.  So great their states and stomachs that they
+often jostled with others."  Elizabeth called their mother, "her own
+crow;"  and the darkness of her hair and visage was thought not
+unbecoming to her martial issue, by whom it had been inherited.  Daughter
+of Lord Williams of Tame, who had been keeper of the Tower in the time of
+Elizabeth's imprisonment, she had been affectionate and serviceable to
+the Princess in the hour of her distress, and had been rewarded with her
+favour in the days of her grandeur.  We shall often meet this crow-black
+Norris, and his younger brother Sir Edward--the most daring soldiers of
+their time, posters of sea and land--wherever the buffeting was closest,
+or adventure the wildest on ship-board or shore, for they were men who
+combined much of the knight-errantry of a vanishing age with the more
+practical and expansive spirit of adventure that characterized the new
+epoch.
+
+Nor was he a stranger in the Netherlands.  "The gentleman to whom we have
+committed the government of the forces going to the relief of Antwerp,"
+said Elizabeth, "has already given you such proofs of his affection by
+the good services he has rendered you, that without recommendation on our
+part, he should stand already recommended.  Nevertheless, in respect for
+his quality, the house from which he is descended, and the valour which
+he has manifested in your own country, we desire to tell you that we hold
+him dear, and that he deserves also to be dear to you."
+
+When the fall of Antwerp was certain, the Queen sent Davison, who had
+been for a brief period in England, back again to his post.  "We have
+learned," she said in the letter which she sent by that envoy; "with very
+great regret of the surrender of Antwerp.  Fearing lest some apprehension
+should take possession of the people's mind in consequence, and that some
+dangerous change might ensue, we send you our faithful and well-beloved
+Davison to represent to you how much we have your affairs at heart, and
+to say that we are determined to forget nothing that may be necessary to
+your preservation.  Assure yourselves that we shall never fail to
+accomplish all that he may promise you in our behalf."
+
+Yet, notwithstanding the gravity of the situation, the thorough
+discussion that had taken place of the whole matter, and the enormous
+loss which had resulted from the money-saving insanity upon both sides,
+even then the busy devil of petty economy was not quite exorcised.
+Several precious weeks were wasted in renewed chafferings.  The Queen was
+willing that the permanent force should now be raised to five thousand
+foot and one thousand horse--the additional sixteen, hundred men being
+taken from the Antwerp relieving-force--but she insisted that the
+garrisons for the cautionary towns should be squeezed out of this general
+contingent.  The States, on the contrary, were determined to screw these
+garrisons out of her grip, as an additional subsidy.  Each party
+complained with reason of the other's closeness.  No doubt the states
+were shrewd bargainers, but it would have been difficult for the sharpest
+Hollander that ever sent a cargo of herrings to Cadiz, to force open
+Elizabeth's beautiful hand when she chose to shut it close.  Walsingham
+and Leicester were alternately driven to despair by the covetousness of
+the one party or the other.
+
+It was still uncertain what "personage of quality" was to go to the
+Netherlands in the Queen's name, to help govern the country.  Leicester
+had professed his readiness to risk his life, estates, and reputation,
+in the cause, and the States particularly desired his appointment.
+"The name of your Excellency is so very agreeable to this people," said
+they in a letter to the Earl, "as to give promise of a brief and happy
+end to this grievous and almost immortal war."  The Queen was, or
+affected to be, still undecided as to the appointment.  While waiting
+week after week for the ratifications of the treaty from Holland, affairs
+were looking gloomy at home, and her Majesty was growing very uncertain
+in her temper.
+
+"I see not her Majesty disposed to use the service of the Earl of
+Leicester," wrote Walsingham.  "I suppose the lot of government will
+light on Lord Gray.  I would to God the ability of his purse were
+answerable to his sufficiency otherwise."  This was certainly a most
+essential deficiency on the part of Lord Gray, and it will soon be seen
+that the personage of quality to be selected as chief in the arduous and
+honourable enterprise now on foot, would be obliged to rely quite as much
+on that same ability of purse as upon the sufficiency of his brain or
+arm.  The Queen did not mean to send her favourite forth to purchase
+anything but honour in the Netherlands; and it was not the Provinces only
+that were likely to struggle against her parsimony.  Yet that parsimony
+sprang from a nobler motive than the mere love of pelf.  Dangers
+encompassed her on every side, and while husbanding her own exchequer,
+she was saving her subjects' resources.  "Here we are but book-worms,"
+said Walsingham, "yet from sundry quarters we hear of great practices
+against this poor crown.  The revolt in Scotland is greatly feared, and
+that out of hand."
+
+Scotland, France, Spain, these were dangerous enemies and neighbours to a
+maiden Queen, who had a rebellious Ireland to deal with on one side the
+channel, and Alexander of Parma on the other.
+
+Davison experienced great inconvenience and annoyance before the definite
+arrangements could be made.  There is no doubt that the Spanish party had
+made great progress since the fall of Antwerp.  Roger Williams was right
+in advising the Queen to deal" roundly and resolutely" with the States,
+and to "sovereign them presently."
+
+They had need of being sovereigned, for it must be confessed that the
+self-government which prevailed at that moment was very like no
+government.  The death of Orange, the treachery of Henry III., the
+triumphs of Parma, disastrous facts, treading rapidly upon each other,
+had produced a not very unnatural effect.  The peace-at-any-price party
+was struggling hard for the ascendancy, and the Spanish partizans were
+doing their best to hold up to suspicion the sharp practice of the
+English Queen.  She was even accused of underhand dealing with Spain,
+to the disadvantage of the Provinces; so much had slander, anarchy, and
+despair, been able to effect.  The States were reluctant to sign those
+articles with Elizabeth which were absolutely necessary to their
+salvation.
+
+"In how doubtful and uncertain terms I found things at my coming hither,"
+wrote Davison to Burghley, "how thwarted and delayed since for a
+resolution, and with what conditions, and for what reasons I have been
+finally drawn to conclude with them as I have done, your Lordship may
+perceive by that I have written to Mr. Secretary.  The chief difficulty
+has rested upon the point of entertaining the garrisons within the towns
+of assurance, over and besides the five thousand footmen and one thousand
+horse."
+
+This, as Davison proceeded to observe, was considered a 'sine qua non'
+by the States, so that, under the perilous circumstances in which both
+countries were placed, he had felt it his duty to go forward as far as
+possible to meet their demands.  Davison always did his work veraciously,
+thoroughly, and resolutely; and it was seldom that his advice, in all
+matters pertaining to Netherland matters, did not prove the very best
+that could be offered.  No man knew better than he the interests and the
+temper of both countries.
+
+The imperious Elizabeth was not fond of being thwarted, least of all by
+any thing savouring of the democratic principle, and already there was
+much friction between the Tudor spirit of absolutism and the rough
+"mechanical" nature with which it was to ally itself in the Netherlands.
+The economical Elizabeth was not pleased at being overreached in a
+bargain; and, at a moment when she thought herself doing a magnanimous
+act, she was vexed at the cavilling with which her generosity was
+received.  "'Tis a manner of proceeding," said Walsingham, "not to be
+allowed of, and may very well be termed mechanical, considering that her
+Majesty seeketh no interest in that country--as Monsieur and the French
+King did--but only their good and benefit, without regard had of the
+expenses of her treasure and the hazard of her subjects' lives; besides
+throwing herself into a present war for their sakes with the greatest
+prince and potentate in Europe.  But seeing the government of those
+countries resteth in the hands of merchants and advocates--the one
+regarding profit, the other standing upon vantage of quirks--there
+is no better fruit to be looked to from them."
+
+Yet it was, after all, no quirk in those merchants and advocates to urge
+that the Queen was not going to war with the great potentate for their
+sakes alone.  To Elizabeth's honour, she did thoroughly comprehend that
+the war of the Netherlands was the war of England, of Protestantism, and
+of European liberty, and that she could no longer, without courting her
+own destruction, defer taking a part in active military operations.  It
+was no quirk, then, but solid reasoning, for the States to regard the
+subject in the same light.  Holland and England were embarked in one
+boat, and were to sink or swim together.  It was waste of time to wrangle
+so fiercely over pounds and shillings, but the fault was not to be
+exclusively imputed to the one side or the other.  There were bitter
+recriminations, particularly on the part of Elizabeth, for it was not
+safe to touch too closely either the pride or the pocket of that frugal
+and despotic heroine.  "The two thousand pounds promised by the States to
+Norris upon the muster of the two thousand volunteers," said Walsingham,
+"were not paid.  Her Majesty is not a little offended therewith, seeing
+how little care they have to yield her satisfaction, which she imputeth
+to proceed rather from contempt, than from necessity.  If it should fall
+out, however, to be such as by them is pretended, then doth she conceive
+her bargain to be very ill made, to join her fortune with so weak and
+broken an estate."  Already there were indications that the innocent
+might be made to suffer for the short-comings of the real culprits; nor
+would it be, the first time, or by any means the last, for Davison to
+appear in the character of a scape-goat.
+
+"Surely, sir," continued Mr. Secretary, "it is a thing greatly to be
+feared that the contributions they will yield will fall not more true in
+paper than in payment; which if it should so happen, it would turn some
+to blame, whereof you among others are to bear your part."
+
+And thus the months of September and of October wore away, and the
+ratifications of the treaty had not arrived from the Netherlands.
+Elizabeth became furious, and those of the Netherland deputation who had
+remained in England were at their wits' end to appease her choler.  No
+news arrived for many weeks.  Those were not the days of steam and
+magnetic telegraphs--inventions by which the nature of man and the aspect
+of history seem altered--and the Queen had nothing for it but to fret,
+and the envoys to concert with her ministers expedients to mitigate her
+spleen.  Towards the end of the month, the commissioners chartered a
+vessel which they despatched for news to Holland.  On his way across the
+sea the captain was hailed on the 28th October by a boat, in which one
+Hans Wyghans was leisurely proceeding to England with Netherland
+despatches dated on the 5th of the same month.  This was the freshest
+intelligence that had yet been received.
+
+So soon as the envoys were put in possession of the documents, they
+obtained an audience of the Queen.  This was the last day of October.
+Elizabeth read her letters, and listened to the apologies made by the
+deputies for the delay with anything but a benignant countenance.
+Then, with much vehemence of language, and manifestations of ill-temper,
+she expressed her displeasure at the dilatoriness of the States.  Having
+sent so many troops, and so many gentlemen of quality, she had considered
+the whole affair concluded.
+
+"I have been unhandsomely treated," she said, "and not as comports with a
+prince of my quality.  My inclination for your support--because you show
+yourselves unworthy of so great benefits--will be entirely destroyed,
+unless you deal with me and mine more worthily for the future than you
+have done in the past.  Through my great and especial affection for
+your welfare, I had ordered the Earl of Leicester to proceed to the
+Netherlands, and conduct your affairs; a man of such quality as all the
+world knows, and one whom I love, as if he were my own brother.  He was
+getting himself ready in all diligence, putting himself in many perils
+through the practices of the enemy, and if I should have reason to
+believe that he would not be respected there according to his due,
+I should be indeed offended.  He and many others are not going thither
+to advance their own affairs, to make themselves rich, or because they
+have not means enough to live magnificently at home.  They proceed to the
+Netherlands from pure affection for your cause.  This is the case, too,
+with many other of my subjects, all dear to me, and of much worth.  For I
+have sent a fine heap of folk thither--in all, with those his Excellency
+is taking with him, not under ten thousand soldiers of the English
+nation.  This is no small succour, and no little unbaring of this realm
+of mine, threatened as it is with war from many quarters.  Yet I am
+seeking no sovereignty, nor anything else prejudicial to the freedom of
+your country.  I wish only, in your utmost need, to help you out of this
+lamentable war, to maintain for you liberty of conscience, and to see
+that law and justice are preserved."
+
+All this, and more, with great eagerness of expression and gesture, was
+urged by the Queen, much to the discomfiture of the envoys.  In vain they
+attempted to modify and to explain.  Their faltering excuses were swept
+rapidly away upon the current of royal wrath; until at last Elizabeth
+stormed herself into exhaustion and comparative tranquillity.  She then
+dismissed them with an assurance that her goodwill towards the States was
+not diminished, as would be found to be the case, did they not continue
+to prove themselves unworthy of her favour that a permanent force of five
+thousand foot and one thousand horse should serve in the Provinces at the
+Queen's expense; and that the cities of Flushing and Brill should be
+placed in her Majesty's hands until the entire reimbursement of the debt
+thus incurred by the States.  Elizabeth also--at last overcoming her
+reluctance--agreed that the force necessary to garrison these towns
+should form an additional contingent, instead of being deducted from the
+general auxiliary force.
+
+Count Maurice of Nassau had been confirmed by the States of Holland and
+Zeeland as permanent stadholder of those provinces.  This measure excited
+some suspicion on the part of Leicester, who, as it was now understood,
+was the "personage of quality" to be sent to the Netherlands as
+representative of the Queen's authority.  "Touching the election of Count
+Maurice," said the Earl, "I hope it will be no impairing of the authority
+heretofore allotted to me, for if it will be, I shall tarry but awhile."
+
+Nothing, however, could be more frank or chivalrously devoted than the
+language of Maurice to the Queen.  "Madam, if I have ever had occasion,"
+he wrote, "to thank God for his benefits, I confess that it was when,
+receiving in all humility the letters with which it pleased your Majesty
+to honour me, I learned that the great disaster of my lord and father's
+death had not diminished the debonaire affection and favour which it has
+always pleased your Majesty to manifest to my father's house.  It has
+been likewise grateful to me to learn that your Majesty, surrounded by so
+many great and important affairs, had been pleased to approve the command
+which the States-General have conferred upon me.  I am indeed grieved
+that my actions cannot correspond with the ardent desire which I feel to
+serve your Majesty and these Provinces, for which I hope that my extreme
+youth will be accepted as an excuse.  And although I find myself feeble
+enough for the charge thus imposed upon me, yet God will assist my
+efforts to supply by diligence and sincere intention the defect of the
+other qualities requisite for my thorough discharge of my duty to the
+contentment of your Majesty.  To fulfil these obligations, which are
+growing greater day by day, I trust to prove by my actions that I will
+never spare either my labour or life."
+
+When it was found that the important town of Flushing was required as
+part of the guaranty to the Queen, Maurice, as hereditary seignor and
+proprietor of the place--during the captivity of his elder brother in
+Spain--signified his concurrence in the transfer, together with the most
+friendly feelings towards the Earl of Leicester, and to Sir Philip
+Sidney, appointed English governor of the town.  He wrote to Davison,
+whom he called "one of the best and most certain friends that the house
+of Nassau possessed in England," begging that he would recommend the
+interests of the family to the Queen, "whose favour could do more than
+anything else in the world towards maintaining what remained of the
+dignity of their house."  After solemn deliberation with his step-mother,
+Louisa de Coligny, and the other members of his family, he made a formal
+announcement of adhesion on the part of the House of Nassau to the
+arrangements concluded with the English government, and asked the
+benediction of God upon the treaty.  While renouncing, for the moment,
+any compensation for his consent to the pledging of Flushing his
+"patrimonial property, and a place of such great importance"--he expressed
+a confidence that the long services of his father, as well as those which
+he himself hoped to render, would meet in time with "condign
+recognition."  He requested the Earl of Leicester to consider the
+friendship which had existed between himself and the late Prince of
+Orange, as an hereditary affection to be continued to the children, and
+he entreated the Earl to do him the honour in future to hold him as a
+son, and to extend to him counsel and authority; declaring, on his part,
+that he should ever deem it an honour to be allowed to call him father.
+And in order still more strongly to confirm his friendship, he begged Sir
+Philip Sidney to consider him as his brother, and as his companion in
+arms, promising upon his own part the most faithful friendship.  In the
+name of Louisa de Coligny, and of his whole family, he also particularly
+recommended to the Queen the interests of the eldest brother of the
+house, Philip William, "who had been so long and so iniquitously detained
+captive in Spain," and begged that, in case prisoners of war of high rank
+should fall into the hands of the English commanders, they might be
+employed as a means of effecting the liberation of that much-injured
+Prince.  He likewise desired the friendly offices of the Queen to protect
+the principality of Orange against the possible designs of the French
+monarch, and intimated that occasions might arise in which the
+confiscated estates of the family in Burgundy might be recovered through
+the influence of the Swiss cantons, particularly those of the Grisons and
+of Berne.
+
+And, in conclusion, in case the Queen should please--as both Count
+Maurice and the Princess of Orange desired with all their hearts--to
+assume the sovereignty of these Provinces, she was especially entreated
+graciously to observe those suggestions regarding the interests of the
+House of Nassau, which had been made in the articles of the treaty.
+
+Thus the path had been smoothed, mainly through the indefatigable energy
+of Davison.  Yet that envoy was not able to give satisfaction to his
+imperious and somewhat whimsical mistress, whose zeal seemed to cool in
+proportion to the readiness with which the obstacles to her wishes were
+removed.  Davison was, with reason, discontented.  He had done more than
+any other man either in England or the Provinces, to bring about a hearty
+cooperation in the common cause, and to allay mutual heart-burnings and
+suspicions.  He had also, owing to the negligence of the English
+treasurer for the Netherlands, and the niggardliness of Elizabeth, been
+placed in a position, of great financial embarrassment.  His situation
+was very irksome.
+
+"I mused at the sentence you sent me," he wrote, "for I know no cause her
+Majesty hath to shrink at her charges hitherto.  The treasure she hath
+yet disbursed here is not above five or six thousand pounds, besides that
+which I have been obliged to take up for the saving of her honour, and
+necessity of her service, in danger otherwise of some notable disgrace.
+I will not, for shame, say how I have been left here to myself."
+
+The delay in the formal appointment of Leicester, and, more particularly,
+of the governors for the cautionary towns, was the cause of great
+confusion and anarchy in the transitional condition of the country.
+"The burden I am driven to sustain," said Davison, "doth utterly weary
+me.  If Sir Philip Sidney were here, and if my Lord of Leicester follow
+not all the sooner, I would use her Majesty's liberty to return home.
+If her Majesty think me worthy the reputation of a poor, honest, and
+loyal servant, I have that contents me.  For the rest, I wish
+
+         'Vivere sine invidia, mollesque inglorius annos
+          Egigere, amicitias et mihi jungere pares.'"
+
+There was something almost prophetic in the tone which this faithful
+public servant--to whom, on more than one occasion, such hard measure was
+to be dealt--habitually adopted in his private letters and conversation.
+He did his work, but he had not his reward; and he was already weary of
+place without power, and industry without recognition.
+
+"For mine own particular," he said, "I will say with the poet,
+
+         'Crede mihi, bene qui latuit bene vixit,
+          Et intra fortunam debet quisque manere suam.'"
+
+For, notwithstanding the avidity with which Elizabeth had sought the
+cautionary towns, and the fierceness with which she had censured the
+tardiness of the States, she seemed now half inclined to drop the prize
+which she had so much coveted, and to imitate the very languor which she
+had so lately rebuked.  "She hath what she desired," said Davison, "and
+might yet have more, if this content her not.  Howsoever you value the
+places at home, they are esteemed here, by such as know them best, no
+little increase to her Majesty's honour, surety, and greatness, if she be
+as careful to keep them as happy in getting them.  Of this, our cold
+beginning doth already make me jealous."
+
+Sagacious and resolute Princess as she was, she showed something of
+feminine caprice upon this grave occasion.  Not Davison alone, but
+her most confidential ministers and favourites at home, were perplexed
+and provoked by her misplaced political coquetries.  But while the
+alternation of her hot and cold fits drove her most devoted courtiers out
+of patience, there was one symptom that remained invariable throughout
+all her paroxysms, the rigidity with which her hand was locked.
+Walsingham, stealthy enough when an advantage was to be gained by
+subtlety, was manful and determined in his dealings with his friends; and
+he had more than once been offended with Elizabeth's want of frankness in
+these transactions.
+
+"I find you grieved, and not without cause," he wrote to Davison, "in
+respect to the over thwart proceedings as well there as here.  The
+disorders in those countries would be easily redressed if we could take
+a thoroughly resolute course here--a matter that men may rather pray for
+than hope for.  It is very doubtful whether the action now in hand will
+be accompanied by very hard success, unless they of the country there may
+be drawn to bear the greatest part of the burden of the wars."
+
+And now the great favourite of all had received the appointment which he
+coveted.  The Earl of Leicester was to be Commander-in-Chief of her
+Majesty's forces in the Netherlands, and representative of her authority
+in those countries, whatever that office might prove to be.  The nature
+of his post was anomalous from the beginning.  It was environed with
+difficulties, not the least irritating of which proceeded from the
+captious spirit of the Queen.  The Earl was to proceed in great pomp to
+Holland, but the pomp was to be prepared mainly at his own expense.
+Besides the auxiliary forces that had been shipped during the latter
+period of the year, Leicester was raising a force of lancers, from four
+to eight hundred in number; but to pay for that levy he was forced to
+mortgage his own property, while the Queen not only refused to advance
+ready money, but declined endorsing his bills.
+
+It must be confessed that the Earl's courtship of Elizabeth was anything
+at that moment but a gentle dalliance.  In those thorny regions of
+finance were no beds of asphodel or amaranthine bowers.  There was no
+talk but of troopers, saltpetre, and sulphur, of books of assurance, and
+bills of exchange; and the aspect of Elizabeth, when the budget was under
+discussion, must effectually have neutralized for the time any very
+tender sentiment.  The sharpness with which she clipped Leicester's
+authority, when authority was indispensable to his dignity, and the heavy
+demands upon his resources that were the result of her avarice, were
+obstacles more than enough to the calm fruition of his triumphs.  He had
+succeeded, in appearance at least, in the great object of his ambition,
+this appointment to the Netherlands; but the appointment was no sinecure,
+and least of all a promising pecuniary speculation.  Elizabeth had told
+the envoys, with reason, that she was not sending forth that man--whom
+she loved as a brother--in order that he might make himself rich.  On
+the contrary, the Earl seemed likely to make himself comparatively poor
+before he got to the Provinces, while his political power, at the moment,
+did not seem of more hopeful growth.
+
+Leicester had been determined and consistent in this great enterprize
+from the beginning.  He felt intensely the importance of the crisis.  He
+saw that the time had come for swift and uncompromising action, and the
+impatience with which he bore the fetters imposed upon him may be easily
+conceived.
+
+"The cause is such," he wrote to Walsingham, "that I had as lief be dead
+as be in the case I shall be in if this restraint hold for taking the
+oath there, or if some more authority be not granted than I see her
+Majesty would I should have.  I trust you all will hold hard for this, or
+else banish me England withal.  I have sent you the books to be signed by
+her Majesty.  I beseech you return them with all haste, for I get no
+money till they be under seal."
+
+But her Majesty would not put them under her seal, much to the
+favourite's discomfiture.
+
+"Your letter yieldeth but cold answer," he wrote, two days afterwards.
+"Above all things yet that her Majesty doth stick at, I marvel most at
+her refusal to sign my book of assurance; for there passeth nothing in
+the earth against her profit by that act, nor any good to me but to
+satisfy the creditors, who were more scrupulous than needs.  I did
+complain to her of those who did refuse to lend me money, and she was
+greatly offended with them.  But if her Majesty were to stay this, if I
+were half seas over, I must of necessity come back again, for I may not
+go without money.  I beseech, if the matter be refused by her, bestow a
+post on me to Harwich.  I lie this night at Sir John Peters', and but for
+this doubt I had been to-morrow at Harwich.  I pray God make you all that
+be counsellors plain and direct to the furtherance of all good service
+for her Majesty and the realm; and if it be the will of God to plague us
+that go, and you that tarry, for our sins, yet let us not be negligent to
+seek to please the Lord."
+
+The Earl was not negligent at any rate in seeking to please the Queen,
+but she was singularly hard to please.  She had never been so uncertain
+in her humours as at this important crisis.  She knew, and had publicly
+stated as much, that she was "embarking in a war with the greatest
+potentate in Europe;" yet now that the voyage had fairly commenced, and
+the waves were rolling around her, she seemed anxious to put back to the
+shore.  For there was even a whisper of peace-negotiations, than which
+nothing could have been more ill-timed.  "I perceive by your message,"
+said Leicester to Walsingham, "that your peace with Spain will go fast
+on, but this is not the way."  Unquestionably it was not the way, and the
+whisper was, for the moment at least, suppressed.  Meanwhile Leicester
+had reached Harwich, but the post "bestowed on him," contained, as usual,
+but cold comfort.  He was resolved, however, to go manfully forward, and
+do the work before him, until the enterprise should prove wholly
+impracticable.  It is by the light afforded by the secret never-published
+correspondence of the period with which we are now occupied, that the
+true characteristics of Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester, and other
+prominent personages, must be scanned, and the study is most important,
+for it was by those characteristics, in combination with other human
+elements embodied in distant parts of Christendom, that the destiny of
+the world was determined.  In that age, more than in our own perhaps, the
+influence of the individual was widely and intensely felt.  Historical
+chymistry is only rendered possible by a detection of the subtle
+emanations, which it was supposed would for ever elude analysis, but
+which survive in those secret, frequently ciphered intercommunications.
+Philip II., William of Orange, Queen Elizabeth, Alexander Farnese, Robert
+Dudley, never dreamed--when disclosing their inmost thoughts to their
+trusted friends at momentous epochs--that the day would come on earth
+when those secrets would be no longer hid from the patient enquirer after
+truth.  Well for those whose reputations before the judgment-seat of
+history appear even comparatively pure, after impartial comparison of
+their motives with their deeds.
+
+"For mine own part, Mr. Secretary," wrote Leicester, "I am resolved to do
+that which shall be fit for a poor man's honour, and honestly to obey her
+Majesty's commandment.  Let the rest fall out to others, it shall not
+concern me.  I mean to assemble myself to the camp, where my authority
+must wholly lie, and will there do that which in good reason and duty I
+shall be bound to do.  I am sorry that her Majesty doth deal in this
+sort, and if content to overthrow so willingly her own cause.  If there
+can be means to salve this sore, I will.  If not,--I tell you what shall
+become of me, as truly as God lives."
+
+Yet it is remarkable, that, in spite of this dark intimation, the Earl,
+after all, did not state what was to become of him if the sore was not
+salved.  He was, however, explicit enough as to the causes of his grief,
+and very vehement in its manifestations.  "Another matter which shall
+concern me deeply," he said, "and all the subjects there, is now by you
+to be carefully considered, which is--money.  I find that the money is
+already gone, and this now given to the treasurer will do no more than
+pay to the end of the month.  I beseech you look to it, for by the Lord!
+I will bear no more so miserable burdens; for if I have no money to pay
+them, let them come home, or what else.  I will not starve them, nor stay
+them.  There was never gentleman nor general so sent out as I am; and if
+neither Queen nor council care to help it, but leave men desperate, as I
+see men shall be, that inconvenience will follow which I trust in the
+Lord I shall be free of."
+
+He then used language about himself, singularly resembling the
+phraseology employed by Elizabeth concerning him, when she was scolding
+the Netherland commissioners for the dilatoriness and parsimony of the
+States.
+
+"For mine own part," he said, "I have taken upon me this voyage, not as a
+desperate nor forlorn man, but as one as well contented with his place
+and calling at home as any subject was ever.  My cause was not, nor is,
+any other than the Lord's and the Queen's.  If the Queen fail, yet must I
+trust in the Lord, and on Him, I see, I am wholly to depend.  I can say
+no more, but pray to God that her Majesty never send General again as I
+am sent.  And yet I will do what I can for her and my country."
+
+The Earl had raised a choice body of lancers to accompany him to the
+Netherlands, but the expense of the levy had come mainly upon his own
+purse.  The Queen had advanced five thousand pounds, which was much less
+than the requisite amount, while for the balance required, as well as for
+other necessary expenses, she obstinately declined to furnish Leicester
+with funds, even refusing him, at last, a temporary loan.  She violently
+accused him of cheating her, reclaimed money which he had wrung from her
+on good security, and when he had repaid the sum, objected to give him a
+discharge.  As for receiving anything by way of salary, that was quite
+out of the question.  At that moment he would have been only too happy to
+be reimbursed for what he was already out of pocket.  Whether Elizabeth
+loved Leicester as a brother, or better than a brother, may be a
+historical question, but it is no question at all that she loved money
+better than she did Leicester.  Unhappy the man, whether foe or
+favourite, who had pecuniary transactions with her Highness.
+
+"I am sorry," said the Earl, "that her Majesty hath so hard a conceit of
+me, that I should go about to cozen her, as though I had got a fee simple
+from her, and had it not before, or that I had not had her full release
+for payment of the money I borrowed.  I pray God, any that did put such
+scruple in her, have not deceived her more than I have done.  I thank God
+I have a clear conscience for deceiving her, and for money matters.  I
+think I may justly say I have been the only cause of more gain to her
+coffers than all her chequer-men have been.  But so is the hap of some,
+that all they do is nothing, and others that do nothing, do all, and have
+all the thanks.  But I would this were all the grief I carry with me; but
+God is my comfort, and on Him I cast all, for there is no surety in this
+world beside.  What hope of help can I have, finding her Majesty so
+strait with myself as she is?  I did trust that--the cause being hers and
+this realm's--if I could have gotten no money of her merchants, she would
+not have refused to have lent money on so easy prized land as mine, to
+have been gainer and no loser by it.  Her Majesty, I see, will make trial
+of me how I love her, and what will discourage me from her service.  But
+resolved am I that no worldly respect shall draw me back from my faithful
+discharge of my duty towards her, though she shall show to hate me, as it
+goeth very near; for I find no love or favour at all.  And I pray you to
+remember that I have not had one penny of her Majesty towards all these
+charges of mine--not one penny-and, by all truth, I have already laid out
+above five thousand pounds.  Her Majesty appointed eight thousand pounds
+for the levy, which was after the rate of four hundred horse, and, upon
+my fidelity, there is shipped, of horse of service, eight hundred, so
+that there ought eight thousand more to have been paid me.  No general
+that ever went that was not paid to the uttermost of these things before
+he went, but had cash for his provision, which her Majesty would not
+allow me--not one groat.  Well, let all this go, it is like I shall be
+the last shall bear this, and some must suffer for the people.  Good Mr.
+Secretary, let her Majesty know this, for I deserve God-a-mercy, at the
+least."
+
+Leicester, to do him justice, was thoroughly alive to the importance of
+the Crisis.  On political principle, at any rate, he was a firm supporter
+of Protestantism, and even of Puritanism; a form of religion which
+Elizabeth detested, and in which, with keen instinct, she detected a
+mutinous element against the divine right of kings.  The Earl was quite
+convinced of the absolute necessity that England should take up the
+Netherland matter most vigorously, on pain of being herself destroyed.
+All the most sagacious counsellors of Elizabeth were day by day more and
+more confirmed in this opinion, and were inclined heartily to support the
+new Lieutenant-General.  As for Leicester himself, while fully conscious
+of his own merits, and of his firm intent to do his duty, he was also
+grateful to those who were willing to befriend him in his arduous
+enterprise.
+
+"I have received a letter from my Lord Willoughby," he said, "to my
+seeming, as wise a letter as I have read a great while, and not unfit for
+her Majesty's sight.  I pray God open her eyes, that they may behold her
+present estate indeed, and the wonderful means that God doth offer unto
+her.  If she lose these opportunities, who can look for other but
+dishonour and destruction?  My Lord Treasurer hath also written me a most
+hearty and comfortable letter touching this voyage, not only in showing
+the importance of it, both for her Majesty's own safety and the realm's,
+but that the whole state of religion doth depend thereon, and therefore
+doth faithfully promise his whole and best assistance for the supply of
+all wants.  I was not a little glad to receive such a letter from him at
+this time."
+
+And from on board the 'Amity,' ready to set sail, he expressed his thanks
+to Burghley, at finding him so "earnestly bent for the good supply and
+maintenance of us poor men sent in her Majesty's service and our
+country's."
+
+As for Walsingham, earnestly a defender of the Netherland cause from the
+beginning, he was wearied and disgusted with fighting against the Queen's
+parsimony and caprice.  "He is utterly discouraged," said Leicester to
+Burghley, "to deal any more in these causes.  I pray God your Lordship
+grow not so too; for then all will to the ground; on my poor side
+especially."
+
+And to Sir Francis himself, he wrote, even as his vessel was casting off
+her moorings:--"I am sorry, Mr. Secretary," he said, "to find you so
+discouraged, and that her Majesty doth deem you so partial.  And yet my
+suits to her Majesty have not of late been so many nor great, while the
+greatest, I am sure, are for her Majesty's own service.  For my part, I
+will discharge my duty as far as my poor ability and capacity shall
+serve, and if I shall not have her gracious and princely support and
+supply, the lack will be to us, for the present, but the shame and
+dishonour will be hers."
+
+And with these parting words the Earl committed himself to the December
+seas.
+
+Davison had been meantime doing his best to prepare the way in the
+Netherlands for the reception of the English administration.  What man
+could do, without money and without authority, he had done.  The
+governors for Flushing and the Brill, Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Thomas
+Cecil, eldest son of Lord Burghley, had been appointed, but had not
+arrived.  Their coming was anxiously looked for, as during the interval
+the condition of the garrisons was deplorable.  The English treasurer--
+by some unaccountable and unpardonable negligence, for which it is to be
+feared the Queen was herself to blame--was not upon the spot, and Davison
+was driven out of his wits to devise expedients to save the soldiers from
+starving.
+
+"Your Lordship has seen by my former letters," wrote the Ambassador to
+Burghley from Flushing, "what shift I have been driven to for the relief
+of this garrison here, left 'a l'abandon;' without which mean they had
+all fallen into wild and shameful disorder, to her Majesty's great
+disgrace and overthrow of her service.  I am compelled, unless I would
+see the poor men famish, and her Majesty aishonournd, to try my poor
+credit for them."
+
+General Sir John Norris was in the Betuwe, threatening Nvymegen, a town
+which he found "not so flexible as he had hoped;" and, as he had but two
+thousand men, while Alexander Farnese was thought to be marching upon him
+with ten thousand, his position caused great anxiety.  Meantime, his
+brother, Sir Edward, a hot-headed and somewhat wilful young man, who
+"thought that all was too little for him," was giving the sober Davison a
+good deal of trouble.  He had got himself into a quarrel, both with that
+envoy and with Roger Williams, by claiming the right to control military
+matters in Flushing until the arrival of Sidney.  "If Sir Thomas and Sir
+Philip," said Davison, "do not make choice of more discreet, staid, and
+expert commanders than those thrust into these places by Mr. Norris, they
+will do themselves a great deal of worry, and her Majesty a great deal of
+hurt."
+
+As might naturally be expected, the lamentable condition of the English
+soldiers, unpaid and starving--according to the report of the Queen's
+envoy himself--exercised anything but a salutary influence upon the minds
+of the Netherlanders and perpetually fed the hopes of the Spanish
+partizans that a composition with Philip and Parma would yet take place.
+On the other hand, the States had been far more liberal in raising funds
+than the Queen had shown herself to be, and were somewhat indignant at
+being perpetually taunted with parsimony by her agents.  Davison was
+offended by the injustice of Norris in this regard.  "The complaints
+which the General hath made of the States to her Majesty," said he, "are
+without cause, and I think, when your Lordship shall examine it well, you
+will find it no little sum they have already disbursed unto him for their
+part.  Wherein, nevertheless, if they had been looked into, they were
+somewhat the more excusable, considering how ill our people at her
+Majesty's entertainment were satisfied hitherto--a thing that doth much
+prejudice her reputation, and hurt her service."
+
+At last, however, the die had been cast.  The Queen, although rejecting
+the proposed sovereignty of the Netherlands, had espoused their cause,
+by solemn treaty of alliance, and thereby had thrown down the gauntlet
+to Spain.  She deemed it necessary, therefore, out of respect for the
+opinions of mankind, to issue a manifesto of her motives to the world.
+The document was published, simultaneously in Dutch, French, English, and
+Italian.
+
+In this solemn state-paper she spoke of the responsibility of princes
+to the Almighty, of the ancient friendship between England and the
+Netherlands, of the cruelty and tyranny of the Spaniards, of their
+violation of the liberties of the Provinces, of their hanging, beheading,
+banishing without law and against justice, in the space of a few months,
+so many of the highest nobles in the land.  Although in the beginning of
+the cruel persecution, the pretext had been the maintenance of the
+Catholic religion, yet it was affirmed they had not failed to exercise
+their barbarity upon Catholics also, and even upon ecclesiastics.  Of the
+principal persons put to death, no one, it was asserted, had been more
+devoted to the ancient church than was the brave Count Egmont, who, for
+his famous victories in the service of Spain, could never be forgotten in
+veracious history any more than could be the cruelty of his execution.
+
+The land had been made desolate, continued the Queen, with fire, sword,
+famine, and murder.  These misfortunes had ever been bitterly deplored by
+friendly nations, and none could more truly regret such sufferings than
+did the English, the oldest allies, and familiar neighbours of the
+Provinces, who had been as close to them in the olden time by community
+of connexion and language, as man and wife.  She declared that she had
+frequently, by amicable embassies, warned her brother of Spain--speaking
+to him like a good, dear sister and neighbour--that unless he restrained
+the cruelty of his governors and their soldiers, he was sure to force his
+Provinces into allegiance to some other power.  She expressed the danger
+in which she should be placed if the Spaniards succeeded in establishing
+their absolute government in the Netherlands, from which position their
+attacks upon England would be incessant.  She spoke of the enterprise
+favoured and set on foot by the Pope and by Spain, against the kingdom of
+Ireland.  She alluded to the dismissal of the Spanish envoy, Don
+Bernardino de Mendoza, who had been treated by her with great regard for
+a long time, but who had been afterwards discovered in league with
+certain ill-disposed and seditious subjects of hers, and with publicly
+condemned traitors.  That envoy had arranged a plot according to which,
+as appeared by his secret despatches, an invasion of England by a force
+of men, coming partly from Spain, and partly from the Netherlands, might
+be successfully managed, and he had even noted down the necessary number
+of ships and men, with various other details.  Some of the conspirators
+had fled, she observed, and were now consorting with Mendoza, who, after
+his expulsion from England, had been appointed ambassador in Paris; while
+some had been arrested, and had confessed the plot.  So soon as this
+envoy had been discovered to be the chief of a rebellion and projected
+invasion, the Queen had requested him, she said, to leave the kingdom
+within a reasonable time, as one who was the object of deadly hatred to
+the English people.  She had then sent an agent to Spain, in order to
+explain the whole transaction.  That agent had not been allowed even to
+deliver despatches to the King.
+
+When the French had sought, at a previous period, to establish their
+authority in Scotland, even as the Spaniards had attempted to do in the
+Netherlands, and through the enormous ambition of the House of Guise, to
+undertake the invasion of her kingdom, she had frustrated their plots,
+even as she meant to suppress these Spanish conspiracies.  She spoke of
+the Prince of Parma as more disposed by nature to mercy and humanity,
+than preceding governors had been, but as unable to restrain the blood-
+thirstiness of Spaniards, increased by long indulgence.  She avowed, in
+assuming the protection of the Netherlands, and in sending her troops to
+those countries, but three objects: peace, founded upon the recognition
+of religious freedom in the Provinces, restoration of their ancient
+political liberties, and security for England.  Never could there be
+tranquillity, for her own realm until these neighbouring countries were
+tranquil.  These were her ends and aims, despite all that slanderous
+tongues might invent.  The world, she observed, was overflowing with
+blasphemous libels, calumnies, scandalous pamphlets; for never had the
+Devil been so busy in supplying evil tongues with venom against the
+professors of the Christian religion.
+
+She added that in a pamphlet, ascribed to the Archbishop of Milan, just
+published, she had been accused of ingratitude to the King of Spain, and
+of plots to take the life of Alexander Farnese.  In answer to the first
+charge, she willingly acknowledged her obligations to the King of Spain
+during the reign of her sister.  She pronounced it, however, an absolute
+falsehood that he had ever saved her life, as if she had ever been
+condemned to death.  She likewise denied earnestly the charge regarding
+the Prince of Parma.  She protested herself incapable of such a crime,
+besides declaring that he had never given her offence.  On the contrary,
+he was a man whom she had ever honoured for the rare qualities that she
+had noted in him, and for which he had deservedly acquired a high
+reputation.
+
+Such, in brief analysis, was the memorable Declaration of Elizabeth in
+favour of the Netherlands--a document which was a hardly disguised
+proclamation of war against Philip.  In no age of the world could an
+unequivocal agreement to assist rebellious subjects, with men and money,
+against their sovereign, be considered otherwise than as a hostile
+demonstration.  The King of Spain so regarded the movement, and forthwith
+issued a decree, ordering the seizure of all English as well as all
+Netherland vessels within his ports, together with the arrest of persons,
+and confiscation of property.
+
+Subsequently to the publication of the Queen's memorial, and before the
+departure of the Earl of Leicester, Sir Philip Sidney, having received
+his appointment, together with the rank of general of cavalry, arrived in
+the Isle of Walcheren, as governor of Flushing, at the head of a portion
+of the English contingent.
+
+It is impossible not to contemplate with affection so radiant a figure,
+shining through the cold mists of that Zeeland winter, and that distant
+and disastrous epoch.  There is hardly a character in history upon which
+the imagination can dwell with more unalloyed delight.  Not in romantic
+fiction was there ever created a more attractive incarnation of martial
+valour, poetic genius, and purity of heart.  If the mocking spirit of the
+soldier of Lepanto could "smile chivalry away," the name alone of his
+English contemporary is potent enough to conjure it back again, so long
+as humanity is alive to the nobler impulses.
+
+"I cannot pass him over in silence," says a dusty chronicler, "that
+glorious star, that lively pattern of virtue, and the lovely joy of all
+the learned sort.  It was God's will that he should be born into the
+world, even to show unto our age a sample of ancient virtue."  The
+descendant of an ancient Norman race, and allied to many of the proudest
+nobles in England, Sidney himself was but a commoner, a private
+individual, a soldier of fortune.  He was now in his thirty second year,
+and should have been foremost among the states men of Elizabeth, had it
+not been, according to Lord Bacon, a maxim of the Cecils, that "able men
+should be by design and of purpose suppressed."  Whatever of truth there
+may have been in the bitter remark, it is certainly strange that a man so
+gifted as Sidney--of whom his father-in-law Walsingham had declared, that
+"although he had influence in all countries, and a hand upon all affairs,
+his Philip did far overshoot him with his own bow"--should have passed so
+much of his life in retirement, or in comparatively insignificant
+employments.  The Queen, as he himself observed, was most apt to
+interpret everything to his disadvantage.  Among those who knew him well,
+there seems never to have been a dissenting voice.  His father, Sir Henry
+Sidney, lord-deputy of Ireland, and president of Wales, a states man of
+accomplishments and experience, called him "lumen familiae suae," and
+said of him, with pardonable pride, "that he had the most virtues which
+he had ever found in any man; that he was the very formular that all
+well-disposed young gentlemen do form their manners and life by."
+
+The learned Hubert Languet, companion of Melancthon, tried friend of
+William the Silent, was his fervent admirer and correspondent.  The great
+Prince of Orange held him in high esteem, and sent word to Queen
+Elizabeth, that having himself been an actor in the most important
+affairs of Europe, and acquainted with her foremost men, he could "pledge
+his credit that her Majesty had one of the ripest and greatest
+councillors of state in Sir Philip Sidney that lived in Europe."
+
+The incidents of his brief and brilliant life, up to his arrival upon the
+fatal soil of the Netherlands, are too well known to need recalling.
+Adorned with the best culture that, in a learned age, could be obtained
+in the best seminaries of his native country, where, during childhood and
+youth, he had been distinguished for a "lovely and familiar gravity
+beyond his years," he rapidly acquired the admiration of his comrades and
+the esteem of all his teachers.
+
+Travelling for three years, he made the acquaintance and gained the
+personal regard of such opposite characters as Charles IX. of France,
+Henry of Navarre, Don John of Austria, and William of Orange, and
+perfected his accomplishments by residence and study, alternately, in
+courts, camps, and learned universities.  He was in Paris during the
+memorable days of August, 1572, and narrowly escaped perishing in the
+St. Bartholomew Massacre.  On his return, he was, for a brief period,
+the idol of the English court, which, it was said, "was maimed without
+his company."  At the age of twenty-one he was appointed special envoy to
+Vienna, ostensibly for the purpose of congratulating the Emperor Rudolph
+upon his accession, but in reality that he might take the opportunity of
+sounding the secret purposes of the Protestant princes of Germany, in
+regard to the great contest of the age.  In this mission, young as he
+was, he acquitted himself, not only to the satisfaction, but to the
+admiration of Walsingham, certainly a master himself in that occult
+science, the diplomacy of the sixteenth century.  "There hath not been,"
+said he, "any gentleman, I am sure, that hath gone through so honourable
+a charge with as great commendations as he."
+
+When the memorable marriage-project of Queen Elizabeth with Anjou seemed
+about to take effect, he denounced the scheme in a most spirited and
+candid letter, addressed to her Majesty; nor is it recorded that the
+Queen was offended with his frankness.  Indeed we are informed that
+"although he found a sweet stream of sovereign humours in that well-
+tempered lady to run against him, yet found he safety in herself against
+that selfness which appeared to threaten him in her."  Whatever this
+might mean, translated out of euphuism into English, it is certain that
+his conduct was regarded with small favour by the court-grandees, by whom
+"worth, duty, and justice, were looked upon with no other eyes than
+Lamia's."
+
+The difficulty of swimming against that sweet stream of sovereign humours
+in the well-tempered Elizabeth, was aggravated by his quarrel, at this
+period, with the magnificent Oxford.  A dispute at a tennis-court, where
+many courtiers and foreigners were looking on, proceeded rapidly from one
+extremity to another.  The Earl commanded Sir Philip to leave the place.
+Sir Philip responded, that if he were of a mind that he should go, he
+himself was of a mind that he should remain; adding that if he had
+entreated, where he had no right to command, he might have done more than
+"with the scourge of fury."--"This answer," says Fulke Greville, in a
+style worthy of Don Adriano de Armado, "did, like a bellows, blowing up
+the sparks of excess already kindled, make my lord scornfully call Sir
+Philip by the name of puppy.  In which progress of heat, as the tempest
+grew more and more vehement within, so did their hearts breathe out their
+perturbations in a more loud and shrill accent;" and so on; but the
+impending duel was the next day forbidden by express command of her
+Majesty.  Sidney, not feeling the full force of the royal homily upon the
+necessity of great deference from gentlemen to their superiors in rank,
+in order to protect all orders from the insults of plebeians, soon
+afterwards retired from the court.  To his sylvan seclusion the world
+owes the pastoral and chivalrous romance of the 'Arcadia' and to the
+pompous Earl, in consequence, an emotion of gratitude.  Nevertheless,
+it was in him to do, rather than to write, and humanity seems defrauded,
+when forced to accept the 'Arcadia,' the `Defence of Poesy,' and the
+'Astrophel and Stella,' in discharge of its claims upon so great and pure
+a soul.
+
+Notwithstanding this disagreeable affair, and despite the memorable
+letter against Anjou, Sir Philip suddenly flashes upon us again, as one
+of the four challengers in a tournament to honour the Duke's presence in
+England.  A vision of him in blue gilded armour--with horses caparisoned
+in cloth of gold, pearl-embroidered, attended by pages in cloth of
+silver, Venetian hose, laced hats, and by gentlemen, yeomen, and
+trumpeters, in yellow velvet cassocks, buskins, and feathers--as one of
+"the four fostered children of virtuous desire" (to wit, Anjou) storming
+"the castle of perfect Beauty" (to wit, Queen Elizabeth, aetatis 47)
+rises out of the cloud-dusts of ancient chronicle for a moment, and then
+vanishes into air again.
+
+         "Having that day his hand, his horse, his lance,
+            Guided so well that they attained the prize
+            Both in the judgment of our English eyes,
+          But of some sent by that sweet enemy, France,"
+
+as he chivalrously sings, he soon afterwards felt inclined for wider
+fields of honourable adventure.  It was impossible that knight-errant so
+true should not feel keenest sympathy with an oppressed people struggling
+against such odds, as the Netherlanders were doing in their contest with
+Spain.  So soon as the treaty with England was arranged, it was his
+ambition to take part in the dark and dangerous enterprise, and, being
+son-in-law to Walsingham and nephew to Leicester, he had a right to
+believe that his talents and character would, on this occasion, be
+recognised.  But, like his "very friend," Lord Willoughby, he was "not of
+the genus Reptilia, and could neither creep nor crouch," and he failed,
+as usual, to win his way to the Queen's favour.  The governorship of
+Flushing was denied him, and, stung to the heart by such neglect, he
+determined to seek his fortune beyond the seas.
+
+"Sir Philip hath taken a very hard resolution," wrote Walsingham to
+Davison, "to accompany Sir Francis Drake in this voyage, moved thereto
+for that he saw her Majesty disposed to commit the charge of Flushing
+unto some other; which he reputed would fall out greatly to his disgrace,
+to see another preferred before him, both for birth and judgment inferior
+unto him.  The despair thereof and the disgrace that he doubted he should
+receive have carried him into a different course."
+
+The Queen, however, relenting at last, interfered to frustrate his
+design.  Having thus balked his ambition in the Indian seas, she felt
+pledged to offer him the employment which he had originally solicited,
+and she accordingly conferred upon him the governorship of Flushing, with
+the rank of general of horse, under the Earl of Leicester.  In the latter
+part of November, he cast anchor, in the midst of a violent storm, at
+Rammekins, and thence came to the city of his government.  Young, and
+looking even younger than his years--"not only of an excellent wit, but
+extremely beautiful of face"--with delicately chiselled Anglo-Norman
+features, smooth fair cheek, a faint moustache, blue eyes, and a mass of
+amber-coloured hair; such was the author of 'Arcadia' and the governor of
+Flushing.
+
+And thus an Anglo-Norman representative of ancient race had come back to
+the home of his ancestors.  Scholar, poet, knight-errant, finished
+gentleman, he aptly typified the result of seven centuries of
+civilization upon the wild Danish pirate.  For among those very
+quicksands of storm-beaten Walachria that wondrous Normandy first came
+into existence whose wings were to sweep over all the high places of
+Christendom.  Out of these creeks, lagunes, and almost inaccessible
+sandbanks, those bold freebooters sailed forth on their forays against
+England, France, and other adjacent countries, and here they brought and
+buried the booty of many a wild adventure.  Here, at a later day, Rollo
+the Dane had that memorable dream of leprosy, the cure of which was the
+conversion of North Gaul into Normandy, of Pagans into Christians, and
+the subsequent conquest of every throne in Christendom from Ultima Thule
+to Byzantium.  And now the descendant of those early freebooters had come
+back to the spot, at a moment when a wider and even more imperial swoop
+was to be made by their modern representatives.  For the sea-kings of the
+sixteenth century--the Drakes, Hawkinses, Frobishers, Raleighs,
+Cavendishes--the De Moors, Heemskerks, Barendts--all sprung of the old
+pirate-lineage, whether called Englanders or Hollanders, and instinct
+with the same hereditary love of adventure, were about to wrestle with
+ancient tyrannies, to explore the most inaccessible regions, and to
+establish new commonwealths in worlds undreamed of by their ancestors--
+to accomplish, in short, more wondrous feats than had been attempted by
+the Knuts, and Rollos, Rurics, Ropers, and Tancreds, of an earlier age.
+
+The place which Sidney was appointed to govern was one of great military
+and commercial importance.  Flushing was the key to the navigation of the
+North Seas, ever since the disastrous storm of a century before, in which
+a great trading city on the outermost verge of the island had been
+swallowed bodily by the ocean.  The Emperor had so thoroughly recognized
+its value, as to make special mention of the necessity for its
+preservation, in his private instructions to Philip, and now the Queen of
+England had confided it to one who was competent to appreciate and to
+defend the prize.  "How great a jewel this place (Flushing) is to the
+crown of England," wrote Sidney to his Uncle Leicester, "and to the
+Queen's safety, I need not now write it to your lordship, who knows it
+so well.  Yet I must needs say, the better I know it, the more I find
+the preciousness of it."
+
+He did not enter into his government, however, with much pomp and
+circumstance, but came afoot into Flushing in the midst of winter and
+foul weather.  "Driven to land at Rammekins," said he, "because the wind
+began to rise in such sort as from thence our mariners durst not enter
+the town, I came with as dirty a walk as ever poor governor entered his
+charge withal."  But he was cordially welcomed, nor did he arrive by any
+means too soon.
+
+"I find the people very glad of our coming," he said, "and promise myself
+as much surety in keeping this town, as popular good-will, gotten by
+light hopes, and by as slight conceits, may breed; for indeed the
+garrison is far too weak to command by authority, which is pity . . . .
+I think, truly, that if my coming had been longer delayed, some
+alteration would have followed; for the truth is, this people is weary
+of war, and if they do not see such a course taken as may be likely to
+defend them, they will in a sudden give over the cause. . . . All will
+be lost if government be not presently used."
+
+He expressed much anxiety for the arrival of his uncle, with which
+sentiments he assured the Earl that the Netherlanders fully sympathized.
+"Your Lordship's coming," he said, "is as much longed for as Messias is
+of the Jews.  It is indeed most necessary that your Lordship make great
+speed to reform both the Dutch and English abuses."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Able men should be by design and of purpose suppressed
+He did his work, but he had not his reward
+Matter that men may rather pray for than hope for
+Not of the genus Reptilia, and could neither creep nor crouch
+Others that do nothing, do all, and have all the thanks
+Peace-at-any-price party
+The busy devil of petty economy
+Thought that all was too little for him
+Weary of place without power
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v43
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 44, 1585-1586
+
+
+CHAPTER VII., Part 1.
+
+
+     The Earl of Leicester--His Triumphal Entrance into Holland--English
+     Spies about him--Importance of Holland to England--Spanish Schemes
+     for invading England--Letter of the Grand Commander--Perilous
+     Position of England--True Nature of the Contest--wealth and Strength
+     of the Provinces--Power of the Dutch and English People--Affection
+     of the Hollanders for the Queen--Secret Purposes of Leicester--
+     Wretched condition of English Troops--The Nassaus and Hohenlo--The
+     Earl's Opinion of them--Clerk and Killigrew--Interview with the
+     States Government General offered to the Earl--Discussions on the
+     Subject--The Earl accepts the Office--His Ambition and Mistakes--His
+     Installation at the Hague--Intimations of the Queen's Displeasure--
+     Deprecatory Letters of Leicester--Davison's Mission to England--
+     Queen's Anger and Jealousy--Her angry Letters to the Earl and the
+     States--Arrival of Davison--Stormy Interview with the Queen--The
+     second one is calmer--Queen's Wrath somewhat mitigated--Mission of
+     Heneago to the States--Shirley sent to England by the Earl--His
+     Interview with Elizabeth
+
+
+At last the Earl of Leicester came.  Embarking at Harwich, with a fleet
+of fifty ships, and attended "by the flower and chief gallants of
+England"--the Lords Sheffield, Willoughby, North, Burroughs, Sir Gervase
+Clifton, Sir William Russell, Sir Robert Sidney, and others among the
+number--the new lieutenant-general of the English forces in the
+Netherlands arrived on the 19th December, 1585, at Flushing.
+
+His nephew, Sir Philip Sidney, and Count Maurice of Nassau, with a body
+of troops and a great procession of civil functionaries; were in
+readiness to receive him, and to escort him to the lodgings prepared for
+him.
+
+Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was then fifty-four years of age.
+There are few personages in English history whose adventures, real or
+fictitious, have been made more familiar to the world than his have been,
+or whose individuality has been presented in more picturesque fashion, by
+chronicle, tragedy, or romance.  Born in the same day of the month and
+hour of the day with the Queen, but two years before her birth, the
+supposed synastry of their destinies might partly account, in that age of
+astrological superstition, for the influence which he perpetually
+exerted.  They had, moreover, been fellow-prisoners together, in the
+commencement of the reign of Mary, and it is possible that he may have
+been the medium through which the indulgent expressions of Philip II.
+were conveyed to the Princess Elizabeth.
+
+His grandfather, John Dudley, that "caterpillar of the commonwealth," who
+lost his head in the first year of Henry VIII.  as a reward for the
+grist which he brought to the mill of Henry VII.; his father, the mighty
+Duke of Northumberland, who rose out of the wreck of an obscure and
+ruined family to almost regal power, only to perish, like his
+predecessor, upon the scaffold, had bequeathed him nothing save rapacity,
+ambition, and the genius to succeed.  But Elizabeth seemed to ascend the
+throne only to bestow gifts upon her favourite.  Baronies and earldoms,
+stars and garters, manors and monopolies, castles and forests, church
+livings and college chancellorships, advowsons and sinecures, emoluments
+and dignities, the most copious and the most exalted, were conferred upon
+him in breathless succession.  Wine, oil, currants, velvets,
+ecclesiastical benefices, university headships, licences to preach, to
+teach, to ride, to sail, to pick and to steal, all brought "grist to his
+mill."  His grandfather, "the horse leach and shearer," never filled his
+coffers more rapidly than did Lord Robert, the fortunate courtier.  Of
+his early wedlock with the ill-starred Amy Robsart, of his nuptial
+projects with the Queen, of his subsequent marriages and mock-marriages
+with Douglas Sheffield and Lettice of Essex, of his plottings,
+poisonings, imaginary or otherwise, of his countless intrigues, amatory
+and political--of that luxuriant, creeping, flaunting, all-pervading
+existence which struck its fibres into the mould, and coiled itself
+through the whole fabric, of Elizabeth's life and reign--of all this the
+world has long known too much to render a repetition needful here.  The
+inmost nature and the secret deeds of a man placed so high by wealth and
+station, can be seen but darkly through the glass of contemporary record.
+There was no tribunal to sit upon his guilt.  A grandee could be judged
+only when no longer a favourite, and the infatuation of Elizabeth for
+Leicester terminated only with his life.  He stood now upon the soil of
+the Netherlands in the character of a "Messiah," yet he has been charged
+with crimes sufficient to send twenty humbler malefactors to the gibbet.
+"I think," said a most malignant arraigner of the man, in a published
+pamphlet, "that the Earl of Leicester hath more blood lying upon his head
+at this day, crying for vengeance, than ever had private man before, were
+he never so wicked."
+
+Certainly the mass of misdemeanours and infamies hurled at the head of
+the favourite by that "green-coated Jesuit," father Parsons, under the
+title of 'Leycester's Commonwealth,' were never accepted as literal
+verities; yet the value of the precept, to calumniate boldly, with the
+certainty that much of the calumny would last for ever, was never better
+illustrated than in the case of Robert Dudley.  Besides the lesser
+delinquencies of filling his purse by the sale of honours and dignities,
+by violent ejectments from land, fraudulent titles, rapacious enclosures
+of commons, by taking bribes for matters of justice, grace, and
+supplication to the royal authority, he was accused of forging various
+letters to the Queen, often to ruin his political adversaries, and of
+plottings to entrap them into conspiracies, playing first the comrade and
+then the informer.  The list of his murders and attempts to murder was
+almost endless.  "His lordship hath a special fortune," saith the Jesuit,
+"that when he desireth any woman's favour, whatsoever person standeth in
+his way hath the luck to die quickly."  He was said to have poisoned
+Alice Drayton, Lady Lennox, Lord Sussex, Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, Lord
+Sheffield, whose widow he married and then poisoned, Lord Essex, whose
+widow he also married, and intended to poison, but who was said to have
+subsequently poisoned him--besides murders or schemes for murder of
+various other individuals, both French and English.  "He was a rare
+artist in poison," said Sir Robert Naunton, and certainly not Caesar
+Borgia, nor his father or sister, was more accomplished in that difficult
+profession than was Dudley, if half the charges against him could be
+believed.  Fortunately for his fame, many of them were proved to be
+false.  Sir Henry Sidney, lord deputy of Ireland, at the time of the
+death of Lord Essex, having caused a diligent inquiry to be made into
+that dark affair, wrote to the council that it was usual for the Earl to
+fall into a bloody flux when disturbed in his mind, and that his body
+when opened showed no signs of poison.  It is true that Sir Henry,
+although an honourable man, was Leicester's brother-in-law, and that
+perhaps an autopsy was not conducted at that day in Ireland on very
+scientific principles.
+
+His participation in the strange death of his first wife was a matter of
+current belief among his contemporaries.  "He is infamed by the death of
+his wife," said Burghley, and the tale has since become so interwoven
+with classic and legendary fiction, as well as with more authentic
+history, that the phantom of the murdered Amy Robsart is sure to arise at
+every mention of the Earl's name.  Yet a coroner's inquest--as appears
+from his own secret correspondence with his relative and agent at Cumnor
+--was immediately and persistently demanded by Dudley.  A jury was
+impannelled--every man of them a stranger to him, and some of them
+enemies.  Antony Forster, Appleyard, and Arthur Robsart, brother-in-law
+and brother of the lady, were present, according to Dudley's special
+request; "and if more of her friends could have been sent," said he, "I
+would have sent them;" but with all their minuteness of inquiry, "they
+could find," wrote Blount, "no presumptions of evil," although he
+expressed a suspicion that "some of the jurymen were sorry that they
+could not."  That the unfortunate lady was killed by a fall down stairs
+was all that could be made of it by a coroner's inquest, rather hostile
+than otherwise, and urged to rigorous investigation by the supposed
+culprit himself.  Nevertheless, the calumny has endured for three
+centuries, and is likely to survive as many more.
+
+Whatever crimes Dudley may have committed in the course of his career,
+there is no doubt whatever that he was the most abused man in Europe.  He
+had been deeply wounded by the Jesuit's artful publication, in which all
+the misdeeds with which he was falsely or justly charged were drawn up in
+awful array, in a form half colloquial, half judicial.  "You had better
+give some contentment to my Lord Leicester," wrote the French envoy from
+London to his government, "on account of the bitter feelings excited in
+him by these villainous books lately written against him."
+
+The Earl himself ascribed these calumnies to the Jesuits, to the Guise
+faction, and particularly to--the Queen of Scots.  He was said, in
+consequence, to have vowed an eternal hatred to that most unfortunate and
+most intriguing Princess.  "Leicester has lately told a friend," wrote
+Charles Paget, "that he will persecute you to the uttermost, for that he
+supposeth your Majesty to be privy to the setting forth of the book
+against him."  Nevertheless, calumniated or innocent he was at least
+triumphant over calumny.  Nothing could shake his hold upon Elizabeth's
+affections.  The Queen scorned but resented the malignant attacks upon
+the reputation of her favourite.  She declared "before God and in her
+conscience, that she knew the libels against him to be most scandalous,
+and such as none but an incarnate devil himself could dream to be true."
+His power, founded not upon genius nor virtue, but upon woman's caprice,
+shone serenely above the gulf where there had been so many shipwrecks.
+"I am now passing into another world," said Sussex, upon his death-bed,
+to his friends, "and I must leave you to your fortunes; but beware of the
+gipsy, or he will be too hard for you.  You know not the beast so well as
+I do."
+
+The "gipsy," as he had been called from his dark complexion, had been
+renowned in youth for the beauty of his person, being "tall and
+singularly well-featured, of a sweet aspect, but high foreheaded, which
+was of no discommendation," according to Naunton.  The Queen, who had the
+passion of her father for tall and proper men, was easier won by
+externals, from her youth even to the days of her dotage, than befitted
+so very sagacious a personage.  Chamberlains, squires of the body,
+carvers, cup-bearers, gentlemen-ushers, porters, could obtain neither
+place nor favour at court, unless distinguished for stature, strength, or
+extraordinary activity.  To lose a tooth had been known to cause the loss
+of a place, and the excellent constitution of leg which helped Sir
+Christopher Hatton into the chancellorship, was not more remarkable
+perhaps than the success of similar endowments in other contemporaries.
+Leicester, although stately and imposing, had passed his summer solstice.
+A big bulky man, with a long red face, a bald head, a defiant somewhat
+sinister eye, a high nose, and a little torrent of foam-white curly
+beard, he was still magnificent in costume.  Rustling in satin and
+feathers, with jewels in his ears, and his velvet toque stuck as airily
+as ever upon the side of his head, he amazed the honest Hollanders, who
+had been used to less gorgeous chieftains.
+
+"Every body is wondering at the great magnificence and splendour of his
+clothes," said the plain chronicler of Utrecht.  For, not much more than
+a year before, Fulke Greville had met at Delft a man whose external
+adornments were simpler; a somewhat slip-shod personage, whom he thus
+pourtrayed: "His uppermost garment was a gown," said the euphuistic
+Fulke, "yet such as, I confidently affirm, a mean-born student of our
+Inns of Court would not have been well disposed to walk the streets in.
+Unbuttoned his doublet was, and of like precious matter and form to the
+other.  His waistcoat, which showed itself under it, not unlike the best
+sort of those woollen knit ones which our ordinary barge-watermen row us
+in.  His company about him, the burgesses of that beerbrewing town.  No
+external sign of degree could have discovered the inequality of his worth
+or estate from that multitude.  Nevertheless, upon conversing with him,
+there was an outward passage of inward greatness."
+
+Of a certainty there must have been an outward passage of inward
+greatness about him; for the individual in unbuttoned doublet and
+bargeman's waistcoat, was no other than William the Silent.  A different
+kind of leader had now descended among those rebels, yet it would be a
+great mistake to deny the capacity or vigorous intentions of the
+magnificent Earl, who certainly was like to find himself in a more
+difficult and responsible situation than any he had yet occupied.
+
+And now began a triumphal progress through the land, with a series of
+mighty banquets and festivities, in which no man could play a better part
+than Leicester.  From Flushing he came to Middelburg, where, upon
+Christmas eve (according to the new reckoning), there was an
+entertainment, every dish of which has been duly chronicled.  Pigs served
+on their feet, pheasants in their feathers, and baked swans with their
+necks thrust through gigantic pie-crust; crystal castles of confectionery
+with silver streams flowing at their base, and fair virgins leaning from
+the battlements, looking for their new English champion, "wine in
+abundance, variety of all sorts, and wonderful welcomes "--such was the
+bill of fare.  The next day the Lieutenant-General returned the
+compliment to the magistrates of Middelburg with a tremendous feast.
+Then came an interlude of unexpected famine; for as the Earl sailed with
+his suite in a fleet of two hundred vessels for Dort--a voyage of not
+many hours' usual duration--there descended a mighty frozen fog upon the
+waters, and they lay five whole days and nights in their ships, almost
+starved with hunger and cold--offering in vain a "pound of silver for a
+pound of bread."  Emerging at last from this dismal predicament, he
+landed at Dort, and so went to Rotterdam and Delft, everywhere making his
+way through lines of musketeers and civic functionaries, amid roaring
+cannon, pealing bells, burning cressets, blazing tar-barrels, fiery
+winged dragons, wreaths of flowers, and Latin orations.
+
+The farther he went the braver seemed the country, and the better beloved
+his.  Lordship.  Nothing was left undone, in the language of ancient
+chronicle, to fill the bellies and the heads of the whole company.  At
+the close of the year he came to the Hague, where the festivities were
+unusually magnificent.  A fleet of barges was sent to escort him.  Peter,
+James, and John, met him upon the shore, while the Saviour appeared
+walking upon the waves, and ordered his disciples to cast their nets, and
+to present the fish to his Excellency.  Farther on, he was confronted by
+Mars and Bellona, who recited Latin odes in his honour.  Seven beautiful
+damsels upon a stage, representing the United States, offered him golden
+keys; seven others equally beautiful, embodying the seven sciences,
+presented him with garlands, while an enthusiastic barber adorned his
+shop with seven score of copper basins, with a wag-light in each,
+together with a rose, and a Latin posy in praise of Queen Elizabeth.
+Then there were tiltings in the water between champions mounted upon
+whales, and other monsters of the deep-representatives of siege, famine,
+pestilence, and murder--the whole interspersed with fireworks, poetry,
+charades, and Matthias, nor Anjou, nor King Philip, nor the Emperor
+Charles, in their triumphal progresses, had been received with more
+spontaneous or more magnificent demonstrations.  Never had the living
+pictures been more startling, the allegories more incomprehensible, the
+banquets more elaborate, the orations more tedious.  Beside himself with
+rapture, Leicester almost assumed the God.  In Delft, a city which he
+described as "another London almost for beauty and fairness," he is said
+so far to have forgotten himself as to declare that his family had--in
+the person of Lady Jane Grey, his father, and brother--been unjustly
+deprived of the crown of England; an indiscretion which caused a shudder
+in all who heard him.  It was also very dangerous for the Lieutenant-
+General to exceed the bounds of becoming modesty at that momentous epoch.
+His power, as we shall soon have occasion to observe, was anomalous, and
+he was surrounded by enemies.  He was not only to grapple with a rapidly
+developing opposition in the States, but he was surrounded with masked
+enemies, whom he had brought with him from England.  Every act and word
+of his were liable to closest scrutiny, and likely to be turned against
+him.  For it was most characteristic of that intriguing age, that even
+the astute Walsingham, who had an eye and an ear at every key-hole in
+Europe, was himself under closest domestic inspection.  There was one
+Poley, a trusted servant of Lady Sidney, then living in the house of her
+father Walsingham, during Sir Philip's absence, who was in close
+communication with Lord Montjoy's brother, Blount, then high in favour of
+Queen Elizabeth--"whose grandmother she might be for his age and hers"
+--and with another brother Christopher Blount, at that moment in
+confidential attendance upon Lord Leicester in Holland.  Now Poley,
+and both the Blounts, were, in reality, Papists, and in intimate
+correspondence with the agents of the Queen of Scots, both at home and
+abroad, although "forced to fawn upon Leicester, to see if they might
+thereby live quiet."  They had a secret "alphabet," or cipher, among
+them, and protested warmly, that they "honoured the ground whereon Queen
+Mary trod better than Leicester with all his generation; and that they
+felt bound to serve her who was the only saint living on the earth."
+
+It may be well understood then that the Earl's position was a slippery
+one, and that great assumption might be unsafe.  "He taketh the matter
+upon him," wrote Morgan to the Queen of Scots, "as though he were an
+absolute king; but he hath many personages about him of good place out of
+England, the best number whereof desire nothing more than his confusion.
+Some of them be gone with him to avoid the persecution for religion in
+England.  My poor advice and labour shall not be wanting to give
+Leicester all dishonour, which will fall upon him in the end with shame
+enough; though for the present he be very strong."  Many of these
+personages of good place, and enjoying "charge and credit" with the Earl
+had very serious plans in their heads.  Some of them meant "for the
+service of God, and the advantage of the King of Spain, to further the
+delivery of some notable towns in Holland and Zeeland to the said King
+and his ministers," and we are like to hear of these individuals again.
+
+Meantime, the Earl of Leicester was at the Hague.  Why was he there?
+What was his work?  Why had Elizabeth done such violence to her affection
+as to part with her favourite-in-chief; and so far overcome her thrift,
+as to furnish forth, rather meagrely to be sure, that little army of
+Englishmen?  Why had the flower of England's chivalry set foot upon that
+dark and bloody ground where there seemed so much disaster to encounter,
+and so little glory to reap?  Why had England thrown herself so
+heroically into the breach, just as the last bulwarks were falling
+which protected Holland from the overwhelming onslaught of Spain?
+It was because Holland was the threshold of England; because the two
+countries were one by danger and by destiny; because the naval expedition
+from Spain against England was already secretly preparing; because the
+deposed tyrant of Spain intended the Provinces, when again subjugated,
+as a steppingstone to the conquest of England; because the naval and
+military forces of Holland--her numerous ships, her hardy mariners, her
+vast wealth, her commodious sea-ports, close to the English coast--if
+made Spanish property would render Philip invincible by sea and land; and
+because the downfall of Holland and of Protestantism would be death to
+Elizabeth, and annihilation to England.
+
+There was little doubt on the subject in the minds of those engaged in
+this expedition.  All felt most keenly the importance of the game, in
+which the Queen was staking her crown, and England its national
+existence.
+
+"I pray God," said Wilford, an officer much in Walsingham's confidence,
+"that I live not to see this enterprise quail, and with it the utter
+subversion of religion throughout all Christendom.  It may be I may be
+judged to be afraid of my own shadow.  God grant it be so.  But if her
+Majesty had not taken the helm in hand, and my Lord of Leicester sent
+over, this country had been gone ere this. . . . This war doth defend
+England.  Who is he that will refuse to spend his life and living in it?
+If her Majesty consume twenty thousand men in the cause, the experimented
+men that will remain will double that strength to the realm."
+
+This same Wilford commanded a company in Ostend, and was employed by
+Leicester in examining the defences of that important place.  He often
+sent information to the Secretary, "troubling him with the rude stile of
+a poor soldier, being driven to scribble in haste."  He reiterated, in
+more than one letter, the opinion, that twenty thousand men consumed in
+the war would be a saving in the end, and his own determination--although
+he had intended retiring from the military profession--to spend not only
+his life in the cause, but also the poor living that God had given him.
+"Her Highness hath now entered into it," he said; "the fire is kindled;
+whosoever suffers it to go out, it will grow dangerous to that side.  The
+whole state of religion is in question, and the realm of England also, if
+this action quail.  God grant we never live to see that doleful day.  Her
+Majesty hath such footing now in these parts, as I judge it impossible
+for the King to weary her out, if every man will put to the work his
+helping hand, whereby it may be lustily followed, and the war not
+suffered to cool.  The freehold of England will be worth but little, if
+this action quail, and therefore I wish no subject to spare his purse
+towards it."
+
+Spain moved slowly.  Philip the Prudent was not sudden or rash, but his
+whole life had proved, and was to prove, him inflexible in his purposes,
+and patient in his attempts to carry them into effect, even when the
+purposes had become chimerical, and the execution impossible.  Before the
+fall of Antwerp he had matured his scheme for the invasion of England, in
+most of its details--a necessary part of which was of course the
+reduction of Holland and Zeeland.  "Surely no danger nor fear of any
+attempt can grow to England," wrote Wilford, "so long as we can hold this
+country good."  But never was honest soldier more mistaken than he, when
+he added:--"The Papists will make her Highness afraid of a great fleet
+now preparing in Spain.  We hear it also, but it is only a scare-crow to
+cool the enterprise here."
+
+It was no scare-crow.  On the very day on which Wilford was thus writing
+to Walsingham, Philip the Second was writing to Alexander Farnese.  "The
+English," he said, "with their troops having gained a footing in the
+islands (Holland and Zeeland) give me much anxiety.  The English
+Catholics are imploring me with much importunity to relieve them from
+the persecution they are suffering.  When you sent me a plan, with the
+coasts, soundings, quicksands, and ports of England, you said that the
+enterprise of invading that country should be deferred till we had
+reduced the isles; that, having them, we could much more conveniently
+attack England; or that at least we should wait till we had got Antwerp.
+As the city is now taken, I want your advice now about the invasion of
+England.  To cut the root of the evils constantly growing up there, both
+for God's service and mine, is desirable.  So many evils will thus be
+remedied, which would not be by only warring with the islands.  It would
+be an uncertain and expensive war to go to sea for the purpose of
+chastising the insolent English corsairs, however much they deserve
+chastisement.  I charge you to be secret, to give the matter your deepest
+attention, and to let me have your opinions at once."  Philip then added
+a postscript, in his own hand, concerning the importance of acquiring a
+sea-port in Holland, as a basis of operations against England.  "Without
+a port," he said, "we can do nothing whatever."
+
+A few weeks later, the Grand Commander of Castile, by Philip's orders,
+and upon subsequent information received from the Prince of Parma, drew
+up an elaborate scheme for the invasion of England, and for the
+government of that country afterwards; a program according to which the
+King was to shape his course for a long time to come.  The plot was an
+excellent plot.  Nothing could be more artistic, more satisfactory to the
+prudent monarch; but time was to show whether there might not be some
+difficulty in the way of its satisfactory development.
+
+"The enterprise," said the Commander, "ought certainly to be undertaken
+as serving the cause of the Lord.  From the Pope we must endeavour to
+extract a promise of the largest aid we can get for the time when the
+enterprise can be undertaken.  We must not declare that time however, in
+order to keep the thing a secret, and because perhaps thus more will be
+promised, under the impression that it will never take effect.  He added
+that the work could not well be attempted before August or September of
+the following year; the only fear of such delay being that the French
+could hardly be kept during all that time in a state of revolt."  For
+this was a uniform portion of the great scheme.  France was to be kept,
+at Philip's expense, in a state of perpetual civil war; its every city
+and village to be the scene of unceasing conflict and bloodshed--subjects
+in arms against king, and family against family; and the Netherlands were
+to be ravaged with fire and sword; all this in order that the path might
+be prepared for Spanish soldiers into the homes of England.  So much of
+misery to the whole human race was it in the power of one painstaking
+elderly valetudinarian to inflict, by never for an instant neglecting the
+business of his life.
+
+Troops and vessels for the English invasion ought, in the Commander's
+opinion, to be collected in Flanders, under colour of an enterprise
+against Holland and Zeeland, while the armada to be assembled in Spain,
+of galleons, galeazas, and galleys, should be ostensibly for an
+expedition to the Indies.
+
+Then, after the conquest, came arrangements for the government of
+England.  Should Philip administer his new kingdom by a viceroy, or
+should he appoint a king out of his own family?  On the whole the chances
+for the Prince of Parma seemed the best of any.  "We must liberate the
+Queen of Scotland," said the Grand Commander, "and marry her to some one
+or another, both in order to put her out of love with her son, and to
+conciliate her devoted adherents.  Of course the husband should be one of
+your Majesty's nephews, and none could be so appropriate as the Prince of
+Parma, that great captain, whom his talents, and the part he has to bear
+in the business, especially indicate for that honour."
+
+Then there was a difficulty about the possible issue of such a marriage.
+The Farneses claimed Portugal; so that children sprung from the
+bloodroyal of England blended with that of Parma, might choose to make
+those pretensions valid.  But the objection was promptly solved by the
+Commander:--"The Queen of Scotland is sure to have no children," he said.
+
+That matter being adjusted, Parma's probable attitude as King of England
+was examined.  It was true his ambition might cause occasional
+uneasiness, but then he might make himself still more unpleasant in the
+Netherlands.  "If your Majesty suspects him," said the Commander, "which,
+after all, is unfair, seeing the way, in which he has been conducting
+himself--it is to be remembered that in Flanders are similar
+circumstances and opportunities, and that he is well armed, much beloved
+in the country, and that the natives are of various humours.  The English
+plan will furnish an honourable departure for him out of the Provinces;
+and the principle of loyal obligation will have much influence over so
+chivalrous a knight as he, when he is once placed on the English throne.
+Moreover, as he will be new there, he will have need of your Majesty's
+favour to maintain himself, and there will accordingly be good
+correspondence with Holland and the Islands.  Thus your Majesty can put
+the Infanta and her husband into full possession of all the Netherlands;
+having provided them with so excellent a neighbour in England, and one so
+closely bound and allied to them.  Then, as he is to have no English
+children" (we have seen that the Commander had settled that point) "he
+will be a very good mediator to arrange adoptions, especially if you make
+good provision for his son Rainuccio in Italy.  The reasons in favour of
+this plan being so much stronger than those against it, it would be well
+that your Majesty should write clearly to the Prince of Parma, directing
+him to conduct the enterprise" (the English invasion), "and to give him
+the first offer for this marriage (with Queen Mary) if he likes the
+scheme.  If not, he had better mention which of the Archdukes should be
+substituted in his place."
+
+There happened to be no lack of archdukes at that period for anything
+comfortable that might offer--such as a throne in England, Holland, or
+France--and the Austrian House was not remarkable for refusing convenient
+marriages; but the immediate future only could show whether Alexander I.
+of the House of Farnese was to reign in England, or whether the next king
+of that country was to be called Matthias, Maximilian, or Ernest of
+Hapsburg.
+
+Meantime the Grand Commander was of opinion that the invasion-project was
+to be pushed forward as rapidly and as secretly as possible; because,
+before any one of Philip's nephews could place himself upon the English
+throne, it was first necessary to remove Elizabeth from that position.
+Before disposing of the kingdom, the preliminary step of conquering it
+was necessary.  Afterwards it would be desirable, without wasting more
+time than was requisite, to return with a large portion of the invading
+force out of England, in order to complete the conquest of Holland.  For
+after all, England was to be subjugated only as a portion of one general
+scheme; the main features of which were the reannexation of Holland and
+"the islands," and the acquisition of unlimited control upon the seas.
+
+Thus the invasion of England was no "scarecrow," as Wilford imagined,
+but a scheme already thoroughly matured.  If Holland and Zeeland should
+meantime fall into the hands of Philip, it was no exaggeration on that
+soldier's part to observe that the "freehold of England would be worth
+but little."
+
+To oppose this formidable array against the liberties of Europe stood
+Elizabeth Tudor and the Dutch Republic.  For the Queen, however arbitrary
+her nature, fitly embodied much of the nobler elements in the expanding
+English national character.  She felt instinctively that her reliance in
+the impending death-grapple was upon the popular principle, the national
+sentiment, both in her own country and in Holland.  That principle and
+that sentiment were symbolized in the Netherland revolt; and England,
+although under a somewhat despotic rule, was already fully pervaded with
+the instinct of self-government.  The people held the purse and the
+sword.
+
+No tyranny could be permanently established so long as the sovereign was
+obliged to come every year before Parliament to ask for subsidies; so
+long as all the citizens and yeomen of England had weapons in their
+possession, and were carefully trained to use them; so long, in short,
+as the militia was the only army, and private adventurers or trading
+companies created and controlled the only navy.  War, colonization,
+conquest, traffic, formed a joint business and a private speculation.
+If there were danger that England, yielding to purely mercantile habits
+of thought and action, might degenerate from the more martial standard to
+which she had been accustomed, there might be virtue in that Netherland
+enterprise, which was now to call forth all her energies.  The Provinces
+would be a seminary for English soldiers.
+
+"There can be no doubt of our driving the enemy out of the country
+through famine and excessive charges," said the plain-spoken English
+soldier already quoted, who came out with Leicester, "if every one of us
+will put our minds to go forward without making a miserable gain by the
+wars.  A man may see, by this little progress journey, what this long
+peace hath wrought in us.  We are weary of the war before we come where
+it groweth, such a danger hath this long peace brought us into.  This is,
+and will be, in my opinion, a most fit school and nursery to nourish
+soldiers to be able to keep and defend our country hereafter, if men will
+follow it."
+
+Wilford was vehement in denouncing the mercantile tendencies of his
+countrymen, and returned frequently to that point in his communications
+with Walsingham and other statesmen.  "God hath stirred up this action,"
+he repeated again, "to be a school to breed up soldiers to defend the
+freedom of England, which through these long times of peace and quietness
+is brought into a most dangerous estate, if it should be attempted.  Our
+delicacy is such that we are already weary, yet this journey is naught in
+respect to the misery and hardship that soldiers must and do endure."
+
+He was right in his estimate of the effect likely to be produced by the
+war upon the military habits of Englishmen; for there can be no doubt
+that the organization and discipline of English troops was in anything
+but a satisfactory state at that period.  There was certainly vast room
+for improvement.  Nevertheless he was wrong in his views of the leading
+tendencies of his age.  Holland and England, self-helping, self-moving,
+were already inaugurating a new era in the history of the world.  The
+spirit of commercial maritime enterprise--then expanding rapidly into
+large proportions--was to be matched against the religious and knightly
+enthusiasm which had accomplished such wonders in an age that was passing
+away.  Spain still personified, and had ever personified, chivalry,
+loyalty, piety; but its chivalry, loyalty, and piety, were now in a
+corrupted condition.  The form was hollow, and the sacred spark had fled.
+In Holland and England intelligent enterprise had not yet degenerated
+into mere greed for material prosperity.  The love of danger, the thirst
+for adventure, the thrilling sense of personal responsibility and human
+dignity--not the base love for land and lucre--were the governing
+sentiments which led those bold Dutch and English rovers to
+circumnavigate the world in cockle-shells, and to beard the most potent
+monarch on the earth, both at home and abroad, with a handful of
+volunteers.
+
+This then was the contest, and this the machinery by which it was to be
+maintained.  A struggle for national independence, liberty of conscience,
+freedom of the seas, against sacerdotal and world-absorbing tyranny;
+a mortal combat of the splendid infantry of Spain and Italy, the
+professional reiters of Germany, the floating castles of a world-empire,
+with the militiamen and mercantile-marine of England and Holland united.
+Holland had been engaged twenty years long in the conflict.  England had
+thus far escaped it; but there was no doubt, and could be none, that her
+time had come.  She must fight the battle of Protestantism on sea and
+shore, shoulder to shoulder, with the Netherlanders, or await the
+conqueror's foot on her own soil.
+
+What now was the disposition and what the means of the Provinces to do
+their part in the contest?  If the twain as Holland wished, had become of
+one flesh, would England have been the loser?  Was it quite sure that
+Elizabeth--had she even accepted the less compromising title which she
+refused--would not have been quite as much the protected as the
+"protectress?"
+
+It is very certain that the English, on their arrival in the Provinces,
+were singularly impressed by the opulent and stately appearance of the
+country and its inhabitants.  Notwithstanding the tremendous war which
+the Hollanders had been waging against Spain for twenty years, their
+commerce had continued to thrive, and their resources to increase.
+Leicester was in a state of constant rapture at the magnificence
+which surrounded him, from his first entrance into the country.
+Notwithstanding the admiration expressed by the Hollanders for the
+individual sumptuousness of the Lieutenant-General; his followers, on
+their part, were startled by the general luxury of their new allies.
+"The realm is rich and full of men," said Wilford, "the sums men exceed
+in apparel would bear the brunt of this war;" and again, "if the excess
+used in sumptuous apparel were only abated, and that we could convert the
+same to these wars, it would stop a great gap."
+
+The favourable view taken by the English as to the resources and
+inclination of the Netherland commonwealth was universal.  "The general
+wish and desire of these countrymen," wrote Sir Thomas Shirley, "is that
+the amity begun between England and this nation may be everlasting, and
+there is not any of our company of judgment but wish the same.  For all
+they that see the goodliness and stateliness of these towns, strengthened
+both with fortification and natural situation, all able to defend
+themselves with their own abilities, must needs think it too fair a prey
+to be let pass, and a thing most worthy to be embraced."
+
+Leicester, whose enthusiasm continued to increase as rapidly as the
+Queen's zeal seemed to be cooling, was most anxious lest the short-
+comings of his own Government should work irreparable evil.  "I pray you,
+my lord," he wrote to Burghley, "forget not us poor exiles; if you do,
+God must and will forget you.  And great pity it were that so noble
+provinces and goodly havens, with such infinite ships and mariners,
+should not be always as they may now easily be, at the assured devotion
+of England.  In my opinion he can neither love Queen nor country that
+would not wish and further it should be so.  And seeing her Majesty is
+thus far entered into the cause, and that these people comfort themselves
+in full hope of her favour, it were a sin and a shame it should not be
+handled accordingly, both for honour and surety."
+
+Sir John Conway, who accompanied the Earl through the whole of his
+"progress journey," was quite as much struck as he by the flourishing
+aspect and English proclivities of the Provinces.  "The countries which
+we have passed," he said, "are fertile in their nature; the towns,
+cities, buildings, of snore state and beauty, to such as have travelled
+other countries, than any they have ever seen.  The people the most
+industrious by all means to live that be in the world, and, no doubt,
+passing rich.  They outwardly show themselves of good heart, zeal,
+and loyalty, towards the Queen our mistress.  There is no doubt that
+the general number of them had rather come under her Majesty's regiment,
+than to continue under the States and burgomasters of their country.
+The impositions which they lay in defence of their State is wonderful.
+If her Highness proceed in this beginning, she may retain these parts
+hers, with their good love, and her great glory and gain.  I would she
+might as perfectly see the whole country, towns, profits, and pleasures
+thereof, in a glass, as she may her own face; I do then assure myself she
+would with careful consideration receive them, and not allow of any man's
+reason to the contrary .  .  .  .  The country is worthy any prince in
+the world, the people do reverence the Queen, and in love of her do so
+believe that the Grace of Leicester is by God and her sent among them for
+her good.  And they believe in him for the redemption of their bodies,
+as they do in God for their souls.  I dare pawn my soul, that if her
+Majesty will allow him the just and rightful mean to manage this cause,
+that he will so handle the manner and matter as shall highly both please
+and profit her Majesty, and increase her country, and his own honour."
+
+Lord North, who held a high command in the auxiliary force, spoke also
+with great enthusiasm.  "Had your Lordship seen," he wrote to Burghley,
+"with what thankful hearts these countries receive all her Majesty's
+subjects, what multitudes of people they be, what stately cities and
+buildings they have, how notably fortified by art, how strong by nature,
+flow fertile the whole country, and how wealthy it is, you would, I know,
+praise the Lord that opened your lips to undertake this enterprise, the
+continuance and good success whereof will eternise her Majesty, beautify
+her crown, with the most shipping, with the most populous and wealthy
+countries, that ever prince added to his kingdom, or that is or can be
+found in Europe.  I lack wit, good my Lord, to dilate this matter."
+
+Leicester, better informed than some of those in his employment,
+entertained strong suspicions concerning Philip's intentions with regard
+to England; but he felt sure that the only way to laugh at a Spanish
+invasion was to make Holland and England as nearly one as it was possible
+to do.
+
+"No doubt that the King of Spain's preparations by sea be great," he,
+said; "but I know that all that he and his friends can make are not able
+to match with her Majesty's forces, if it please her to use the means
+that God hath given her.  But besides her own, if she need; I will
+undertake to furnish her from hence, upon two months' warning, a navy for
+strong and tall ships, with their furniture and mariners, that the King
+of Spain, and all that he can make, shall not be able to encounter with
+them.  I think the bruit of his preparations is made the greater to
+terrify her Majesty and this country people.  But, thanked be God, her
+Majesty hath little cause to fear him.  And in this country they esteem
+no more of his power by sea than I do of six fisher-boats off Rye."
+
+Thus suggestive is it to peep occasionally behind the curtain.  In the
+calm cabinet of the Escorial, Philip and his comendador mayor are laying
+their heads together, preparing the invasion of England; making
+arrangements for King Alexander's coronation in that island, and--like
+sensible, farsighted persons as they are--even settling the succession
+to the throne after Alexander's death, instead of carelessly leaving such
+distant details to chance, or subsequent consideration.  On the other
+hand, plain Dutch sea-captains, grim beggars of the sea, and the like,
+denizens of a free commonwealth and of the boundless ocean-men who are
+at home on blue water, and who have burned gunpowder against those
+prodigious slave-rowed galleys of Spain--together with their new allies,
+the dauntless mariners of England--who at this very moment are "singeing
+the King of Spain's beard," as it had never been singed before--are not
+so much awestruck with the famous preparations for invasion as was
+perhaps to be expected.  There may be a delay, after all, before Parma
+can be got safely established in London, and Elizabeth in Orcus, and
+before the blood-tribunal of the Inquisition can substitute its sway for
+that of the "most noble, wise, and learned United States."  Certainly,
+Philip the Prudent would have been startled, difficult as he was to
+astonish, could he have known that those rebel Hollanders of his made
+no more account of his slowly-preparing invincible armada than of six
+fisher-boats off Rye.  Time alone could show where confidence had been
+best placed.  Meantime it was certain, that it well behoved Holland and
+England to hold hard together, nor let "that enterprise quail."
+
+The famous expedition of Sir Francis Drake was the commencement of a
+revelation.  "That is the string," said Leicester, "that touches the King
+indeed."  It was soon to be made known to the world that the ocean was
+not a Spanish Lake, nor both the Indies the private property of Philip.
+"While the riches of the Indies continue," said Leicester, "he thinketh
+he will be able to weary out all other princes; and I know, by good
+means, that he more feareth this action of Sir Francis than he ever did
+anything that has been attempted against him."  With these continued
+assaults upon the golden treasure-houses of Spain, and by a determined
+effort to maintain the still more important stronghold which had been
+wrested from her in the Netherlands, England might still be safe.  "This
+country is so full of ships and mariners," said Leicester, "so abundant
+in wealth, and in the means to make money, that, had it but stood
+neutral, what an aid had her Majesty been deprived of.  But if it had
+been the enemy's also, I leave it to your consideration what had been
+likely to ensue.  These people do now honour and love her Majesty in
+marvellous sort."
+
+There was but one feeling on this most important subject among the
+English who went to the Netherlands.  All held the same language.  The
+question was plainly presented to England whether she would secure to
+herself the great bulwark of her defence, or place it in the hands of her
+mortal foe?  How could there be doubt or supineness on such a momentous
+subject?  "Surely, my Lord," wrote Richard Cavendish to Burghley, "if you
+saw the wealth, the strength, the shipping, and abundance of mariners,
+whereof these countries stand furnished, your heart would quake to think
+that so hateful an enemy as Spain should again be furnished with such
+instruments; and the Spaniards themselves do nothing doubt upon the hope
+of the consequence hereof, to assure themselves of the certain ruin of
+her Majesty and the whole estate."
+
+And yet at the very outset of Leicester's administration, there was a
+whisper of peace-overtures to Spain, secretly made by Elizabeth in her
+own behalf, and in that of the Provinces.  We shall have soon occasion to
+examine into the truth of these rumours, which, whether originating in
+truth or falsehood, were most pernicious in their effects.  The
+Hollanders were determined never to return to slavery again, so long as
+they could fire a shot in their own defence.  They earnestly wished
+English cooperation, but it was the cooperation of English matchlocks and
+English cutlasses, not English protecols and apostilles.  It was
+military, not diplomatic machinery that they required.  If they could
+make up their minds to submit to Philip and the Inquisition again, Philip
+and the Holy office were but too ready to receive the erring penitents to
+their embrace without a go-between.
+
+It was war, not peace, therefore, that Holland meant by the English
+alliance.  It was war, not peace, that Philip intended.  It was war, not
+peace, that Elizabeth's most trusty counsellors knew to be inevitable.
+There was also, as we have shown, no doubt whatever as to the good
+disposition, and the great power of the republic to bear its share in the
+common cause.  The enthusiasm of the Hollanders was excessive.  "There
+was such a noise, both in Delft, Rotterdam, and Dort," said Leicester,
+"in crying 'God save the Queen!' as if she had been in Cheapside."  Her
+own subjects could not be more loyal than were the citizens and yeomen of
+Holland.  "The members of the States dare not but be Queen Elizabeth's,"
+continued the Earl, "for by the living God! if there should fall but the
+least unkindness through their default, the people would kill them.  All
+sorts of people, from highest to lowest, assure themselves, now that they
+have her Majesty's good countenance, to beat all the Spaniards out of
+their country.  Never was there people in such jollity as these be.  I
+could be content to lose a limb, could her Majesty see these countries
+and towns as I have done."  He was in truth excessively elated, and had
+already, in imagination, vanquished Alexander Farnese, and eclipsed the
+fame of William the Silent.  "They will serve under me," he observed,
+"with a better will than ever they served under the Prince of Orange.
+Yet they loved him well, but they never hoped of the liberty of this
+country till now."
+
+Thus the English government had every reason to be satisfied with the
+aspect of its affairs in the Netherlands.  But the nature of the Earl's
+authority was indefinite.  The Queen had refused the sovereignty and the
+protectorate.  She had also distinctly and peremptorily forbidden
+Leicester to assume any office or title that might seem at variance with
+such a refusal on her part.  Yet it is certain that, from the very first,
+he had contemplated some slight disobedience to these prohibitions.
+"What government is requisite"--wrote he in a secret memorandum of
+"things most necessary to understand"--"to be appointed to him that shall
+be their governor?  First, that he have as much authority as the Prince
+of Orange, or any other governor or captain-general, hath had
+heretofore."  Now the Prince of Orange hath been stadholder of each of
+the United Provinces, governor-general, commander-in-chief, count of
+Holland in prospect, and sovereign, if he had so willed it.  It would
+doubtless have been most desirable for the country, in its confused
+condition, had there been a person competent to wield, and willing to
+accept, the authority once exercised by William I.  But it was also
+certain that this was exactly the authority which Elizabeth had forbidden
+Leicester to assume.  Yet it is diffcult to understand what position the
+Queen intended that her favourite should maintain, nor how he was to
+carry out her instructions, while submitting to her prohibitions.
+He was directed to cause the confused government of the Provinces to
+be redressed, and a better form of polity to be established.  He was
+ordered, in particular, to procure a radical change in the constitution,
+by causing the deputies to the General Assembly to be empowered to decide
+upon important matters, without, as had always been the custom, making
+direct reference to the assemblies of the separate Provinces.  He was
+instructed to bring about, in some indefinite way, a complete reform in
+financial matters, by compelling the States-General to raise money by
+liberal taxation, according to the "advice of her Majesty, delivered unto
+them by her lieutenant."
+
+And how was this radical change in the institutions of the Provinces to
+be made by an English earl, whose only authority was that of commander-
+in-chief over five thousand half-starved, unpaid, utterly-forlorn English
+troops?
+
+The Netherland envoys in England, in their parting advice, most
+distinctly urged him "to hale authority with the first, to declare
+himself chief head and governor-general" of the whole country,--for it
+was a political head that was wanted in order to restore unity of action
+--not an additional general, where there were already generals in plenty.
+Sir John Norris, valiant, courageous, experienced--even if not, as
+Walsingham observed, a "religious soldier," nor learned in anything "but
+a kind of licentious and corrupt government"--was not likely to require
+the assistance of the new lieutenant-general in field operations nor
+could the army be brought into a state of thorough discipline and
+efficiency by the magic of Leicester's name.  The rank and file of the
+English army--not the commanders-needed strengthening.  The soldiers
+required shoes and stockings, bread and meat, and for these articles
+there were not the necessary funds, nor would the title of Lieutenant-
+General supply the deficiency.  The little auxiliary force was, in truth,
+in a condition most pitiable to behold: it was difficult to say whether
+the soldiers who had been already for a considerable period in the
+Netherlands, or those who had been recently levied in the purlieus of
+London, were in the most unpromising plight.  The beggarly state in which
+Elizabeth had been willing that her troops should go forth to the wars
+was a sin and a disgrace.  Well might her Lieutenant-General say that her
+"poor subjects were no better than abjects."  There were few effective
+companies remaining of the old force.  "There is but a small number of
+the first bands left," said Sir John Conway, "and those so pitiful and
+unable ever to serve again, as I leave to speak further of theirs, to
+avoid grief to your heart.  A monstrous fault there hath been somewhere."
+
+Leicester took a manful and sagacious course at starting.  Those who had
+no stomach for the fight were ordered to depart.  The chaplain gave them
+sermons; the Lieutenant-General, on St. Stephen's day, made them a "pithy
+and honourable" oration, and those who had the wish or the means to buy
+themselves out of the adventure, were allowed to do so: for the Earl was
+much disgusted with the raw material out of which he was expected to
+manufacture serviceable troops.  Swaggering ruffians from the
+disreputable haunts of London, cockney apprentices, brokendown tapsters,
+discarded serving men; the Bardolphs and Pistols, Mouldys, Warts, and the
+like--more at home in tavern-brawls or in dark lanes than on the battle-
+field--were not the men to be entrusted with the honour of England at a
+momentous crisis.  He spoke with grief and shame of the worthless
+character and condition of the English youths sent over to the
+Netherlands.  "Believe me," said he, "you will all repent the cockney
+kind of bringing up at this day of young men.  They be gone hence with
+shame enough, and too many, that I will warrant, will make as many frays
+with bludgeons and bucklers as any in London shall do; but such shall
+never have credit with me again.  Our simplest men in show have been our
+best men, and your gallant blood and ruffian men the worst of all
+others."
+
+Much winnowed, as it was, the small force might in time become more
+effective; and the Earl spent freely of his own substance to supply the
+wants of his followers, and to atone for the avarice of his sovereign.
+The picture painted however by muster-master Digger of the plumed troops
+that had thus come forth to maintain the honour of England and the cause
+of liberty, was anything but imposing.  None knew better than Digges
+their squalid and slovenly condition, or was more anxious to effect a
+reformation therein.  "A very wise, stout fellow he is," said the Earl,
+"and very careful to serve thoroughly her Majesty."  Leicester relied
+much upon his efforts.  "There is good hope," said the muster-master,
+"that his excellency will shortly establish such good order for the
+government and training of our nation, that these weak, bad-furnished,
+ill-armed, and worse-trained bands, thus rawly left unto him, shall
+within a few months prove as well armed, trained, complete, gallant
+companies as shall be found elsewhere in Europe."  The damage they were
+likely to inflict upon the enemy seemed very problematical, until they
+should have been improved by some wholesome ball-practice.  "They are so
+unskilful," said Digger, "that if they should be carried to the field no
+better trained than yet they are, they would prove much more dangerous to
+their own leaders and companies than any ways serviceable on their
+enemies.  The hard and miserable estate of the soldiers generally,
+excepting officers, hath been such, as by the confessions of the captains
+themselves, they have been offered by many of their soldiers thirty and
+forty pounds a piece to be dismissed and sent away; whereby I doubt not
+the flower of the pressed English bands are gone, and the remnant
+supplied with such paddy persons as commonly, in voluntary procurements,
+men are glad to accept."
+
+Even after the expiration of four months the condition of the paddy
+persons continued most destitute.  The English soldiers became mere
+barefoot starving beggars in the streets, as had never been the case in
+the worst of times, when the States were their paymasters.  The little
+money brought from the treasury by the Earl, and the large sums which he
+had contributed out of his own pocket, had been spent in settling, and
+not fully settling, old scores.  "Let me entreat you," wrote Leicester to
+Walsingham, "to be a mean to her Majesty, that the poor soldiers be not
+beaten for my sake.  There came no penny of treasure over since my coming
+hither.  That which then came was most part due before it came.  There is
+much still due.  They cannot get a penny, their credit is spent, they
+perish for want of victuals and clothing in great numbers.  The whole are
+ready to mutiny.  They cannot be gotten out to service, because they
+cannot discharge the debts they owe in the places where they are.  I have
+let of my own more than I may spare."--"There was no soldier yet able to
+buy himself a pair of hose," said the Earl again, "and it is too, too
+great shame to see how they go, and it kills their hearts to show
+themselves among men."
+
+There was no one to dispute the Earl's claims.  The Nassau family was
+desperately poor, and its chief, young Maurice, although he had been
+elected stadholder of Holland and Zeeland, had every disposition--as Sir
+Philip upon his arrival in Flushing immediately informed his uncle--to
+submit to the authority of the new governor.  Louisa de Coligny, widow of
+William the Silent, was most anxious for the English alliance, through
+which alone she believed that the fallen fortunes of the family could be
+raised.  It was thus only, she thought, that the vengeance for which she
+thirsted upon the murderers of her father and her husband could be
+obtained.  "We see now," she wrote to Walsingham, in a fiercer strain
+than would seem to comport with so gentle a nature--deeply wronged as the
+daughter of Coligny and the wife of Orange had been by Papists--"we see
+now the effects of our God's promises.  He knows when it pleases Him to
+avenge the blood of His own; and I confess that I feel most keenly the
+joy which is shared in by the whole Church of God.  There is none that
+has received more wrong from these murderers than I have done, and I
+esteem myself happy in the midst of my miseries that God has permitted me
+to see some vengeance.  These beginings make me hope that I shall see yet
+more, which will be not less useful to the good, both in your country and
+in these isles."
+
+There was no disguise as to the impoverished condition to which the
+Nassau family had been reduced by the self-devotion of its chief.  They
+were obliged to ask alms of England, until the "sapling should become a
+tree."--"Since it is the will of God," wrote the Princess to Davison, "I
+am not ashamed to declare the necessity of our house, for it is in His
+cause that it has fallen.  I pray you, Sir, therefore to do me and these
+children the favour to employ your thoughts in this regard."  If there
+had been any strong French proclivities on their part--as had been so
+warmly asserted--they were likely to disappear.  Villiers, who had been a
+confidential friend of William the Silent, and a strong favourer of
+France, in vain endeavoured to keep alive the ancient sentiments towards
+that country, although he was thought to be really endeavouring to bring
+about a submission of the Nassaus to Spain.  "This Villiers," said
+Leicester, "is a most vile traitorous knave, and doth abuse a young
+nobleman here extremely, the Count Maurice.  For all his religion, he is
+a more earnest persuader secretly to have him yield to a reconciliation
+than Sainte Aldegonde was.  He shall not tarry ten days neither in
+Holland nor Zeeland.  He is greatly hated here of all sorts, and it shall
+go hard but I will win the young Count."
+
+As for Hohenlo, whatever his opinions might once have been regarding the
+comparative merits of Frenchmen and Englishmen, he was now warmly in
+favour of England, and expressed an intention of putting an end to the
+Villiers' influence by simply drowning Villiers.  The announcement of
+this summary process towards the counsellor was not untinged with
+rudeness towards the pupil.  "The young Count," said Leicester, "by
+Villiers' means, was not willing to have Flushing rendered, which the
+Count Hollock perceiving, told the Count Maurice, in a great rage, that
+if he took any course than that of the Queen of England, and swore by no
+beggars, he would drown his priest in the haven before his face, and turn
+himself and his mother-in-law out of their house there, and thereupon
+went with Mr. Davison to the delivery of it."  Certainly, if Hohenlo
+permitted himself such startling demonstrations towards the son and widow
+of William the Silent, it must have been after his habitual potations had
+been of the deepest.  Nevertheless it was satisfactory for the new
+chieftain to know that the influence of so vehement a partisan was
+secured for England.  The Count's zeal deserved gratitude upon
+Leicester's part, and Leicester was grateful.  "This man must be
+cherished," said the Earl; "he is sound and faithful, and hath indeed all
+the chief holds in his hands, and at his commandment.  Ye shall do well
+to procure him a letter of thanks, taking knowledge in general of his
+good-will to her Majesty.  He is a right Almayn in manner and fashion,
+free of his purse and of his drink, yet do I wish him her Majesty's
+pensioner before any prince in Germany, for he loves her and is able to
+serve her, and doth desire to be known her servant.  He hath been
+laboured by his nearest kinsfolk and friends in Germany to have left the
+States and to have the King of Spain's pension and very great reward; but
+he would not.  I trust her Majesty will accept of his offer to be her
+servant during his life, being indeed a very noble soldier."  The Earl
+was indeed inclined to take so cheerful view of matters as to believe
+that he should even effect a reform in the noble soldier's most
+unpleasant characteristic.  "Hollock is a wise gallant gentleman," he
+said, "and very well esteemed.  He hath only one fault, which is
+drinking; but good hope that he will amend it.  Some make me believe that
+I shall be able to do much with him, and I mean to do my best, for I see
+no man that knows all these countries, and the people of all sorts, like
+him, and this fault overthrows all."
+
+Accordingly, so long as Maurice continued under the tutelage of this
+uproarious cavalier--who, at a later day, was to become his brother-in-
+law-he was not likely to interfere with Leicester's authority.  The
+character of the young Count was developing slowly.  More than his father
+had ever done, he deserved the character of the taciturn.  A quiet keen
+observer of men and things, not demonstrative nor talkative, nor much
+given to writing--a modest, calm, deeply-reflecting student of military
+and mathematical science--he was not at that moment deeply inspired by
+political ambition.  He was perhaps more desirous of raising the fallen
+fortunes of his house than of securing the independence of his country.
+Even at that early age, however, his mind was not easy to read, and his
+character was somewhat of a puzzle to those who studied it.  "I see him
+much discontented with the States," said Leicester; "he hath a sullen
+deep wit.  The young gentleman is yet to be won only to her Majesty, I
+perceive, of his own inclination.  The house is marvellous poor and
+little regarded by the States, and if they get anything it is like to be
+by her Majesty, which should be altogether, and she may easily, do for
+him to win him sure.  I will undertake it."  Yet the Earl was ever
+anxious about some of the influences which surrounded Maurice, for he
+thought him more easily guided than he wished him to be by any others but
+himself.  "He stands upon making and marring," he said, "as he meets with
+good counsel."  And at another time he observed, "The young gentleman
+hath a solemn sly wit; but, in troth, if any be to be doubted toward the
+King of Spain, it is he and his counsellors, for they have been
+altogether, so far, French, and so far in mislike with England as they
+cannot almost hide it."
+
+And there was still another member of the house of Nassau who was already
+an honour to his illustrious race.  Count William Lewis, hardly more than
+a boy in years, had already served many campaigns, and had been
+desperately wounded in the cause for which so much of the heroic blood of
+his race had been shed.  Of the five Nassau brethren, his father Count
+John was the sole survivor, and as devoted as ever to the cause of
+Netherland liberty.  The other four had already laid down their lives in
+its defence.  And William Lewis, was worthy to be the nephew of William
+and Lewis, Henry and Adolphus, and the son of John.  Not at all a
+beautiful or romantic hero in appearance, but an odd-looking little man,
+with a round bullet-head, close-clipped hair, a small, twinkling,
+sagacious eye, rugged, somewhat puffy features screwed whimsically awry,
+with several prominent warts dotting, without ornamenting, all that was
+visible of a face which was buried up to the ears in a furzy thicket of
+yellow-brown beard, the tough young stadholder of Friesland, in his iron
+corslet, and halting upon his maimed leg, had come forth with other
+notable personages to the Hague.
+
+He wished to do honour heartily and freely to Queen Elizabeth and her
+representative.  And Leicester was favourably impressed with his new
+acquaintance.  "Here is another little fellow," he said, "as little as
+may be, but one of the gravest and wisest young men that ever I spake
+withal; it is the Count Guilliam of Nassau.  He governs Friesland; I
+would every Province had such another."
+
+Thus, upon the great question which presented itself upon the very
+threshold--the nature and extent of the authority to be exercised by
+Leicester--the most influential Netherlanders were in favour of a large
+and liberal interpretation of his powers.  The envoys in England, the
+Nassau family Hohenlo, the prominent members of the States, such as the
+shrewd, plausible Menin, the "honest and painful" Falk, and the
+chancellor of Gelderland--"that very great, wise, old man Leoninus,"
+as Leicester called him,--were all desirous that he should assume an
+absolute governor-generalship over the whole country.  This was a grave
+and a delicate matter, and needed to be severely scanned, without delay.
+But besides the natives, there were two Englishmen--together with
+ambassador Davison--who were his official advisers.  Bartholomew Clerk,
+LL.D., and Sir Henry Killigrew had been appointed by the Queen to be
+members of the council of the United States, according to the provisions
+of the August treaty.  The learned Bartholomew hardly seemed equal to his
+responsible position among those long-headed Dutch politicians.  Philip
+Sidney--the only blemish in whose character was an intolerable tendency
+to puns--observed that "Doctor Clerk was of those clerks that are not
+always the wisest, and so my lord too late was finding him."  The Earl
+himself, who never undervalued the intellect of the Netherlanders whom
+he came to govern, anticipated but small assistance from the English
+civilian.  "I find no great stuff in my little colleague," he said,
+"nothing that I looked for.  It is a pity you have no more of his
+profession, able men to serve.  This man hath good will, and a pretty
+scholar's wit; but he is too little for these big fellows, as heavy as
+her Majesty thinks them to be.  I would she had but one or two, such as
+the worst of half a score be here."  The other English statecounsellor
+seemed more promising.  "I have one here," said the Earl, "in whom I take
+no small comfort; that is little Hal Killigrew.  I assure you, my lord,
+he is a notable servant, and more in him than ever I heretofore thought
+of him, though I always knew him to be an honest man and an able."
+
+But of all the men that stood by Leicester's side, the most faithful,
+devoted, sagacious, experienced, and sincere of his counsellors, English
+or Flemish, was envoy Davison.  It is important to note exactly the
+opinion that had been formed of him by those most competent to judge,
+before events in which he was called on to play a prominent and
+responsible though secondary part, had placed him in a somewhat
+false position.
+
+"Mr. Davison," wrote Sidney, "is here very careful in her Majesty's
+causes, and in your Lordship's.  He takes great pains and goes to great
+charges for it."  The Earl himself was always vehement in his praise.
+"Mr. Davison," said he at another time, "has dealt most painfully and
+chargeably in her Majesty's service here, and you shall find him as
+sufficiently able to deliver the whole state of this country as any man
+that ever was in it, acquainted with all sorts here that are men of
+dealing.  Surely, my Lord, you shall do a good deed that he may be
+remembered with her Majesty's gracious consideration, for his being here
+has been very chargeable, having kept a very good countenance, and a very
+good table, all his abode here, and of such credit with all the chief
+sort, as I know no stranger in any place hath the like.  As I am a suitor
+to you to be his good friend to her Majesty, so I must heartily pray you,
+good my Lord, to procure his coming hither shortly to me again, for I
+know not almost how to do without him.  I confess it is a wrong to the
+gentleman, and I protest before God, if it were for mine own particular
+respect, I would not require it for L5000.  But your Lordship doth little
+think how greatly I have to do, as also how needful for her Majesty's
+service his being here will, be.  Wherefore, good my Lord, if it may not
+offend her Majesty, be a mean for this my request, for her own service'
+sake wholly."
+
+Such were the personages who surrounded the Earl on his arrival in the
+Netherlands, and such their sentiments respecting the position that it
+was desirable for him to assume.  But there was one very important fact.
+He had studiously concealed from Davison that the Queen had peremptorily
+and distinctly forbidden his accepting the office of governor-general.
+It seemed reasonable, if he came thither at all, that he should come in
+that elevated capacity.  The Staten wished it.  The Earl ardently longed
+for it.  The ambassador, who knew more of Netherland politics and
+Netherland humours than any man did, approved of it.  The interests of
+both England and Holland seemed to require it.  No one but Leicester knew
+that her Majesty had forbidden it.
+
+Accordingly, no sooner had the bell-ringing, cannon-explosions, bonfires,
+and charades, come to an end, and the Earl got fairly housed in the
+Hague, than the States took the affair of government seriously in hand.
+
+On the 9th January, Chancellor Leoninus and Paul Buys waited upon
+Davison, and requested a copy of the commission granted by the Queen to
+the Earl.  The copy was refused, but the commission was read; by which it
+appeared that he had received absolute command over her Majesty's forces
+in the Netherlands by land and sea, together with authority to send for
+all gentlemen and other personages out of England that he might think
+useful to him.  On the 10th the States passed a resolution to offer him
+the governor-generalship over all the Provinces.  On the same day another
+committee waited upon his "Excellency"--as the States chose to denominate
+the Earl, much to the subsequent wrath of the Queen--and made an
+appointment for the whole body to wait upon him the following morning.
+
+Upon that day accordingly--New Year's Day, by the English reckoning, 11th
+January by the New Style--the deputies of all the States at an early hour
+came to his lodgings, with much pomp, preceded by a herald and
+trumpeters.  Leicester, not expecting them quite so soon, was in his
+dressing-room, getting ready for the solemn audience, when, somewhat to
+his dismay, a flourish of trumpets announced the arrival of the whole
+body in his principal hall of audience.  Hastening his preparations as
+much as possible, he descended to that apartment, and was instantly
+saluted by a flourish of rhetoric still more formidable; for that "very
+great, and wise old Leoninus," forthwith began an oration, which promised
+to be of portentous length and serious meaning.  The Earl was slightly
+flustered, when, fortunately; some one whispered in his ear that they had
+come to offer him the much-coveted prize of the stadholderate-general.
+Thereupon he made bold to interrupt the flow of the chancellor's
+eloquence in its first outpourings.  "As this is a very private matter,"
+said he, "it will be better to treat of it in a more private place I pray
+you therefore to come into my chamber, where these things may be more
+conveniently discussed."
+
+"You hear what my Lord says," cried Leoninus, turning to his companions;
+"we are to withdraw into his chamber."
+
+Accordingly they withdrew, accompanied by the Earl, and by five or six
+select counsellors, among whom were Davison and Dr. Clerk.  Then the
+chancellor once more commenced his harangue, and went handsomely through
+the usual forms of compliment, first to the Queen, and then to her
+representative, concluding with an earnest request that the Earl--
+although her Majesty had declined the sovereignty "would take the name
+and place of absolute governor and general of all their forces and
+soldiers, with the disposition of their whole revenues and taxes."
+
+So soon as the oration was concluded, Leicester; who did not speak
+French, directed Davison to reply in that language.
+
+The envoy accordingly, in name of the Earl, expressed the deepest
+gratitude for this mark of the affection and confidence of the States-
+General towards the Queen.  He assured them that the step thus taken by
+them would be the cause of still more favour and affection on the part of
+her Majesty, who would unquestionably, from day to day, augment the
+succour that she was extending to the Provinces in order to relieve men
+from their misery.  For himself, the Earl protested that he could never
+sufficiently recompense the States for the honour which had thus been
+conferred upon him, even if he should live one hundred lives.  Although
+he felt himself quite unable to sustain the weight of so great an office,
+yet he declared that they might repose with full confidence on his
+integrity and good intentions.  Nevertheless, as the authority thus
+offered to him was very arduous, and as the subject required deep
+deliberation, he requested that the proposition should be reduced to
+writing, and delivered into his hands.  He might then come to a
+conclusion thereupon, most conducive to the glory of God and the welfare
+of the land.
+
+Three days afterwards, 14th January, the offer, drawn up formally in
+writing, was presented to envoy Davison, according to the request of
+Leicester.  Three days latter, 17th January, his Excellency having
+deliberated upon the proposition, requested a committee of conference.
+The conference took place the same day, and there was some discussion
+upon matters of detail, principally relating to the matter of
+contributions.  The Earl, according to the report of the committee,
+manifested no repugnance to the acceptance of the office, provided these
+points could be satisfactorily adjusted.  He seemed, on the contrary,
+impatient, rather than reluctant; for, on the day following the
+conference, he sent his secretary Gilpin with a somewhat importunate
+message.  "His Excellency was surprised," said the secretary, "that the
+States were so long in coming to a resolution on the matters suggested by
+him in relation to the offer of the government-general; nor could his
+Excellency imagine the cause of the delay."
+
+For, in truth, the delay was caused by an excessive, rather than a
+deficient, appetite for power on the part of his Excellency.  The States,
+while conferring what they called the "absolute" government, by which it
+afterwards appeared that they meant absolute, in regard to time, not to
+function--were very properly desirous of retaining a wholesome control
+over that government by means of the state-council.  They wished not only
+to establish such a council, as a check upon the authority of the new
+governor, but to share with him at least in the appointment of the
+members who were to compose the board.  But the aristocratic Earl was
+already restive under the thought of any restraint--most of all the
+restraint of individuals belonging to what he considered the humbler
+classes.
+
+"Cousin, my lord ambassador," said he to Davison, "among your sober
+companions be it always remembered, I beseech you, that your cousin have
+no other alliance but with gentle blood.  By no means consent that he be
+linked in faster bonds than their absolute grant may yield him a free and
+honourable government, to be able to do such service as shall be meet for
+an honest man to perform in such a calling, which of itself is very
+noble.  But yet it is not more to be embraced, if I were to be led in
+alliance by such keepers as will sooner draw my nose from the right scent
+of the chace, than to lead my feet in the true pace to pursue the game I
+desire to reach.  Consider, I pray you, therefore, what is to be done,
+and how unfit it will be in respect of my poor self, and how unacceptable
+to her Majesty, and how advantageous to enemies that will seek holes in
+my coat, if I should take so great a name upon me, and so little power.
+They challenge acceptation already, and I challenge their absolute grant
+and offer to me, before they spoke of any instructions; for so it was
+when Leoninus first spoke to me with them all on New Years Day, as you
+heard--offering in his speech all manner of absolute authority.  If it
+please them to confirm this, without restraining instructions, I will
+willingly serve the States, or else, with such advising instructions as
+the Dowager of Hungary had."
+
+This was explicit enough, and Davison, who always acted for Leicester in
+the negotiations with the States, could certainly have no doubt as to the
+desires of the Earl, on the subject of "absolute" authority.  He did
+accordingly what he could to bring the States to his Excellency's way of
+thinking; nor was he unsuccessful.
+
+On the 22nd January, a committee of conference was sent by the States to
+Leyden, in which city Leicester was making a brief visit.  They were
+instructed to procure his consent, if possible, to the appointment, by
+the States themselves, of a council consisting of members from each
+Province.  If they could not obtain this concession, they were directed
+to insist as earnestly as possible upon their right to present a double.
+list of candidates, from which he was to make nominations.  And if the
+one and the other proposition should be refused, the States were then to
+agree that his Excellency should freely choose and appoint a council of
+state, consisting of native residents from every Province, for the period
+of one year.  The committee was further authorised to arrange the
+commission for the governor, in accordance with these points; and to draw
+up a set of instructions for.  the state-council, to the satisfaction of
+his Excellency.  The committee was also empowered to conclude the matter
+at once, without further reference to the States.
+
+Certainly a committee thus instructed was likely to be sufficiently
+pliant.  It had need to be, in order to bend to the humour of his
+Excellency, which was already becoming imperious.  The adulation which he
+had received; the triumphal marches, the Latin orations, the flowers
+strewn in his path, had produced their effect, and the Earl was almost
+inclined to assume the airs of royalty.  The committee waited upon him at
+Leyden.  He affected a reluctance to accept the "absolute" government,
+but his coyness could not deceive such experienced statesmen as the "wise
+old Leoliinus," or Menin, Maalzoon, Florin Thin, or Aitzma, who composed
+the deputation.  It was obvious enough to them that it was not a King Log
+that had descended among them, but it was not a moment for complaining.
+The governor elect insisted, of course, that the two Englishmen,
+according to the treaty with her Majesty, should be members of, the
+council.  He also, at once, nominated Leoninus, Meetkerk, Brederode,
+Falck, and Paul Buys, to the same office; thinking, no doubt, that these
+were five keepers--if keepers he must have--who would not draw his nose
+off the scent, nor prevent his reaching the game he hunted, whatever that
+game might be.  It was reserved for the future, however, to show,
+whether, the five were like to hunt in company with him as harmoniously
+as he hoped.  As to the other counsellors, he expressed a willingness
+that candidates should be proposed for him, as to whose qualifications he
+would make up his mind at leisure.
+
+This matter being satisfactorily adjusted-and certainly unless the game
+pursued by the Earl was a crown royal, he ought to have been satisfied
+with his success--the States received a letter from their committee at
+Leyden, informing them that his Excellency, after some previous
+protestations, had accepted the government (24th January, 1586).
+
+It was agreed that he should be inaugurated Governor-General of the
+United Provinces of Gelderland and Zutphen, Flanders, Holland, Zeeland,
+Utrecht, Friesland, and all others in confederacy with them.  He was to
+have supreme military command by land and sea.  He was to exercise
+supreme authority in matters civil and political, according to the
+customs prevalent in the reign of the Emperor Charles V.  All officers,
+political, civil, legal, were to be appointed by him out of a double or
+triple nomination made by the States of the Provinces in which vacancies
+might occur.  The States-General were to assemble whenever and wherever
+he should summon them.  They were also--as were the States of each
+separate Province--competent to meet together by their own appointment.
+The Governor-General was to receive an oath of fidelity from the States,
+and himself to swear the maintenance of the ancient laws, customs, and
+privileges of the country.
+
+The deed was done.  In vain had an emissary of the French court been
+exerting his utmost to prevent the consummation of this close alliance.
+For the wretched government of Henry III., while abasing itself before
+Philip II., and offering the fair cities and fertile plains of France as
+a sacrifice to that insatiable ambition which wore the mask of religious
+bigotry, was most anxious that Holland and England should not escape the
+meshes by which it was itself enveloped.  The agent at the Hague came
+nominally upon some mercantile affairs, but in reality, according to
+Leicester, "to impeach the States from binding themselves to her
+Majesty."  But he was informed that there was then no leisure for his
+affairs; "for the States would attend to the service of the Queen of
+England, before all princes in the world."  The agent did not feel
+complimented by the coolness of this reception; yet it was reasonable
+enough, certainly, that the Hollanders should remember with bitterness
+the contumely, which they had experienced the previous year in France.
+The emissary was; however, much disgusted.  "The fellow," said Leicester,
+"took it in such snuff, that he came proudly to the States and offered
+his letters, saying; 'Now I trust you have done all your sacrifices to
+the Queen of England, and may yield me some leisure to read my masters
+letters.'"--"But they so shook him, up," continued the Earl, "for naming
+her Majesty in scorn--as they took it--that they hurled him his letters;
+and bid him content himself;" and so on, much to the agent's
+discomfiture, who retired in greater "snuff" than ever.
+
+So much for the French influence.  And now Leicester had done exactly
+what the most imperious woman in the world, whose favour was the breath
+of his life, had expressly forbidden him to do.  The step having been
+taken, the prize so tempting to his ambition having been snatched, and
+the policy which had governed the united action of the States and himself
+seeming so sound, what ought he to have done in order to avert the
+tempest which he must have foreseen?  Surely a man who knew so much of
+woman's nature and of Elizabeth's nature as he did, ought to have
+attempted to conciliate her affections, after having so deeply wounded
+her pride.  He knew his power.  Besides the graces of his person and
+manner--which few women, once impressed by them, could ever forget--he
+possessed the most insidious and flattering eloquence, and, in absence,
+his pen was as wily as his tongue.  For the Earl was imbued with the very
+genius of courtship.  None was better skilled than he in the phrases of
+rapturous devotion, which were music to the ear both of the woman and the
+Queen; and he knew his royal mistress too well not to be aware that the
+language of passionate idolatry, however extravagant, had rarely fallen
+unheeded upon her soul.  It was strange therefore, that in this
+emergency, he should not at once throw himself upon her compassion
+without any mediator.  Yet, on the contrary, he committed the monstrous
+error of entrusting his defence to envoy Davison, whom he determined to
+despatch at once with instructions to the Queen, and towards whom he
+committed the grave offence of concealing from him her previous
+prohibitions.  But how could the Earl fail to perceive that it was the
+woman, not the Queen, whom be should have implored for pardon; that it
+was Robert Dudley, not William Davison, who ought to have sued upon his
+knees.  This whole matter of the Netherland sovereignty and the Leicester
+stadholderate, forms a strange psychological study, which deserves and
+requires some minuteness of attention; for it was by the characteristics
+of these eminent personages that tho current history was deeply stamped.
+
+Certainly, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, the first letter
+conveying intelligence so likely to pique the pride of Elizabeth, should
+have been a letter from Leicester.  On the contrary, it proved to be a
+dull formal epistle from the States.
+
+And here again the assistance of the indispensable Davison was considered
+necessary.  On the 3rd February the ambassador--having announced his
+intention of going to England, by command of his Excellency, so soon as
+the Earl should have been inaugurated, for the purpose of explaining all
+these important transactions to her Majesty--waited upon the States with
+the request that they should prepare as speedily as might be their letter
+to the Queen, with other necessary documents, to be entrusted to his
+care.  He also suggested that the draft or minute of their proposed
+epistle should be submitted to him for advice--"because the humours of
+her Majesty were best known to him."
+
+Now the humours of her Majesty were best known to Leicester of all men
+in the whole world, and it is inconceivable that he should have allowed
+so many days and weeks to pass without taking these humours properly into
+account.  But the Earl's head was slightly turned by his sudden and
+unexpected success.  The game that he had been pursuing had fallen into
+his grasp, almost at the very start, and it is not astonishing that he
+should have been somewhat absorbed in the enjoyment of his victory.
+
+Three days later (6th February) the minute of a letter to Elizabeth,
+drawn up by Menin, was submitted to the ambassador; eight days after that
+(14th February) Mr. Davison took leave of the States, and set forth for
+the Brill on his way to England; and three or four days later yet, he was
+still in that sea-port, waiting for a favourable wind.  Thus from the
+11th January, N.S., upon which day the first offer of the absolute
+government had been made to Leicester, nearly forty days had elapsed,
+during which long period the disobedient Earl had not sent one line,
+private or official, to her Majesty on this most important subject.  And
+when at last the Queen was to receive information of her favourite's
+delinquency, it was not to be in his well-known handwriting and
+accompanied by his penitent tears and written caresses, but to be laid
+before her with all the formality of parchment and sealingwax, in the
+stilted diplomatic jargon of those "highly-mighty, very learned, wise,
+and very foreseeing gentlemen, my lords the States-General."  Nothing
+could have been managed with less adroitness.
+
+Meantime, not heeding the storm gathering beyond the narrow seas, the new
+governor was enjoying the full sunshine of power.  On the 4th February
+the ceremony of his inauguration took place, with great pomp and ceremony
+at the Hague.
+
+The beautiful, placid, village-capital of Holland wore much the same
+aspect at that day as now.  Clean, quiet, spacious streets, shaded with
+rows of whispering poplars and umbrageous limes, broad sleepy canals--
+those liquid highways alone; which glided in phantom silence the bustle,
+and traffic, and countless cares of a stirring population--quaint
+toppling houses, with tower and gable; ancient brick churches, with
+slender spire and musical chimes; thatched cottages on the outskirts,
+with stork-nests on the roofs--the whole without fortification save the
+watery defences which enclosed it with long-drawn lines on every side;
+such was the Count's park, or 's Graven Haage, in English called the
+Hague.
+
+It was embowered and almost buried out of sight by vast groves of oaks
+and beeches.  Ancient Badahuennan forests of sanguinary Druids, the "wild
+wood without mercy" of Saxon savages, where, at a later period, sovereign
+Dirks and Florences, in long succession of centuries, had ridden abroad
+with lance in rest, or hawk on fist; or under whose boughs, in still
+nearer days, the gentle Jacqueline had pondered and wept over her
+sorrows, stretched out in every direction between the city and the
+neighbouring sea.  In the heart of the place stood the ancient palace of
+the counts, built in the thirteenth century by William II. of Holland,
+King of the Romans, with massive brick walls, cylindrical turrets,
+pointed gable and rose-shaped windows, and with spacious coup-yard,
+enclosed by feudal moat, drawbridge, and portcullis.
+
+In the great banqueting-hall of the ancient palace, whose cedarn-roof of
+magnificent timber-work, brought by crusading counts from the Holy Land,
+had rung with the echoes of many a gigantic revel in the days of
+chivalry--an apartment one hundred and fifty feet long and forty feet
+high--there had been arranged an elevated platform, with a splendid chair
+of state for the "absolute" governor, and with a great profusion of
+gilding and velvet tapestry, hangings, gilt emblems, complimentary
+devices, lions, unicorns, and other imposing appurtenances.  Prince
+Maurice, and all the members of his house, the States-General in full
+costume, and all the great functionaries, civil and military, were
+assembled.  There was an elaborate harangue by orator Menin, in which it
+was proved; by copious citations from Holy Writ and from ancient
+chronicle, that the Lord never forsakes His own; so that now, when the
+Provinces were at their last gasp by the death of Orange and the loss of
+Antwerp, the Queen of England and the Earl of Leicester had suddenly
+descended, as if from Heaven; to their rescue.  Then the oaths of mutual
+fidelity were exchanged between the governor and the States, and, in
+conclusion, Dr. Bartholomew Clerk ventured to measure himself with the
+"big fellows," by pronouncing an oration which seemed to command
+universal approbation.  And thus the Earl was duly installed Governor-
+General of the United States of the Netherlands.
+
+But already the first mutterings of the storm were audible.  A bird in
+the air had whispered to the Queen that her favourite was inclined to
+disobedience.  "Some flying tale hath been told me here," wrote Leicester
+to Walsingham, "that her Majesty should mislike my name of Excellency.
+But if I had delighted, or would have received titles, I refused a title
+higher than Excellency, as Mr. Davison, if you ask him, will tell you;
+and that I, my own self, refused most earnestly that, and, if I might
+have done it, this also."  Certainly, if the Queen objected to this
+common form of address, which had always been bestowed upon Leicester, as
+he himself observed, ever since she had made him an earl,  it might be
+supposed that her wrath would mount high when she should hear of him as
+absolute governor-general.  It is also difficult to say what higher title
+he had refused, for certainly the records show that he had refused
+nothing, in the way of power and dignity, that it was possible for him to
+obtain.
+
+But very soon afterwards arrived authentic intelligence that the Queen
+had been informed of the proposition made on New Year's-Day (0.S.), and
+that, although she could not imagine the possibility of his accepting,
+she was indignant that he had not peremptorily rejected the offer.
+
+"As to the proposal made to you," wrote Burghley, "by the mouth of
+Leoninus, her Majesty hath been informed that you had thanked them in her
+name, and alledged that there was no such thing in the contract, and that
+therefore you could not accept nor knew how to answer the same."
+
+Now this information was obviously far from correct, although it had been
+furnished by the Earl himself to Burghley.  We have seen that Leicester
+had by no means rejected, but very gratefully entertained, the
+proposition as soon as made.  Nevertheless the Queen was dissatisfied,
+even without suspecting that she had been directly disobeyed.  "Her
+Majesty," continued the Lord-Treasurer; "is much offended with this
+proceeding.  She allows not that you should give them thanks, but findeth
+it very strange that you did not plainly declare to them that they did
+well know how often her Majesty had refused to have any one for her take
+any such government there, and that she had always so answered
+peremptorily.  Therefore there might be some suspicion conceived that by
+offering on their part, and refusal on hers, some further mischief might
+be secretly hidden by some odd person's device to the hurt of the cause.
+But in that your Lordship did not flatly say to them that yourself did
+know her Majesty's mind therein, that she never meant, in this sort, to
+take the absolute government, she is offended considering, as she saith,
+that none knew her determination therein better than yourself.  For at
+your going hence, she did peremptorily charge you not to accept any such
+title and office; and therefore her straight commandment now is that you
+shall not accept the same, for she will never assent thereto, nor avow
+you with any such title."
+
+If Elizabeth was so wrathful, even while supposing that the offer had
+been gratefully declined, what were likely to be her emotions when she
+should be informed that it had been gratefully accepted.  The Earl
+already began to tremble at the probable consequences of his mal-
+adroitness.  Grave was the error he had committed in getting himself made
+governor-general against orders; graver still, perhaps fatal, the blunder
+of not being swift to confess his fault, and cry for pardon, before other
+tongues should have time to aggravate his offence.  Yet even now he
+shrank from addressing the Queen in person, but hoped to conjure the
+rising storm by means of the magic wand of the Lord-Treasurer.  He
+implored his friend's interposition to shield him in the emergency, and
+begged that at least her Majesty and the lords of council would suspend
+their judgment until Mr. Davison should deliver those messages and
+explanations with which, fully freighted, he was about to set sail from
+the Brill.
+
+"If my reasons seem to your wisdoms," said he, "other than such as might
+well move a true and a faithful careful man to her Majesty to do as I
+have done, I do desire, for my mistaking offence, to bear the burden of
+it; to be disavowed with all displeasure and disgrace; a matter of as
+great reproach and grief as ever can happen to any man."  He begged that
+another person might be sent as soon as possible in his place-protesting,
+however, by his faith in Christ, that he had done only what he was bound
+to do by his regard for her Majesty's service--and that when he set foot
+in the country he had no more expected to be made Governor of the
+Netherlands than to be made King of Spain.  Certainly he had been paying
+dear for the honour, if honour it was, and he had not intended on setting
+forth for the Provinces to ruin himself, for the sake of an empty title.
+His motives--and he was honest, when he so avowed them--were motives of
+state at least as much as of self-advancement.  "I have no cause," he
+said, "to have played the fool thus far for myself; first, to have her
+Majesty's displeasure, which no kingdom in the world could make me
+willingly deserve; next, to undo myself in my later days; to consume all
+that should have kept me all my life in one half year.  But I must thank
+God for all, and am most heartily grieved at her Majesty's heavy
+displeasure.  I neither desire to live, nor to see my country with it."
+
+And at this bitter thought, he began to sigh like furnace, and to shed
+the big tears of penitence.
+
+"For if I have not done her Majesty good service at this time," he said,
+"I shall never hope to do her any, but will withdraw me into some out-
+corner of the world, where I will languish out the rest of my few-too
+many-days, praying ever for her Majesty's long and prosperous life, and
+with this only comfort to live an exile, that this disgrace hath happened
+for no other cause but for my mere regard for her Majesty's estate."
+
+Having painted this dismal picture of the probable termination to his
+career--not in the hope of melting Burghley but of touching the heart of
+Elizabeth--he proceeded to argue the point in question with much logic
+and sagacity.  He had satisfied himself on his arrival in the Provinces,
+that, if he did not take the governor-generalship some other person
+would; and that it certainly was for the interest of her Majesty that her
+devoted servant, rather than an indifferent person, should be placed in
+that important position.  He maintained that the Queen had intimated,
+to him, in private, her willingness that he should accept the office in
+question provided the proposition should come from the States and not
+from her; he reasoned that the double nature of his functions--being
+general and counsellor for her, as well as general and counsellor for the
+Provinces--made his acceptance of the authority conferred on him almost
+indispensable; that for him to be merely commander over five thousand
+English troops, when an abler soldier than himself, Sir John Norris, was
+at their head, was hardly worthy her Majesty's service or himself, and
+that in reality the Queen had lost nothing, by his appointment, but had
+gained much benefit and honour by thus having the whole command of the
+Provinces, of their forces by land and sea, of their towns and treasures,
+with knowledge of all their secrets of state.
+
+Then, relapsing into a vein of tender but reproachful melancholy, he
+observed, that, if it had been any man but himself that had done as he
+had done, he would have been thanked, not censured.  "But such is now my
+wretched case," he said, "as for my faithful, true, and loving heart to
+her Majesty and my country, I have utterly undone myself.  For favour, I
+have disgrace; for reward, utter spoil and ruin.  But if this taking upon
+me the name of governor is so evil taken as it hath deserved dishonour,
+discredit, disfavour, with all griefs that may be laid upon a man, I must
+receive it as deserved of God and not of my Queen, whom I have reverenced
+with all humility, and whom I have loved with all fidelity."
+
+This was the true way, no doubt, to reach the heart of Elizabeth, and
+Leicester had always plenty of such shafts in his quiver.  Unfortunately
+he had delayed too long, and even now he dared not take a direct aim.  He
+feared to write to the Queen herself, thinking that his so doing, "while
+she had such conceipts of him, would only trouble her," and he therefore
+continued to employ the Lord-Treasurer and Mr. Secretary as his
+mediators.  Thus he committed error upon error.
+
+Meantime, as if there had not been procrastination enough, Davison was
+loitering at the Brill, detained by wind and weather.  Two days after the
+letter, just cited, had been despatched to Walsingham, Leicester sent an
+impatient message to the envoy.  "I am heartily sorry, with all my
+heart," he said, "to hear of your long stay at Brill, the wind serving so
+fair as it hath done these two days.  I would have laid any wager that
+you had been in England ere this.  I pray you make haste, lest our cause
+take too great a prejudice there ere you come, although I cannot fear it,
+because it is so good and honest.  I pray you imagine in what care I
+dwell till I shall hear from you, albeit some way very resolute."
+
+Thus it was obvious that he had no secret despair of his cause when it
+should be thoroughly laid before the Queen.  The wonder was that he had
+added the offence of long silence to the sin of disobedience.  Davison
+had sailed, however, before the receipt of the Earl's letter.  He had
+been furnished with careful instructions upon the subject of his mission.
+He was to show how eager the States had been to have Leicester for their
+absolute governor--which was perfectly true--and how anxious the Earl
+had been to decline the proffered honour--which was certainly false,
+if contemporary record and the minutes of the States-General are to be
+believed.  He was to sketch the general confusion which had descended
+upon the country, the quarrelling of politicians, and the discontent of
+officers and soldiers, from out of all which chaos one of two results was
+sure to arise: the erection of a single chieftain, or a reconciliation of
+the Provinces with Spain.  That it would be impossible for the Earl to
+exercise the double functions with which he was charged--of general of
+her Majesty's forces, and general and chief counsellor of the States--
+if any other man than himself should be appointed governor; was obvious.
+It was equally plain that the Provinces could only be kept at her
+Majesty's disposition by choosing the course which, at their own
+suggestion, had been adopted.  The offer of the government by the States,
+and its acceptance by the Earl, were the logical consequence of the step
+which the Queen had already taken.  It was thus only that England could
+retain her hold upon the country, and even upon the cautionary towns.  As
+to a reconciliation of the Provinces with Spain--which would have been
+the probable result of Leicester's rejection of the proposition made
+by the Stateait was unnecessary to do more than allude to such a
+catastrophe.  No one but a madman could doubt that, in such an event,
+the subjugation of England was almost certain.
+
+But before the arrival of the ambassador, the Queen had been thoroughly
+informed as to the whole extent of the Earl's delinquency.  Dire was the
+result.  The wintry gales which had been lashing the North Sea, and
+preventing the unfortunate Davison from setting forth on his disastrous
+mission, were nothing to the tempest of royal wrath which had been
+shaking the court-world to its centre.  The Queen had been swearing most
+fearfully ever since she read the news, which Leicester had not dared to
+communicate directly, to herself.  No one was allowed to speak a word in
+extenuation of the favourite's offence.  Burghley, who lifted up his
+voice somewhat feebly to appease her wrath, was bid, with a curse, to
+hold his peace.  So he took to his bed-partly from prudence, partly from
+gout--and thus sheltered himself for a season from the peltings of the
+storm.  Walsingham, more manful, stood to his post, but could not gain a
+hearing.  It was the culprit that should have spoken, and spoken in time.
+"Why, why did you not write yourself?"  was the plaintive cry of all the
+Earl's friends, from highest to humblest.  "But write to her now," they
+exclaimed, "at any rate; and, above all, send her a present, a love-
+gift."  "Lay out two or three hundred crowns in some rare thing, for
+a token to her Majesty," said Christopher Hatton.
+
+Strange that his colleagues and his rivals should have been obliged
+to advise Leicester upon the proper course to pursue; that they--not
+himself--should have been the first to perceive that it was the enraged
+woman, even more than the offended sovereign, who was to be propitiated
+and soothed.  In truth, all the woman had been aroused in Elizabeth's
+bosom.  She was displeased that her favourite should derive power and
+splendour from any source but her own bounty.  She was furious that
+his wife, whom she hated, was about to share in his honours.  For the
+mischievous tongues of court-ladies had been collecting or fabricating
+many unpleasant rumours.  A swarm of idle but piquant stories had been
+buzzing about the Queen's ears, and stinging her into a frenzy of
+jealousy.  The Countess--it was said--was on the point of setting forth
+for the Netherlands, to join the Earl, with a train of courtiers and
+ladies, coaches and side-saddles, such as were never seen before--where
+the two were about to establish themselves in conjugal felicity, as well
+as almost royal state.  What a prospect for the jealous and imperious
+sovereign!  "Coaches and side-saddles!  She would show the upstarts that
+there was one Queen, and that her name was Elizabeth, and that there
+was no court but hers."  And so she continued to storm and swear, and
+threaten unutterable vengeance, till all her courtiers quaked in their
+shoes.
+
+Thomas Dudley, however, warmly contradicted the report, declaring, of his
+own knowledge, that the Countess had no wish to go to the Provinces, nor
+the Earl any intention of receiving her there.  This information was at
+once conveyed to the Queen, "and," said Dudley, "it did greatly pacify
+her stomach."  His friends did what they could to maintain the governor's
+cause; but Burghley, Walsingham, Hatton, and the rest of them, were all
+"at their wits end," and were nearly distraught at the delay in Davison's
+arrival.  Meantime the Queen's stomach was not so much pacified but that
+she was determined to humiliate the Earl with the least possible delay.
+Having waited sufficiently long for his explanations, she now appointed
+Sir Thomas Heneage as special commissioner to the States, without waiting
+any longer.  Her wrath vented itself at once in the preamble to the
+instructions for this agent.
+
+"Whereas," she said, "we have been given to understand that the Earl of
+Leicester hath in a very contemptuous sort--contrary to our express
+commandment given unto him by ourself, accepted of an offer of a more
+absolute government made by the States unto him, than was agreed on
+between us and their commissioners--which kind of contemptible manner of
+proceeding giveth the world just cause to think that there is not that
+reverent respect carried towards us by our subjects as in duty
+appertaineth; especially seeing so notorious a contempt committed by one
+whom we have raised up and yielded in the eye of the world, even from the
+beginning of our reign, as great portion of our favour as ever subject
+enjoyed at any prince's hands; we therefore, holding nothing dearer than
+our honour, and considering that no one thing could more touch our
+reputation than to induce so open and public a faction of a prince, and
+work a greater reproach than contempt at a subject's hand, without
+reparation of our honour, have found it necessary to send you unto him,
+as well to charge him with the said contempt, as also to execute such
+other things as we think meet to be done, for the justifying of ourselves
+to the world, as the repairing of the indignity cast upon us by his
+undutiful manner of proceeding towards us .  .  .  .  .  And for that we
+find ourselves also not well dealt withal by the States, in that they
+have pressed the said Earl, without our assent or privity, to accept of
+a more absolute government than was agreed on between us and their
+commissioners, we have also thought meet that you shall charge them
+therewith, according to the directions hereafter ensuing.  And to the end
+there may be no delay used in the execution of that which we think meet
+to be presently done, you shall charge the said States, even as they
+tender the continuance of our good-will towards them, to proceed to the
+speedy execution of our request."
+
+After this trumpet-like preamble it may be supposed that the blast which
+followed would be piercing and shrill.  The instructions, in truth,
+consisted in wild, scornful flourishes upon one theme.  The word contempt
+had occurred five times in the brief preamble.  It was repeated in almost
+every line of the instructions.
+
+"You shall let the Earl" (our cousin no longer) "understand," said the
+Queen, "how highly and justly we are offended with his acceptation of the
+government, which we do repute to be a very great and strange contempt,
+least looked for at our hands, being, as he is, a creature of our own."
+His omission to acquaint her by letter with the causes moving him "so
+contemptuously to break" her commandment, his delay in sending Davison
+"to answer the said contempt," had much "aggravated the fault," although
+the Queen protested herself unable to imagine any "excuse for so manifest
+a contempt."  The States were to be informed that she "held it strange"
+that "this creature of her own" should have been pressed by them to
+"commit so notorious a contempt" against her, both on account of this
+very exhibition of contempt on Leicester's part, and because they thereby
+"shewed themselves to have a very slender and weak conceit of her
+judgment, by pressing a minister of hers to accept that which she had
+refused, as: though her long experience in government had not taught her
+to discover what was fit to do in matters of state."  As the result of
+such a proceeding would be to disgrace her in the eyes of mankind, by
+inducing an opinion that her published solemn declaration on this great
+subject had been intended to abuse the, world, he was directed--in order
+to remove the hard conceit justly to be taken by the world, "in
+consideration of the said contempt,"--to make a public and open
+resignation of the government in the place where he had accepted the
+same.
+
+Thus it had been made obvious to the unlucky "creature of her own," that
+the Queen did not easily digest "contempt."  Nevertheless these
+instructions to Heneage were gentle, compared with the fierce billet
+which she addressed directly to the Earl: It was brief, too, as the posy
+of a ring; and thus it ran: "To my Lord of Leicester, from the Queen, by
+Sir Thomas Heneage.  How contemptuously we conceive ourself to have been
+used by you, you shall by this bearer understand, whom we have expressly
+sent unto you to charge you withal.  We could never have imagined, had we
+not seen it fall out in experience, that a man raised up by ourself, and
+extraordinarily favoured by us above any other subject of this land,
+would have, in so contemptible a sort, broken our commandment, in a cause
+that so greatly toucheth us in honour; whereof, although you have showed
+yourself to make but little account, in most undutiful a sort, you may
+not therefore think that we have so little care of the reparation thereof
+as we mind to pass so great a wrong in silence unredressed.  And
+therefore our express pleasure and commandment is, that--all delays and
+excuses laid apart--you do presently, upon the duty of your allegiance,
+obey and fulfil whatsoever the bearer hereof shall direct you to do in
+our name.  Whereof fail not, as you will answer the contrary at your
+uttermost peril."
+
+Here was no billing and cooing, certainly, but a terse, biting
+phraseology, about which there could be no misconception.
+
+By the same messenger the Queen also sent a formal letter to the States-
+General; the epistle--'mutatis mutandis'--being also addressed to the
+state-council.
+
+In this document her Majesty expressed her great surprise that Leicester
+should have accepted their offer of the absolute government, "both for
+police and war," when she had so expressly rejected it herself.  "To tell
+the truth," she observed, "you seem to have treated us with very little
+respect, and put a too manifest insult upon us, in presenting anew to one
+of, our subjects the same proposition which we had already declined,
+without at least waiting for our answer whether we should like it or no;
+as if we had not sense enough to be able to decide upon what we ought to
+accept or refuse."  She proceeded to express her dissatisfaction with the
+course pursued, because so repugnant to her published declaration, in
+which she had stated to the world her intention of aiding the Provinces,
+without meddling in the least with the sovereignty of the country.
+"The contrary would now be believed," she said, "at least by those who
+take the liberty of censuring, according to their pleasure, the actions
+of princes."  Thus her honour was at stake.  She signified her will,
+therefore, that, in order to convince the world of her sincerity, the
+authority conferred should be revoked, and that "the Earl," whom she had
+decided to recall very soon, should, during his brief residence there,
+only exercise the power agreed upon by the original contract.  She warmly
+reiterated her intention, however, of observing inviolably the promise of
+assistance which she had given to the States.  "And if," she said, "any
+malicious or turbulent spirits should endeavour, perchance, to persuade
+the people that this our refusal proceeds from lack of affection or
+honest disposition to assist you--instead of being founded only on
+respect for our honour, which is dearer to us than life--we beg you, by
+every possible means, to shut their mouths, and prevent their pernicious
+designs."
+
+Thus, heavily laden with the royal wrath, Heneage was on the point of
+leaving London for the Netherlands, on the very day upon which Davison
+arrived, charged with deprecatory missives from that country.  After his
+long detention he had a short passage, crossing from the Brill to Margate
+in a single night.  Coming immediately to London, he sent to Walsingham
+to inquire which way the wind was blowing at court, but received a
+somewhat discouraging reply.  "Your long detention by his Lordship,"
+said the Secretary, "has wounded the whole cause;" adding, that he
+thought her Majesty would not speak with him.  On the other hand, it
+seemed indispensable for him to go to the court, because if the Queen
+should hear of his arrival before he had presented himself, she was
+likely to be more angry than ever.
+
+So, the same afternoon, Davison waited upon Walsingham, and found him
+in a state of despondency.  "She takes his Lordship's acceptance of the,
+government most haynously," said Sir Francis, "and has resolved to send
+Sir Thomas Heneage at once, with orders for him to resign the office.
+She has been threatening you and Sir Philip Sidney, whom she considers
+the chief actors and persuaders in the matter, according to information
+received from some persons about my Lord of Leicester."
+
+Davison protested himself amazed at the Secretary's discourse, and at
+once took great pains to show the reasons by which all parties had been
+influenced in the matter of the government.  He declared roundly that if
+the Queen should carry out her present intentions, the Earl would be most
+unworthily disgraced, the cause utterly overthrown, the Queen's honour
+perpetually stained, and that her kingdom would incur great disaster.
+
+Directly after this brief conversation, Walsingham went up stairs to the
+Queen, while Davison proceeded to the apartments of Sir Christopher
+Hatton.  Thence he was soon summoned to the royal presence, and found
+that he had not been misinformed as to the temper of her Majesty.  The
+Queen was indeed in a passion, and began swearing at Davison so soon as
+he got into the chamber; abusing Leicester for having accepted the offer
+of the States, against her many times repeated commandment, and the
+ambassador for not having opposed his course.  The thing had been done,
+she said, in contempt of her, as if her consent had been of no
+consequence, or as if the matter in no way concerned her.
+
+So soon as she paused to take breath, the envoy modestly, but firmly,
+appealed to her reason, that she would at any rate lend him a patient and
+favourable ear, in which case he doubted not that she would form a more
+favourable opinion of the case than she had hitherto done: He then
+entered into a long discourse upon the state of the Netherlands before
+the arrival of Leicester, the inclination in many quarters for a peace,
+the "despair that any sound and good fruit would grow of her Majesty's
+cold beginning," the general unpopularity of the States' government, the
+"corruption, partiality, and confusion," which were visible everywhere,
+the perilous condition of the whole cause, and the absolute necessity of
+some immediate reform.
+
+"It was necessary," said Davison, "that some one person of wisdom and
+authority should take the helm.  Among the Netherlanders none was
+qualified for such a charge.  Lord Maurice is a child, poor, and of but
+little respect among them.  Elector Truchsess, Count Hohenlo, Meurs, and
+the rest, strangers and incapable of the burden.  These considerations
+influenced the States to the step which had been taken; without which all
+the rest of her benevolence was to little purpose."  Although the
+contract between the commissioners and the Queen had not literally
+provided for such an arrangement, yet it had always been contemplated by
+the States, who had left themselves without a head until the arrival of
+the Earl.
+
+"Under one pretext or another," continued the envoy, "my Lord of
+Leicester had long delayed to satisfy them,"--(and in so stating he went
+somewhat further in defence of his absent friend than the facts would
+warrant), "for he neither flatly refused it, nor was willing to accept,
+until your Majesty's pleasure should be known."  Certainly the records
+show no reservation of his acceptance until the Queen had been consulted;
+but the defence by Davison of the offending Earl was so much the more
+courageous.
+
+"At length, wearied by their importunity, moved with their reasons, and
+compelled by necessity, he thought it better to take the course he did,"
+proceeded the diplomatist, "for otherwise he must have been an eye-
+witness of the dismemberment of the whole country, which could not be
+kept together but by a reposed hope in her Majesty's found favour, which
+had been utterly despaired of by his refusal.  He thought it better by
+accepting to increase the honour, profit; and surety, of her Majesty, and
+the good of the cause, than, by refusing, to utterly hazard the one, and
+overthrow the other."
+
+To all this and more, well and warmly urged by Davison; the Queen
+listened by fits and starts, often interrupting his discourse by violent
+abuse of Leicester, accusing him of contempt for her, charging him with
+thinking more of his own particular greatness than of her honour and
+service, and then "digressing into old griefs," said the envoy, "too long
+and tedious to write."  She vehemently denounced Davison also for
+dereliction of duty in not opposing the measure; but he manfully declared
+that he never deemed so meanly of her Majesty or of his Lordship as to
+suppose that she would send him, or that he would go to the Provinces,
+merely," to take command of the relics of Mr. Norris's worn and decayed
+troops."  Such a change, protested Davison, was utterly unworthy a person
+of the Earl's quality, and utterly unsuited to the necessity of the time
+and state.
+
+But Davison went farther in defence of Leicester.  He had been present at
+many of the conferences with the Netherland envoys during the preceding
+summer in England, and he now told the Queen stoutly to her face that she
+herself, or at any rate one of her chief counsellors, in her hearing and
+his, had expressed her royal determination not to prevent the acceptance
+of whatever authority the states might choose to confer, by any one whom
+she might choose to send.  She had declined to accept it in person, but
+she had been willing that it should be wielded by her deputy; and this
+remembrance of his had been confirmed by that of one of the commissioners
+since their return.  She had never--Davison maintained--sent him one
+single line having any bearing on the subject.  Under such circumstances,
+"I might have been accused of madness,", said he, "to have dissuaded an
+action in my poor opinion so necessary and expedient for your Majesty's
+honour, surety, and greatness."  If it were to do over again, he avowed,
+and "were his opinion demanded, he could give no other advice than that
+which he had given, having received no contrary, commandment from her
+Highness."
+
+And so ended the first evening's long and vehement debate, and Davison
+departed, "leaving her," as he said, "much qualified, though in many
+points unsatisfied."  She had however, absolutely refused to receive a
+letter from Leicester, with which he had been charged, but which, in her
+opinion, had better have been written two months before.
+
+The next day, it seemed, after all, that Heneage was to be despatched,
+"in great heat," upon his mission.  Davison accordingly requested an
+immediate audience.  So soon as admitted to the presence he burst into
+tears, and implored the Queen to pause before she should inflict the
+contemplated disgrace on one whom she had hitherto so highly esteemed,
+and, by so doing, dishonour herself and imperil both countries.  But the
+Queen was more furious than ever that morning, returning at every pause
+in the envoy's discourse to harp upon the one string--"How dared he come
+to such a decision without at least imparting it to me?"--and so on, as
+so many times before.  And again Davison, with all the eloquence and with
+every soothing art he had at command; essayed to pour oil upon the waves.
+Nor was he entirely unsuccessful; for presently the Queen became so calm
+again that he ventured once more to present the rejected letter of the
+Earl.  She broke the seal, and at sight of the well-known handwriting she
+became still more gentle; and so soon as she had read the first of her
+favourite's honied phrases she thrust the precious document into her
+pocket, in order to read it afterwards, as Davison observed, at her
+leisure.
+
+The opening thus successfully made, and the envoy having thus, "by many
+insinuations," prepared her to lend him a "more patient and willing ear
+than she had vouchsafed before," he again entered into a skilful and
+impassioned argument to show the entire wisdom of the course pursued by
+the Earl.
+
+It is unnecessary to repeat the conversation.  Since to say that no man
+could have more eloquently and faithfully supported an absent friend
+under difficulties than Davison now defended the Earl.  The line of
+argument is already familiar to the reader, and, in truth, the Queen had
+nothing to reply, save to insist upon the governor's delinquency in
+maintaining so long and inexplicable a silence.  And--at this thought,
+in spite of the envoy's eloquence, she went off again in a paroxysm of
+anger, abusing the Earl, and deeply censuring Davison for his "peremptory
+and partial dealing."
+
+"I had conceived a better opinion of you," she said, "and I had intended
+more good to you than I now find you worthy of."
+
+"I humbly thank your Highness," replied the ambassador, "but I take
+yourself to witness that I have never affected or sought any such grace
+at your hands.  And if your Majesty persists in the dangerous course on
+which you are now entering, I only pray your leave, in recompense for all
+my travails, to retire myself home, where I may spend the rest of my life
+in praying for you, whom Salvation itself is not able to save, if these
+purposes are continued.  Henceforth, Madam, he is to be deemed happiest
+who is least interested in the public service."
+
+And so ended the second day's debate.  The next day the Lord-Treasurer,
+who, according to Davison, employed himself diligently--as did also
+Walsingham and Hatton--in dissuading the Queen from the violent measures
+which she had resolved upon, effected so much of a change as to procure
+the insertion of those qualifying clauses in Heneage's instructions which
+had been previously disallowed.  The open and public disgrace of the
+Earl, which was to have been peremptorily demanded, was now to be
+deferred, if such a measure seemed detrimental to the public service.
+Her Majesty, however, protested herself as deeply offended as ever,
+although she had consented to address a brief, somewhat mysterious, but
+benignant letter of compliment to the States.
+
+Soon after this Davison retired for a few days from the court, having
+previously written to the Earl that "the heat of her Majesty's offence to
+his Lordship was abating every day somewhat, and that she was disposed
+both to hear and to speak more temperately of him."
+
+He implored him accordingly to a "more diligent entertaining of her by
+wise letters and messages, wherein his slackness hitherto appeared to
+have bred a great part of this unkindness."  He observed also that the
+"traffic of peace was still going on underhand; but whether to use it as
+a second string to our bow, if the first should fail, or of any settled
+inclination thereunto, he could not affirm."
+
+Meantime Sir Thomas Heneage was despatched on his mission to the Staten,
+despite all the arguments and expostulations of Walsingham, Burghley,
+Hatton, and Davison.  All the Queen's counsellors were unequivocally in
+favour of sustaining Leicester; and Heneage was not a little embarrassed
+as to the proper method of conducting the affair.  Everything, in truth,
+was in a most confused condition.  He hardly understood to what power he
+was accredited.  "Heneage writes even now unto me," said Walsingham to
+Davison, "that he cannot yet receive any information who be the States,
+which he thinketh will be a great maimer unto him in his negotiation.  I
+have told him that it is an assembly much like that of our burgesses that
+represent the State, and that my Lord of Leicester may cause some of them
+to meet together, unto whom he may deliver his letters and messages."
+Thus the new envoy was to request the culprit to summon the very assembly
+by which his downfall and disgrace were to be solemnized, as formally as
+had been so recently his elevation to the height of power.  The prospect
+was not an agreeable one, and the less so because of his general want of
+familiarity with the constitutional forms of the country he was about to
+visit.  Davison accordingly, at the request of Sir Francis, furnished
+Heneage with much valuable information and advice upon the subject.
+
+Thus provided with information, forewarned of danger, furnished with a
+double set of letters from the Queen to the States--the first expressed
+in language of extreme exasperation, the others couched in almost
+affectionate terms--and laden with messages brimfull of wrathful
+denunciation from her Majesty to one who was notoriously her Majesty's
+dearly-beloved, Sir Thomas Heneage set forth on his mission.  These were
+perilous times for the Davisons and the Heneages, when even Leicesters
+and Burghleys were scarcely secure.
+
+Meantime the fair weather at court could not be depended upon from one
+day to another, and the clouds were perpetually returning after the rain.
+
+"Since my second and third day's audience," said Davison, "the storms I
+met with at my arrival have overblown and abated daily.  On Saturday
+again she fell into some new heat, which lasted not long.  This day I was
+myself at the court, and found her in reasonable good terms, though she
+will not yet seem satisfied to me either with the matter or manner of
+your proceeding, notwithstanding all the labour I have taken in that
+behalf.  Yet I find not her Majesty altogether so sharp as some men look,
+though her favour has outwardly cooled in respect both of this action and
+of our plain proceeding with her here in defence thereof."
+
+The poor Countess--whose imaginary exodus, with the long procession of
+coaches and side-saddles, had excited so much ire--found herself in a
+most distressing position.  "I have not seen my Lady these ten or twelve
+days," said Davison.  "To-morrow I hope to do my duty towards her.
+I found her greatly troubled with tempestuous news she received from
+court, but somewhat comforted when she understood how I had proceeded
+with her Majesty .  .  .  .  But these passions overblown, I hope her
+Majesty will have a gracious regard both towards myself and the cause."
+
+But the passions seemed not likely to blow over so soon as was desirable.
+Leicester's brother the Earl of Warwick took a most gloomy view of the
+whole transaction, and hoarser than the raven's was his boding tone.
+
+"Well, our mistress's extreme rage doth increase rather than diminish,"
+he wrote, "and she giveth out great threatening words against you.
+Therefore make the best assurance you can for yourself, and trust not her
+oath, for that her malice is great and unquenchable in the wisest of
+their opinions here, and as for other friendships, as far as I can learn,
+it is as doubtful as the other.  Wherefore, my good brother, repose your
+whole trust in God, and He will defend you in despite of all your
+enemies.  And let this be a great comfort to you, and so it is likewise
+to myself and all your assured friends, and that is, that you were never
+so honoured and loved in your life amongst all good people as you are at
+this day, only for dealing so nobly and wisely in this action as you
+have done; so that, whatsoever cometh of it, you have done your part.
+I praise God from my heart for it.  Once again, have great care of
+yourself, I mean for your safety, and if she will needs revoke you, to
+the overthrowing of the cause, if I were as you, if I could not be
+assured there, I would go to the farthest part of Christendom rather than
+ever come into England again.  Take heed whom you trust, for that you
+have some false boys about you."
+
+And the false boys were busy enough, and seemed likely to triumph in
+the result of their schemes.  For a glance into the secret correspondence
+of Mary of Scotland has already revealed the Earl to us constantly
+surrounded by men in masks.  Many of those nearest his person, and of
+highest credit out of England, were his deadly foes, sworn to compass
+his dishonour, his confusion, and eventually his death, and in
+correspondence with his most powerful adversaries at home and abroad.
+Certainly his path was slippery and perilous along those icy summits of
+power, and he had need to look well to his footsteps.
+
+Before Heneage had arrived in the Netherlands, Sir Thomas Shirley,
+despatched by Leicester to England with a commission to procure supplies
+for the famishing soldiers, and, if possible, to mitigate the Queen's
+wrath, had, been admitted more than once to her Majesty's presence.  He
+had fought the Earl's battle as manfully as Davison had done, and, like
+that envoy, had received nothing in exchange for his plausible arguments
+but bitter words and big oaths.  Eight days after his arrival he was
+introduced by Hatton into the privy chamber, and at the moment of his
+entrance was received with a volley of execrations.
+
+"I did expressly and peremptorily forbid his acceptance of the absolute
+government, in the hearing of divers of my council," said the Queen.
+
+Shirley.--"The necessity of the case was imminent, your Highness.
+It was his Lordship's intent to do all for your Majesty's service.
+Those countries did expect him as a governor at his first landing,
+and the States durst do no other than satisfy the people also with that
+opinion.  The people's mislike of their present government is such and so
+great as that the name of States is grown odious amongst them.  Therefore
+the States, doubting the furious rage of the people, conferred the
+authority upon his Lordship with incessant suit to him to receive it.
+Notwithstanding this, however, he did deny it until he saw plainly both
+confusion and ruin of that country if he should refuse.  On the other
+hand, when he had seen into their estates, his lordship found great
+profit and commodity like to come unto your Majesty by your acceptance of
+it.  Your Highness may now have garrisons of English in as many towns as
+pleaseth you, without any more charge than you are now at.  Nor can any
+peace be made with Spain at any time hereafter, but through you: and by
+you.  Your Majesty should remember, likewise, that if a man of another
+nation had been chosen governor it might have wrought great danger.
+Moreover it would have been an indignity that your lieutenant-general
+should of necessity be under him that so should have been elected.
+Finally, this is a stop to any other that may affect the place of
+government there."
+
+Queen (who has manifested many signs of impatience during this
+discourse).--"Your speech is all in vain.  His Lordship's proceeding is
+sufficient to make me infamous to all princes, having protested the
+contrary, as I have done, in a book which is translated into divers and
+sundry languages.  His Lordship, being my servant, a creature of my own,
+ought not, in duty towards me, have entered into this course without my
+knowledge and good allowance."
+
+Shirley.--"But the world hath conceived a high judgment of your Majesty's
+great wisdom and providence; shown by your assailing the King of Spain at
+one time both in the Low Countries and also by Sir Francis Drake.  I do
+assure myself that the same judgment which did first cause you to take
+this in hand must continue a certain knowledge in your Majesty that one
+of these actions must needs stand much better by the other.  If Sir
+Frances do prosper, then all is well.  And though he should not prosper,
+yet this hold that his Lordship hath taken for you on the Low Countries
+must always assure an honourable peace at your Highness's pleasure.  I
+beseech your Majesty to remember that to the King of Spain the government
+of his Lordship is no greater matter than if he were but your lieutenant-
+general there; but the voyage of Sir Francis is of much greater offence
+than all."
+
+Queen (interrupting).--"I can very well answer for Sir Francis.
+Moreover, if need be, the gentleman careth not if I should disavow him."
+
+Shirley.--"Even so standeth my Lord, if your disavowing of him may also
+stand with your Highness's favour towards him.  Nevertheless; should this
+bruit of your mislike of his Lordship's authority there come unto the
+ears of those people; being a nation both sudden and suspicious, and
+having been heretofore used to stratagem--I fear it may work some strange
+notion in them, considering that, at this time, there is an increase of
+taxation raised upon them, the bestowing whereof perchance they know
+not of.  His Lordship's giving; up of the government may leave them
+altogether without government, and in worse case than they were ever
+in before.  For now the authority of the States is dissolved, and his
+Lordship's government is the only thing that holdeth them together.
+I do beseech your Highness, then, to consider well of it, and if there
+be any private cause for which you take grief against his Lordship,
+nevertheless, to have regard unto the public cause, and to have a care
+of your own safety, which in many wise men's opinions, standeth much
+upon the good maintenance and upholding of this matter."
+
+Queen.--"I believe nothing of, what you say concerning the dissolving of
+the authority of the States.  I know well enough that the States do
+remain states still.  I mean not to do harm to the cause, but only to
+reform that which his Lordship hath done beyond his warrant from me."
+
+And with this the Queen swept suddenly from the apartment.  Sir Thomas,
+at different stages of the conversation, had in vain besought her to
+accept a letter from the Earl which had been entrusted to his care.
+She obstinately refused to touch it.  Shirley had even had recourse to
+stratagem: affecting ignorance on many points concerning which the Queen
+desired information, and suggesting that doubtless she would find those
+matters fully explained in his Lordship's letter.  The artifice was in
+vain, and the discussion was, on the whole, unsatisfactory.  Yet there is
+no doubt that the Queen had had the worst of the argument, and she was
+far too sagacious a politician not to feel the weight of that which had
+been urged so often in defence of the course pursued.  But it was with
+her partly a matter of temper and offended pride, perhaps even of wounded
+affection.
+
+On the following morning Shirley saw the Queen walking in the garden of
+the palace, and made bold to accost her.  Thinking, as he said, "to test
+her affection to Lord Leicester by another means," the artful Sir Thomas
+stepped up to her, and observed that his Lordship was seriously ill.
+"It is feared," he said, "that the Earl is again attacked by the disease
+of which Dr. Goodrowse did once cure him.  Wherefore his Lordship is now
+a humble suitor to your Highness that it would please you to spare
+Goodrowse, and give him leave to go thither for some time."
+
+The Queen was instantly touched.
+
+"Certainly--with all my heart, with all my heart, he shall have him," she
+replied, "and sorry I am that his Lordship hath that need of him."
+
+"And indeed," returned sly Sir Thomas, "your Highness is a very gracious
+prince, who are pleased not to suffer his Lordship to perish in health,
+though otherwise you remain deeply offended with him."
+
+"You know my mind," returned Elizabeth, now all the queen again, and
+perhaps suspecting the trick; "I may not endure that any man should alter
+my commission and the authority that I gave him, upon his own fancies and
+without me."
+
+With this she instantly summoned one of her gentlemen, in order to break
+off the interview, fearing that Shirley was about to enter again upon a
+discussion of the whole subject, and again to attempt the delivery of the
+Earl's letter.
+
+In all this there was much of superannuated coquetry, no doubt, and much
+of Tudor despotism, but there was also a strong infusion of artifice.
+For it will soon be necessary to direct attention to certain secret
+transactions of an important nature in which the Queen was engaged, and
+which were even hidden from the all-seeing eye of Walsingham--although
+shrewdly suspected both by that statesman and by Leicester--but which
+were most influential in modifying her policy at that moment towards the
+Netherlands.
+
+There could be no doubt, however, of the stanch and strenuous manner in
+which the delinquent Earl was supported by his confidential messengers
+and by some of his fellow-councillors.  His true friends were urgent that
+the great cause in which he was engaged should be forwarded sincerely and
+without delay.  Shirley had been sent for money; but to draw money from
+Elizabeth was like coining her life-blood, drachma by drachma.
+
+"Your Lordship is like to have but a poor supply of money at this time,"
+said Sir Thomas.  "To be plain with you, I fear she groweth weary of the
+charge, and will hardly be brought to deal thoroughly in the action."
+
+He was also more explicit than he might have been--had he been better
+informed as to the disposition of the chief personages of the court,
+concerning whose temper the absent Earl was naturally anxious.  Hatton
+was most in favour at the moment, and it was through Hatton that the
+communications upon Netherland matters passed; "for," said Shirley, "she
+will hardly endure Mr. Secretary (Walsingham) to speak unto her therein."
+
+"And truly, my Lord," he continued, "as Mr. Secretary is a noble, good,
+and true friend unto you, so doth Mr. Vice-Chamberlain show himself an
+honourable, true, and faithful gentleman, and doth carefully and most
+like a good friend for your Lordship."
+
+And thus very succinctly and graphically had the envoy painted the
+situation to his principal.  "Your Lordship now sees things just as they
+stand," he moralized.  "Your Lordship is exceeding wise.  You know the
+Queen and her nature best of any man.  You know all men here.  Your
+Lordship can judge the sequel by this that you see: only this I must tell
+your Lordship, I perceive that fears and doubts from thence are like to
+work better effects here than comforts and assurance.  I think it my part
+to send your Lordship this as it is, rather than to be silent."
+
+And with these rather ominous insinuations the envoy concluded for the
+time his narrative.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Intolerable tendency to puns
+New Years Day in England, 11th January by the New Style
+Peace and quietness is brought into a most dangerous estate
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v44
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 45, 1586
+
+
+CHAPTER VII., Part 2.
+
+     Leicester's Letters to his Friends--Paltry Conduct of the Earl to
+     Davison--He excuses himself at Davison's Expense--His Letter to
+     Burghley--Effect of the Queen's Letters to the States--Suspicion and
+     Discontent in Holland--States excuse their Conduct to the Queen--
+     Leicester discredited in Holland--Evil Consequences to Holland and
+     England--Magic: Effect of a Letter from Leicester--The Queen
+     appeased--Her Letters to the States and the Earl--She permits the
+     granted Authority----Unhappy Results of the Queen's Course--Her
+     variable Moods--She attempts to deceive Walsingham--Her Injustice to
+     Heneage--His Perplexity and Distress--Humiliating Position of
+     Leicester--His melancholy Letters to the Queen--He receives a little
+     Consolation--And writes more cheerfully--The Queen is more
+     benignant--The States less contented than the Earl--His Quarrels
+     with them begin.
+
+While these storms were blowing and "overblowing" in England, Leicester
+remained greatly embarrassed and anxious in Holland.  He had sown the
+wind more extensively than he had dreamed of when accepting the
+government, and he was now awaiting, with much trepidation, the usual
+harvest: And we have seen that it was rapidly ripening.  Meantime, the
+good which he had really effected in the Provinces by the course he had
+taken was likely to be neutralized by the sinister rumours as to his
+impending disgrace, while the enemy was proportionally encouraged.
+"I understand credibly," he said, "that the Prince of Parma feels himself
+in great jollity that her Majesty doth rather mislike than allow of our
+doings here, which; if it be true, let her be sure her own sweet self
+shall first smart."
+
+Moreover; the English troops were, as we have seen, mere shoeless,
+shivering, starving vagabonds.  The Earl had generously advanced very
+large sums of money from his own pocket to relieve their necessity.  The
+States, on the other hand, had voluntarily increased the monthly
+contribution of 200,000 florins, to which their contract with Elizabeth
+obliged them, and were more disposed than ever they had been since the
+death of Orange to proceed vigorously and harmoniously against the common
+enemy of Christendom.  Under such circumstances it may well be imagined
+that there was cause on Leicester's part for deep mortification at the
+tragical turn which the Queen's temper seemed to be taking.
+
+"I know not," he said, "how her Majesty doth mean to dispose of me.
+It hath grieved me more than I can express that for faithful and good
+service she should so deeply conceive against me.  God knows with what
+mind I have served her Highness, and perhaps some others might have
+failed.  Yet she is neither tied one jot by covenant or promise by me in
+any way, nor at one groat the more charges, but myself two or three
+thousand pounds sterling more than now is like to be well spent.  I will
+desire no partial speech in my favour.  If my doings be ill for her
+Majesty and the realm, let me feel the smart of it.  The cause is now
+well forward; let not her majesty suffer it to quail.  If you will have
+it proceed to good effect, send away Sir William Pelham with all the
+haste you can.  I mean not to complain, but with so weighty a cause as
+this is, few men have been so weakly assisted.  Her Majesty hath far
+better choice for my place, and with any that may succeed me let Sir
+William Pelham be first that may come.  I speak from my soul for her
+Majesty's service.  I am for myself upon an hour's warning to obey her
+good pleasure."
+
+Thus far the Earl had maintained his dignity.  He had yielded to the
+solicitations of the States, and had thereby exceeded his commission, and
+gratified his ambition, but he had in no wise forfeited his self-respect.
+But--so soon as the first unquestionable intelligence of the passion to
+which the Queen had given way at his misdoings reached him--he began to
+whimper, The straightforward tone which Davison had adopted in his
+interviews with Elizabeth, and the firmness with which he had defended
+the cause of his absent friend, at a moment when he had plunged himself
+into disgrace, was worthy of applause.  He deserved at least a word of
+honest thanks.
+
+Ignoble however was the demeanor of the Earl towards the man--for whom
+he had but recently been unable to invent eulogies sufficiently warm--
+so soon as he conceived the possibility of sacrificing his friend as the
+scape-goat for his own fault.  An honest schoolboy would have scorned to
+leave thus in the lurch a comrade who had been fighting his battles so
+honestly.
+
+"How earnest I was," he wrote to the lords of the council, 9th March,
+1586, "not only to acquaint her Majesty, but immediately upon the first
+motion made by the States, to send Mr. Davison over to her with letters,
+I doubt not but he will truly affirm for me; yea, and how far against my
+will it was, notwithstanding any reasons delivered me, that he and others
+persisted in, to have me accept first of this place .  .  .  .  .  The
+extremity of the case, and my being persuaded that Mr. Davison might have
+better satisfied her Majesty, than I perceive he can, caused, me-neither
+arrogantly nor contemptuously, but even merely and faithfully--to do her
+Majesty the best service."
+
+He acknowledged, certainly, that Davison had been influenced by honest
+motives, although his importunities had been the real cause of the Earl's
+neglect of his own obligations.  But he protested that he had himself,
+only erred through an excessive pliancy to the will of others.  "My
+yielding was my own fault," he admitted, "whatsoever his persuasions;
+but far from a contemptuous heart, or else God pluck out both heart and
+bowels with utter shame."
+
+So soon as Sir Thomas Heneage had presented himself, and revealed the
+full extent of the Queen's wrath, the Earl's disposition to cast the
+whole crime on the shoulders of Davison became quite undisguised.
+
+"I thank you for your letters," wrote Leicester to Walsingham, "though
+you can send me no comfort.  Her Majesty doth deal hardly to believe so
+ill of me.  It is true I faulted, but she doth not consider what
+commodities she hath withal, and herself no way engaged for it, as Mr.
+Davison might have better declared it, if it had pleased him.  And I
+must thank him only for my blame, and so he will confess to you, for,
+I protest before God, no necessity here could have made me leave her
+Majesty unacquainted with the cause before I would have accepted of it,
+but only his so earnest pressing me with his faithfid assured promise to
+discharge me, however her Majesty should take it.  For you all see there
+she had no other cause to be offended but this, and, by the Lord, he was
+the only cause; albeit it is no sufficient allegation, being as I am .  .
+.  .  .  He had, I think, saved all to have told her, as he promised me.
+But now it is laid upon me, God send the cause to take no harm, my grief
+must be the less.
+
+"How far Mr. Heneage's commission shall deface me I know not.  He is wary
+to observe his commission, and I consent withal.  I know the time will be
+her Majesty will be sorry for it.  In the meantime I am too, too weary of
+the high dignity.  I would that any that could serve her Majesty were
+placed in it, and I to sit down with all my losses."
+
+In more manful strain he then alluded to the sufferings of his army.
+"Whatsoever become of me," he said, "give me leave to speak for the poor
+soldiers.  If they be not better maintained, being in this strange
+country, there will be neither good service done, nor be without great
+dishonour to her Majesty .  .  .  .  .  Well, you see the wants, and it
+is one cause that will glad me to be rid of this heavy high calling, and
+wish me at my poor cottage again, if any I shall find.  But let her
+Majesty pay them well, and appoint such a man as Sir William Pelham to
+govern them, and she never wan more honour than these men here will do,
+I am persuaded."
+
+That the Earl was warmly urged by all most conversant with Netherland
+politics to assume the government was a fact admitted by all.  That he
+manifested rather eagerness than reluctance on the subject, and that his
+only hesitation arose from the proposed restraints upon the power, not
+from scruples about accepting the power, are facts upon record.  There
+is nothing save his own assertion to show any backwardness on his part
+to snatch the coveted prize; and that assertion was flatly denied by
+Davison, and was indeed refuted by every circumstance in the case.  It
+is certain that he had concealed from Davison the previous prohibitions
+of the Queen.  He could anticipate much better than could Davison,
+therefore, the probable indignation of the Queen.  It is strange then
+that he should have shut his eyes to it so wilfully, and stranger still
+that he should have relied on the envoy's eloquence instead of his own to
+mitigate that emotion.  Had he placed his defence simply upon its true
+basis, the necessity of the case, and the impossibility of carrying out
+the Queen's intentions in any other way, it would be difficult to censure
+him; but that he should seek to screen himself by laying the whole blame
+on a subordinate, was enough to make any honest man who heard him hang
+his head.  "I meant not to do it, but Davison told me to do it, please
+your Majesty, and if there was naughtiness in it, he said he would make
+it all right with your Majesty."  Such, reduced to its simplest
+expression, was the defence of the magnificent Earl of Leicester.
+
+And as he had gone cringing and whining to his royal mistress, so it was
+natural that he should be brutal and blustering to his friend.
+
+"By your means," said he, "I have fallen into her Majesty's deep
+displeasure .  .  .  .  .  If you had delivered to her the truth of my
+dealing, her Highness never could have conceived, as I perceive she doth
+.  .  .  .  .  Nor doth her Majesty know how hardly I was drawn to accept
+this place before I had acquainted her--as to which you promised you
+would not only give her full satisfaction, but would, procure me great
+thanks. . . . . You did chiefly persuade me to take this charge upon me
+. . . . You can remember how many treaties you and others had with the
+States, before I agreed; for all yours and their persuasion to take it
+. . . . . You gave me assurance to satisfy her Majesty, but I see not
+that you have done anything . . . . I did not hide from you the doubt
+I had of her Majesty's ill taking it . . . . . You chiefly brought me
+into it . . . . and it could no way have been heavy to you, though you
+had told the uttermost of your own doing, as you faithfully promised you
+would . . . . . I did very unwillingly come into the matter, doubting
+that to fall out which is come to pass . . . . and it doth so fall out
+by your negligent carelessness, whereof I many hundred times told you
+that you would both mar the goodness of the matter, and breed me her
+Majesty's displeasure . . . . . Thus fare you well, and except your
+embassages have better success, I shall have no cause to commend them."
+
+And so was the unfortunate Davison ground into finest dust between the
+upper and lower millstones of royal wrath and loyal subserviency.
+
+Meantime the other special envoy had made his appearance in the
+Netherlands; the other go-between between the incensed Queen and the
+backsliding favourite.  It has already been made sufficiently obvious,
+by the sketch given of his instructions, that his mission was a delicate
+one.  In obedience to those instructions, Heneage accordingly made his
+appearance before the council, and, in Leicester's presence, delivered to
+them the severe and biting reprimand which Elizabeth had chosen to
+inflict upon the States and upon the governor.  The envoy performed his
+ungracious task as daintily, as he could, and after preliminary
+consultation with Leicester; but the proud Earl was deeply mortified."
+The fourteenth day of this month of March," said he, "Sir Thomas Heneage
+delivered a very sharp letter from her Majesty to the council of estate,
+besides his message--myself being, present, for so was her Majesty's
+pleasure, as he said, and I do think he did but as he was commanded.  How
+great a grief it must be to an honest heart and a true, faithful servant,
+before his own face, to a company of very wise and grave counsellors, who
+had conceived a marvellous opinion before of my credit with her Majesty,
+to be charged now with a manifest and wilful contempt!  Matter enough to
+have broken any man's heart, that looked rather for thanks, as God doth
+know I did when I first heard of Mr. Heneage's arrival--I must say to
+your Lordship, for discharge of my duty, I can be no fit man to serve
+here--my disgrace is too great--protesting to you that since that day I
+cannot find it in my heart to come into that place, where, by my own
+sufferings torn, I was made to be thought so lewd a person."
+
+He then comforted himself--as he had a right to do--with the reflection
+that this disgrace inflicted was more than he deserved, and that such
+would be the opinion of those by whom he was surrounded.
+
+"Albeit one thing," he said, "did greatly comfort me, that they all best
+knew the wrong was great I had, and that her Majesty was very wrongfully
+informed of the state of my cause.  I doubt not but they can and will
+discharge me, howsoever they shall satisfy her Majesty.  And as I would
+rather wish for death than justly to deserve her displeasure; so, good my
+Lord, this disgrace not coming for any ill service to her, pray procure
+me a speedy resolution, that I may go hide me and pray for her.  My heart
+is broken, though thus far I can quiet myself, that I know I have done
+her Majesty as faithful and good service in these countries as ever she
+had done her since she was Queen of England .  .  .  .  .  Under
+correction, my good Lord, I have had Halifax law--to be condemned first
+and inquired upon after.  I pray God that no man find this measure that I
+have done, and deserved no worse."
+
+He defended himself--as Davison had already defended him--upon the
+necessities of the case.
+
+"I, a poor gentleman," he said, "who have wholly depended upon herself
+alone--and now, being commanded to a service of the greatest importance
+that ever her Majesty employed any servant in, and finding the occasion
+so serving me, and the necessity of time such as would not permit such
+delays, flatly seeing that if that opportunity were lost, the like again
+for her service and the good of the realm was never, to be looked for,
+presuming upon the favour of my prince, as many servants have done,
+exceeding somewhat thereupon, rather than breaking any part of my
+commission, taking upon me a place whereby I found these whole countries
+could be held at her best devotion, without binding her Majesty to any
+such matter as she had forbidden to the States before finding, I say,
+both the time and opportunity to serve, and no lack but to trust to her
+gracious acceptation, I now feel that how good, how honourable, how
+profitable soever it be, it is turned to a worse part than if I had
+broken all her commissions and commandments, to the greatest harm, and
+dishonour, and danger, that may be imagined against her person, state,
+and dignity."
+
+He protested, not without a show of reason, that he was like to be worse
+punished "for well-doing than any man that had committed a most heinous
+or traitorous offence," and he maintained that if he had not accepted the
+government, as he had done, "the whole State had been gone and wholly
+lost."  All this--as we have seen--had already been stoutly urged by
+Davison, in the very face of the tempest, but with no result, except to
+gain the, enmity of both parties to the quarrel.  The ungrateful
+Leicester now expressed confidence that the second go-between would be
+more adroit than the first had proved.  "The causes why," said he, "Mr.
+Davison could have told--no man better--but Mr. Heneage can now tell, who
+hath sought to the uttermost the bottom of all things.  I will stand to
+his report, whether glory or vain desire of title caused me to step one
+foot forward in the matter.  My place was great enough and high enough
+before, with much less trouble than by this, besides the great
+indignation of her Majesty .  .  .  .  .  If I had overslipt the good
+occasion then in danger, I had been worthy to be hanged, and to be taken
+for a most lewd servant to her Majesty, and a dishonest wretch to my
+country."
+
+But diligently as Heneage had sought to the bottom of all things, he had
+not gained the approbation of Sidney.  Sir Philip thought that the new
+man had only ill botched a piece of work that had been most awkwardly
+contrived from the beginning.  "Sir Thomas Heneage," said he, "hath with
+as much honesty, in my opinion done as much hurt as any man this twelve-
+month hath done with naughtiness.  But I hope in God, when her Majesty
+finds the truth of things, her graciousness will not utterly, overthrow a
+cause so behooveful and costly unto her."
+
+He briefly warned the government that most disastrous effects were likely
+to ensue, if the Earl should be publicly disgraced, and the recent action
+of the States reversed.  The penny-wise economy, too, of the Queen, was
+rapidly proving a most ruinous extravagance.  "I only cry for Flushing;"
+said Sidney, "but, unless the monies be sent over, there will some
+terrible accident follow, particularly to the cautionary towns, if her
+Majesty mean to have them cautions."
+
+The effect produced by the first explosion of the Queen's wrath was
+indeed one of universal suspicion and distrust.  The greatest care had
+been taken, however, that the affair should be delicately handled, for
+Heneage, while, doing as much hurt by honesty as, others by naughtiness,
+had modified his course as much as he dared in deference to the opinions
+of the Earl himself, and that of his English counsellors.  The great
+culprit himself, assisted by his two lawyers, Clerk and Killigrew--had
+himself drawn the bill of his own indictment.  The letters of the Queen
+to the States, to the council, and to the Earl himself, were, of
+necessity, delivered, but the reprimand which Heneage had been instructed
+to fulminate was made as harmless as possible.  It was arranged that he
+should make a speech before the council; but abstain from a protocol.
+The oration was duly pronounced, and it was, of necessity, stinging.
+Otherwise the disobedience to the Queen, would have been flagrant.  But
+the pain inflicted was to disappear with the first castigation.  The
+humiliation was to be public and solemn, but it was not to be placed on
+perpetual record.
+
+"We thought best," said Leicester, Heneage, Clerk, and Killigrew--"In
+according to her Majesty's secret instructions--to take that course which
+might least endanger the weak estate of the Provinces--that is to say, to
+utter so much in words as we hoped might satisfy her excellent Majesty's
+expectation, and yet leave them nothing in writing to confirm that which
+was secretly spread in many places to the hindrance of the good course of
+settling these affairs.  Which speech, after Sir Thomas Heneage had
+devised, and we both perused and allowed, he, by our consent and advice,
+pronounced to the council of state. This we did think needful--especially
+because every one of the council that was present at the reading of her
+Majesty's first letters, was of the full mind, that if her Majesty should
+again show the least mislike of the present government, or should not by
+her next letters confirm it, they, were all undone--for that every man
+would cast with himself which way to make his peace."
+
+Thus adroitly had the "poor gentleman, who could not find it in his heart
+to come again into the place, where--by his own sufferings torn--he was
+made to appear so lewd a person"--provided that there should remain no
+trace of that lewdness and of his sovereign's displeasure, upon the
+record of the States.  It was not long, too, before the Earl was enabled
+to surmount his mortification; but the end was not yet.
+
+The universal suspicion, consequent on these proceedings, grew most
+painful.  It pointed to one invariable quarter.  It was believed by all
+that the Queen was privately treating for peace, and that the transaction
+was kept a secret not only from the States but from her own most trusted
+counsellors also.  It would be difficult to exaggerate the pernicious
+effects of this suspicion.  Whether it was a well-grounded one or not,
+will be shown in a subsequent chapter, but there is no doubt that the
+vigour of the enterprise was thus sapped at a most critical moment.  The
+Provinces had never been more heartily banded together since the fatal
+10th of July, 1584, than they were in the early spring of 1586.  They
+were rapidly organizing their own army, and, if the Queen had manifested
+more sympathy with her own starving troops, the united Englishmen and
+Hollanders would have been invincible even by Alexander Farnese.
+
+Moreover, they had sent out nine war-vessels to cruise off the Cape Verd
+Islands for the homeward-bound Spanish treasure fleet from America, with
+orders, if they missed it, to proceed to the West Indies; so that, said
+Leicester, "the King of Spain will have enough to do between these men
+and Drake."  All parties had united in conferring a generous amount of
+power upon the Earl, who was, in truth, stadholder-general, under grant
+from the States--and both Leicester and the Provinces themselves were
+eager and earnest for the war.  In war alone lay the salvation of England
+and Holland.  Peace was an impossibility.  It seemed to the most
+experienced statesmen of both countries even an absurdity.  It may well
+be imagined, therefore, that the idea of an underhand negotiation by
+Elizabeth would cause a frenzy in the Netherlands.  In Leicester's
+opinion, nothing short of a general massacre of the English would be the
+probable consequence.  "No doubt," said he, "the very way it is to put us
+all to the sword here.  For mine own part it would be happiest for me,
+though I wish and trust to lose my life in better sort."
+
+Champagny, however, was giving out mysterious hints that the King of
+Spain could have peace with England when he wished for it.  Sir Thomas
+Cecil, son of Lord Burghley, on whose countenance the States especially
+relied, was returning on sick-leave from his government of the Brill,
+and this sudden departure of so eminent a personage, joined with the
+public disavowal of the recent transaction between Leicester and the
+Provinces, was producing a general and most sickening apprehension as to
+the Queen's good faith.  The Earl did not fail to urge these matters most
+warmly on the consideration of the English council, setting forth that
+the States were stanch for the war, but that they would be beforehand
+with her if she attempted by underhand means to compass a peace.  "If
+these men once smell any such matter," wrote Leicester to Burghley, "be
+you sure they will soon come before you, to the utter overthrow of her
+Majesty and state for ever."
+
+The Earl was suspecting the "false boys," by whom he was surrounded,
+although it was impossible for him to perceive, as we have been enabled
+to do, the wide-spread and intricate meshes by which he was enveloped.
+"Your Papists in England," said he, "have sent over word to some in this
+company, that all that they ever hoped for is come to pass; that my Lord
+of Leicester shall be called away in greatest indignation with her
+Majesty, and to confirm this of Champagny, I have myself seen a letter
+that her Majesty is in hand with a secret peace.  God forbid! for if it
+be so, her Majesty, her realm, and we, are all undone."
+
+The feeling in the Provinces was still sincerely loyal towards England.
+"These men," said Leicester, "yet honour and most dearly love her
+Majesty, and hardly, I know, will be brought to believe ill of her any
+way."  Nevertheless these rumours, to the discredit of her good faith,
+were doing infinite harm; while the Earl, although keeping his eyes and
+ears wide open, was anxious not to compromise himself any further with
+his sovereign, by appearing himself to suspect her of duplicity.  "Good,
+my Lord," he besought Burghley, "do not let her Majesty know of this
+concerning Champagny as coming from me, for she will think it is done
+for my own cause, which, by the Lord God, it is not, but even on the
+necessity of the case for her own safety, and the realm, and us all.
+Good my Lord, as you will do any good in the matter, let not her Majesty
+understand any piece of it to come from me."
+
+The States-General, on the 25th March, N.S., addressed a respectful
+letter to the Queen, in reply to her vehement chidings.  They expressed
+their deep regret that her Majesty should be so offended with the
+election of the Earl of Leicester as absolute governor.
+
+They confessed that she had just cause of displeasure, but hoped that
+when she should be informed of the whole matter she would rest better
+satisfied with their proceedings.  They stated that the authority was the
+same which had been previously bestowed upon governors-general; observing
+that by the word "absolute," which had been used in designation of that
+authority, nothing more had been intended than to give to the Earl full
+power to execute his commission, while the sovereignty of the country was
+reserved to the people.  This commission, they said, could not be without
+danger revoked.  And therefore they most humbly besought her Majesty to
+approve what had been done, and to remember its conformity with her own
+advice to them, that a multitude of heads, whereby confusion in the
+government is bred, should be avoided.
+
+Leicester, upon the same occasion, addressed a letter to Burghley and
+Walsingham, expressing himself as became a crushed and contrite man,
+never more to raise his drooping head again, but warmly and manfully
+urging upon the attention of the English government--for the honour and
+interest of the Queen herself--"the miserable state of the poor
+soldiers."  The necessity of immediate remittances in order to keep them
+from starving, was most imperious.  For himself, he was smothering his
+wretchedness until he should learn her Majesty's final decision, as to
+what was to become of him.  "Meantime," said he, "I carry my grief
+inward, and will proceed till her Majesty's full pleasure come with as
+little discouragement to the cause as I can.  I pray God her Majesty may
+do that may be best for herself.  For my own part my, heart is broken,
+but not by the enemy."
+
+There is no doubt that the public disgrace thus inflicted upon the
+broken-hearted governor, and the severe censure administered to the
+States by the Queen were both ill-timed and undeserved.  Whatever his
+disingenuousness towards Davison, whatever his disobedience to Elizabeth,
+however ambitious his own secret motives may, have been, there is no
+doubt at all that thus far he had borne himself well in his great office.
+
+Richard Cavendish--than whom few had better opportunities of judging--
+spoke in strong language on the subject.  "It is a thing almost
+incredible," said he, "that the care and diligence of any, one man living
+could, in so small time; have so much repaired so disjointed and loose an
+estate as my Lord found this country, in.  But lest he should swell in
+pride of that his good success, your Lordship knoweth that God hath so
+tempered the cause with the construction thereof, as may well hold him in
+good consideration of human things."  He alluded with bitterness--as did
+all men in the Netherlands who were not open or disguised Papists--to the
+fatal rumours concerning the peace-negotiation in connection with the
+recall of Leicester.  "There be here advertisements of most fearful
+instance," he said, "namely, that Champagny doth not spare most liberally
+to bruit abroad that he hath in his hands the conditions of peace offered
+by her Majesty unto the King his master, and that it is in his power to
+conclude at pleasure--which fearful and mischievous plot, if in time it
+be not met withal by some notable encounter, it cannot but prove the root
+of great ruin."
+
+The "false boys" about Leicester were indefatigable in spreading these
+rumours, and in taking advantage--with the assistance of the Papists in
+the obedient Provinces and in England--of the disgraced condition in
+which the Queen had placed the favourite.  Most galling to the haughty
+Earl--most damaging to the cause of England, Holland, and, liberty--were
+the tales to his discredit, which circulated on the Bourse at Antwerp,
+Middelburg, Amsterdam, and in all the other commercial centres.  The most
+influential bankers and merchants, were assured--by a thousand chattering
+--but as it were invisible--tongues, that the Queen had for a long time
+disliked Leicester; that he was a man of no account among the statesmen
+of England; that he was a beggar and a bankrupt; that, if he had waited
+two months longer, he would have made his appearance in the Provinces
+with one man and one boy for his followers; that the Queen had sent him
+thither to be rid of him; that she never intended him to have more
+authority than Sir John Norris had; that she could not abide the
+bestowing the title of Excellency upon him, and that she had not
+disguised her fury at his elevation to the post of governor-general.
+
+All who attempted a refutation of these statements were asked, with a
+sneer, whether her Majesty had ever written a line to him, or in
+commendation of him, since his arrival.  Minute inquiries were made by
+the Dutch merchants of their commercial correspondents, both in their own
+country and in England, as to Leicester's real condition and character.
+at home.  What was his rank, they asked, what his ability, what: his
+influence at court?  Why, if he were really of so high quality as had
+been reported, was he thus neglected, and at last disgraced?  Had he any
+landed property in England?  Had he really ever held any other office but
+that of master of the horse?  "And then," asked one particular busy body,
+who made himself very unpleasant on the Amsterdam Exchange, "why has her
+Majesty forbidden all noblemen and gentlemen from coming hither, as was
+the case at the beginning?  Is it because she is hearkening to a peace?
+And if it be so, quoth he, we are well handled; for if her Majesty
+hath sent a disgraced man to amuse us, while she is secretly working
+a peace for herself, when we--on the contrary--had broken off all our
+negotiations, upon confidence of her Majesty's goodness; such conduct
+will be remembered to the end of the world, and the Hollanders will
+never abide the name of England again."
+
+On such a bed of nettles there was small chance of repose for the
+governor.  Some of the rumours were even more stinging.  So
+incomprehensible did it seem that the proud sovereign of England should
+send over her subjects to starve or beg in the streets of Flushing and
+Ostend, that it was darkly intimated that Leicester had embezzled the
+funds, which, no doubt, had been remitted for the poor soldiers.  This
+was the most cruel blow of all.  The Earl had been put to enormous
+charges.  His household at the Hague cost him a thousand pounds a month.
+He had been paying and furnishing five hundred and fifty men out of his
+own purse.  He had also a choice regiment of cavalry, numbering seven
+hundred and fifty horse; three hundred and fifty of which number were
+over and above those allowed for by the Queen, and were entirely at his
+expense.  He was most liberal in making presents of money to every
+gentleman in his employment.  He had deeply mortgaged his estates in
+order to provide for these heavy demands upon him, and professed his
+willingness "to spend more, if he might have got any more money for his
+land that was left;" and in the face of such unquestionable facts--much
+to the credit certainly of his generosity--he was accused of swindling
+a Queen whom neither Jew nor Gentile had ever yet been sharp enough to
+swindle; while he was in reality plunging forward in a course of reckless
+extravagance in order to obviate the fatal effects of her penuriousness.
+
+Yet these sinister reports were beginning to have a poisonous effect.
+Already an alteration of mien was perceptible in the States-General.
+"Some buzzing there is amongst them," said Leicester, "whatsoever it be.
+They begin to deal very strangely within these few days."  Moreover the
+industry of the Poleys, Blunts, and Pagets, had turned these unfavourable
+circumstances to such good account that a mutiny had been near breaking
+out among the English troops.  "And, before the Lord I speak it," said
+the Earl, "I am sure some of these good towns had been gone ere this, but
+for my money.  As for the States, I warrant you, they see day at a little
+hole.  God doth know what a forward and a joyful country here was within
+a month.  God send her Majesty to recover it so again, and to take care
+of it, on the condition she send me after Sir Francis Drake to the
+Indies, my service here being no more acceptable."
+
+Such was the aspect of affairs in the Provinces after the first explosion
+of the Queen's anger had become known.  Meanwhile the court-weather was
+very changeable in England, being sometimes serene, sometimes cloudy,--
+always treacherous.
+
+Mr. Vavasour, sent by the Earl with despatches to her Majesty and the
+council, had met with a sufficiently benignant reception.  She accepted
+the letters, which, however, owing to a bad cold with a defluxion in the
+eyes, she was unable at once to read; but she talked ambiguously with the
+messenger.  Yavasour took pains to show the immediate necessity of
+sending supplies, so that the armies in the Netherlands might take the
+field at the, earliest possible moment.  "And what," said she, "if a
+peace should come in the mean time?"
+
+"If your Majesty desireth a convenient peace," replied Vavasour, "to take
+the field is the readiest way to obtain it; for as yet the King of Spain
+hath had no reason to fear you.  He is daily expecting that your own
+slackness may give your Majesty an overthrow.  Moreover, the Spaniards
+are soldiers, and are not to be moved by-shadows."
+
+But the Queen had no ears for these remonstrances, and no disposition to
+open her coffers.  A warrant for twenty-four thousand pounds had been
+signed by her at the end of the month of March, and was about to be sent,
+when Vavasour arrived; but it was not possible for him, although assisted
+by the eloquence of Walsingham and Burghley, to obtain an enlargement of
+the pittance.  "The storms are overblown," said Walsingham, "but I fear
+your Lordship shall receive very scarce measure from hence.  You will not
+believe how the sparing humour doth increase upon us."
+
+Nor were the storms so thoroughly overblown but that there were not daily
+indications of returning foul weather.  Accordingly--after a conference
+with Vavasour--Burghley, and Walsingham had an interview with the Queen,
+in which the Lord Treasurer used bold and strong language.  He protested
+to her that he was bound, both by his duty to himself and his oath as her
+councillor, to declare that the course she was holding to Lord Leicester
+was most dangerous to her own honour, interest and safety.  If she
+intended to continue in this line of conduct, he begged to resign his
+office of Lord Treasurer; wishing; before God and man, to wash his bands
+of the shame and peril which he saw could not be avoided.  The Queen,
+astonished at the audacity of Burghley's attitude and language, hardly
+knew whether to chide him for his presumption or to listen to his
+arguments.  She did both.  She taxed him with insolence in daring to
+address her so roundly, and then finding he was speaking even in
+'amaritudine animae' and out of a clear conscience, she became calm
+again, and intimated a disposition to qualify her anger against the
+absent Earl.
+
+Next day, to their sorrow, the two councillors found that the Queen had
+again changed her mind--"as one that had been by some adverse counsel
+seduced."  She expressed the opinion that affairs would do well enough in
+the Netherlands, even though Leicester were displaced.  A conference
+followed between Walsingham, Hatton, and Burghley, and then the three
+went again to her Majesty.  They assured her that if she did not take
+immediate steps to satisfy the States and the people of the Provinces,
+she would lose those countries and her own honour at the same time; and
+that then they would prove a source of danger to her instead of
+protection and glory.  At this she was greatly troubled, and agreed to do
+anything they might advise consistently with her honour.  It was then
+agreed that Leicester should be continued in the government which he had
+accepted until the matter should be further considered, and letters to
+that effect were at once written.  Then came messenger from Sir Thomas
+Heneage, bringing despatchesfrom that envoy, and a second and most secret
+one from the Earl himself.  Burghley took the precious letter which the
+favourite had addressed to his royal mistress, and had occasion to
+observe its magical effect.  Walsingham and the Lord Treasurer had been
+right in so earnestly remonstrating with him on his previous silence.
+
+"She read your letter," said Burghley, "and, in very truth, I found her
+princely heart touched with favourable interpretation of your actions;
+affirming them to be only offensive to her, in that she was not made
+privy to them; not now misliking that you had the authority."
+
+Such, at fifty-three, was Elizabeth Tudor.  A gentle whisper of idolatry
+from the lips of the man she loved, and she was wax in his hands.  Where
+now were the vehement protestations of horror that her public declaration
+of principles and motives had been set at nought?  Where now were her
+vociferous denunciations of the States, her shrill invectives against
+Leicester, her big oaths, and all the 'hysterica passio,' which had sent
+poor Lord Burghley to bed with the gout, and inspired the soul of
+Walsingham with dismal forebodings?  Her anger had dissolved into a
+shower of tenderness, and if her parsimony still remained it was because
+that could only vanish when she too should cease to be.
+
+And thus, for a moment, the grave diplomatic difference between the
+crown of England and their high mightinesses the United States--upon the
+solution of which the fate of Christendom was hanging--seemed to shrink
+to the dimensions of a lovers' quarrel.  Was it not strange that the
+letter had been so long delayed?
+
+Davison had exhausted argument in defence of the acceptance by the Earl
+of the authority conferred by the States and had gained nothing by his
+eloquence, save abuse from the Queen, and acrimonious censure from the
+Earl.  He had deeply offended both by pleading the cause of the erring
+favourite, when the favourite should have spoken for himself.  "Poor Mr.
+Davison," said Walsingham, "doth take it very grievously that your
+Lordship should conceive so hardly of him as you do.  I find the conceit
+of your Lordship's disfavour hath greatly dejected him.  But at such time
+as he arrived her Majesty was so incensed, as all the arguments and
+orators in the world could not have wrought any satisfaction."
+
+But now a little billet-doux had done what all the orators in the world
+could not do.  The arguments remained the same, but the Queen no longer
+"misliked that Leicester should have the authority."  It was natural that
+the Lord Treasurer should express his satisfaction at this auspicious
+result.
+
+"I did commend her princely nature," he said, "in allowing your good
+intention, and excusing you of any spot of evil meaning; and I thought
+good to hasten her resolution, which you must now take to come from a
+favourable good mistress.  You must strive with your nature to throw over
+your shoulder that which is past."
+
+Sir Walter Raleigh, too, who had been "falsely and pestilently"
+represented to the Earl as an enemy, rather than what he really was,
+a most ardent favourer of the Netherland cause, wrote at once to
+congratulate him on the change in her Majesty's demeanour.  "The Queen is
+in very good terms with you now," he said, "and, thanks be to God, well
+pacified, and you are again her 'sweet Robin.'"
+
+Sir Walter wished to be himself the bearer of the comforting despatches
+to Leicester, on the ground that he had been represented as an "ill
+instrument against him," and in order that he might justify himself
+against the charge, with his own lips.  The Queen, however, while
+professing to make use of Shirley as the messenger, bade Walsingham
+declare to the Earl, upon her honour, that Raleigh had done good offices
+for him, and that, in the time of her anger, he had been as earnest in
+his defence as the best friend could be.  It would have been--singular,
+indeed, had it been otherwise.  "Your Lordship," said Sir Walter, "doth
+well understand my affection toward Spain, and how I have consumed the
+best part of my fortune, hating the tyrannous prosperity of that state.
+It were strange and monstrous that I should now become an enemy to my
+country and conscience.  All that I have desired at your Lordship's
+hands is that you will evermore deal directly with me in all matters
+--of suspect doubleness, and so ever esteem me as you shall find me
+deserving good or bad.  In the mean time, let no poetical scribe work
+your Lordship by any device to doubt that I am a hollow or cold servant
+to the action."
+
+It was now agreed that letters should be drawn, up authorizing Leicester
+to continue in the office which he held, until the state-council should
+devise some modification in his commission.  As it seemed, however, very
+improbable that the board would devise anything of the kind, Burghley
+expressed the belief that the country was like to continue in the Earl's
+government without any change whatever.  The Lord Treasurer was also of
+opinion that the Queen's letters to Leicester would convey as much
+comfort as he had received discomfort; although he admitted that there
+was a great difference: The former letters he knew had deeply wounded his
+heart, while the new ones could not suddenly sink so low as the wound.
+
+The despatch to the States-General was benignant, elaborate, slightly
+diffuse.  The Queen's letter to 'sweet Robin' was caressing, but
+argumentative.
+
+"It is always thought," said she, "in the opinion of the world, a hard
+bargain when both parties are losers, and so doth fall out in the case
+between us two.  You, as we hear, are greatly grieved in respect of the
+great displeasure you find we have conceived against you.  We are no less
+grieved that a subject of ours of that quality that you are, a creature
+of our own, and one that hath always received an extraordinary portion of
+our favour above all our subjects, even from the beginning of our reign,
+should deal so carelessly, not to say contemptuously, as to give the
+world just cause to think that we are had in contempt by him that ought
+most to respect and reverence us, which, we do assure you, hath wrought
+as great grief in us as anyone thing that ever happened unto us.
+
+"We are persuaded that you, that have so long known us, cannot think that
+ever we could have been drawn to have taken so hard a course therein had
+we not been provoked by an extraordinary cause.  But for that your
+grieved and wounded mind hath more need of comfort than reproof, who, we
+are persuaded, though the act of contempt can no ways be excused, had no
+other meaning and intent than to advance our service, we think meet to
+forbear to dwell upon a matter wherein we ourselves do find so little
+comfort, assuring you that whosoever professeth to love you best taketh
+not more comfort of your well doing, or discomfort of your evil doing
+than ourself."
+
+After this affectionate preface she proceeded to intimate her desire that
+the Earl should take the matter as nearly as possible into his own hands.
+It was her wish that he should retain the authority of absolute governor,
+but--if it could be so arranged--that he should dispense with the title,
+retaining only that of her lieutenant-general.  It was not her intention
+however, to create any confusion or trouble in the Provinces, and she was
+therefore willing that the government should remain upon precisely the
+same footing as that on which it then stood, until circumstances should
+permit the change of title which she suggested.  And the whole matter was
+referred to the wisdom of Leicester, who was to advise with Heneage and
+such others as he liked to consult, although it was expressly stated that
+the present arrangement was to be considered a provisional and not a
+final one.
+
+Until this soothing intelligence could arrive in the Netherlands the
+suspicions concerning the underhand negotiations with Spain grew daily
+more rife, and the discredit cast upon the Earl more embarrassing.  The
+private letters which passed between the Earl's enemies in Holland and in
+England contained matter more damaging to himself and to the cause which
+he had at heart than the more public reports of modern days can
+disseminate, which, being patent to all, can be more easily contradicted.
+Leicester incessantly warned his colleagues of her Majesty's council
+against the malignant manufacturers of intelligence.  "I pray you, my
+Lords, as you are wise," said he, "beware of them all.  You shall find
+them here to be shrewd pick-thinks, and hardly worth the hearkening
+unto."
+
+He complained bitterly of the disgrace that was heaped upon him, both
+publicly and privately, and of the evil consequences which were sure to
+follow from the course pursued.  "Never was man so villanously handled by
+letters out of England as I have been," said he, "not only advertising
+her Majesty's great dislike with me before this my coming over, but that
+I was an odious man in England, and so long as I tarried here that no
+help was to be looked for, that her Majesty would send no more men or
+money, and that I was used here but for a time till a peace were
+concluded between her Majesty and the Prince of Parma.  What the
+continuance of a man's discredit thus will turn out is to be thought of,
+for better I were a thousand times displaced than that her Majesty's
+great advantage of so notable Provinces should be hindered."
+
+As to the peace-negotiations--which, however cunningly managed, could not
+remain entirely concealed--the Earl declared them to be as idle as they
+were disingenuous.  "I will boldly pronounce that all the peace you can
+make in the world, leaving these countries," said he to Burghley, "will
+never prove other than a fair spring for a few days, to be all over
+blasted with a hard storm after."  Two days later her Majesty's
+comforting letters arrived, and the Earl began to raise his drooping
+head.  Heneage, too, was much relieved, but he was, at the same time, not
+a little perplexed.  It was not so easy to undo all the mischief created
+by the Queen's petulance.  The "scorpion's sting"--as her Majesty
+expressed herself--might be balsamed, but the poison had spread far
+beyond the original wound.
+
+"The letters just brought in," wrote Heneage to Burghley, "have well
+relieved a most noble and sufficient servant, but I fear they will not
+restore the much-repaired wrecks of these far-decayed noble countries
+into the same state I found them in.  A loose, disordered, and unknit
+state needs no shaking, but propping.  A subtle and fearful kind of
+people--should not be made more distrustful, but assured."  He then
+expressed annoyance at the fault already found with him, and surely if
+ever man had cause to complain of reproof administered him, in quick
+succession; for not obeying contradictory directions following upon each
+other as quickly, that man was Sir Thomas Heneage.  He had been, as he
+thought, over cautious in administering the rebuke to the Earl's
+arrogance, which he had been expressly sent over to administer but
+scarcely had he accomplished his task, with as much delicacy as he could
+devise, when he found himself censured;--not for dilatoriness, but for
+haste.  "Fault I perceive," said he to Burghley, "is found in me, not by
+your Lordship, but by some other, that I did not stay proceeding if I
+found the public cause might take hurt.  It is true I had good warrant
+for the manner, the, place, and the persons, but, for the matter none,
+for done it must be.  Her Majesty's offence must be declared.  Yet if I
+did not all I possibly could to uphold the cause, and to keep the
+tottering cause upon the wheels, I deserve no thanks, but reproof."
+
+Certainly, when the blasts of royal rage are remembered, by which the
+envoy had been, as it were, blown out of England into Holland, it is
+astonishing to find his actions censured for undue precipitancy.  But
+it was not the, first, nor was it likely to be the last time, for
+comparatively subordinate agents in Elizabeth's government to be,
+distressed by, contradictory commands, when the sovereign did not know
+or did not chose to make known, her own mind on important occasions.
+"Well, my Lord," said plaintive Sir Thomas, "wiser men may serve more
+pleasingly and happily, but never shall any serve her Majesty more,
+faithfully and heartily.  And so I cannot be persuaded her Majesty
+thinketh; for from herself I find nothing but most sweet and--gracious,
+favour, though by others' censures I may gather otherwise of her
+judgment; which I confess, doth cumber me."
+
+He was destined to be cumbered more than once before these negotiations
+should be concluded; but meantime; there was a brief gleam of sunshine.
+The English friends of Leicester in the Netherlands were enchanted with
+the sudden change in the Queen's humour; and to Lord Burghley, who was
+not, in reality, the most stanch of the absent Earl's defenders, they
+poured themselves out in profuse and somewhat superfluous gratitude.
+
+Cavendish, in strains exultant, was sure that Burghley's children, grand-
+children, and remotest posterity, would rejoice that their great
+ancestor, in such a time of need had been "found and felt to be indeed a
+'pater patria,' a good-father to a happy land."  And, although unwilling
+to "stir up the old Adam" in his Lordship's soul, he yet took the liberty
+of comparing the Lord Treasurer, in his old and declining years with Mary
+Magdalen; assuring him, that for ever after; when the tale of the
+preservation of the Church of God, of her Majesty; and of the Netherland
+cause; which were all one, should be told; his name and well-doing would
+be held in memory also.
+
+And truly there was much of honest and generous enthusiasm, even if
+couched in language somewhat startling to the ears of a colder and more
+material age; in the hearts of these noble volunteers.  They were
+fighting the cause of England, of the Netherland republic, and of human
+liberty; with a valour worthy the best days of English' chivalry, against
+manifold obstacles, and they were certainly; not too often cheered by the
+beams of royal favour.
+
+It was a pity that a dark cloud was so soon again to sweep over the
+scene: For the temper of Elizabeth at this important juncture seemed as
+capricious: as the: April weather in which the scenes were enacting.  We
+have seen the genial warmth of her letters and messages to Leicester, to
+Heneage,--to the States-General; on the first of the month.  Nevertheless
+it was hardly three weeks after they had been despatched when Walsingham
+and Burghley found, her Majesty one morning a towering passion, because,
+the Earl had not already laid down the government.  The Lord Treasurer
+ventured to remonstrate, but was bid to bold his tongue.  Ever variable
+and mutable as woman, Elizabeth was perplexing and baffling to her
+counsellors, at this epoch, beyond all divination.  The "sparing humour"
+was increasing fearfully, and she thought it would be easier for her to
+slip out of the whole expensive enterprise, provided Leicester were
+merely her lieutenant-general, and not stadholder for the Provinces.
+Moreover the secret negotiations for peace were producing a deleterious
+effect upon her mind.  Upon this subject, the Queen and Burghley,
+notwithstanding his resemblance to Mary Magdalen, were better informed
+than the Secretary, whom, however, it had been impossible wholly to
+deceive.  The man who could read secrets so far removed as the Vatican,
+was not to be blinded to intrigues going on before his face.  The Queen,
+without revealing more than she could help, had been obliged to admit
+that informal transactions were pending, but had authorised the Secretary
+to assure the United States that no treaty would be made without their
+knowledge and full concurrence.  "She doth think," wrote Walsingham to
+Leicester," that you should, if you shall see no cause to the contrary,
+acquaint the council of state there that certain overtures of peace are
+daily made unto her, but that she meaneth not to proceed therein without
+their good liking and privity, being persuaded that there can no peace be
+made profitable or sure for her that shall not also stand with their
+safety; and she doth acknowledge hers to be so linked with theirs as
+nothing can fall out to their prejudice, but she must be partaker of
+their harm."
+
+This communication was dated on the 21st April, exactly three weeks after
+the Queen's letter to Heneage, in which she had spoken of the "malicious
+bruits" concerning the pretended peace-negotiations; and the Secretary
+was now confirming, by her order, what she had then stated under her own
+hand, that she would "do nothing that might concern them without their
+own knowledge and good liking."
+
+And surely nothing could be more reasonable.  Even if the strict letter
+of the August treaty between the Queen and the States did not provide
+against any separate negotiations by the one party without the knowledge
+of the other, there could be no doubt at all that its spirit absolutely
+forbade the clandestine conclusion of a peace with Spain by England
+alone, or by the Netherlands alone, and that such an arrangement would be
+disingenuous, if not positively dishonourable.
+
+Nevertheless it would almost seem that Elizabeth had been taking
+advantage of the day when she was writing her letter to Heneage on the
+1st of April.  Never was painstaking envoy more elaborately trifled with.
+On the 26th of the month--and only five days after the communication by
+Walsingham just noticed--the Queen was furious that any admission should
+have been made to the States of their right to participate with her in
+peace-negotiations.
+
+"We find that Sir Thomas Heneage," said she to Leicester, "hath gone
+further--in assuring the States that we would make no peace without their
+privity and assent--than he had commission; for that our direction was--
+if our meaning had been well set down, and not mistaken by our Secretary
+--that they should have been only let understand that in any treaty that
+might pass between us and Spain, they might be well assured we would have
+no less care of their safety than of our own."  Secretary Walsingham was
+not likely to mistake her Majesty's directions in this or any other
+important affair of state.  Moreover, it so happened that the Queen had,
+in her own letter to Heneage, made the same statement which she now
+chose to disavow.  She had often a convenient way of making herself
+misunderstood, when she thought it desirable to shift responsibility from
+her own shoulders upon those of others; but upon this occasion she had
+been sufficiently explicit.  Nevertheless,  a scape-goat was necessary,
+and unhappy the subordinate who happened to be within her Majesty's reach
+when a vicarious sacrifice was to be made.  Sir Francis Walsingham was
+not a man to be brow-beaten or hood-winked, but Heneage was doomed to
+absorb a fearful amount of royal wrath.
+
+"What phlegmatical reasons soever were made you," wrote the Queen, who
+but three weeks before had been so gentle and affectionate to her,
+ambassador, "how happeneth it that you will not remember, that when a man
+hath faulted and committed by abettors thereto, neither the one nor the
+other will willingly make their own retreat.  Jesus! what availeth wit,
+when it fails the owner at greatest need?  Do that you are bidden, and
+leave your considerations for your own affairs.  For in some things you
+had clear commandment, which you did not, and in others none, and did.
+We princes be wary enough of our bargains.  Think you I will be bound
+by your own speech to make no peace for mine own matters without their
+consent?  It is enough that I injure not their country nor themselves
+in making peace for them without their consent.  I am assured of your
+dutiful thoughts, but I am utterly at squares with this childish
+dealing."
+
+Blasted by this thunderbolt falling upon his head out of serenest sky,
+the sad.  Sir. Thomas remained, for a time, in a state of political
+annihilation.  'Sweet Robin' meanwhile, though stunned, was unscathed--
+thanks to the convenient conductor at his side.  For, in Elizabeth's
+court, mediocrity was not always golden, nor was it usually the loftiest
+mountains that the lightnings smote.  The Earl was deceived by his royal
+mistress, kept in the dark as to important transactions, left to provide
+for his famishing' soldiers as he best might; but the, Queen at that
+moment, though angry, was not disposed, to trample upon him.  Now that
+his heart was known to be broken, and his sole object in life to be
+retirement to remote regions--India or elsewhere--there to languish out
+the brief remainder of his days in prayers for Elizabeth's happiness,
+Elizabeth was not inclined very bitterly to upbraid him.  She had too
+recently been employing herself in binding up his broken heart, and
+pouring balm into the "scorpion's sting," to be willing so soon to
+deprive him of those alleviations.
+
+Her tone--was however no longer benignant, and her directions were
+extremely peremptory.  On the 1st of April she had congratulated
+Leicester, Heneage, the States, and all the world, that her secret
+commands had been staid, and that the ruin which would have followed,
+had, those decrees been executed according to her first violent wish, was
+fortunately averted.  Heneage was even censured, not by herself, but by
+courtiers in her confidence, and with her concurrence, for being over
+hasty in going before the state-council, as he had done, with her
+messages and commands.  On the 26th of April she expressed astonishment
+that Heneage had dared to be so dilatory, and that the title of governor
+had not been laid down by Leicester "out of hand."  She marvelled
+greatly, and found it very strange that "ministers in matters of moment
+should presume to do things of their own head without direction."  She
+accordingly gave orders that there should be no more dallying, but that
+the Earl should immediately hold a conference with the state-council in
+order to arrange a modification in his commission.  It was her pleasure
+that he should retain all the authority granted to him by the States, but
+as already intimated by her, that he should abandon the title of
+"absolute governor," and retain only that of her lieutenant-general.
+
+Was it strange that Heneage, placed in so responsible a situation, and
+with the fate of England, of Holland, and perhaps of all Christendom,
+hanging in great measure upon this delicate negotiation, should be amazed
+at such contradictory orders, and grieved by such inconsistent censures?
+
+"To tell you my griefs and my lacks," said he to Walsingham, "would
+little please you or help me.  Therefore I will say nothing, but think
+there was never man in so great a service received so little comfort and
+so contrarious directions.  But 'Dominus est adjutor in tribulationibus.'
+If it be possible, let me receive some certain direction, in following
+which I shall not offend her Majesty, what good or hurt soever I do
+besides."
+
+This certainly seemed a loyal and reasonable request, yet it was not one
+likely to be granted.  Sir Thomas, perplexed, puzzled, blindfolded, and
+brow-beaten, always endeavoring to obey orders, when he could comprehend
+them, and always hectored and lectured whether he obeyed them or not--
+ruined in purse by the expenses, of a mission on which he had been sent
+without adequate salary--appalled at the disaffection waging more
+formidable every hour in Provinces which were recently so loyal to her
+Majesty, but which were now pervaded by a suspicion that there was
+double-dealing upon her part became quite sick of his life.  He fell
+seriously ill, and was disappointed, when, after a time, the physicians
+declared him convalescent.  For when when he rose from his sick-bed, it
+was only to plunge once more, without a clue, into the labyrinth where he
+seemed to be losing his reason.  "It is not long," said he to Walsingham,
+"since I looked to have written you no more letters, my extremity was so
+great.  .  .  But God's will is best, otherwise I could have liked better
+to have cumbered the earth no longer, where I find myself contemned, and
+which I find no reason to see will be the better in the wearing .  .  .
+It were better for her Majesty's service that the directions which come
+were not contrarious one to another, and that those you would have serve
+might know what is meant, else they cannot but much deceive you, as well
+as displease you."
+
+Public opinion concerning the political morality of the English court
+was not gratifying, nor was it rendered more favourable by these recent
+transactions.  "I fear," said Heneage, "that the world will judge what
+Champagny wrote in one of his letters out of England (which I have lately
+seen) to be over true.  His words be these, 'Et de vray, c'est le plus
+fascheux et le plus incertain negocier de ceste court, que je pense soit
+au monde.'"  And so "basting," as he said, "with a weak body and a
+willing mind; to do, he feared, no good work," he set forth from
+Middelburgh to rejoin Leicester at Arnheim, in order to obey, as well as
+he could, the Queen's latest directions.
+
+But before he could set to work there came more "contrarious" orders.
+The last instructions, both to Leicester and himself, were that the Earl
+should resign the post of governor absolute "out of hand," and the Queen
+had been vehement in denouncing any delay on such an occasion.  He was
+now informed, that, after consulting with Leicester and with the
+state-council, he was to return to England with the result of such
+deliberations.  It could afterwards be decided how the Earl could retain
+all the authority of governor absolute, while bearing only the title of
+the Queen's lieutenant general.  "For her meaning is not," said
+Walsingham, "that his Lord ship should presently give it over, for she
+foreseeth in her princely judgment that his giving over the government
+upon a sudden, and leaving those countries without a head or director,
+cannot but breed a most dangerous alteration there."  The secretary
+therefore stated the royal wish at present to be that the "renunciation
+of the title" should be delayed till Heneage could visit England, and
+subsequently return to Holland with her Majesty's further directions.
+Even the astute Walsingham was himself puzzled, however, while conveying
+these ambiguous orders; and he confessed that he was doubtful whether he
+had rightly comprehended the Queen's intentions.  Burghley, however, was
+better at guessing riddles than he was, and so Heneage was advised to
+rely chiefly upon Burghley.
+
+But Heneage had now ceased to be interested in any enigmas that might be
+propounded by the English court, nor could he find comfort, as Walsingham
+had recommended he should do, in railing.  "I wish I could follow your
+counsel," he said, "but sure the uttering of my choler doth little ease
+my grief or help my case."
+
+He rebuked, however, the inconsistency and the tergiversations of the
+government with a good deal of dignity.  "This certainly shall I tell her
+Majesty," he said, "if I live to see her, that except a more constant
+course be taken with this inconstant people, it is not the blaming of her
+ministers will advance her Highness's service, or better the state of
+things.  And shall I tell you what they now say here of us--I fear not
+without some cause--even as Lipsius wrote of the French, 'De Gallis
+quidem enigmata veniunt, non veniunt, volunt, holunt, audent, timent,
+omnia, ancipiti metu, suspensa et suspecta.'  God grant better, and ever
+keep you and help me."
+
+He announced to Burghley that he was about to attend a meeting of the
+state-council the next day, for the purpose of a conference on these
+matters at Arnheim, and that he would then set forth for England to
+report proceedings to her Majesty.  He supposed, on the whole, that this
+was what was expected of him, but acknowledged it hopeless to fathom.
+the royal intentions.  Yet if he went wrong, he was always, sure to make
+mischief, and though innocent, to be held accountable for others'
+mistakes.  "Every prick I make," said he, "is made a gash; and to follow
+the words of my directions from England is not enough, except I likewise
+see into your minds.  And surely mine eyesight is not so good.  But I
+will pray to God for his help herein.  With all the wit I have, I will
+use all the care I can--first, to satisfy her Majesty, as God knoweth I
+have ever most desired; then, not to hurt this cause, but that I despair
+of."  Leicester, as maybe supposed, had been much discomfited and
+perplexed during the course of these contradictory and perverse
+directions.  There is no doubt whatever that his position bad been made
+discreditable and almost ridiculous, while he was really doing his best,
+and spending large sums out of his private fortune to advance the true
+interests of the Queen.  He had become a suspected man in the
+Netherlands, having been, in the beginning of the year, almost adored
+as a Messiah.  He had submitted to the humiliation which had been imposed
+upon him, of being himself the medium to convey to the council the severe
+expressions of the Queen's displeasure at the joint action of the States-
+General and himself.  He had been comforted by the affectionate
+expressions with which that explosion of feminine and royal wrath had
+been succeeded.  He was now again distressed by the peremptory command to
+do what was a disgrace to him, and an irreparable detriment to the cause,
+yet he was humble and submissive, and only begged to be allowed, as a
+remedy for all his anguish, to return to the sunlight of Elizabeth's
+presence.  He felt that her course; if persisted in, would lead to the
+destruction of the Netherland commonwealth, and eventually to the
+downfall of England; and that the Provinces, believing themselves
+deceived by the Queen; were ready to revolt against an authority to
+which, but a short time before, they were so devotedly loyal
+Nevertheless, he only wished to know what his sovereign's commands
+distinctly were, in order to set himself to their fulfilment.  He had
+come from the camp before Nymegen in order to attend the conference with
+the state-council at Arnheim, and he would then be ready and anxious to,
+despatch Heneage to England, to learn her Majesty's final determination.
+
+He protested to the Queen that he had come upon this arduous and perilous
+service only, because he, considered her throne in danger, and that this
+was the only means of preserving it; that, in accepting the absolute
+government, he had been free from all ambitious motives, but deeply
+impressed with the idea that only by so doing could he conduct the
+enterprise entrusted to him to the desired consummation; and he declared
+with great fervour that no advancement to high office could compensate
+him for this enforced absence from her.  To be sent back even in disgrace
+would still be a boon to him, for he should cease to be an exile from her
+sight.  He knew that his enemies had been busy in defaming him, while he
+had been no longer there to defend himself, but his conscience acquitted
+him of any thought which was not for her happiness and glory.  "Yet
+grievous it is to me," said he in, a tone of tender reproach, "that
+having left all--yea, all that may be imagined--for you, you have left
+me for very little, even to the uttermost of all hard fortune.  For what
+have I, unhappy man, to do here either with cause or country but for
+you?"
+
+He stated boldly that his services had not been ineffective, that the
+enemy had never been in worse plight than now, that he had lost at least
+five thousand men in divers overthrows, and that, on the other hand,
+the people and towns of the Seven Provinces had been safely preserved.
+"Since my arrival," he said, "God hath blessed the action which you have
+taken in hand, and committed to the charge of me your poor unhappy
+servant.  I have good cause to say somewhat for myself, for that I think
+I have as few friends to speak for me as any man."
+
+Nevertheless--as he warmly protested--his only wish was to return; for
+the country in which he had lost her favour, which was more precious than
+life, had become odious to him.
+
+The most lowly office in her presence was more to be coveted than the
+possession of unlimited power away from her.  It was by these tender
+and soft insinuations, as the Earl knew full well, that he was sure to
+obtain what he really coveted--her sanction for retaining the absolute
+government in the Provinces.  And most artfully did he strike the key.
+
+"Most dear and gracious Lady," he cried, "my care and service here do
+breed me nothing but grief and unhappiness.  I have never had your
+Majesty's good favour since I came into this charge--a matter that from
+my first beholding your eyes hath been most dear unto me above all
+earthly treasures.  Never shall I love that place or like that soil which
+shall cause the lack of it.  Most gracious Lady, consider my long, true,
+and faithful heart toward you.  Let not this unfortunate place here
+bereave me of that which, above all the world, I esteem there, which is
+your favodr and your presence.  I see my service is not acceptable, but
+rather more and more disliketh you.  Here I can do your Majesty no
+service; there I can do you some, at the least rub your horse's heels--
+a service which shall be much more welcome to me than this, with all that
+these men may give me.  I do, humbly and from my heart, prostrate at your
+feet, beg this grace at your sacred hands, that you will be pleased to
+let me return to my home-service, with your favour, let the revocation be
+used in what sort shall please and like you.  But if ever spark of favour
+was in your Majesty toward your old servant, let me obtain this my humble
+suit; protesting before the Majesty of all Majesties, that there was no
+cause under Heaven but his and yours, even for your own special and
+particular cause, I say, could have made me take this absent journey from
+you in hand.  If your Majesty shall refuse me this, I shall think all
+grace clean gone from me, and I know: my days will not be long."
+
+She must melt at this, thought 'sweet Robin' to himself; and meantime
+accompanied by Heneage; he proceeded with the conferences in the state-
+council-chamber touching the modification of the title and the
+confirmation of his authority.  This, so far as Walsingham could divine,
+and Burghley fathom, was the present intention of the Queen.  He averred
+that he had ever sought most painfully to conform his conduct to her
+instructions as fast as they were received, and that he should continue
+so to do.  On the whole it was decided by the conference to let matters
+stand as, they were for a little longer, and until: after Heneage should
+have time once more to go and come.  "The same manner of proceeding that
+was is now," said Leicester, "Your pleasure is declared to the council
+here as you have willed it. How it will fall out again in your Majesty's
+construction, the Lord knoweth."
+
+Leicester might be forgiven for referring to higher powers, for any
+possible interpretation of her Majesty's changing humour; but meantime;
+while Sir. Thomas was getting ready, for his expedition to England, the
+Earl's heart was somewhat gladdened by more gracious messages from the
+Queen.  The alternation of emotions would however prove too much for him,
+he feared, and he was reluctant to open his heart to so unwonted a tenant
+as joy.
+
+"But that my fear is such, most dear and gracious Lady," he said, "as my
+unfortunate destiny will hardly permit; whilst I remain here; any good-
+acceptation of so simple a service as, mine, I should, greatly rejoice
+and comfort myself with the hope of your Majesty's most prayed-for
+favour.  But of late, being by your own sacred hand lifted even up into
+Heaven with joy of your favour, I was bye and bye without any new desert
+or offence at all, cast down and down: again into the depth of all grief.
+God doth know, my dear and dread Sovereign, that after I first received
+your resolute pleasure by Sir Thomas Heneage, I made neither stop nor
+stay nor any excuse to be rid of this place, and to satisfy your command.
+. . . . . So much I mislike this place and fortune of mine; as I desire
+nothing in the world so much, as to be delivered, with your favours from
+all charge here, fearing still some new cross of your displeasure to fall
+upon me, trembling continually with the fear thereof, in such sort as
+till I may be fully confirmed in my new regeneration of your wonted
+favour I cannot receive that true comfort which doth appertain to so
+great a hope.  Yet I will not only acknowledge with all humbleness and
+dutiful thanks the exceeding joy these last blessed lines brought to my
+long-wearied heart, but will, with all true loyal affection, attend that
+further joy from your sweet self which may utterly, extinguish all
+consuming fear away."
+
+Poor Heneage--who likewise received a kind word or two after having been
+so capriciously and petulantly dealt with was less extravagant in his
+expressions of gratitude.  "The Queen hath sent me a paper-plaister which
+must please for a time," he said.  "God Almighty bless her Majesty ever,
+and best direct her."  He was on the point of starting for England, the
+bearer of the States' urgent entreaties that Leicester might retain the,
+government, and of despatches; announcing the recent success of the
+allies before Grave.  "God prospereth the action in these countries
+beyond all expectation," he said, "which all amongst you will not be over
+glad of, for somewhat I know."  The intrigues of Grafigni, Champagny, and
+Bodman, with Croft, Burghley, and the others were not so profound a
+secret as they could wish.
+
+The tone adopted by Leicester has been made manifest in his letters
+to the Queen.  He had held the same language of weariness and
+dissatisfaction in his communications to his friends.  He would not keep
+the office, he avowed, if they should give him "all Holland and Zeeland,
+with all their appurtenances," and he was ready to resign at any moment.
+He was not "ceremonious for reputation," he said, but he gave warning
+that the Netherlanders would grow desperate if they found her Majesty
+dealing weakly or carelessly with them.  As for himself he had already
+had enough of government.  "I am weary, Mr. Secretary," he plaintively
+exclaimed, "indeed I am weary; but neither of pains nor travail.  My ill
+hap that I can please her Majesty no better hath quite discouraged me."
+
+He had recently, however--as we have seen--received some comfort, and he
+was still further encouraged, upon the eve of Heneage's departure, by
+receiving another affectionate epistle from the Queen.  Amends seemed at
+last to be offered for her long and angry silence, and the Earl was
+deeply grateful.
+
+"If it hath not been, my most dear and gracious Lady," said he in reply,
+"no small comfort to your poor old servant to receive but one line of
+your blessed hand-writing in many months, for the relief of a most
+grieved, wounded heart, how far more exceeding joy must it be, in the
+midst of all sorrow, to receive from the same sacred hand so many
+comfortable lines as my good friend Mr. George hath at once brought me.
+Pardon me, my sweet Lady, if they cause me to forget myself.  Only this I
+do say, with most humble dutiful thanks, that the scope of all my service
+hath ever been to content and please you; and if I may do that, then is
+all sacrifice, either of life or whatsoever, well offered for you."
+
+The matter of the government absolute having been so fully discussed
+during the preceding four months, and the last opinions of the state-
+council having been so lucidly expounded in the despatches to be carried
+by Heneage to England, the matter might be considered as exhausted.
+Leicester contented himself, therefore, with once more calling her
+Majesty's attention to the fact that if he had not himself accepted the
+office thus conferred upon him by the States, it would have been bestowed
+upon some other personage.  It would hardly have comported with her
+dignity, if Count Maurice of Nassau, or Count William, or Count Moeurs,
+had been appointed governor absolute, for in that case the Earl, as
+general of the auxiliary English force, would have been subject to the
+authority of the chieftain thus selected.  It was impossible, as the
+state-council had very plainly shown, for Leicester to exercise supreme
+authority, while merely holding the military office of her Majesty's
+lieutenant-general.  The authority of governor or stadholder could only
+be derived from the supreme power of the country.  If her Majesty had
+chosen to accept the sovereignty, as the States had ever desired, the
+requisite authority could then have been derived from her, as from the
+original fountain.  As she had resolutely refused that offer however, his
+authority was necessarily to be drawn from the States-General, or else
+the Queen must content herself with seeing him serve as an English
+military officer, only subject to the orders of the supreme power,
+wherever that power might reside.  In short, Elizabeth's wish that her
+general might be clothed with the privileges of her viceroy, while she
+declined herself to be the sovereign, was illogical, and could not be
+complied with.
+
+Very soon after inditing these last epistles to the Provinces, the Queen
+became more reasonable on the subject; and an elaborate communication was
+soon received by the state-council, in which the royal acquiescence was
+signified to the latest propositions of the States.  The various topics,
+suggested in previous despatches from Leicester and from the council,
+were reviewed, and the whole subject was suddenly placed in a somewhat
+different light from that in which it seemed to have been previously
+regarded by her Majesty.  She alluded to the excuse, offered by the
+state-council, which had been drawn from the necessity of the case, and
+from their "great liking for her cousin of Leicester," although in
+violation of the original contract.  "As you acknowledge, however," she
+said, "that therein you were justly to be blamed, and do crave pardon for
+the same, we cannot, upon this acknowledgment of your fault, but remove
+our former dislike."
+
+Nevertheless it would now seem that her "mistake" had proceeded, not from
+the excess, but from the insufficiency of the powers conferred upon the
+Earl, and she complained, accordingly, that they had given him shadow
+rather than substance.
+
+Simultaneously with this royal communication, came a joint letter to
+Leicester, from Burghley, Walsingham; and Hatton, depicting the long and
+strenuous conflict which they had maintained in his behalf with the
+rapidly varying inclinations of the Queen.  They expressed a warm
+sympathy with the difficulties of his position, and spoke in strong terms
+of the necessity that the Netherlands and England should work heartily
+together.  For otherwise, they said, "the cause will fall, the enemy will
+rise, and we must stagger."  Notwithstanding the secret negotiations with
+the enemy, which Leicester and Walsingham suspected, and which will be
+more fully examined in a subsequent chapter, they held a language on that
+subject, which in the Secretary's mouth at least was sincere.
+"Whatsoever speeches be blown abroad of parleys of peace," they said,
+"all will be but smoke, yea fire will follow."
+
+They excused themselves for their previous and enforced silence by the
+fact that they had been unable to communicate any tidings but messages of
+distress, but they now congratulated the Earl that her Majesty, as he
+would see by her letter to the council, was firmly resolved, not only to
+countenance his governorship, but to sustain him in the most thorough
+manner.  It would be therefore quite out of the question for them to
+listen to his earnest propositions to be recalled.
+
+Moreover, the Lord Treasurer had already apprized Leicester that Heneage
+had safely arrived in England, that he, had made his report to the Queen,
+and that her Majesty was "very well contented with him and his mission."
+It may be easily believed that the Earl would feel a sensation of relief,
+if not of triumph, at this termination to the embarrassments under which
+he had been labouring ever since, he listened to the oration of the wise
+Leoninus upon New Years' Day.  At last the Queen had formally acquiesced
+in the action of the States, and in his acceptance of their offer.  He
+now saw himself undisputed "governor absolute," having been six months
+long a suspected, discredited, almost disgraced man.  It was natural that
+he should express himself cheerfully.
+
+"My great comfort received, oh my most gracious Lady," he said, "by your
+most favourable lines written by your own sacred hand, I did most humbly
+acknowledge by my former letter; albeit I can no way make testimony of
+enough of the great joy I took thereby.  And seeing my wounded heart is
+by this means almost made whole, I do pray unto God that either I may
+never feel the like again from you, or not be suffered to live, rather
+than I should fall again into those torments of your displeasure.  Most
+gracious Queen, I beseech you, therefore, make perfect that which you
+have begun.  Let not the common danger, nor any ill, incident to the
+place I serve you in, be accompanied with greater troubles and fears
+indeed than all the horrors of death can bring me.  My strong hope doth
+now so assure me, as I have almost won the battle against despair, and I
+do arm myself with as many of those wonted comfortable conceits as may
+confirm my new revived spirits, reposing myself evermore under the shadow
+of those blessed beams that must yield the only nourishment to this
+disease."
+
+But however nourishing the shade of those blessed beams might prove to
+Leicester's disease, it was not so easy to bring about a very sunny
+condition in the Provinces.  It was easier for Elizabeth to mend the
+broken heart of the governor than to repair the damage which had been
+caused to the commonwealth by her caprice and her deceit.  The dispute
+concerning the government absolute had died away, but the authority of
+the Earl had got a "crack in it" which never could be handsomely made
+whole.  The States, during the long period of Leicester's discredit--
+feeling more and more doubtful as to the secret intentions of Elizabeth
+--disappointed in the condition of the auxiliary troops and in the amount
+of supplies furnished from England, and, above all, having had time to
+regret their delegation of a power which they began to find agreeable to
+exercise with their own hands, became indisposed to entrust the Earl with
+the administration and full inspection of their resources.  To the
+enthusiasm which had greeted the first arrival of Elizabeth's
+representative had succeeded a jealous, carping, suspicious sentiment.
+The two hundred thousand florins monthly were paid, according to the
+original agreement, but the four hundred thousand of extra service-money
+subsequently voted were withheld, and withheld expressly on account of
+Heneage's original mission to disgrace the governor."
+
+"The late return of Sir Thomas Heneage," said Lord North, "hath put such
+busses in their heads, as they march forward with leaden heels and
+doubtful hearts."
+
+In truth, through the discredit cast by the Queen upon the Earl in this
+important affair, the supreme authority was forced back into the hands
+of the States, at the very moment when they had most freely divested
+themselves of power.  After the Queen had become more reasonable, it was
+too late to induce them to part, a second time, so freely with the
+immediate control of their own affairs.  Leicester had become, to a
+certain extent, disgraced and disliked by the Estates.  He thought
+himself, by the necessity of the case, forced to appeal to the people
+against their legal representatives, and thus the foundation of a
+nominally democratic party, in opposition to the municipal one, was
+already laid.  Nothing could be more unfortunate at that juncture; for we
+shall, in future, find the Earl in perpetual opposition to the most
+distinguished statesmen in the Provinces; to the very men indeed who had
+been most influential in offering the sovereignty to England, and in
+placing him in the position which he had so much coveted.  No sooner
+therefore had he been confirmed by Elizabeth in that high office than his
+arrogance broke forth, and the quarrels between himself and the
+representative body became incessant.
+
+"I stand now in somewhat better terms than I did," said he; "I was not in
+case till of late to deal roundly with them as I have now done.  I have
+established a chamber of finances, against some of their wills, whereby I
+doubt not to procure great benefit to increase our ability for payments
+hereafter.  The people I find still best devoted to her Majesty, though
+of late many lewd practices have been used to withdraw their good wills.
+But it will not be; they still pray God that her Majesty may be their
+sovereign.  She should then see what a contribution they will all bring
+forth.  But to the States they will never return, which will breed some
+great mischief, there is such mislike of the States universally.  I would
+your Lordship had seen the case I had lived in among them these four
+months, especially after her Majesty's mislike was found.  You would then
+marvel to see how I have waded, as I have done, through no small
+obstacles, without help, counsel, or assistance."
+
+Thus the part which he felt at last called upon to enact was that of an
+aristocratic demagogue, in perpetual conflict with the burgher-
+representative body.
+
+It is now necessary to lift a corner of the curtain, by which some
+international--or rather interpalatial--intrigues were concealed, as much
+as possible, even from the piercing eyes of Walsingham.  The Secretary
+was, however, quite aware--despite the pains taken to deceive him--of the
+nature of the plots and of the somewhat ignoble character of the actors
+concerned in them.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+A hard bargain when both parties are losers
+Condemned first and inquired upon after
+Disordered, and unknit state needs no shaking, but propping
+Upper and lower millstones of royal wrath and loyal subserviency
+Uttering of my choler doth little ease my grief or help my case
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v45
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History of the United Netherlands, Volume 46, 1586
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+     Forlorn Condition of Flanders--Parma's secret Negotiations with the
+     Queen--Grafigni and Bodman--Their Dealings with English Counsellors
+     --Duplicity of Farnese--Secret Offers of the English Peace-Party--
+     Letters and Intrigues of De Loo--Drake's Victories and their Effect
+     --Parma's Perplexity and Anxiety--He is relieved by the News from
+     England--Queen's secret Letters to Parma--His Letters and
+     Instructions to Bodman--Bodman's secret Transactions at Greenwich--
+     Walsingham detects and exposes the Plot--The Intriguers baffled--
+     Queen's Letter to Parma and his to the King--Unlucky Results of the
+     Peace--Intrigues--Unhandsome Treatment of Leicester--Indignation of
+     the Earl and Walsingham--Secret Letter of Parma to Philip--Invasion
+     of England recommended--Details of the Project.
+
+Alexander Farnese and his heroic little army had been left by their
+sovereign in as destitute a condition as that in which Lord Leicester and
+his unfortunate "paddy persons" had found themselves since their arrival
+in the Netherlands.  These mortal men were but the weapons to be used and
+broken in the hands of the two great sovereigns, already pitted against
+each other in mortal combat.  That the distant invisible potentate,
+the work of whose life was to do his best to destroy all European
+nationality, all civil and religious freedom, should be careless of
+the instruments by which his purpose was to be effected, was but natural.
+It is painful to reflect that the great champion of liberty and of
+Protestantism was almost equally indifferent to the welfare of the human
+creatures enlisted in her cause.  Spaniards and Italians, English and
+Irish, went half naked and half starving through the whole inclement
+winter, and perished of pestilence in droves, after confronting the
+less formidable dangers of battlefield and leaguer.  Manfully and
+sympathetically did the Earl of Leicester--while whining in absurd
+hyperbole over the angry demeanour of his sovereign towards himself-
+represent the imperative duty of an English government to succour English
+troops.
+
+Alexander Farnese was equally plain-spoken to a sovereign with whom
+plain-speaking was a crime.  In bold, almost scornful language, the
+Prince represented to Philip the sufferings and destitution of the
+little band of heroes, by whom that magnificent military enterprise,
+the conquest of Antwerp, had just been effected.  "God will be weary of
+working miracles for us," he cried, "and nothing but miracles can save
+the troops from starving."  There was no question of paying them their
+wages, there was no pretence at keeping them reasonably provided with
+lodging and clothing, but he asserted the undeniable proposition that
+they "could not pass their lives without eating," and he implored his
+sovereign to send at least money enough to buy the soldiers shoes.
+To go foodless and barefoot without complaining, on the frozen swamps of
+Flanders, in January, was more than was to be expected from Spaniards and
+Italians.  The country itself was eaten bare.  The obedient Provinces had
+reaped absolute ruin as the reward of their obedience.  Bruges, Ghent,
+and the other cities of Brabant and Flanders, once so opulent and
+powerful, had become mere dens of thieves and paupers.  Agriculture,
+commerce, manufactures--all were dead.  The condition of Antwerp was most
+tragical.  The city, which had been so recently the commercial centre of
+the earth, was reduced to absolute beggary.  Its world-wide traffic was
+abruptly terminated, for the mouth of its great river was controlled by
+Flushing, and Flushing was in the firm grasp of Sir Philip Sidney, as
+governor for the English Queen.  Merchants and bankers, who had lately
+been possessed of enormous resources, were stripped of all.  Such of the
+industrial classes as could leave the place had wandered away to Holland
+and England.  There was no industry possible, for there was no market for
+the products of industry.  Antwerp was hemmed in by the enemy on every
+side, surrounded by royal troops in a condition of open mutiny, cut off
+from the ocean, deprived of daily bread, and yet obliged to contribute
+out of its poverty to the maintenance of the Spanish soldiers, who were
+there for its destruction.  Its burghers, compelled to furnish four
+hundred thousand florins, as the price of their capitulation, and at
+least six hundred thousand more for the repairs of the dykes, the
+destruction of which, too long deferred, had only spread desolation over
+the country without saving the city, and over and above all forced to
+rebuild, at their own expense, that fatal citadel, by which their liberty
+and lives were to be perpetually endangered, might now regret at leisure
+that they had not been as stedfast during their siege as had been the
+heroic inhabitants of Leyden in their time of trial, twelve years before.
+Obedient Antwerp was, in truth, most forlorn.  But there was one
+consolation for her and for Philip, one bright spot in the else universal
+gloom.  The ecclesiastics assured Parma, that, notwithstanding the
+frightful diminution in the population of the city, they had confessed
+and absolved more persons that Easter than they had ever done since the
+commencement of the revolt.  Great was Philip's joy in consequence.
+"You cannot imagine my satisfaction," he wrote, "at the news you give me
+concerning last Easter."
+
+With a ruined country, starving and mutinous troops, a bankrupt
+exchequer, and a desperate and pauper population, Alexander Farnese was
+not unwilling to gain time by simulated negotiations for peace.  It was
+strange, however, that so sagacious a monarch as the Queen of England
+should suppose it for her interest to grant at that moment the very delay
+which was deemed most desirable by her antagonist.
+
+Yet it was not wounded affection alone, nor insulted pride, nor startled
+parsimony, that had carried the fury of the Queen to such a height on the
+occasion of Leicester's elevation to absolute government.  It was still
+more, because the step was thought likely to interfere with the progress
+of those negotiations into which the Queen had allowed herself to be
+drawn.
+
+A certain Grafigni--a Genoese merchant residing much in London and in
+Antwerp, a meddling, intrusive, and irresponsible kind of individual,
+whose occupation was gone with the cessation of Flemish trade--had
+recently made his appearance as a volunteer diplomatist.  The principal
+reason for accepting or rather for winking at his services, seemed to be
+the possibility of disavowing him, on both sides, whenever it should be
+thought advisable.  He had a partner or colleague, too, named Bodman,
+who seemed a not much more creditable negotiator than himself.  The chief
+director of the intrigue was, however, Champagny, brother of Cardinal
+Granvelle, restored to the King's favour and disposed to atone by his
+exuberant loyalty for his heroic patriotism on a former and most
+memorable occasion.  Andrea de Loo, another subordinate politician, was
+likewise employed at various stages of the negotiation.
+
+It will soon be perceived that the part enacted by Burghley, Hatton,
+Croft, and other counsellors, and even by the Queen herself, was not a
+model of ingenuousness towards the absent Leicester and the States-
+General.  The gentlemen sent at various times to and from the Earl and
+her Majesty's government; Davison, Shirley, Vavasor, Heneage, and the
+rest--had all expressed themselves in the strongest language concerning
+the good faith and the friendliness of the Lord-Treasurer and the Vice-
+Chamberlain,  but they were not so well informed as they would have been,
+had they seen the private letters of Parma to Philip II.
+
+Walsingham, although kept in the dark as much as it was possible,
+discovered from time to time the mysterious practices of his political
+antagonists, and warned the Queen of the danger and dishonour she was
+bringing upon herself.  Elizabeth, when thus boldly charged, equivocated
+and stormed alternately.  She authorized Walsingham to communicate the
+secrets--which he had thus surprised--to the States-General, and then
+denied having given any such orders.
+
+In truth, Walsingham was only entrusted with such portions of the
+negotiations as he had been able, by his own astuteness, to divine; and
+as he was very much a friend to the Provinces and to Leicester, he never
+failed to keep them instructed, to the best of his ability.  It must be
+confessed, however, that the shuffling and paltering among great men and
+little men, at that period, forms a somewhat painful subject of
+contemplation at the present day.
+
+Grafigni having some merchandise to convey from Antwerp to London, went
+early in the year to the Prince of Parma, at Brussels, in order to
+procure a passport.  They entered into some conversation upon the misery
+of the country, and particularly concerning the troubles to which the
+unfortunate merchants had been exposed.  Alexander expressed much
+sympathy with the commercial community, and a strong desire that the
+ancient friendship between his master and the Queen of England might be
+restored.  Grafigni assured the Prince--as the result of his own
+observation in England--that the Queen participated in those pacific
+sentiments: "You are going to England," replied the Prince, "and you may
+say to the ministers of her Majesty, that, after my allegiance to my
+King, I am most favourably and affectionately inclined towards her.  If
+it pleases them that I, as Alexander Farnese, should attempt to bring
+about an accord, and if our commissioners could be assured of a hearing
+in England, I would take care that everything should be conducted with
+due regard to the honour and reputation of her Majesty."
+
+Grafigni then asked for a written letter of credence.  "That cannot be,"
+replied Alexander; "but if you return to me I shall believe your report,
+and then a proper person can be sent, with authority from the King to
+treat with her Majesty."
+
+Grafigni proceeded to England, and had an interview with Lord Cobham.
+A few days later that nobleman gave the merchant a general assurance
+that the Queen had always felt a strong inclination to maintain firm
+friendship with the House of Burgundy.  Nevertheless, as he proceeded
+to state, the bad policy of the King's ministers, and the enterprises
+against her Majesty, had compelled her to provide for her own security
+and that of her realm by remedies differing in spirit from that good
+inclination.  Being however a Christian princess, willing to leave
+vengeance to the Lord and disposed to avoid bloodshed, she was ready
+to lend her ear to a negotiation for peace, if it were likely to be a
+sincere and secure one.  Especially she was pleased that his Highness
+of Parma should act as mediator of such a treaty, as she considered him
+a most just and honourable prince in all his promises and actions.  Her
+Majesty would accordingly hold herself in readiness to receive the
+honourable commissioners alluded to, feeling sure that every step taken
+by his Highness would comport with her honour and safety.
+
+At about the same time the other partner in this diplomatic enterprise,
+William Bodman, communicated to Alexander, the result of his observations
+in England.  He stated that Lords Burghley, Buckhurst, and Cobham, Sir
+Christopher Hatton, and Comptroller Croft, were secretly desirous of
+peace with Spain and that they had seized the recent opportunity of her
+pique against the Earl of Leicester to urge forward these underhand
+negotiations.  Some progress had been made; but as no accredited
+commissioner arrived from the Prince of Parma, and as Leicester was
+continually writing earnest letters against peace, the efforts of these
+counsellors had slackened.  Bodman found them all, on his arrival,
+anxious as he said, "to get their necks out of the matter;" declaring
+everything which had been done to be pure matter of accident, entirely
+without the concurrence of the Queen, and each seeking to outrival the
+other in the good graces of her Majesty.  Grafigni informed Bodman,
+however, that Lord Cobham was quite to be depended upon in the affair,
+and would deal with him privately, while Lord Burghley would correspond
+with Andrea de Loo at Antwerp.  Moreover, the servant of Comptroller
+Croft would direct Bodman as to his course, and would give him daily
+instructions.
+
+Now it so happened that this servant of Croft, Norris by name, was a
+Papist, a man of bad character, and formerly a spy of the Duke of Anjou.
+"If your Lordship or myself should use such instruments as this," wrote
+Walsingham to Leicester, "I know we should bear no small reproach; but
+it is the good hap of hollow and doubtful men to be best thought of."
+Bodman thought the lords of the peace-faction and their adherents not
+sufficiently strong to oppose the other party with success.  He assured
+Farnese that almost all the gentlemen and the common people of England
+stood ready to risk their fortunes and to go in person to the field to
+maintain the cause of the Queen and religious liberty; and that the
+chance of peace was desperate unless something should turn the tide, such
+as, for example, the defeat of Drake, or an invasion by Philip of Ireland
+or Scotland.
+
+As it so happened that Drake was just then engaged in a magnificent
+career of victory, sweeping the Spanish Main and startling the nearest
+and the most remote possessions of the King with English prowess, his
+defeat was not one of the cards to be relied on by the peace-party in the
+somewhat deceptive game which they had commenced.  Yet, strange to say,
+they used, or attempted to use, those splendid triumphs as if they had
+been disasters.
+
+Meantime there was an active but very secret correspondence between Lord
+Cobham, Lord Burghley, Sir James Croft, and various subordinate
+personages in England, on the one side, and Champagny, President
+Richardot, La Motte, governor of Gravelines, Andrea de Loo, Grafigni, and
+other men in the obedient Provinces, more or less in Alexander's
+confidence, on the other side.  Each party was desirous of forcing or
+wheedling the antagonist to show his hand.  "You were employed to take
+soundings off the English coast in the Duke of Norfolk's time," said
+Cobham to La Motte: "you remember the Duke's fate.  Nevertheless, her
+Majesty hates war, and it only depends on the King to have a firm and
+lasting peace."
+
+"You must tell Lord Cobham," said Richardot to La Motte, "that you
+are not at liberty to go into a correspondence, until assured of the
+intentions of Queen Elizabeth.  Her Majesty ought to speak first,
+in order to make her good-will manifest," and so on.
+
+"The 'friend' can confer with you," said Richardot to Champagny; "but his
+Highness is not to appear to know anything at all about it.  The Queen
+must signify her intentions."
+
+"You answered Champagny correctly," said Burghley to De Loo, "as to what
+I said last winter concerning her Majesty's wishes in regard to a
+pacification.  The Netherlands must be compelled to return to obedience
+to the King; but their ancient privileges are to be maintained.  You
+omitted, however, to say a word about toleration, in the Provinces, of
+the reformed religion.  But I said then, as I say now, that this is a
+condition indispensable to peace."
+
+This was a somewhat important omission on the part of De Loo, and gives
+the measure of his conscientiousness or his capacity as a negotiator.
+Certainly for the Lord-Treasurer of England to offer, on the part of her
+Majesty, to bring about the reduction of her allies under the yoke which
+they had thrown off without her assistance, and this without leave asked
+of them, and with no provision for the great principle of religious
+liberty, which was the cause of the revolt, was a most flagitious
+trifling with the honour of Elizabeth and of England.  Certainly the more
+this mysterious correspondence is examined, the more conclusive is the
+justification of the vague and instinctive jealousy felt by Leicester and
+the States-General as to English diplomacy during the winter and spring
+of 1586.
+
+Burghley summoned De Loo, accordingly, to recall to his memory all that
+had been privately said to him on the necessity of protecting the
+reformed religion in the Provinces.  If a peace were to be perpetual,
+toleration was indispensable, he observed, and her Majesty was said to
+desire this condition most earnestly.
+
+The Lord-Treasurer also made the not unreasonable suggestion, that, in
+case of a pacification, it would be necessary to provide that English
+subjects--peaceful traders, mariners, and the like--should no longer be
+shut up in the Inquisition prisons of Spain and Portugal, and there
+starved to death, as, with great multitudes, had already been the case.
+
+Meantime Alexander, while encouraging and directing all these underhand
+measures, was carefully impressing upon his master that he was not, in
+the least degree; bound by any such negotiations.  "Queen Elizabeth," he
+correctly observed to Philip, "is a woman: she is also by no means fond
+of expense.  The kingdom, accustomed to repose, is already weary of war
+therefore, they are all pacifically inclined."  "It has been intimated to
+me," he said, "that if I would send a properly qualified person, who
+should declare that your Majesty had not absolutely forbidden the coming
+of Lord Leicester, such an agent would be well received, and perhaps the
+Earl would be recalled."  Alexander then proceeded, with the coolness
+befitting a trusted governor of Philip II., to comment upon the course
+which he was pursuing.  He could at any time denounce the negotiations
+which he was secretly prompting.  Meantime immense advantages could be
+obtained by the deception practised upon an enemy whose own object was
+to deceive.
+
+The deliberate treachery of the scheme was cynically enlarged upon, and
+its possible results mathematically calculated:
+
+Philip was to proceed with the invasion while Alexander was going on with
+the negotiation.  If, meanwhile, they could receive back Holland and
+Zeeland from the hands of England, that would be an immense success. The
+Prince intimated a doubt, however, as to so fortunate a result, because,
+in dealing with heretics and persons of similar quality, nothing but
+trickery was to be expected.  The chief good to be hoped for was to
+"chill the Queen in her plots, leagues, and alliances," and during the
+chill, to carry forward their own great design.  To slacken not a whit
+in their preparations, to "put the Queen to sleep," and, above all, not
+to leave the French for a moment unoccupied with internal dissensions and
+civil war; such was the game of the King and the governor, as expounded
+between themselves.
+
+President Richardot, at the same time, stated to Cardinal Granvelle that
+the English desire for peace was considered certain at Brussels.
+Grafigni had informed the Prince of Parma and his counsellors that the
+Queen was most amicably disposed, and that there would be no trouble on
+the point of religion, her Majesty not wishing to obtain more than she
+would herself be willing to grant.  "In this," said Richardot, "there is
+both hard and soft;" for knowing that the Spanish game was deception,
+pure and simple, the excellent President could not bring himself to
+suspect a possible grain of good faith in the English intentions.  Much
+anxiety was perpetually felt in the French quarter, her Majesty's
+government being supposed to be secretly preparing an invasion of the
+obedient Netherlands across the French frontier, in combination, not with
+the Bearnese, but with Henry III.  So much in the dark were even the most
+astute politicians.  "I can't feel satisfied in this French matter," said
+the President: "we mustn't tickle ourselves to make ourselves laugh."
+Moreover, there was no self-deception nor self-tickling possible as to
+the unmitigated misery of the obedient Netherlands.  Famine was a more
+formidable foe than Frenchmen, Hollanders, and Englishmen combined; so
+that Richardot avowed that the "negotiation would be indeed holy," if it
+would restore Holland and Zeeland to the King without fighting.  The
+prospect seemed on the whole rather dismal to loyal Netherlanders like
+the old leaguing, intriguing, Hispamolized president of the privy
+council.  "I confess," said he plaintively, "that England needs
+chastisement; but I don't see how we are to give it to her.  Only let us
+secure Holland and Zeeland, and then we shall always find a stick
+whenever we like to beat the dog."
+
+Meantime Andrea de Loo had been bustling and buzzing about the ears of
+the chief counsellors at the English court during all the early spring.
+Most busily he had been endeavouring to efface the prevalent suspicion
+that Philip and Alexander were only trifling by these informal
+negotiations.  We have just seen whether or not there was ground for that
+suspicion.  De Loo, being importunate, however--"as he usually was,"
+according to his own statement--obtained in Burghley's hand a
+confirmation, by order of the Queen, of De Loo's--letter of the 26th
+December.  The matter of religion gave the worthy merchant much
+difficulty, and he begged Lord Buckhurst, the Lord Treasurer, and many
+other counsellors, not to allow this point of toleration to ruin the
+whole affair; "for," said he, "his Majesty will never permit any exercise
+of the reformed religion."
+
+At last Buckhurst sent for him, and in presence of Comptroller Croft,
+gave him information that he had brought the Queen to this conclusion:
+firstly, that she would be satisfied with as great a proportion of
+religious toleration for Holland, Zeeland, and the other United
+Provinces, as his Majesty could concede with safety to his conscience and
+his honour; secondly, that she required an act of amnesty; thirdly, that
+she claimed reimbursement by Philip for the money advanced by her to the
+States.
+
+Certainly a more wonderful claim was never made than this--a demand upon
+an absolute monarch for indemnity for expenses incurred in fomenting a
+rebellion of his own subjects.  The measure of toleration proposed for
+the Provinces--the conscience, namely, of the greatest bigot ever born
+into the world--was likely to prove as satisfactory as the claim for
+damages propounded by the most parsimonious sovereign in Christendom.  It
+was, however, stipulated that the nonconformists of Holland and Zeeland,
+who should be forced into exile, were to have their property administered
+by papist trustees; and further, that the Spanish inquisition was not to
+be established in the Netherlands.  Philip could hardly demand better
+terms than these last, after a career of victory.  That they should be
+offered now by Elizabeth was hardly compatible with good faith to the
+States.
+
+On account of Lord Burghley's gout, it was suggested that the negotiators
+had better meet in England, as it would be necessary for him to take the
+lead in the matters and as he was but an indifferent traveller.  Thus,
+according to De Loo, the Queen was willing to hand over the United
+Provinces to Philip, and to toss religious toleration to the winds, if
+she could only get back the seventy thousand pounds--more or less--which
+she had invested in an unpromising speculation.  A few weeks later, and
+at almost the very moment when Elizabeth had so suddenly overturned her
+last vial of wrath upon the discomfited Heneage for having communicated
+--according to her express command--the fact of the pending negotiations
+to the Netherland States; at that very instant Parma was writing
+secretly, and in cipher, to Philip.  His communication--could Sir Thomas
+have read it--might have partly explained her Majesty's rage.
+
+Parma had heard, he said, through Bodman, from Comptroller Croft, that
+the Queen would willingly receive a proper envoy.  It was very easy to
+see, he observed, that the English counsellors were seeking every means
+of entering into communication with Spain, and that they were doing so
+with the participation of the Queen!  Lord-Treasurer Burghley and
+Comptroller Croft had expressed surprise that the Prince had not yet sent
+a secret agent to her Majesty, under pretext of demanding explanations
+concerning Lord Leicester's presence in the Provinces, but in reality to
+treat for peace.  Such an agent, it had been intimated, would be well
+received.  The Lord-Treasurer and the Comptroller would do all in their
+power to advance the negotiation, so that, with their aid and with the
+pacific inclination of the Queen, the measures proposed in favour of
+Leicester would be suspended, and perhaps the Earl himself and all the
+English would be recalled.
+
+The Queen was further represented as taking great pains to excuse both
+the expedition of Sir Francis Drake to the Indies, and the mission of
+Leicester to the Provinces.  She was said to throw the whole blame of
+these enterprises upon Walsingham and other ill-intentioned personages,
+and to avow that she now understood matters better; so that, if Parma
+would at once send an envoy, peace would, without question, soon be made.
+
+Parma had expressed his gratification at these hopeful dispositions on
+the part of Burghley and Croft, and held out hopes of sending an agent to
+treat with them, if not directly with her Majesty.  For some time past--
+according to the Prince--the English government had not seemed to be
+honestly seconding the Earl of Leicester, nor to correspond with his
+desires.  "This makes me think," he said, "that the counsellors before-
+mentioned, being his rivals, are trying to trip him up."
+
+In such a caballing, prevaricating age, it is difficult to know which of
+all the plotters and counterplotters engaged in these intrigues could
+accomplish the greatest amount of what--for the sake of diluting in nine
+syllables that which could be more forcibly expressed in one--was then
+called diplomatic dissimulation.  It is to be feared, notwithstanding her
+frequent and vociferous denials, that the robes of the "imperial
+votaress" were not so unsullied as could be wished.  We know how loudly
+Leicester had complained--we have seen how clearly Walsingham could
+convict; but Elizabeth, though convicted, could always confute: for an
+absolute sovereign, even without resorting to Philip's syllogisms of axe
+and faggot, was apt in the sixteenth century to have the best of an
+argument with private individuals.
+
+The secret statements of Parma-made, not for public effect, but for
+the purpose of furnishing his master with the most accurate information
+he could gather as to English policy--are certainly entitled to
+consideration.  They were doubtless founded upon the statements
+of individuals rejoicing in no very elevated character; but those
+individuals had no motive to deceive their patron.  If they clashed
+with the vehement declarations of very eminent personages, it must be
+admitted, on the other hand, that they were singularly in accordance with
+the silent eloquence of important and mysterious events.
+
+As to Alexander Farnese--without deciding the question whether Elizabeth
+and Burghley were deceiving Walsingham and Leicester, or only trying to
+delude Philip and himself--he had no hesitation, of course, on his part,
+in recommending to Philip the employment of unlimited dissimulation.
+Nothing could be more ingenuous than the intercourse between the King and
+his confidential advisers.  It was perfectly understood among them that
+they were always to deceive every one, upon every occasion.  Only let
+them be false, and it was impossible to be wholly wrong; but grave
+mistakes might occur from occasional deviations into sincerity.  It was
+no question at all, therefore, that it was Parma's duty to delude
+Elizabeth and Burghley.  Alexander's course was plain.  He informed his
+master that he would keep these difficulties alive as much as it was
+possible.  In order to "put them all to sleep with regard to the great
+enterprise of the invasion," he would send back Bodman to Burghley and
+Croft, and thus keep this unofficial negotiation upon its legs.  The King
+was quite uncommitted, and could always disavow what had been done.
+Meanwhile he was gaining, and his adversaries losing, much precious time.
+"If by this course," said Parma, "we can induce the English to hand over
+to us the places which they hold in Holland and Zeeland, that will be a
+great triumph."  Accordingly he urged the King not to slacken, in the
+least, his preparations for invasion, and, above all, to have a care that
+the French were kept entangled and embarrassed among themselves, which
+was a most substantial point.
+
+Meantime Europe was ringing with the American successes of the bold
+corsair Drake.  San Domingo, Porto Rico, Santiago, Cartliagena, Florida,
+were sacked and destroyed, and the supplies drawn so steadily from the
+oppression of the Western World to maintain Spanish tyranny in Europe,
+were for a time extinguished.  Parma was appalled at these triumphs of
+the Sea-King--"a fearful man to the King of Spain"--as Lord Burghley well
+observed.  The Spanish troops were starving in Flanders, all Flanders
+itself was starving, and Philip, as usual, had sent but insignificant
+remittances to save his perishing soldiers.  Parma had already exhausted
+his credit.  Money was most difficult to obtain in such a forlorn
+country; and now the few rich merchants and bankers of Antwerp that were
+left looked very black at these crushing news from America.  "They are
+drawing their purse-strings very tight," said Alexander, "and will make
+no accommodation.  The most contemplative of them ponder much over this
+success of Drake, and think that your Majesty will forget our matters
+here altogether."  For this reason he informed the King that it would be
+advisable to drop all further negotiation with England for the time, as
+it was hardly probable that, with such advantages gained by the Queen,
+she would be inclined to proceed in the path which had been just secretly
+opened.  Moreover, the Prince was in a state of alarm as to the
+intentions of France.  Mendoza and Tassis had given him to understand
+that a very good feeling prevailed between the court of Henry and of
+Elizabeth, and that the French were likely to come to a pacification
+among themselves.  In this the Spanish envoys were hardly anticipating so
+great an effect as we have seen that they had the right to do from their
+own indefatigable exertions; for, thanks to their zeal, backed by the
+moderate subsidies furnished by their master, the civil war in France
+already seemed likely to be as enduring as that of the Netherlands.  But
+Parma--still quite in the dark as to French politics--was haunted by the
+vision of seventy thousand foot and six thousand horses ready to be let
+slip upon him at any, moment, out of a pacified and harmonious France;
+while he had nothing but a few starving and crippled regiments to
+withstand such an invasion.  When all these events should have taken
+place, and France, in alliance with England, should have formally
+declared war against Spain, Alexander protested that he should have
+learned nothing new.
+
+The Prince was somewhat mistaken as to political affairs; but his doubts
+concerning his neighbours, blended with the forlorn condition of himself
+and army, about which there was no doubt at all, showed the exigencies of
+his situation.  In the midst of such embarrassments it is impossible not
+to admire his heroism as a military chieftain, and his singular
+adroitness as a diplomatist.  He had painted for his sovereign a most
+faithful and horrible portrait of the obedient Provinces.  The soil was
+untilled; the manufactories had all stopped; trade had ceased to exist.
+It was a pity only to look upon the raggedness of his soldiers.  No
+language could describe the misery of the reconciled Provinces--Artois,
+Hainault, Flanders.  The condition of Bruges would melt the hardest
+heart; other cities were no better; Antwerp was utterly ruined; its
+inhabitants were all starving.  The famine throughout the obedient
+Netherlands was such as had not been known for a century.  The whole
+country had been picked bare by the troops, and the plough was not put
+into the ground.  Deputations were constantly with him from Bruges,
+Dendermonde, Bois-le-Duc, Brussels, Antwerp, Nymegen, proving to him
+by the most palpable evidence that the whole population of those cities
+had almost literally nothing to eat.  He had nothing, however, but
+exhortations to patience to feed them withal.  He was left without a
+groat even to save his soldiers from starving, and he wildly and
+bitterly, day after day, implored his sovereign for aid.  These pictures
+are not the sketches of a historian striving for effect, but literal
+transcripts from the most secret revelations of the Prince himself to his
+sovereign.  On the other hand, although Leicester's complaints of the
+destitution of the English troops in the republic were almost as bitter,
+yet the condition of the United Provinces was comparatively healthy.
+Trade, external and internal, was increasing daily.  Distant commercial
+and military expeditions were fitted out, manufactures were prosperous,
+and the war of independence was gradually becoming--strange to say--a
+source of prosperity to the new commonwealth.
+
+Philip--being now less alarmed than his nephew concerning French affairs,
+and not feeling so keenly the misery of the obedient Provinces, or the
+wants of the Spanish army--sent to Alexander six hundred thousand ducats,
+by way of Genoa.  In the letter submitted by his secretary recording this
+remittance, the King made, however, a characteristic marginal note:--
+"See if it will not be as well to tell him something concerning the two
+hundred thousand ducats to be deducted for Mucio, for fear of more
+mischief, if the Prince should expect the whole six hundred thousand."
+
+Accordingly Mucio got the two hundred thousand.  One-third of the meagre
+supply destined for the relief of the King's starving and valiant little
+army in the Netherlands was cut off to go into the pockets of the
+intriguing Duke of Guise.  "We must keep the French," said Philip, "in a
+state of confusion at home, and feed their civil war.  We must not allow
+them to come to a general peace, which would be destruction for the
+Catholics.  I know you will put a good face on the matter; and, after
+all, 'tis in the interest of the Netherlands.  Moreover, the money shall
+be immediately refunded."
+
+Alexander was more likely to make a wry face, notwithstanding his views
+of the necessity of fomenting the rebellion against the House of Valois.
+Certainly if a monarch intended to conquer such countries as France,
+England, and Holland, without stirring from his easy chair in the
+Escorial, it would have been at least as well--so Alexander thought--to
+invest a little more capital in the speculation.  No monarch ever dreamed
+of arriving at universal empire with less personal fatigue or exposure,
+or at a cheaper rate, than did Philip II.  His only fatigue was at his
+writing-table.  But even here his merit was of a subordinate description.
+He sat a great while at a time.  He had a genius for sitting; but he now
+wrote few letters himself.  A dozen words or so, scrawled in
+hieroglyphics at the top, bottom, or along the margin of the interminable
+despatches of his secretaries, contained the suggestions, more or less
+luminous, which arose in his mind concerning public affairs.  But he held
+firmly to his purpose: He had devoted his life to the extermination of
+Protestantism, to the conquest of France and England, to the subjugation
+of Holland.  These were vast schemes.  A King who should succeed in such
+enterprises, by his personal courage and genius, at the head of his
+armies, or by consummate diplomacy, or by a masterly system of finance-
+husbanding and concentrating the resources of his almost boundless
+realms--might be in truth commended for capacity.  Hitherto however
+Philip's triumph had seemed problematical; and perhaps something more
+would be necessary than letters to Parma, and paltry remittances to
+Mucio, notwithstanding Alexander's splendid but local victories in
+Flanders.
+
+Parma, although in reality almost at bay, concealed his despair, and
+accomplished wonders in the field.  The military events during the spring
+and summer of 1586 will be sketched in a subsequent chapter.  For the
+present it is necessary to combine into a complete whole the subterranean
+negotiations between Brussels and England.
+
+Much to his surprise and gratification, Parma found that the peace-party
+were not inclined to change their views in consequence of the triumphs of
+Drake.  He soon informed the King that--according to Champagny and
+Bodman--the Lord Treasurer, the Comptroller, Lord Cobham, and Sir
+Christopher Hatton, were more pacific than they had ever been.  These
+four were represented by Grafigni as secretly in league against Leicester
+and Walsingham, and very anxious to bring about a reconciliation between
+the crowns of England and Spain.  The merchant-diplomatist, according to
+his own statement, was expressly sent by Queen Elizabeth to the prince of
+Parma, although without letter of credence or signed instructions, but
+with the full knowledge and approbation of the four counsellors just
+mentioned.  He assured Alexander that the Queen and the majority of her
+council felt a strong desire for peace, and had manifested much
+repentance for what had been done.  They had explained their proceedings
+by the necessity of self-defence.  They had avowed--in case they should
+be made sure of peace--that they should, not with reluctance and against
+their will, but, on the contrary, with the utmost alacrity and at once,
+surrender to the King of Spain the territory which they possessed in the
+Netherlands, and especially the fortified towns in Holland and Zeeland;
+for the English object had never been conquest.  Parma had also been
+informed of the Queen's strong desire that he should be employed as
+negotiator, on account of her great confidence in his sincerity.  They
+had expressed much satisfaction on hearing that he was about to send an
+agent to England, and had protested themselves rejoiced at Drake's
+triumphs, only because of their hope that a peace with Spain would thus
+be rendered the easier of accomplishment.  They were much afraid,
+according to Grafigni, of Philip's power, and dreaded a Spanish invasion
+of their country, in conjunction with the Pope.  They were now extremely
+anxious that Parma--as he himself informed the King--should send an agent
+of good capacity, in great secrecy, to England.
+
+The Comptroller had said that he had pledged himself to such a result,
+and if it failed, that they would probably cut off his head.  The four
+counsellors were excessively solicitous for the negotiation, and each of
+them was expecting to gain favour by advancing it to the best of his
+ability.
+
+Parma hinted at the possibility that all these professions were false,
+and that the English were only intending to keep the King from the
+contemplated invasion.  At the same time he drew Philip's attention to
+the fact that Burghley and his party had most evidently been doing
+everything in their power to obstruct Leicester's progress in the
+Netherlands and to keep back the reinforcements of troops and money which
+he so much required.
+
+No doubt these communications of Parma to the King were made upon the
+faith of an agent not over-scrupulous, and of no elevated or recognised
+rank in diplomacy.  It must be borne in mind, however, that he had been
+made use of by both parties; perhaps because it would be easy to throw
+off, and discredit, him whenever such a step should be convenient; and
+that, on the other hand, coming fresh from Burghley and the rest into the
+presence of the keen-eyed Farnese, he would hardly invent for his
+employer a budget of falsehoods.  That man must have been a subtle
+negotiator who could outwit such a statesman as Burghley--and the other
+counsellors of Elizabeth, and a bold one who could dare to trifle on a
+momentous occasion with Alexander of Parma.
+
+Leicester thought Burghley very much his friend, and so thought Davison
+and Heneage; and the Lord-Treasurer had, in truth, stood stoutly by the
+Earl in the affair of the absolute governorship;--"a matter more severe
+and cumbersome to him and others," said Burghley, "than any whatsoever
+since he was a counsellor."  But there is no doubt that these
+negotiations were going forward all the spring and summer, that they were
+most detrimental to Leicester's success, and that they were kept--so far
+as it was possible--a profound secret from him, from Walsingham, and from
+the States-General.  Nothing was told them except what their own
+astuteness had discovered beforehand; and the game of the counsellors--so
+far as their attitude towards Leicester and Walsingham was concerned--
+seems both disingenuous and impolitic.
+
+Parma, it was to be feared, was more than a match for the English
+governor-general in the field; and it was certainly hopeless for poor
+old Comptroller Croft, even though backed by the sagacious Burghley, to
+accomplish so great an amount of dissimulation in a year as the Spanish
+cabinet, without effort, could compass in a week.  Nor were they
+attempting to do so.  It is probable that England was acting towards
+Philip in much better faith than he deserved, or than Parma believed;
+but it is hardly to be wondered at that Leicester should think himself
+injured by being kept perpetually in the dark.
+
+Elizabeth was very impatient at not receiving direct letters from Parma,
+and her anxiety on the subject explains much of her caprice during the
+quarrel about the governor-generalahip.  Many persons in the Netherlands
+thought those violent scenes a farce, and a farce that had been arranged
+with Leicester beforehand.  In this they were mistaken; for an
+examination of the secret correspondence of the period reveals the
+motives--which to contemporaries were hidden--of many strange
+transactions.  The Queen was, no doubt, extremely anxious, and with
+cause, at the tempest slowly gathering over her head; but the more the
+dangers thickened, the more was her own official language to those in
+high places befitting the sovereign of England.
+
+She expressed her surprise to Farnese that he had not written to her on
+the subject of the Grafigni and Bodman affair.  The first, she said, was
+justified in all which he had narrated, save in his assertion that she
+had sent him.  The other had not obtained audience, because he had not
+come provided with any credentials, direct or indirect.  Having now
+understood from Andrea de Loo and the Seigneur de Champagny that Parma
+had the power to conclude a peace, which he seemed very much to desire,
+she observed that it was not necessary for him to be so chary in
+explaining the basis of the proposed negotiations.  It was better to
+enter into a straightforward path, than by ambiguous words to spin out
+to great length matters which princes should at once conclude.
+
+"Do not suppose," said the Queen, "that I am seeking what belongs to
+others.  God forbid.  I seek only that which is mine own.  But be
+sure that I will take good heed of the sword which threatens me with
+destruction, nor think that I am so craven-spirited as to endure a
+wrong, or to place myself at the mercy of my enemy.  Every week I see
+advertisements and letters from Spain that this year shall witness the
+downfall of England; for the Spaniards--like the hunter who divided, with
+great liberality, among his friends the body and limbs of the wolf,
+before it had been killed--have partitioned this kingdom and that of
+Ireland before the conquest has been effected.  But my royal heart is no
+whit appalled by such threats.  I trust, with the help of the Divine
+hand--which has thus far miraculously preserved me--to smite all these
+braggart powers into the dust, and to preserve my honour, and the
+kingdoms which He has given me for my heritage.
+
+"Nevertheless, if you have authority to enter upon and to conclude this
+negotiation, you will find my ears open to hear your propositions; and I
+tell you further, if a peace is to be made, that I wish you to be the
+mediator thereof.  Such is the affection I bear you, notwithstanding that
+some letters, written by your own hand, might easily have effaced such
+sentiments from my mind."
+
+Soon afterwards, Bodman was again despatched to England, Grafigni being
+already there.  He was provided with unsigned instructions, according to
+which he was to say that the Prince, having heard of the Queen's good
+intentions, had despatched him and Grafigni to her court.  They were to
+listen to any suggestions made by the Queen to her ministers; but they
+were to do nothing but listen.  If the counsellors should enter into
+their grievances against his Majesty, and ask for explanations, the
+agents were to say that they had no authority or instructions to speak
+for so great and Christian a monarch.  Thus they were to cut the thread
+of any such discourse, or any other observations not to the purpose.
+
+Silence, in short, was recommended, first and last, as the one great
+business of their mission; and it was unlucky that men whose talent for
+taciturnity was thus signally relied upon should be somewhat remarkable
+for loquacity.  Grafigni was also the bearer of a letter from Alexander
+to the Queen--of which Bodman received a copy--but it was strictly
+enjoined upon them to keep the letter, their instructions, and the
+objects of their journey, a secret from all the world.
+
+The letter of the Prince consisted mainly of complimentary flourishes.
+He had heard, he said, all that Agostino Grafigni had communicated, and
+he now begged her Majesty to let him understand the course which it was
+proper to take; assuring her of his gratitude for her good opinion
+touching his sincerity, and his desire to save the effusion of blood,
+and so on; concluding of course with expressions of most profound
+consideration and devotion.
+
+Early in July Bodman arrived in London.  He found Grafigni in very low
+spirits.  He had been with Lord Cobham, and was much disappointed with
+his reception, for Cobham--angry that Grafigni had brought no commission
+from the King--had refused to receive Parma's letter to the Queen, and
+had expressed annoyance that Bodman should be employed on this mission,
+having heard that lie was very ill-tempered and passionate.  The same
+evening, he had been sent for by Lord Burghley--who had accepted the
+letter for her Majesty without saying a word--and on the following
+morning, he had been taken to task, by several counsellors, on the ground
+that the Prince, in that communication, had stated that the Queen had
+expressed a desire for peace.
+
+It has just been shown that there was no such intimation at all in the
+letter; but as neither Grafigni nor Bodman had read the epistle itself,
+but only the copy furnished them, they could merely say that such an
+assertion; if made by the Prince, had been founded on no statement of
+theirs.  Bodman consoled his colleague, as well as he could, by
+assurances that when the letter was fairly produced, their vindication
+would be complete, and Grafigni, upon that point, was comforted.  He was,
+however, very doleful in general, and complained bitterly of Burghley and
+the other English counsellors.  He said that they had forced him, against
+his will, to make this journey to Brussels, that they had offered him
+presents, that they would leave him no rest in his own house, but had
+made him neglect all his private business, and caused him a great loss of
+time and money, in order that he might serve them.  They had manifested
+the strongest desire that Parma should open this communication, and had
+led him to expect a very large recompense for his share in the
+transaction.  "And now," said Grafigni to his colleague, with great
+bitterness, "I find no faith nor honour in them at all.  They don't keep
+their word, and every one of them is trying to slide out of the very
+business, in which each was, but the other day, striving to outrival the
+other, in order that it might be brought to a satisfactory conclusion."
+
+After exploding in this way to Bodman, he went back to Cobham, and
+protested, with angry vehemence, that Parma had never written such a word
+to the Queen, and that so it would prove, if the letter were produced.
+
+Next day, Bodman was sent for to Greenwich, where her Majesty was, as
+usual, residing.  A secret pavilion was indicated to him, where he was to
+stay until sunset.  When that time arrived, Lord Cobham's secretary came
+with great mystery, and begged the emissary to follow him, but at a
+considerable distance, towards the apartments of Lord Burghley in the
+palace.  Arriving there, they found the Lord Treasurer accompanied by
+Cobham and Croft.  Burghley instantly opened the interview by a defence
+of the Queen's policy in sending troops to the Netherlands, and in
+espousing their cause, and then the conversation proceeded to the
+immediate matter in hand.
+
+Bodman (after listening respectfully to the Lord-Treasurer's
+observations).--"His Highness has, however, been extremely surprised that
+my Lord Leicester should take an oath, as governor-general of the King's
+Provinces.  He is shocked likewise by the great demonstrations of
+hostility on the part of her Majesty."
+
+Burghley.--"The oath was indispensable.  The Queen was obliged to
+tolerate the step on account of the great urgency of the States to have a
+head.  But her Majesty has commanded us to meet you on this occasion, in
+order to hear what you have to communicate on the part of the Prince of
+Parma."
+
+Bodman (after a profusion of complimentary phrases).--"I have no
+commission to say anything.  I am only instructed to listen to anything
+that may be said to me, and that her Majesty may be pleased to command."
+
+Burghley.--"'Tis very discreet to begin thus.  But time is pressing, and
+it is necessary to be brief.  We beg you therefore to communicate,
+without further preface, that which you have been charged to say."
+
+Bodman.--"I can only repeat to your Lordship, that I have been charged to
+say nothing."
+
+After this Barmecide feast of diplomacy, to partake of which it seemed
+hardly necessary that the guests should have previously attired
+themselves in such garments of mystery, the parties separated for the
+night.
+
+In spite of their care, it would seem that the Argus-eyed Walsingham had
+been able to see after sunset; for, the next evening--after Bodman had
+been introduced with the same precautions to the same company, in the
+same place--Burghley, before a word had been spoken, sent for Sir
+Francis.
+
+Bodman was profoundly astonished, for he had been expressly informed that
+Walsingham was to know nothing of the transaction.  The Secretary of
+State could not so easily be outwitted, however, and he was soon seated
+at the table, surveying the scene, with his grave melancholy eyes, which
+had looked quite through the whole paltry intrigue.
+
+Burghley.--"Her Majesty has commanded us to assemble together, in order
+that, in my presence, it may be made clear that she did not commence this
+negotiation.  Let Grafigni be summoned."
+
+Grafigni immediately made his appearance.
+
+Burghley.--"You will please to explain how you came to enter into this
+business."
+
+Grafigni.--"The first time I went to the States, it was on my private
+affairs; I had no order from any one to treat with the Prince of Parma.
+His Highness, having accidentally heard, however, that I resided in
+England, expressed a wish to see me.  I had an interview with the Prince.
+I told him, out of my own head, that the Queen had a strong inclination
+to hear propositions of peace, and that--as some of her counsellors were
+of the same opinion--I believed that if his Highness should send a
+negotiator, some good would be effected.  The Prince replied that he felt
+by no means sure of such a result; but that, if I should come back from
+England, sent by the Queen or her council, he would then despatch a
+person with a commission to treat of peace.  This statement, together
+with other matters that had passed between us, was afterwards drawn up in
+writing by command of his Highness."
+
+Burghley.--"Who bade you say, after your second return to Brussels, that
+you came on the part of the Queen?  For you well know that her Majesty
+did not send you."
+
+Grafigni.--"I never said so.  I stated that my Lord Cobham had set down
+in writing what I was to say to the Prince of Parma.  It will never
+appear that I represented the Queen as desiring peace.  I said that her
+Majesty would lend her ears to peace.  Bodman knows this too; and he has
+a copy of the letter of his Highness."
+
+Walsingham to Bodman.--"Have you the copy still?"
+
+Bodman.--"Yes, Mr. Secretary."
+
+Walsingham.--"Please to produce it, in order that this matter may be
+sifted to the bottom."
+
+Bodman.--"I supplicate your Lorships to pardon me, but indeed that cannot
+be.  My instructions forbid my showing the letter."
+
+Walsingham (rising).--"I will forthwith go to her Majesty, and fetch the
+original."  A pause.  Mr. Secretary returns in a few minutes, having
+obtained the document, which the Queen, up to that time, had kept by her,
+without showing it to any one.
+
+Walsingham (after reading the letter attentively, and aloud).--"There is
+not such a word, as that her Majesty is desirous of peace, in the whole
+paper."
+
+Burghley (taking the letter, and slowly construing it out of Italian into
+English).--"It would seem that his Highness hath written this, assuming
+that the Signor Grafigni came from the Queen, although he had received
+his instructions from my Lord Cobham.  It is plain, however, that the
+negotiation was commenced accidentally."
+
+Comptroller Croft (nervously, and with the air of a man fearful of
+getting into trouble).--"You know very well, Mr. Bodman, that my servant
+came to Dunkirk only to buy and truck away horses; and that you then, by
+chance, entered into talk with him, about the best means of procuring a
+peace between the two kingdoms.  My servant told you of the good feeling
+that prevailed in England.  You promised to write on the subject to the
+Prince, and I immediately informed the Lord-Treasurer of the whole
+transaction."
+
+Burghley.--"That is quite true."
+
+Croft.--"My servant subsequently returned to the Provinces in order to
+learn what the Prince might have said on the subject."
+
+Bodman (with immense politeness, but very decidedly).--"Pardon me, Mr.
+Comptroller; but, in this matter, I must speak the truth, even if the
+honour and life of my father were on the issue.  I declare that your
+servant Norris came to me, directly commissioned for that purpose by
+yourself, and informed me from you, and upon your authority, that if I
+would solicit the Prince of Parma to send a secret agent to England, a
+peace would be at once negotiated.  Your servant entreated me to go to
+his Highness at Brussels.  I refused, but agreed to consider the
+proposition.  After the lapse of several days, the servant returned to
+make further enquiries.  I told him that the Prince had come to no
+decision.  Norris continued to press the matter.  I excused myself.  He
+then solicited and obtained from me a letter of introduction to De Loo,
+the secretary of his Highness.  Armed with this, he went to Brussels and
+had an interview--as I found, four days later--with the Prince.  In
+consequence of the representations of Norris, those of Signor Grafigni,
+and those by way of Antwerp, his Highness determined to send me to
+England."
+
+Burghley to Croft.--"Did you order your servant to speak with Andrea de
+Loo?"
+
+Croft.--"I cannot deny it."
+
+Burghley.--"The fellow seems to have travelled a good way out of his
+commission.  His master sends him to buy horses, and he commences a
+peace-negotiation between two kingdoms.  It would be well he were
+chastised.  As regards the Antwerp matter, too, we have had many letters,
+and I have, seen one from the Seigneur de Champagny, the same effect as
+that of all the rest."
+
+Walsingham.--"I see not to what end his Highness of Parma has sent Mr.
+Bodman hither.  The Prince avows that he hath no commission from Spain."
+
+Bodman.--"His Highness was anxious to know what was her Majesty's
+pleasure.  So soon as that should be known, the Prince could obtain ample
+authority.  He would never have proceeded so far without meaning a good
+end."
+
+Walsingham.--"Very like.  I dare say that his Highness will obtain the
+commission.  Meantime, as Prince of Parma, he writes these letters, and
+assists his sovereign perhaps more than he doth ourselves."
+
+Here the interview terminated.  A few days later, Bodman had another
+conversation with Burghley and Cobham.  Reluctantly, at their urgent
+request, he set down in writing all that he had said concerning his
+mission.
+
+The Lord Treasurer said that the Queen and her counsellors were "ready to
+embrace peace when it was treated of sincerely."  Meantime the Queen had
+learned that the Prince had been sending letters to the cautionary towns
+in Holland and Zeeland, stating that her Majesty was about to surrender
+them to the King of Spain.  These were tricks to make mischief, and were
+very detrimental to the Queen.
+
+Bodman replied that these were merely the idle stories of quidnuncs; and
+that the Prince and all his counsellors were dealing with the utmost
+sincerity.
+
+Burghley answered that he had intercepted the very letters, and had them
+in his possession.
+
+A week afterwards, Bodman saw Walsingham alone, and was informed by
+him that the Queen had written an answer to Parma's letter, and that
+negotiations for the future were to be carried on in the usual form,
+or not at all.  Walsingham, having thus got the better of his rivals,
+and delved below their mines, dismissed the agent with brief courtesy.
+Afterwards the discomfited Mr. Comptroller wished a private interview
+with Bodman.  Bodman refused to speak with him except in presence of Lord
+Cobham.  This Croft refused.  In the same way Bodman contrived to get
+rid, as he said, of Lord Burghley and Lord Cobham, declining to speak
+with either of them alone.  Soon afterwards he returned to the Provinces!
+
+The Queen's letter to Parma was somewhat caustic.  It was obviously
+composed through the inspiration of Walsingham rather than that of
+Burghley.  The letter, brought by a certain Grafigni and a certain
+Bodman, she said, was a very strange one, and written under a delusion.
+It was a very grave error, that, in her name, without her knowledge,
+contrary to her disposition, and to the prejudice of her honour, such a
+person as this Grafigni, or any one like him, should have the audacity to
+commence such a business, as if she had, by messages to the Prince,
+sought a treaty with his King, who had so often returned evil for her
+good.  Grafigni, after representing the contrary to his Highness, had now
+denied in presence of her counsellors having received any commission from
+the Queen.  She also briefly gave the result of Bodman's interviews with
+Burghley and the others, just narrated.  That agent had intimated that
+Parma would procure authority to treat for peace, if assured that the
+Queen would lend her ear to any propositions.
+
+She replied by referring to her published declarations, as showing her
+powerful motives for interfering in these affairs.  It was her purpose to
+save her own realm and to rescue her ancient neighbours from misery and
+from slavery.  To this end she should still direct her actions,
+notwithstanding the sinister rumours which had been spread that she was
+inclined to peace before providing for the security and liberty of her
+allies.  She was determined never to separate their cause from her own.
+Propositions tending to the security of herself and of her neighbours
+would always be favourably received.
+
+Parma, on his part, informed his master that there could be no doubt that
+the Queen and the majority of her council abhorred the war, and that
+already much had been gained by the fictitious negotiation.  Lord-
+Treasurer Burghley had been interposing endless delays and difficulties
+in the way of every measure proposed for the relief of Lord Leicester,
+and the assistance rendered him had been most lukewarm.  Meantime the
+Prince had been able, he said, to achieve much success in the field, and
+the English had done nothing to prevent it.  Since the return of Grafigni
+and Bodman, however, it was obvious that the English government had
+disowned these non-commissioned diplomatists.  The whole negotiation and
+all the negotiators were now discredited, but there was no doubt that
+there had been a strong desire to treat, and great disappointment at the
+result.  Grafigni and Andrea de Loo had been publishing everywhere in
+Antwerp that England would consider the peace as made, so soon as his
+Majesty should be willing to accept any propositions.
+
+His Majesty, meanwhile, sat in his cabinet, without the slightest
+intention of making or accepting any propositions save those that were
+impossible.  He smiled benignantly at his nephew's dissimulation and at
+the good results which it had already produced.  He approved of gaining
+time, he said, by fictitious negotiations and by the use of a mercantile
+agent; for, no doubt, such a course would prevent the proper succours
+from being sent to the Earl of Leicester.  If the English would hand over
+to him the cautionary towns held by them in Holland and Zeeland, promise
+no longer to infest the seas, the Indies, and the Isles, with their
+corsairs, and guarantee the complete obedience to their King and
+submission to the holy Catholic Church of the rebellious Provinces,
+perhaps something might be done with them; but, on the whole, he was
+inclined to think that they had been influenced by knavish and deceitful
+motives from the beginning.  He enjoined it upon Parma, therefore, to
+proceed with equal knavery--taking care, however, not to injure his
+reputation--and to enter into negotiations wherever occasion might serve,
+in order to put the English off their guard and to keep back the
+reinforcements so imperatively required by Leicester.
+
+And the reinforcements were indeed kept back.  Had Burghley and Croft
+been in the pay of Philip II.  they could hardly have served him better
+than they had been doing by the course pursued.  Here then is the
+explanation of the shortcomings of the English government towards
+Leicester and the States during the memorable spring and summer of 1586.
+No money, no soldiers, when most important operations in the field were
+required.  The first general of the age was to be opposed by a man who
+had certainly never gained many laurels as a military chieftain, but who
+was brave and confident, and who, had he been faithfully supported by the
+government which sent him to the Netherlands, would have had his
+antagonist at a great disadvantage.  Alexander had scarcely eight
+thousand effective men.  Famine, pestilence, poverty, mutiny, beset
+and almost paralyzed him.  Language could not exaggerate the absolute
+destitution of the country.  Only miracles could save the King's cause,
+as Farnese repeatedly observed.  A sharp vigorous campaign, heartily
+carried on against him by Leicester and Hohenlo, with plenty of troops
+and money at command, would have brought the heroic champion of
+Catholicism to the ground.  He was hemmed in upon all sides; he was cut
+off from the sea; he stood as it were in a narrowing circle, surrounded
+by increasing dangers.  His own veterans, maddened by misery, stung by
+their King's ingratitude, naked, starving, ferocious, were turning
+against him.  Mucio, like his evil genius, was spiriting away his
+supplies just as they were reaching his hands; a threatening tempest
+seemed rolling up from France; the whole population of the Provinces
+which he had "reconciled"--a million of paupers--were crying to him for
+bread; great commercial cities, suddenly blasted and converted into dens
+of thieves and beggars, were cursing the royal author of their ruin, and
+uttering wild threats against his vicegerent; there seemed, in truth,
+nothing left for Alexander but to plunge headlong into destruction, when,
+lo! Mr. Comptroller Croft, advancing out of the clouds, like a propitious
+divinity, disguised in the garb of a foe--and the scene was changed.
+
+The feeble old man, with his shufing, horse-trucking servant, ex-spy of
+Monsieur, had accomplished more work for Philip and Alexander than many
+regiments of Spaniards and Walloons could have done.  The arm of
+Leicester was paralyzed upon the very threshold of success.  The picture
+of these palace-intrigues has been presented with minute elaboration,
+because, however petty and barren in appearance, they were in reality
+prolific of grave results.  A series of victories by Parma was
+substituted for the possible triumphs of Elizabeth and the States.
+
+The dissimulation of the Spanish court was fathomless.  The secret
+correspondence of the times reveals to us that its only purpose was to
+deceive the Queen and her counsellors, and to gain time to prepare the
+grand invasion of England and subjugation of Holland--that double purpose
+which Philip could only abandon with life.  There was never a thought,
+on his part, of honest negotiation.  On the other hand, the Queen was
+sincere; Burghley and Hatton and Cobham were sincere; Croft was sincere,
+so far as Spain was concerned.  At least they had been sincere.  In the
+private and doleful dialogues between Bodman and Grafigni which we have
+just been overhearing, these intriguers spoke the truth, for they could
+have no wish to deceive each other, and no fear of eaves-droppers not to
+be born till centuries afterwards.  These conversations have revealed to
+us that the Lord Treasurer and three of his colleagues had been secretly
+doing their best to cripple Leicester, to stop the supplies for the
+Netherlands, and to patch up a hurried and unsatisfactory, if not a
+disgraceful peace; and this, with the concurrence of her Majesty.  After
+their plots had been discovered by the vigilant Secretary of State, there
+was a disposition to discredit the humbler instruments in the cabal.
+Elizabeth was not desirous of peace.  Far from it.  She was qualmish at
+the very suggestion.  Dire was her wrath against Bodman, De Loo,
+Graafigni, and the rest, at their misrepresentations on the subject.  But
+she would "lend her ear."  And that royal ear was lent, and almost fatal
+was the distilment poured into its porches.  The pith and marrow of the
+great Netherland enterprise was sapped by the slow poison of the ill-
+timed negotiation.  The fruit of Drake's splendid triumphs in America
+was blighted by it.  The stout heart of the vainglorious but courageous
+Leicester was sickened by it, while, meantime, the maturing of the
+great armada-scheme, by which the destruction of England was to be
+accomplished, was furthered, through the unlimited procrastination
+so precious to the heart of Philip.
+
+Fortunately the subtle Walsingham was there upon the watch to administer
+the remedy before it was quite too late; and to him England and the
+Netherlands were under lasting obligations.  While Alexander and Philip
+suspected a purpose on the part of the English government to deceive
+them, they could not help observing that the Earl of Leicester was both
+deserted and deceived.  Yet it had been impossible for the peace-party in
+the government wholly to conceal their designs, when such prating fellows
+as Grafigni and De Loo were employed in what was intended to be a secret
+negotiation.  In vain did the friends of Leicester in the Netherlands
+endeavour to account for the neglect with which he was treated, and for
+the destitution of his army.  Hopelessly did they attempt to counteract
+those "advertisements of most fearful instance," as Richard Cavendish
+expressed himself, which were circulating everywhere.
+
+Thanks to the babbling of the very men, whose chief instructions had been
+to hold their tongues, and to listen with all their ears, the secret
+negotiations between Parma and the English counsellors became the town-
+talk at Antwerp, the Hague, Amsterdam, Brussels, London.  It is true that
+it was impossible to know what was actually said and done; but that there
+was something doing concerning which Leicester was not to be informed was
+certain.  Grafigni, during one of his visits to the obedient provinces,
+brought a brace of greyhounds and a couple of horses from England, as a
+present to Alexander, and he perpetually went about, bragging to every
+one of important negotiations which he was conducting, and of his
+intimacy with great personages in both countries.  Leicester,
+on the other hand, was kept in the dark.  To him Grafigni made no
+communications, but he once sent him a dish of plums, "which," said the
+Earl, with superfluous energy, "I will boldly say to you, by the living
+God, is all that I have ever had since I came into these countries."
+When it is remembered that Leicester had spent many thousand pounds in
+the Netherland cause, that he had deeply mortgaged his property in order
+to provide more funds, that he had never received a penny of salary from
+the Queen, that his soldiers were "ragged and torn like rogues-pity to
+see them," and were left without the means of supporting life; that he
+had been neglected, deceived, humiliated, until he was forced to describe
+himself as a "forlorn man set upon a forlorn hope," it must be conceded
+that Grafigni's present of a dish of plums could hardly be sufficient to
+make him very happy.
+
+From time to time he was enlightened by Sir Francis, who occasionally
+forced his adversaries' hands, and who always faithfully informed the
+Earl of everything he could discover.  "We are so greedy of a peace, in
+respect of the charges of the wars," he wrote in April, "as in the
+procuring thereof we weigh neither honour nor safety.  Somewhat here is
+adealing underhand, wherein there is great care taken that I should not
+be made acquainted withal."  But with all their great care, the
+conspirators, as it has been seen, were sometimes outwitted by the
+Secretary, and, when put to the blush, were forced to take him into half-
+confidence.  "Your Lordship may see," he wrote, after getting possession
+of Parma's letter to the Queen, and unravelling Croft's intrigues, "what
+effects are wrought by such weak ministers.  They that have been the
+employers of them are ashamed of the matter."
+
+Unutterable was the amazement, as we have seen, of Bodman and Grafigni
+when they had suddenly found themselves confronted in Burghley's private
+apartments in Greenwich Palace, whither they had been conducted so
+mysteriously after dark from the secret pavilion--by the grave Secretary
+of State, whom they had been so anxious to deceive; and great was the
+embarrassment of Croft and Cobham, and even of the imperturbable
+Burghley.
+
+And thus patiently did Walsingham pick his course, plummet in hand,
+through the mists and along the quicksands, and faithfully did he hold
+out signals to his comrade embarked on the same dangerous voyage.  As for
+the Earl himself, he was shocked at the short-sighted policy of his
+mistress, mortified by the neglect to which he was exposed, disappointed
+in his ambitious schemes.  Vehemently and judiciously he insisted upon
+the necessity of vigorous field operations throughout the spring and
+summer thus frittered away in frivolous negotiations.  He was for peace,
+if a lasting and honourable peace could be procured; but he insisted that
+the only road tosuch a result was through a "good sharp war."  His troops
+were mutinous for want of pay, so that he had been obligedto have a few
+of them executed, although he protested that he would rather have "gone a
+thousand miles a-foot" than have done so; and he was crippled by his
+government at exactly the time when his great adversary's condition was
+most forlorn.  Was it strange that the proud Earl should be fretting his
+heart away when such golden chances were eluding his grasp?  He would
+"creep upon the ground," he said, as far as his hands and knees would
+carry him, to have a good peace for her Majesty, but his care was to have
+a peace indeed, and not a show of it.  It was the cue of Holland and
+England to fight before they could expect to deal upon favourable terms
+with their enemy.  He was quick enough to see that his false colleagues
+at home were playing into the enemy's hands.  Victory was what was
+wanted; victory the Earl pledged himself, if properly seconded, to
+obtain; and, braggart though he was, it is by no means impossible that
+he might have redeemed his pledge.  "If her Majesty will use her
+advantage," he said, "she shall bring the King, and especially this
+Prince of Parma, to seek peace in other sort than by way of merchants."
+Of courage and confidence the governor had no lack.  Whether he was
+capable of outgeneralling Alexander Farnese or no, will be better seen,
+perhaps, in subsequent chapters; but there is no doubt that he was
+reasonable enough in thinking, at that juncture, that a hard campaign
+rather than a "merchant's brokerage" was required to obtain an honourable
+peace.  Lofty, indeed, was the scorn of the aristocratic Leicester that
+"merchants and pedlars should be paltering in so weighty a cause," and
+daring to send him a dish of plums when he was hoping half a dozen
+regiments from the Queen; and a sorry business, in truth, the pedlars
+had made of it.
+
+Never had there been a more delusive diplomacy, and it was natural that
+the lieutenant-general abroad and the statesman at home should be sad and
+indignant, seeing England drifting to utter shipwreck while pursuing that
+phantom of a pacific haven.  Had Walsingham and himself tampered with the
+enemy, as some counsellors he could name had done, Leicester asserted
+that the gallows would be thought too good for them; and yet he hoped he
+might be hanged if the whole Spanish faction in England could procure for
+the Queen a peace fit for her to accept.
+
+Certainly it was quite impossible for the Spanish-faction to bring about
+a peace.  No human power could bring it about.  Even if England had been
+willing and able to surrender Holland, bound hand and foot, to Philip,
+even then she could only have obtained a hollow armistice.  Philip had
+sworn in his inmost soul the conquest of England and the dethronement of
+Elizabeth.  His heart was fixed.  It was only by the subjugation of
+England that he hoped to recover the Netherlands.  England was to be
+his stepping-stone to Holland.  The invasion was slowly but steadily
+maturing, and nothing could have diverted the King from his great
+purpose.  In the very midst of all these plots and counterplots, Bodmans
+and Grafignis, English geldings and Irish greyhounds, dishes of plums and
+autograph letters of her Majesty and his Highness, the Prince was
+deliberately discussing all the details of the invasion, which, as it was
+then hoped, would be ready by the autumn of the year 1586.  Although he
+had sent a special agent to Philip, who was to state by word of mouth
+that which it was deemed unsafe to write, yet Alexander, perpetually
+urged by his master, went at last more fully into particulars than he
+had ever ventured to do before; and this too at the very moment when
+Elizabeth was most seriously "lending her ear" to negotiation, and most
+vehemently expressing her wrath at Sir Thomas Heneage for dealing
+candidly with the States-General.
+
+The Prince observed that when, two or three years before, he had sent his
+master an account of the coasts, anchoring-places, and harbours of
+England, he had then expressed the opinion that the conquest of England
+was an enterprise worthy of the grandeur and Christianity of his Majesty,
+and not so difficult as to be considered altogether impossible.  To make
+himself absolutely master of the business, however, he had then thought
+that the King should have no associates in the scheme, and should make no
+account of the inhabitants of England.  Since that time the project had
+become more difficult of accomplishment, because it was now a stale and
+common topic of conversation everywhere--in Italy, Germany, and France--
+so that there could be little doubt that rumours on the subject were
+daily reaching the ears of Queen Elizabeth and of every one in her
+kingdom.  Hence she had made a strict alliance with Sweden, Denmark, the
+Protestant princes of Germany, and even with the Turks and the French.
+Nevertheless, in spite of these obstacles, the King, placing his royal
+hand to the work, might well accomplish the task; for the favour of the
+Lord, whose cause it was, would be sure to give him success.
+
+Being so Christian and Catholic a king, Philip naturally desired to
+extend the area of the holy church, and to come to the relief of so many
+poor innocent martyrs in England, crying aloud before the Lord for help.
+Moreover Elizabeth had fomented rebellion in the King's Provinces for a
+long time secretly, and now, since the fall of Antwerp, and just as
+Holland and Zeeland were falling into his grasp, openly.
+
+Thus, in secret and in public, she had done the very worst she could do;
+and it was very clear that the Lord, for her sins; had deprived her of
+understanding, in order that his Majesty might be the instrument of that
+chastisement which she so fully deserved.  A monarch of such great
+prudence, valour, and talent as Philip, could now give all the world to
+understand that those who dared to lose a just and decorous respect for
+him, as this good lady had done, would receive such chastisement as royal
+power guided by prudent counsel could inflict.  Parma assured his
+sovereign, that, if the conquest of England were effected, that of the
+Netherlands would be finished with much facility and brevity; but that
+otherwise, on account of the situation, strength and obstinacy of those
+people, it would be a very long, perilous, and at best doubtful business.
+
+"Three points," he said, "were most vital to the invasion of England--
+secrecy, maintenance of the civil war in France, and judicious
+arrangement of matters in the Provinces."
+
+The French, if unoccupied at home, would be sure to make the enterprise
+so dangerous as to become almost impossible; for it might be laid down as
+a general maxim that that nation, jealous of Philip's power, had always
+done and would always do what it could to counteract his purposes.
+
+With regard to the Netherlands, it would be desirable to leave a good
+number of troops in those countries--at least as many as were then
+stationed there--besides the garrisons, and also to hold many German and
+Swiss mercenaries in "wartgeld."  It would be further desirable that
+Alexander should take most of the personages of quality and sufficiency
+in the Provinces over with him to England, in order that they should not
+make mischief in his absence.
+
+With regard to the point of secrecy, that was, in Parma's opinion, the
+most important of all.  All leagues must become more or less public,
+particularly those contrived at or with Rome.  Such being the case, the
+Queen of England would be well aware of the Spanish projects, and,
+besides her militia at home, would levy German infantry and cavalry, and
+provide plenty of vessels, relying therein upon Holland and Zeeland,
+where ships and sailors were in such abundance.  Moreover, the English
+and the Netherlanders knew the coasts, currents, tides, shallows,
+quicksands, ports, better than did the pilots of any fleets that the King
+could send thither.  Thus, having his back assured, the enemy would meet
+them in front at a disadvantage.  Although, notwithstanding this
+inequality, the enemy would be beaten, yet if the engagement should be
+warm, the Spaniards would receive an amount of damage which could not
+fail to be inconvenient, particularly as they would be obliged to land
+their troops, and to give battle to those who would be watching their
+landing.  Moreover the English would be provided with cavalry, of which
+his Majesty's forces would have very little, on account of the difficulty
+of its embarkation.
+
+The obedient Netherlands would be the proper place in which to organize
+the whole expedition.  There the regiments could be filled up, provisions
+collected, the best way of effecting the passage ascertained, and the
+force largely increased without exciting suspicion; but with regard to
+the fleet, there were no ports there capacious enough for large vessels.
+Antwerp had ceased to be a seaport; but a large number of flat-bottomed
+barges, hoys, and other barks, more suitable for transporting soldiers,
+could be assembled in Dunkirk, Gravelines, and Newport, which, with some
+five-and-twenty larger vessels, would be sufficient to accompany the
+fleet.
+
+The Queen, knowing that there were no large ships, nor ports to hold them
+in the obedient Provinces, would be unauspicious, if no greater levies
+seemed to be making than the exigencies of the Netherlands might
+apparently require.
+
+The flat-bottomed boats, drawing two or three feet of water, would be
+more appropriate than ships of war drawing twenty feet.  The passage
+across, in favourable weather, might occupy from eight to twelve hours.
+
+The number of troops for the invading force should be thirty thousand
+infantry, besides five hundred light troopers, with saddles, bridles, and
+lances, but without horses, because, in Alexander's opinion, it would be
+easier to mount them in England.  Of these thirty thousand there should
+be six thousand Spaniards, six thousand Italians, six thousand Walloons,
+nine thousand Germans, and three thousand Burgundians.
+
+Much money would be required; at least three hundred thousand dollars
+the month for the new force, besides the regular one hundred and fifty
+thousand for the ordinary provision in the Netherlands; and this ordinary
+provision would be more necessary than ever, because a mutiny breaking
+forth in the time of the invasion would be destruction to the Spaniards
+both in England and in the Provinces.
+
+The most appropriate part of the coast for a landing would,
+in Alexander's opinion, be between Dover and Margate, because the
+Spaniards, having no footing in Holland and Zeeland, were obliged to make
+their starting-point in Flanders.  The country about Dover was described
+by Parma as populous, well-wooded, and much divided by hedges;
+advantageous for infantry, and not requiring a larger amount of cavalry
+than the small force at his disposal, while the people there were
+domestic in their habits, rich, and therefore less warlike, less trained
+to arms, and more engrossed by their occupations and their comfortable
+ways of life.  Therefore, although some encounters would take place, yet
+after the commanders of the invading troops had given distinct and clear
+orders, it would be necessary to leave the rest in the, "hands of God who
+governs all things, and from whose bounty and mercy it was to be hoped
+that He would favour a cause so eminently holy, just, and His own."
+
+It would be necessary to make immediately for London, which city, not
+being fortified, would be very easily taken.  This point gained, the
+whole framework of the business might be considered as well put together.
+If the Queen should fly--as, being a woman, she probably would do--
+everything would be left in such confusion, as, with the blessing of God,
+it might soon be considered that the holy and heroic work had been
+accomplished: Her Majesty, it was suggested, would probably make her
+escape in a boat before she could be captured; but the conquest would be
+nevertheless effected.  Although, doubtless, some English troops might be
+got together to return and try their fortune, yet it would be quite
+useless; for the invaders would have already planted themselves upon the
+soil, and then, by means of frequent excursions and forays hither and
+thither about the island, all other places of importance would be gained,
+and the prosperous and fortunate termination of the adventure assured.
+
+As, however, everything was to be provided for, so, in case the secret
+could not be preserved, it would be necessary for Philip, under pretext
+of defending himself against the English and French corsairs, to send a
+large armada to sea, as doubtless the Queen would take the same measure.
+If the King should prefer, however, notwithstanding Alexander's advice to
+the contrary, to have confederates in the enterprise,--then, the matter
+being public, it would be necessary to prepare a larger and stronger
+fleet than any which Elizabeth, with the assistance of her French and
+Netherland allies, could oppose to him.  That fleet should be well
+provided with vast stores of provisions, sufficient to enable the
+invading force, independently of forage, to occupy three or four places
+in England at once, as the enemy would be able to come from various towns
+and strong places to attack them.
+
+As for the proper season for the expedition, it would be advisable to
+select the month of October of the current year, because the English
+barns would then be full of wheat and other forage, and the earth would
+have been sown for the next year--points of such extreme importance, that
+if the plan could not be executed at that time, it would be as well to
+defer it until the following October.
+
+The Prince recommended that the negotiations with the League should be
+kept spinning, without allowing them to come to a definite conclusion;
+because there would be no lack of difficulties perpetually offering
+themselves, and the more intricate and involved the policy of France, the
+better it would be for the interests of Spain.  Alexander expressed the
+utmost confidence that his Majesty, with his powerful arm, would overcome
+all obstacles in the path of his great project, and would show the world
+that he "could do a little more than what was possible."  He also assured
+his master, in adding in this most extravagant language, of his personal
+devotion, that it was unnecessary for him to offer his services in this
+particular enterprise, because, ever since his birth, he had dedicated
+and consecrated himself to execute his royal commands.
+
+He further advised that old Peter Ernest Mansfeld should be left
+commander-in-chief of the forces in the Netherlands during his own
+absence in England.  "Mansfeld was an honourable cavalier," he said, "and
+a faithful servant of the King;" and although somewhat ill-conditioned at
+times, yet he had essential good qualities, and was the only general fit
+to be trusted alone.
+
+The reader, having thus been permitted to read the inmost thoughts of
+Philip and Alexander, and to study their secret plans for conquering
+England in October, while their frivolous yet mischievous negotiations
+with the Queen had been going on from April to June, will be better able
+than before to judge whether Leicester were right or no in doubting if a
+good peace could be obtained by a "merchant's brokerage."
+
+And now, after examining these pictures of inter-aulic politics and back-
+stairs diplomacy, which represent so large and characteristic a phasis of
+European history during the year 1586, we must throw a glance at the
+external, more stirring, but not more significant public events which
+were taking place during the same period.
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Could do a little more than what was possible
+Elizabeth, though convicted, could always confute
+He sat a great while at a time.  He had a genius for sitting
+Mistakes might occur from occasional deviations into sincerity
+Nine syllables that which could be more forcibly expressed in on
+They were always to deceive every one, upon every occasion
+We mustn't tickle ourselves to make ourselves laugh
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v46
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS OF THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS 1584-86
+
+A hard bargain when both parties are losers
+Able men should be by design and of purpose suppressed
+Anarchy which was deemed inseparable from a non-regal form
+College of "peace-makers," who wrangled more than all
+Condemned first and inquired upon after
+Could do a little more than what was possible
+Courage and semblance of cheerfulness, with despair in his heart
+Demanding peace and bread at any price
+Diplomatic adroitness consists mainly in the power to deceive
+Dismay of our friends and the gratification of our enemies
+Disordered, and unknit state needs no shaking, but propping
+Elizabeth, though convicted, could always confute
+Enmity between Lutherans and Calvinists
+Find our destruction in our immoderate desire for peace
+German-Lutheran sixteenth-century idea of religious freedom
+He sat a great while at a time.  He had a genius for sitting
+He did his work, but he had not his reward
+Her teeth black, her bosom white and liberally exposed (Eliz.)
+Hibernian mode of expressing himself
+His inordinate arrogance
+His insolence intolerable
+Holland was afraid to give a part, although offering the whole
+Honor good patriots, and to support them in venial errors
+Humility which was but the cloak to his pride
+Intentions of a government which did not know its own intentions
+Intolerable tendency to puns
+Longer they delay it, the less easy will they find it
+Lord was better pleased with adverbs than nouns
+Make sheep of yourselves, and the wolf will eat you
+Matter that men may rather pray for than hope for
+Military virtue in the support of an infamous cause
+Mistakes might occur from occasional deviations into sincerity
+Necessity of kingship
+Neighbour's blazing roof was likely soon to fire their own
+New Years Day in England, 11th January by the New Style
+Nine syllables that which could be more forcibly expressed in on
+Nor is the spirit of the age to be pleaded in defence
+Not a friend of giving details larger than my ascertained facts
+Not of the genus Reptilia, and could neither creep nor crouch
+Not distinguished for their docility
+Oration, fertile in rhetoric and barren in facts
+Others that do nothing, do all, and have all the thanks
+Pauper client who dreamed of justice at the hands of law
+Peace and quietness is brought into a most dangerous estate
+Peace-at-any-price party
+Possible to do, only because we see that it has been done
+Repentance, as usual, had come many hours too late
+Repose in the other world, "Repos ailleurs"
+Resolved thenceforth to adopt a system of ignorance
+Round game of deception, in which nobody was deceived
+Seeking protection for and against the people
+Seem as if born to make the idea of royalty ridiculous
+Shutting the stable-door when the steed is stolen
+Soldiers enough to animate the good and terrify the bad
+String of homely proverbs worthy of Sancho Panza
+The very word toleration was to sound like an insult
+The busy devil of petty economy
+There was apathy where there should have been enthusiasm
+They were always to deceive every one, upon every occasion
+Thought that all was too little for him
+Three hundred and upwards are hanged annually in London
+Tis pity he is not an Englishman
+To work, ever to work, was the primary law of his nature
+Tranquillity rather of paralysis than of health
+Twas pity, he said, that both should be heretics
+Upper and lower millstones of royal wrath and loyal subserviency
+Uttering of my choler doth little ease my grief or help my case
+Wasting time fruitlessly is sharpening the knife for himself
+We must all die once
+We mustn't tickle ourselves to make ourselves laugh
+Weary of place without power
+When persons of merit suffer without cause
+With something of feline and feminine duplicity
+Wrath of bigots on both sides
+Write so illegibly or express himself so awkwardly
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, Project Gutenberg Edition, Vol. 60
+
+History of the United Netherlands, 1586
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+     Military Plans in the Netherlands--The Elector and Electorate of
+     Cologne--Martin Schenk--His Career before serving the States--
+     Franeker University founded--Parma attempts Grave--Battle on the
+     Meuse--Success and Vainglory of Leicester--St. George's Day
+     triumphantly kept at Utrecht--Parma not so much appalled as it was
+     thought--He besieges and reduces Grave--And is Master of the Meuse--
+     Leicester's Rage at the Surrender of Grave--His Revenge--Parma on
+     the Rhine--He besieges aid assaults Neusz--Horrible Fate of the
+     Garrison and City--Which Leicester was unable to relieve--Asel
+     surprised by Maurice and Sidney--The Zeeland Regiment given to
+     Sidney--Condition of the Irish and English Troops--Leicester takes
+     the Field--He reduces Doesburg--He lays siege to Zutphen--Which
+     Parma prepares to relieve--The English intercept the Convoy--Battle
+     of Warnsfeld--Sir Philip Sidney wounded--Results of the Encounter--
+     Death of Sidney at Arnheim--Gallantry of Edward Stanley.
+
+Five great rivers hold the Netherland territory in their coils.  Three
+are but slightly separated--the Yssel, Waal, and ancient Rhine, while the
+Scheldt and, Meuse are spread more widely asunder.  Along each of these
+streams were various fortified cities, the possession of which, in those
+days, when modern fortification was in its infancy, implied the control
+of the surrounding country.  The lower part of all the rivers, where they
+mingled with the sea and became wide estuaries, belonged to the Republic,
+for the coasts and the ocean were in the hands of the Hollanders and
+English.  Above, the various strong places were alternately in the hands
+of the Spaniards and of the patriots.  Thus Antwerp, with the other
+Scheldt cities, had fallen into Parma's power, but Flushing, which
+controlled them all, was held by Philip Sidney for the Queen and States.
+On the Meuse, Maastricht and Roermond were Spanish, but Yenloo, Grave,
+Meghem, and other towns, held for the commonwealth.  On the Waal, the
+town of Nymegen had, through the dexterity of Martin Schenk, been
+recently transferred to the royalists, while the rest of that river's
+course was true to the republic.  The Rhine, strictly so called, from its
+entrance into Netherland, belonged to the rebels.  Upon its elder branch,
+the Yssel, Zutphen was in Parma's hands, while, a little below, Deventer
+had been recently and adroitly saved by Leicester and Count Meurs from
+falling into the same dangerous grasp.
+
+Thus the triple Rhine, after it had crossed the German frontier, belonged
+mainly, although not exclusively, to the States.  But on the edge of the
+Batavian territory, the ancient river, just before dividing itself into
+its three branches, flowed through a debatable country which was even
+more desolate and forlorn, if possible, than the land of the obedient
+Provinces.
+
+This unfortunate district was the archi-episcopal electorate of Cologne.
+The city of Cologne itself, Neusz, and Rheinberg, on the river, Werll and
+other places in Westphalia and the whole country around, were endangered,
+invaded, ravaged, and the inhabitants plundered, murdered, and subjected
+to every imaginable outrage, by rival bands of highwaymen, enlisted in
+the support of the two rival bishops--beggars, outcasts, but high-born
+and learned churchmen both--who disputed the electorate.
+
+At the commencement of the year a portion of the bishopric was still in
+the control of the deposed Protestant elector Gebhard Truchsess, assisted
+of course by the English and the States.  The city of Cologne was held by
+the Catholic elector, Ernest of Bavaria, bishop of Liege; but Neusz and
+Rheinberg were in the hands of the Dutch republic.
+
+The military operations of the year were, accordingly, along the Meuse,
+where the main object of Parma was to wrest Grave From the Netherlands;
+along the Waal, where, on the other hand, the patriots wished to recover
+Nymegen; on the Yssel, where they desired to obtain the possession of
+Zutphen; and in the Cologne electorate, where the Spaniards meant, if
+possible, to transfer Neusz and Rheinberg from Truchsess to Elector
+Ernest.  To clear the course of these streams, and especially to set free
+that debatable portion of the river-territory which hemmed him in from
+neutral Germany, and cut off the supplies from his starving troops, was
+the immediate design of Alexander Farnese.
+
+Nothing could be more desolate than the condition of the electorate.
+Ever since Gebhard Truchsess had renounced the communion of the Catholic
+Church for the love of Agnes Mansfeld, and so gained a wife and lost his
+principality, he had been a dependant upon the impoverished Nassaus, or a
+supplicant for alms to the thrifty Elizabeth.  The Queen was frequently
+implored by Leicester, without much effect, to send the ex-elector a few
+hundred pounds to keep him from starving, as "he had not one groat to
+live upon," and, a little later, he was employed as a go-between, and
+almost a spy, by the Earl, in his quarrels with the patrician party
+rapidly forming against him in the States.
+
+At Godesberg--the romantic ruins of which stronghold the traveller still
+regards with interest, placed as it is in the midst of that enchanting
+region where Drachenfels looks down on the crumbling tower of Roland and
+the convent of Nonnenwerth--the unfortunate Gebhard had sustained a
+conclusive defeat.  A small, melancholy man, accomplished, religious,
+learned, "very poor but very wise," comely, but of mean stature,
+altogether an unlucky and forlorn individual, he was not, after all,
+in very much inferior plight to that in which his rival, the Bavarian
+bishop, had found himself.  Prince Ernest, archbishop of Liege and
+Cologne, a hangeron of his brother, who sought to shake him off, and a
+stipendiary of Philip, who was a worse paymaster than Elizabeth, had a
+sorry life of it, notwithstanding his nominal possession of the see.  He
+was forced to go, disguised and in secret, to the Prince of Parma at
+Brussels, to ask for assistance, and to mention, with lacrymose
+vehemence, that both his brother and himself had determined to renounce
+the episcopate, unless the forces of the Spanish King could be employed
+to recover the cities on the Rhine.  If Neusz and Rheinberg were not
+wrested from the rebels; Cologne itself would soon be gone.  Ernest
+represented most eloquently to Alexander, that if the protestant
+archbishop were reinstated in the ancient see, it would be a most
+perilous result for the ancient church throughout all northern Europe.
+Parma kept the wandering prelate for a few days in his palace in
+Brussels, and then dismissed him, disguised and on foot, in the dusk of
+the evening, through the park-gate.  He encouraged him with hopes of
+assistance, he represented to his sovereign the importance of preserving
+the Rhenish territory to Bishop Ernest and to Catholicism, but hinted
+that the declared intention of the Bavarian to resign the dignity, was
+probably a trick, because the archi-episcopate was no such very bad thing
+after all.
+
+The archi-episcopate might be no very bad thing, but it was a most
+uncomfortable place of residence, at the moment, for prince or peasant.
+Overrun by hordes of brigands, and crushed almost out of existence by
+that most deadly of all systems of taxations, the 'brandschatzung,' it
+was fast becoming a mere den of thieves.  The 'brandschatzung' had no
+name in English, but it was the well-known impost, levied by roving
+commanders, and even by respectable generals of all nations.  A hamlet,
+cluster of farm-houses, country district, or wealthy city, in order to
+escape being burned and ravaged, as the penalty of having fallen into a
+conqueror's hands, paid a heavy sum of ready money on the nail at command
+of the conqueror.  The free companions of the sixteenth century drove a
+lucrative business in this particular branch of industry; and when to
+this was added the more direct profits derived from actual plunder, sack,
+and ransoming, it was natural that a large fortune was often the result
+to the thrifty and persevering commander of free lances.
+
+Of all the professors of this comprehensive art, the terrible Martin
+Schenk was preeminent; and he was now ravaging the Cologne territory,
+having recently passed again to the service of the States.  Immediately
+connected with the chief military events of the period which now occupies
+us, he was also the very archetype of the marauders whose existence was
+characteristic of the epoch.  Born in 1549 of an ancient and noble family
+of Gelderland, Martin Schenk had inherited no property but a sword.
+Serving for a brief term as page to the Seigneur of Ysselstein, he
+joined, while yet a youth, the banner of William of Orange, at the head
+of two men-at-arms.  The humble knight-errant, with his brace of squires,
+was received with courtesy by the Prince and the Estates, but he soon
+quarrelled with his patrons.  There was a castle of Blyenbeek, belonging
+to his cousin, which he chose to consider his rightful property, because
+he was of the same race, and because it was a convenient and productive
+estate and residence, The courts had different views of public law, and
+supported the ousted cousin.  Martin shut himself up in the castle, and
+having recently committed a rather discreditable homicide, which still
+further increased his unpopularity with the patriots, he made overtures
+to Parma.  Alexander was glad to enlist so bold a soldier on his side,
+and assisted Schenk in his besieged stronghold.  For years afterwards,
+his services under the King's banner were most brilliant, and he rose to
+the highest military command, while his coffers, meantime, were rapidly
+filling with the results of his robberies and 'brandschatzungs.' "'Tis a
+most courageous fellow," said Parma, "but rather a desperate highwayman
+than a valiant soldier."   Martin's couple of lances had expanded into a
+corps of free companions, the most truculent, the most obedient, the most
+rapacious in Christendom.  Never were freebooters more formidable to the
+world at large, or more docile to their chief, than were the followers
+of General Schenk.  Never was a more finished captain of highwaymen.
+He was a man who was never sober, yet who never smiled.  His habitual
+intoxication seemed only to increase both his audacity and his
+taciturnity, without disturbing his reason.  He was incapable of fear,
+of fatigue, of remorse.  He could remain for days and nights without
+dismounting-eating, drinking, and sleeping in the saddle; so that to this
+terrible centaur his horse seemed actually a part of himself.  His
+soldiers followed him about like hounds, and were treated by him like
+hounds.  He habitually scourged them, often took with his own hand the
+lives of such as displeased him, and had been known to cause individuals
+of them to jump from the top of church steeples at his command; yet the
+pack were ever stanch to his orders, for they knew that he always led
+them where the game was plenty.  While serving under Parma he had twice
+most brilliantly defeated Hohenlo.  At the battle of Hardenberg Heath he
+had completely outgeneralled that distinguished chieftain, slaying
+fifteen hundred of his soldiers at the expense of only fifty or sixty of
+his own.  By this triumph he had preserved the important city of
+Groningen for Philip, during an additional quarter of a century, and had
+been received in that city with rapture.  Several startling years of
+victory and rapine he had thus run through as a royalist partisan.  He
+became the terror and the scourge of his native Gelderland, and he was
+covered with wounds received in the King's service.  He had been twice
+captured and held for ransom.  Twice he had effected his escape.  He had
+recently gained the city of Nymegen.  He was the most formidable, the
+most unscrupulous, the most audacious Netherlander that wore Philip's
+colours; but he had received small public reward for his services, and
+the wealth which he earned on the high-road did not suffice for his
+ambition.  He had been deeply disgusted, when, at the death of Count
+Renneberg, Verdugo, a former stable-boy of Mansfeld, a Spaniard who had
+risen from the humblest rank to be a colonel and general, had been made
+governor of Friesland.  He had smothered his resentment for a time
+however, but had sworn within himself to desert at the most favourable
+opportunity.  At last, after he had brilliantly saved the city of Breda
+from falling into the hands of the patriots, he was more enraged than he
+had ever been before, when Haultepenne, of the house of Berlapmont, was
+made governor of that place in his stead.
+
+On the 25th of May, 1585, at an hour after midnight, he had a secret
+interview with Count Meurs, stadholder for the States of Gelderland, and
+agreed to transfer his mercenary allegiance to the republic.  He made
+good terms.  He was to be lieutenant-governor of Gelderland, and he was
+to have rank as marshal of the camp in the States' army, with a salary
+of twelve hundred and fifty guilders a month.  He agreed to resign his
+famous castle of Blyenbeek, but was to be reimbursed with estates in
+Holland and Zeeland, of the annual value of four thousand florins.
+
+After this treaty, Martin and his free lances served the States
+faithfully, and became sworn foes to Parma and the King.  He gave and
+took no quarter, and his men, if captured, "paid their ransom with their
+heads."  He ceased to be the scourge of Gelderland, but he became the
+terror of the electorate.  Early in 1586, accompanied by Herman Kloet,
+the young and daring Dutch commandant of Neusz, he had swept down into
+the Westphalian country, at the head of five hundred foot and five
+hundred horse.  On the 18th of March he captured the city of Werll by a
+neat stratagem.  The citizens, hemmed in on all sides by marauders, were
+in want of many necessaries of life, among other things, of salt.  Martin
+had, from time to time, sent some of his soldiers into the place,
+disguised as boors from the neighbourhood, and carrying bags of that
+article.  A pacific trading intercourse had thus been established between
+the burghers within and the banditti without the gates.  Agreeable
+relations were formed within the walls, and a party of townsmen had
+agreed to cooperate with the followers of Schenk.  One morning a train
+of waggons laden with soldiers neatly covered with salt, made their
+appearance at the gate.  At the same time a fire broke out most
+opportunely within the town.  The citizens busily employed themselves in
+extinguishing the flames.  The salted soldiers, after passing through the
+gateway, sprang from the waggons, and mastered the watch.  The town was.
+carried at a blow.  Some of the inhabitants were massacred as a warning
+to the rest; others were taken prisoners and held for ransom; a few, more
+fortunate, made their escape to the citadel.  That fortress was stormed
+in vain, but the city was thoroughly sacked.  Every house was rifled of
+its contents.  Meantime Haultepenne collected a force of nearly four
+thousand men, boors, citizens, and soldiers, and came to besiege Schenk
+in the town, while, at the same time, attacks were made upon him from the
+castle.  It was impossible for him to hold the city, but he had
+completely robbed it of every thing valuable.  Accordingly he loaded a
+train of waggons with his booty, took with him thirty of the magistrates
+as hostages, with other wealthy citizens, and marching in good order
+against Haultepenne, completely routed him, killing a number variously
+estimated at from five hundred to two thousand, and effected his retreat,
+desperately wounded in the thigh, but triumphant, and laden with the
+spoils to Venlo on the Meuse, of which city he was governor.
+
+"Surely this is a noble fellow, a worthy fellow," exclaimed Leicester,
+who was filled with admiration at the bold marauder's progress, and vowed
+that he was "the only soldier in truth that they had, for he was never
+idle, and had succeeded hitherto very happily."
+
+And thus, at every point of the doomed territory of the little
+commonwealth, the natural atmosphere in which the inhabitants existed
+was one of blood and rapine.  Yet during the very slight lull, which
+was interposed in the winter of 1585-6 to the eternal clang of arms in
+Friesland, the Estates of that Province, to their lasting honour, founded
+the university of Franeker.  A dozen years before, the famous institution
+at Leyden had been established, as a reward to the burghers for their
+heroic defence of the city.  And now this new proof was given of the love
+of Netherlanders, even in the midst of their misery and their warfare,
+for the more humane arts.  The new college was well endowed from ancient
+churchlands, and not only was the education made nearly gratuitous, while
+handsome salaries were provided for the professors, but provision was
+made by which the, poorer scholars could be fed and boarded at a very
+moderate expense.  There was a table provided at an annual cost to the
+student of but fifty florins, and a second and third table at the very
+low price of forty and thirty florins respectively.  Thus the sum to be
+paid by the poorer class of scholars for a year's maintenance was less
+than three pounds sterling a year [1855 exchange rate D.W.].  The voice
+with which this infant seminary of the Muses first made itself heard
+above the din of war was but feeble, but the institution was destined to
+thrive, and to endow the world, for many successive generations, with the
+golden fruits of science and genius.
+
+Early in the spring, the war was seriously taken in hand by Farnese.  It
+has already been seen that the republic had been almost entirely driven
+out of Flanders and Brabant.  The Estates, however, still held Grave,
+Megem, Batenburg, and Venlo upon the Meuse.  That river formed, as it
+were, a perfect circle of protection for the whole Province of Brabant,
+and Farnese determined to make himself master of this great natural moat.
+Afterwards, he meant to possess himself of the Rhine, flowing in a
+parallel course, about twenty-five miles further to the east.  In order
+to gain and hold the Meuse, the first step was to reduce the city of
+Grave.  That town, upon the left or Brabant bank, was strongly fortified
+on its land-side, where it was surrounded by low and fertile pastures,
+while, upon the other, it depended upon its natural Toss, the river.  It
+was, according to Lord North and the Earl of Leicester, the "strongest
+town in all the Low Countries, though but a little one."
+
+Baron Hemart, a young Gueldrian noble, of small experience in military
+affairs, commanded in the city, his garrison being eight hundred
+soldiers, and about one thousand burgher guard.  As early as January,
+Farnese had ordered Count Mansfeld to lay siege to the place.  Five forts
+had accordingly been constructed, above and below the town, upon the left
+bank of the river, while a bridge of boats thrown across the stream led
+to a fortified camp on the opposite side.  Mansfeld, Mondragon, Bobadil,
+Aquila, and other distinguished veterans in Philip's service, were
+engaged in the enterprise.  A few unimportant skirmishes between Schenk
+and the Spaniards had taken place, but the city was already hard pressed,
+and, by the series of forts which environed it, was cut off from its
+supplies.  It was highly important, therefore, that Grave should be
+relieved, with the least possible delay.
+
+Early in Easter week, a force of three thousand men, under Hohenlo and
+Sir John Norris, was accordingly despatched by Leicester, with orders,
+at every hazard, to throw reinforcements and provisions into the place.
+They took possession, at once, of a stone sconce, called the Mill-Fort,
+which was guarded by fifty men, mostly boors of the country.  These were
+nearly all hanged for "using malicious words," and for "railing against
+Queen Elizabeth," and--a sufficient number of men being left to maintain
+the fort--the whole relieving force marched with great difficulty--for
+the river was rapidly rising, and flooding the country--along the right
+bank of the Meuse, taking possession of Batenburg and Ravenstein castles,
+as they went.  A force of four or five hundred Englishmen was then pushed
+forward to a point almost exactly opposite Grave, and within an English
+mile of the head of the bridge constructed by the Spaniards.  Here, in
+the night of Easter Tuesday, they rapidly formed an entrenched camp, upon
+the dyke along the river, and, although molested by some armed vessels,
+succeeded in establishing themselves in a most important position.
+
+On the morning of Easter Wednesday, April 16, Mansfeld, perceiving that
+the enemy had thus stolen a march upon him, ordered one thousand picked
+troops, all Spaniards, under Aquila, Casco and other veterans, to
+assault this advanced post.  A reserve of two thousand was placed in
+readiness to support the attack.  The Spaniards slowly crossed the
+bridge, which was swaying very dangerously with the current, and then
+charged the entrenched camp at a run.  A quarrel between the different
+regiments as to the right of precedence precipitated the attack, before
+the reserve, consisting of some picked companies of Mondragon's veterans,
+had been able to arrive.  Coming in breathless and fatigued, the first
+assailants were readily repulsed in their first onset.  Aquila then
+opportunely made his appearance, and the attack was renewed with great
+vigour: The defenders of the camp yielded at the third charge and fled in
+dismay, while the Spaniards, leaping the barriers, scattered hither and
+thither in the ardour of pursuit.  The routed Englishmen fled swiftly
+along the oozy dyke, in hopes of joining the main body of the relieving
+party, who were expected to advance, with the dawn, from their position
+six miles farther down the river.  Two miles long the chace lasted, and
+it seemed probable that the fugitives would be overtaken and destroyed,
+when, at last, from behind a line of mounds which stretched towards
+Batenburg and had masked their approach, appeared Count Hohenlo and Sir
+John Norris, at the head of twenty-five hundred Englishmen and
+Hollanders.  This force, advanced as rapidly as the slippery ground and
+the fatigue of a two hours' march would permit to the rescue of their
+friends, while the retreating English rallied, turned upon their
+pursuers, and drove them back over the path along which they had just
+been charging in the full career of victory.  The fortune of the day was
+changed, and in a few minutes Hohenlo and Norris would have crossed the
+river and entered Grave, when the Spanish companies of Bobadil and other
+commanders were seen marching along the quaking bridge.
+
+Three thousand men on each side now met at push of pike on the bank of
+the Meuse.  The rain-was pouring in torrents, the wind was blowing a
+gale, the stream was rapidly rising, and threatening to overwhelm its
+shores.  By a tacit and mutual consent, both armies paused for a few
+moments in full view of each other.  After this brief interval they
+closed again, breast to breast, in sharp and steady conflict.  The
+ground, slippery with rain and with blood, which was soon flowing almost
+as fast as the rain, afforded an unsteady footing to the combatants.
+They staggered like drunken men, fell upon their knees, or upon their
+backs, and still, kneeling or rolling prostrate, maintained the deadly
+conflict.  For the space of an hour and a half the fierce encounter of
+human passion outmastered the fury of the elements.  Norris and Hohenlo
+fought at the head of their columns, like paladins of old.  The
+Englishman was wounded in the mouth and breast, the Count was seen to
+gallop past one thousand musketeers and caliver-men of the enemy, and to
+escape unscathed.  But as the strength of the soldiers exhausted itself,
+the violence of the tempest increased.  The floods of rain and the blasts
+of the hurricane at last terminated the affray.  The Spaniards, fairly
+conquered, were compelled to a retreat, lest the rapidly rising river
+should sweep away the frail and trembling bridge, over which they had
+passed to their unsuccessful assault.  The English and Netherlanders
+remained masters of the field.  The rising flood, too, which was fast
+converting the meadows into a lake, was as useful to the conquerors as
+it was damaging to the Spaniards.
+
+In the course of the few following days, a large number of boats was
+despatched before the very eyes of Parma, from Batenburg into Grave;
+Hohenlo, who had "most desperately adventured his person" throughout the
+whole affair, entering the town himself.
+
+A force of five hundred men, together with provisions enough to last
+a year, was thrown into the city, and the course of the Meuse was,
+apparently, secured to the republic.  In this important action about
+one hundred and fifty Dutch and English were killed, and probably four
+hundred Spaniards, including several distinguished officers.
+
+The Earl of Leicester was incredibly elated so soon as the success of
+this enterprise was known.  "Oh that her Majesty knew," he cried, "how
+easy a match now she hath with the King of Spain, and what millions of
+aficted people she hath relieved in these, countries.  This summer, this
+summer, I say, would make an end to her immortal glory."  He was no
+friend to his countryman, the gallant Sir John Norris--whom, however, he
+could not help applauding on this occasion,--but he was in raptures with
+Hohenlo.  Next to God, he assured the Queen's government that the victory
+was owing to the Count.  "He is both a valiant man and a wise man, and
+the painfullest that ever I knew," he said; adding--as a secret--that
+"five hundred Englishmen of the best Flemish training had flatly and
+shamefully run away," when the fight had been renewed by Hohenlo and
+Norris.  He recommended that her Majesty should, send her picture to the
+Count, worth two hundred pounds, which he would value at more than one
+thousand pounds in money, and he added that "for her sake the Count had
+greatly left his drinking."
+
+As for the Prince of Parma, Leicester looked upon him as conclusively
+beaten.  He spoke of him as "marvellously appalled" by this overthrow of
+his forces; but he assured the government that if the Prince's "choler
+should press him to seek revenge," he should soon be driven out of the
+country.  The Earl would follow him "at an inch," and effectually
+frustrate all his undertakings.  "If the Spaniard have such a May as he
+has had an April," said Lord North, "it will put water in his wine."
+
+Meantime, as St. George's Day was approaching, and as the Earl was fond
+of banquets and ceremonies, it was thought desirable to hold a great
+triumphal feast at Utrecht.  His journey to that city from the Hague was
+a triumphal procession.  In all the towns through which he passed he was
+entertained with military display, pompous harangues, interludes, dumb
+shows, and allegories.  At Amsterdam--a city which he compared to Venice
+for situation and splendour, and where one thousand ships were constantly
+lying--he was received with "sundry great whales and other fishes of
+hugeness," that gambolled about his vessel, and convoyed him to the
+shore.  These monsters of the deep presented him to the burgomaster and
+magistrates who were awaiting him on the quay.  The burgomaster made him
+a Latin oration, to which Dr. Bartholomew Clerk responded, and then the
+Earl was ushered to the grand square, upon which, in his honour, a
+magnificent living picture was exhibited, in which he figured as Moses,
+at the head of the Israelites, smiting the Philistines hip and thigh.
+After much mighty banqueting in Amsterdam, as in the other cities, the
+governor-general came to Utrecht.  Through the streets of this antique
+and most picturesque city flows the palsied current of the Rhine, and
+every barge and bridge were decorated with the flowers of spring.  Upon
+this spot, where, eight centuries before the Anglo-Saxon, Willebrod had
+first astonished the wild Frisians with the pacific doctrines of Jesus,
+and had been stoned to death as his reward, stood now a more arrogant
+representative of English piety.  The balconies were crowded with fair
+women, and decorated with scarves and banners.  From the Earl's
+residence--the ancient palace of the Knights of Rhodes--to the cathedral,
+the way was lined with a double row of burgher guards, wearing red roses
+on their arms, and apparelled in the splendid uniforms for which the
+Netherlanders were celebrated.  Trumpeters in scarlet and silver, barons,
+knights, and great officers, in cloth of gold and silks of all colours;
+the young Earl of Essex, whose career was to be so romantic, and whose
+fate so tragic; those two ominous personages, the deposed little
+archbishop-elector of Cologne, with his melancholy face, and the unlucky
+Don Antonio, Pretender of Portugal, for whom, dead or alive, thirty
+thousand crowns and a dukedom were perpetually offered by Philip II.;
+young Maurice of Nassau, the future controller of European destinies;
+great counsellors of state, gentlemen, guardsmen, and portcullis-herald,
+with the coat of arms of Elizabeth, rode in solemn procession along.
+Then great Leicester himself,  "most princelike in the robes of his
+order," guarded by a troop of burghers, and by his own fifty halberd-men
+in scarlet cloaks trimmed with white and purple velvet, pranced
+gorgeously by.
+
+The ancient cathedral, built on the spot where Saint Willebrod had once
+ministered, with its light, tapering, brick tower, three hundred and
+sixty feet in height, its exquisitely mullioned windows, and its
+elegantly foliaged columns, soon received the glittering throng.  Hence,
+after due religious ceremonies, and an English sermon from Master
+Knewstubs, Leicester's chaplain, was a solemn march back again to the
+palace, where a stupendous banquet was already laid in the great hall.
+
+On the dais at the upper end of the table, blazing with plate and
+crystal, stood the royal chair, with the Queen's plate and knife and fork
+before it, exactly as if she had been present, while Leicester's trencher
+and stool were set respectfully quite at the edge of the board.  In the
+neighbourhood of this post of honour sat Count Maurice, the Elector, the
+Pretender, and many illustrious English personages, with the fair Agnes
+Mansfeld, Princess Chimay, the daughters of William the Silent, and other
+dames of high degree.
+
+Before the covers were removed, came limping up to the dais grim-visaged
+Martin Schenk, freshly wounded, but triumphant, from the sack of Werll,
+and black John Norris, scarcely cured of the spearwounds in his face and
+breast received at the relief of Grave.  The sword of knighthood was
+laid upon the shoulder of each hero, by the Earl of Leicester, as her
+Majesty's vicegerent; and then the ushers marshalled the mighty feast.
+Meats in the shape of lions, tigers, dragons, and leopards, flanked by
+peacocks, swans, pheasants, and turkeys "in their natural feathers as in
+their greatest pride," disappeared, course after course, sonorous metal
+blowing meanwhile the most triumphant airs.  After the banquet came
+dancing, vaulting, tumbling; together with the "forces of Hercules, which
+gave great delight to the strangers," after which the company separated
+until evensong.
+
+Then again, "great was the feast," says the chronicler,--a mighty supper
+following hard upon the gigantic dinner.  After this there was tilting
+at the barriers, the young Earl of Essex and other knights bearing
+themselves more chivalrously than would seem to comport with so much
+eating and drinking.  Then, horrible to relate, came another "most
+sumptuous banquet of sugar-meates for the men-at-arms and the ladies,"
+after which, it being now midnight, the Lord of Leicester bade the whole
+company good rest, and the men-at-arms and ladies took their leave.
+
+But while all this chivalrous banqueting and holiday-making was in hand,
+the Prince of Parma was in reality not quite so much "appalled" by the
+relief of Grave as his antagonist had imagined.  The Earl, flushed with
+the success of Hohenlo, already believed himself master of the country,
+and assured his government, that, if he should be reasonably well
+supplied, he would have Antwerp back again and Bruges besides before
+mid June.  Never, said he, was "the Prince of Parma so dejected nor so
+melancholy since he came into these countries, nor so far out of
+courage."  And it is quite true that Alexander had reason to be
+discouraged.  He had but eight or nine thousand men, and no money to pay
+even this little force.  The soldiers were perishing daily, and nearly
+all the survivors were described by their chief, as sick or maimed.  The
+famine in the obedient Provinces was universal, the whole population was
+desperate with hunger; and the merchants, frightened by Drake's
+successes, and appalled by the ruin all around them, drew their purse-
+strings inexorably.  "I know not to what saint to devote myself," said
+Alexander.  He had been compelled, by the movement before Grave, to
+withdraw Haultepenne from the projected enterprise against Neusz, and he
+was quite aware of the cheerful view which Leicester was inclined to take
+of their relative positions.  "The English think they are going to do
+great things," said he; "and consider themselves masters of the field."
+
+Nevertheless, on the 11th May, the dejected melancholy man had left
+Brussels, and joined his little army, consisting of three thousand
+Spaniards and five thousand of all other nations.  His veterans, though
+unpaid; ragged, and half-starved were in raptures to, have their idolized
+commander among them again, and vowed that under his guidance there was
+nothing which they could not accomplish.  The King's honour, his own,
+that of the army, all were pledged to take the city.  On the success of,
+that enterprise, he said, depended all his past conquests, and every hope
+for the future.  Leicester and the, English, whom he called the head and
+body of the rebel forces, were equally pledged to relieve the place, and
+were bent upon meeting him in the field.  The Earl had taken some forts
+in the Batavia--Betuwe; or "good meadow," which he pronounced as fertile
+and about as large as Herefordshire,--and was now threatening Nymegen,
+a city which had been gained for Philip by the last effort of Schenk,
+on the royalist side.  He was now observing Alexander's demonstrations
+against Grave; but, after the recent success in victualling that place,
+he felt a just confidence in its security.
+
+On the 31st May the trenches were commenced, and on the 5th June the
+batteries were opened.  The work went rapidly forward when Farnese was in
+the field.  "The Prince of Parma doth batter it like a Prince," said Lord
+North, admiring the enemy with the enthusiasm of an honest soldier: On
+the 6th of June, as Alexander rode through the camp to reconnoitre,
+previous to an attack.  A well-directed cannon ball carried away the
+hinder half, of his horse.  The Prince fell to the ground, and, for a
+moment, dismay was in the Spanish ranks.  At the next instant, though
+somewhat bruised, he was on his feet again, and, having found the breach
+sufficiently promising, he determined on the assault.
+
+As a preliminary measure, he wished to occupy a tower which had been
+battered nearly to ruins, situate near the river.  Captain de Solis was
+ordered, with sixty veterans, to take possession of this tower, and to
+"have a look at the countenance of the enemy, without amusing himself
+with anything else."  The tower was soon secured, but Solis, in
+disobedience to his written instructions led his men against the ravelin,
+which was still in a state of perfect defence.  A musket-ball soon
+stretched him dead beneath the wall, and his followers, still attempting
+to enter the impracticable breach, were repelled by a shower of stones
+and blazing pitch-hoops.  Hot sand; too, poured from sieves and baskets,
+insinuated itself within the armour of the Spaniards, and occasioned such
+exquisite suffering, that many threw themselves into the river to allay
+the pain.  Emerging refreshed, but confused, they attempted in vain to
+renew the onset.  Several of the little band were slain, the assault was
+quite unsuccessful, and the trumpet sounded a recal.  So completely
+discomfited were the Spaniards by this repulse, and so thoroughly at
+their ease were the besieged, that a soldier let himself down from the
+ramparts of the town for the sake of plundering the body of Captain
+Solis, who was richly dressed, and, having accomplished this feat, was
+quietly helped back again by his comrades from above.
+
+To the surprise of the besiegers, however, on the very next morning came
+a request from the governor of the city, Baron Hemart, to negotiate for
+a surrender.  Alexander was, naturally, but too glad to grant easy terms,
+and upon the 7th of June the garrison left the town with colours
+displayed and drums beating, and the Prince of Parma marched into it, at
+the head of his troops.  He found a year's provision there for six
+thousand men, while, at the same time, the walls had suffered so
+little, that he must have been obliged to wait long for a practicable
+breach.
+
+"There was no good reason even for women to have surrendered the place,"
+exclaimed Leicester, when he heard the news.  And the Earl had cause to
+be enraged at such a result.  He had received a letter only the day
+before, signed by Hemart himself and by all the officers in Grave,
+asserting their determination and ability to hold the place for a good
+five months, or for an indefinite period, and until they should be
+relieved.  And indeed all the officers, with three exceptions, had
+protested against the base surrender.  But at the bottom of the
+catastrophe--of the disastrous loss of the city and the utter ruin of
+young Hemart--was a woman.  The governor was governed by his mistress,
+a lady of good family in the place, but of Spanish inclinations, and she,
+for some mysterious reasons, had persuaded him thus voluntarily to
+capitulate.
+
+Parma lost no time, however, in exulting over his success.  Upon the same
+day the towns of Megen and Batenburg surrendered to him, and immediately
+afterwards siege was laid to Venlo, a town of importance, lying thirty
+miles farther up the Meuse.  The wife and family of Martin Schenk were in
+the city, together with two hundred horses, and from forty to one hundred
+thousand crowns in money, plate; and furniture belonging to him.
+
+That bold partisan, accompanied by the mad Welshman, Roger Williams, at
+the head of one hundred and thirty English lances and thirty of Schenk's
+men, made a wild nocturnal attempt to cut their way through the besieging
+force, and penetrate to the city.  They passed through the enemy's lines,
+killed all the corps-de-garde, and many Spanish troopers--the terrible
+Martin's own hand being most effective in this midnight slaughter--and
+reached the very door of Parma's tent, where they killed his secretary
+and many of his guards.  It was even reported; and generally believed,
+that Farnese himself had been in imminent danger, that Schenk had fired
+his pistol at him unsuccessfully, and had then struck him on the head
+with its butt-end, and that the Prince had only saved his life by leaping
+from his horse, and scrambling through a ditch.  But these seem to have
+been fables.  The alarm at last became general, the dawn of a summer's
+day was fast approaching; the drums beat to arms, and the bold marauders
+were obliged to effect their retreat, as they best might, hotly pursued
+by near two thousand men.  Having slain many of, the Spanish army, and
+lost nearly half their own number, they at last obtained shelter in
+Wachtendonk.
+
+Soon afterwards the place capitulated without waiting for a battery, upon
+moderate terms.  Schenk's wife was sent away (28 June 1586) courteously
+with her family, in a coach and four, and with as much "apparel" as might
+be carried with her.  His property was confiscated, for "no fair wars
+could be made with him."
+
+Thus, within a few weeks after taking the field, the "dejected,
+melancholy" man, who was so "out of courage," and the soldiers who were
+so "marvellously beginning to run away"--according to the Earl of
+Leicester--had swept their enemy from every town on the Meuse.  That
+river was now, throughout its whole course, in the power of the
+Spaniards.  The Province of Brabant became thoroughly guarded again by
+its foes, and the enemy's road was opened into the northern Provinces.
+
+Leicester, meantime, had not distinguished himself.  It must be confessed
+that he had been sadly out-generalled.  The man who had talked of
+following the enemy inch by inch, and who had pledged himself not only
+to protect Grave, and any other place that might be attacked, but even
+to recover Antwerp and Bruges within a few weeks, had wasted the time in
+very desultory operations.  After the St. George feasting, Knewstub
+sermons, and forces of Hercules, were all finished, the Earl had taken
+the field with five thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse.  His
+intention was to clear the Yssel; by getting possession of Doesburg and
+Zutphen, but, hearing of Parma's demonstrations upon Grave, he abandoned
+the contemplated siege of those cities, and came to Arnheim.  He then
+crossed the Rhine into the Isle of Batavia, and thence, after taking a
+few sconces of inferior importance--while Schenk, meanwhile, was building
+on the Island of Gravenweert, at the bifurcation of the Rhine and Waal,
+the sconce so celebrated a century later as 'Schenk's Fort'
+(Schenkenschans)---he was preparing to pass the Waal in order to attack
+Farnese, when he heard to his astonishment, of the surrender of Grave.
+
+He could therefore--to his chagrin--no longer save that important city,
+but he could, at least, cut off the head of the culprit.  Leicester was
+in Bommel when he heard of Baron Hemart's faint-heartedness or treachery,
+and his wrath was extravagant in proportion to the exultation with which
+his previous success had inspired him.  He breathed nothing but revenge
+against the coward and the traitor, who had delivered up the town in
+"such lewd and beastly sort."
+
+"I will never depart hence," he said, "till by the goodness of God I be
+satisfied someway of this villain's treachery."  There could be little
+doubt that Hemart deserved punishment.  There could be as little that
+Leicester would mete it out to him in ample measure.  "The lewd villain
+who gave up Grave," said he, "and the captains as deep in fault as
+himself, shall all suffer together."
+
+Hemart came boldly to meet him.  "The honest man came to me at Bommel,"
+said Leicester, and he assured the government that it was in the hope of
+persuading the magistrates of that and other towns to imitate his own
+treachery.
+
+But the magistrates straightway delivered the culprit to the governor-
+general, who immediately placed him under arrest.  A court-martial was
+summoned, 26th of June, at Utrecht, consisting of Hohenlo, Essex, and
+other distinguished officers.  They found that the conduct of the
+prisoner merited death, but left it to the Earl to decide whether various
+extenuating circumstances did not justify a pardon.  Hohenlo and Norris
+exerted themselves to procure a mitigation of the young man's sentence,
+and they excited thereby the governor's deep indignation.  Norris,
+according to Leicester, was in love with the culprit's aunt, and was
+therefore especially desirous of saving his life.  Moreover, much use was
+made of the discredit which had been thrown by the Queen on the Earl's
+authority, and it was openly maintained, that, being no longer governor-
+general, he had no authority to order execution upon a Netherland
+officer.
+
+The favourable circumstances urged in the case, were, that Hemart was a
+young man, without experience in military matters, and that he had been
+overcome by the supplications and outcries of the women, panic-struck
+after the first assault.  There were no direct proofs of treachery, or
+even of personal cowardice.  He begged hard for a pardon, not on account
+of his life, but for the sake of his reputation.  He earnestly implored
+permission to serve under the Queen of England, as a private soldier,
+without pay, on land or sea, for as many years as she should specify, and
+to be selected for the most dangerous employments, in order that, before
+he died, he might wipe out the disgrace, which, through his fault, in an
+hour of weakness, had come upon an ancient and honourable house.  Much
+interest was made for him--his family connection being powerful--and a
+general impression prevailing that he had erred through folly rather than
+deep guilt.  But Leicester beating himself upon the breast--as he was
+wont when excited--swore that there should be no pardon for such a
+traitor.  The States of Holland and Zeeland, likewise, were decidedly in
+favour of a severe example.
+
+Hemart was accordingly led to the scaffold on the 28th June.  He spoke to
+the people with great calmness, and, in two languages, French and
+Flemish, declared that he was guiltless of treachery, but that the terror
+and tears of the women, in an hour of panic, had made a coward of him.
+He was beheaded, standing.  The two captains, Du Ban and Koeboekum, who
+had also been condemned, suffered with him.  A third captain, likewise
+convicted, was, "for very just cause,", pardoned by Leicester.  The Earl
+persisted in believing that Hemart had surrendered the city as part of a
+deliberate plan, and affirmed that in such a time, when men had come to
+think no more of giving up a town than of abandoning a house, it was
+highly necessary to afford an example to traitors and satisfaction to the
+people.  And the people were thoroughly satisfied, according to the
+governor, and only expressed their regret that three or four members of
+the States-General could not have their heads cut off as well, being as
+arrant knaves as Henlart; "and so I think they be," added Leicester.
+
+Parma having thus made himself master of the Meuse, lost no time in
+making a demonstration upon the parallel course of the Rhine, thirty
+miles farther east.  Schenk, Kloet; and other partisans, kept that
+portion of the archi-episcopate and of Westphalia in a state of perpetual
+commotion.  Early in the, preceding year, Count de Meurs had, by a
+fortunate stratagem, captured the town of Neusz for the deposed elector,
+and Herman Kloet, a young and most determined Geldrian soldier, now
+commanded in the place.
+
+The Elector Ernest had made a visit in disguise to the camp of Parma, and
+had represented the necessity of recovering the city.  It had become the
+stronghold of heretics, rebels, and banditti.  The Rhine was in their
+hands, and with it the perpetual power of disturbing the loyal
+Netherlands.  It was as much the interest of his Catholic Majesty as
+that of the Archbishop that Neusz should be restored to its lawful owner.
+Parma had felt the force of this reasoning, and had early in the year
+sent Haultepenne to invest the city.  He had been obliged to recal that
+commander during the siege of Grave.  The place being reduced, Alexander,
+before the grass could grow beneath his feet advanced to the Rhine in
+person.  Early in July he appeared before the walls of Neusz with eight
+thousand foot and two thousand horse.  The garrison under Kloet numbered
+scarcely more than sixteen hundred effective soldiers, all Netherlanders
+and Germans, none being English.
+
+The city is twenty-miles below Cologne.  It was so well fortified that a
+century before it had stood a year's siege from the famous Charles the
+Bold, who, after all, had been obliged to retire.  It had also resisted
+the strenuous efforts of Charles the Fifth; and was now stronger than it
+ever had been.  It was thoroughly well provisioned, so that it was safe
+enough "if those within it," said Leicester, "be men."  The Earl
+expressed the opinion, however, that "those fellows were not good to
+defend towns, unless the besiegers were obliged to swim to the attack."
+The issue was to show whether the sarcasm were just or not.  Meantime the
+town was considered by the governor-general to be secure, "unless towns
+were to be had for the asking."
+
+Neusz is not immediately upon the Rhine, but that river, which sweeps
+away in a north-easterly direction from the walls, throws out an arm
+which completely encircles the town.  A part of the place, cut into an
+island by the Erpt, was strengthened by two redoubts.  This island was
+abandoned, as being too weak to hold, and the Spaniards took possession
+of it immediately.  There were various preliminary and sanguinary sorties
+and skirmishes, during which the Spaniards after having been once driven
+from the island, again occupied that position.  Archbishop Ernest came
+into the camp, and, before proceeding to a cannonade, Parma offered to
+the city certain terms of capitulation, which were approved by that
+prelate.  Kloet replied to this proposal, that he was wedded to the town
+and to his honour, which were as one.  These he was incapable of
+sacrificing, but his life he was ready to lay down.  There was, through
+some misapprehension, a delay in reporting this answer to Farnese.
+Meantime that general became impatient, and advanced to the battery of
+the Italian regiment.  Pretending to be a plenipotentiary from the
+commander-in-chief, he expostulated in a loud voice at the slowness of
+their counsels.  Hardly had he begun to speak, when a shower of balls
+rattled about him.  His own soldiers were terrified at his danger, and a
+cry arose in the town that "Holofernese"--as the Flemings and Germans
+were accustomed to nickname Farnese--was dead.  Strange to relate, he was
+quite unharmed, and walked back to his tent with dignified slowness and a
+very frowning face.  It was said that this breach of truce had been begun
+by the Spaniards, who had fired first, and had been immediately answered
+by the town.  This was hotly denied, and Parma sent Colonel Tasais with a
+flag of truce to the commander, to rebuke and to desire an explanation of
+this dishonourable conduct.
+
+The answer given, or imagined, was that Commander Kloet had been sound
+asleep, but that he now much regretted this untoward accident.  The
+explanation was received with derision, for it seemed hardly probable
+that so young and energetic a soldier would take the opportunity to
+refresh himself with slumber at a moment when a treaty for the
+capitulation of a city under his charge was under discussion.  This
+terminated the negotiation.
+
+A few days afterwards, the feast of St James was celebrated in the
+Spanish camp, with bonfires and other demonstrations of hilarity.  The
+townsmen are said to have desecrated the same holiday by roasting alive
+in the market-place two unfortunate soldiers, who had been captured in a
+sortie a few days before; besides burning the body of the holy Saint
+Quirinus, with other holy relics.  The detestable deed was to be most
+horribly avenged.
+
+A steady cannonade from forty-five great guns was kept up from 2 A.M. of
+July 15 until the dawn of the following day; the cannoneers--being all
+provided with milk and vinegar to cool the pieces.  At daybreak the
+assault was ordered.  Eight separate attacks were made with the usual
+impetuosity of Spaniards, and were steadily repulsed.
+
+At the ninth, the outer wall was carried, and the Spaniards shouting
+"Santiago" poured over it, bearing back all resistance.  An Italian
+Knight of the Sepulchre, Cesar Guidiccioni by name, and a Spanish ensign,
+one Alphonao de Mesa, with his colours in one hand and a ladder in the
+other, each claimed the honour of having first mounted the breach.  Both
+being deemed equally worthy of reward, Parma, after the city had been
+won, took from his own cap a sprig of jewels and a golden wheat-ear
+ornamented with a gem, which he had himself worn in place of a plume, and
+thus presented each with a brilliant token of his regard.  The wall was
+then strengthened against the inner line of fortification, and all night
+long a desperate conflict was maintained in the dark upon the narrow
+space between the two barriers.  Before daylight Kloet, who then, as
+always, had led his men in the moat desperate adventures, was carried
+into the town, wounded in five places, and with his leg almost severed at
+the thigh.  "'Tis the bravest man," said the enthusiastic Lord North,
+"that was ever heard of in the world."--"He is but a boy," said Alexander
+Farnese, "but a commander of extraordinary capacity and valour."
+
+Early in the morning, when this mishap was known, an officer was sent to
+the camp of the besiegers to treat.  The soldiers received him with
+furious laughter, and denied him access to the general.  "Commander Kloet
+had waked from his nap at a wrong time," they said, "and the Prince of
+Parma was now sound asleep, in his turn."  There was no possibility of
+commencing a negotiation.  The Spaniards, heated by the conflict,
+maddened by opposition, and inspired by the desire to sack a wealthy
+city, overpowered all resistance.  "My little soldiers were not to be
+restrained," said Farnese, and so compelling a reluctant consent on the
+part of the commander-in-chief to an assault, the Italian and Spanish
+legions poured into the town at two opposite gates; which were no.
+longer strong enough to withstand the enemy.  The two streams met in the
+heart of the place, and swept every living thing in their, path out of
+existence.  The garrison was butchered to a man, and subsequently many
+of the inhabitants--men, women, and children-also, although the women;
+to the honour of Alexander, had been at first secured from harm in some
+of the churches, where they had been ordered to take refuge.  The first
+blast of indignation was against the commandant of the place.  Alexander,
+who had admired, his courage, was not unfavourably disposed towards him,
+but Archbishop Ernest vehemently, demanded his immediate death, as a
+personal favour to himself.  As the churchman was nominally sovereign of
+the city although in reality a beggarly dependant on Philip's alms,
+Farnese felt bound to comply.  The manner in which it was at first
+supposed that the Bishop's Christian request had; been complied, with,
+sent a shudder through every-heart in the Netherlands.  "They took Kloet,
+wounded as he was," said Lord North, "and first strangled, him, then
+smeared him with pitch, and burnt him with gunpowder; thus, with their
+holiness, they, made a tragical end of an heroical service.  It is
+wondered that the Prince would suffer so great an outrage to be done to
+so noble a soldier, who did but his duty."
+
+But this was an error.  A Jesuit priest was sent to the house of the
+commandant, for a humane effort was thought necessary in order to save
+the soul of the man whose life was forfeited for the crime of defending
+his city.  The culprit was found lying in bed.  His wife, a woman of
+remarkable beauty, with her sister, was in attendance upon him.  The
+spectacle of those two fair women, nursing a wounded soldier fallen upon
+the field of honour, might have softened devils with sympathy.  But the
+Jesuit was closely followed by a band of soldiers, who, notwithstanding
+the supplications of the women, and the demand of Kloet to be indulged
+with a soldier's death, tied a rope round the commandant's necks dragged
+him from his bed, and hanged him from his own window.  The Calvinist
+clergyman, Fosserus of Oppenheim, the deacons of the congregation, two
+military officers, and--said Parma--"forty other rascals," were murdered
+in the same way at the same time.  The bodies remained at the window till
+they were devoured by the flames, which soon consumed the house.  For a
+vast conflagration, caused none knew whether by accident, by the despair
+of the inhabitants; by the previous, arrangements of the commandant, by
+the latest-arrived bands of the besiegers enraged that the Italians and
+Spaniards had been beforehand with them in the spoils, or--as Farnese
+more maturely believed--by the special agency of the Almighty, offended
+with the burning of Saint Quirinus,--now came to complete the horror of
+the scene.  Three-quarters of the town were at once in a blaze.  The
+churches, where the affrighted women had been cowering during the sack
+and slaughter, were soon on fire, and now, amid the crash of falling
+houses and the uproar of the drunken soldiery, those unhappy victims were
+seen flitting along the flaming streets; seeking refuge against the fury
+of the elements in the more horrible cruelty of man.  The fire lasted all
+day and night, and not one stone would have been left upon another, had
+not the body of a second saint, saved on a former occasion from the
+heretics by the piety of a citizen, been fortunately deposited in his
+house.  At this point the conflagration was stayed--for the flames
+refused to consume these holy relics--but almost the whole of the town
+was destroyed, while at least four thousand people, citizens and
+soldiers, had perished by sword or fire.
+
+Three hundred survivors of the garrison took refuge in a tower.  Its base
+was surrounded, and, after brief parley, they descended as prisoners.
+The Prince and Haultepenne attempted in vain to protect them against the
+fury of the soldiers, and every man of them was instantly put to death.
+
+The next day, Alexander gave orders that the wife and sister of the
+commandant should be protected--for they had escaped, as if by miracle,
+from all the horrors of that day and night--and sent, under escort, to
+their friends!  Neusz had nearly ceased to exist, for according to
+contemporaneous accounts, but eight houses had escaped destruction.
+
+And the reflection was most painful to Leicester and to every generous
+Englishman or Netherlander in the country, that this important city and
+its heroic defenders might have been preserved, but for want of harmony
+and want of money.  Twice had the Earl got together a force of four
+thousand men for the relief of the place, and twice had he been obliged
+to disband them again for the lack of funds to set them in the field.
+
+He had pawned his plate and other valuables, exhausted his credit, and
+had nothing for it but to wait for the Queen's tardy remittances, and to
+wrangle with the States; for the leaders of that body were unwilling to
+accord large supplies to a man who had become personally suspected by
+them, and was the representative of a deeply-suspected government.
+Meanwhile, one-third at least of the money which really found its way
+from time to time out of England, was filched from the "poor starved
+wretches," as Leicester called his soldiers, by the dishonesty of Norris,
+uncle of Sir John and army-treasurer.  This man was growing so rich on
+his peculations, on his commissions, and on his profits from paying the
+troops in a depreciated coin, that Leicester declared the whole revenue
+of his own landed estates in England to be less than that functionary's
+annual income.  Thus it was difficult to say whether the "ragged rogues"
+of Elizabeth or the maimed and neglected soldiers of Philip were in the
+more pitiable plight.
+
+The only consolation in the recent reduction of Neusz was to be found in
+the fact that Parma had only gained a position, for the town had ceased
+to exist; and in the fiction that he had paid for his triumph by the loss
+of six thousand soldiers, killed and wounded.  In reality not more than
+five hundred of Farnese's army lost their lives, and although the town,
+excepting some churches, had certainly been destroyed; yet the Prince was
+now master of the Rhine as far as Cologne, and of the Meuse as far as
+Grave.  The famine which pressed so sorely upon him, might now be
+relieved, and his military communications with Germany be considered
+secure.
+
+The conqueror now turned his attention to Rheinberg, twenty-five miles
+farther down the river.
+
+Sir Philip Sidney had not been well satisfied by the comparative idleness
+in which, from these various circumstances; he had been compelled to
+remain.  Early in the spring he had been desirous of making an attack
+upon Flanders by capturing the town of Steenberg.  The faithful Roger
+Williams had strongly seconded the proposal.  "We wish to show your
+Excellency," said he to Leicester, "that we are not sound asleep."  The
+Welshman was not likely to be accused of somnolence, but on this occasion
+Sidney and himself had been overruled.  At a later moment, and during the
+siege of Neusz, Sir Philip had the satisfaction of making a successful
+foray into Flanders.
+
+The expedition had been planned by Prince Maurice of Nassau, and was his.
+earliest military achievement.  He proposed carrying by surprise, the
+city of Axel, a well-built, strongly-fortified town on the south-western
+edge of the great Scheldt estuary, and very important from its position.
+Its acquisition would make the hold of the patriots and the English upon
+Sluys and Ostend more secure, and give them many opportunities of
+annoying the enemy in Flanders.
+
+Early in July, Maurice wrote to the Earl of Leicester, communicating the
+particulars of his scheme, but begging that the affair might be "very
+secretly handled," and kept from every one but Sidney.  Leicester
+accordingly sent his nephew to Maurice that they might consult together
+upon the enterprise, and make sure "that there was no ill intent, there
+being so much treachery in the world."  Sidney found no treachery in
+young Maurice, but only, a noble and intelligent love of adventure, and
+the two arranged their plans in harmony.
+
+Leicester, then, in order to deceive the enemy, came to Bergen-op-Zoom,
+with five hundred men, where he remained two days, not sleeping a wink,
+as he averred, during the whole time.  In the night of Tuesday, 16th of
+July, the five hundred English soldiers were despatched by water, under
+charge of Lord Willoughby, "who," said the Earl, "would needs go with
+them."  Young Hatton, too, son of Sir Christopher, also volunteered on
+the service, "as his first nursling."  Sidney had, five hundred of his
+own Zeeland regiment in readiness, and the rendezvous was upon the broad
+waters of the Scheldt, opposite Flushing.  The plan was neatly carried
+out, and the united flotilla, in a dark, calm, midsummer's night, rowed
+across the smooth estuary and landed at Ter Neuse, about a league from
+Axel.  Here they were joined by Maurice with some Netherland companies,
+and the united troops, between two and three thousand strong, marched at
+once to the place proposed.  Before two in the morning they had reached
+Axel, but found the moat very deep.  Forty soldiers immediately plunged
+in, however, carrying their ladders with them, swam across, scaled the
+rampart, killed, the guard, whom they found asleep in their beds, and
+opened the gates for their comrades.  The whole force then marched in,
+the Dutch companies under Colonel Pyion being first, Lord Willoughby's
+men being second, and Sir Philip with his Zeelanders bringing up the
+rear.  The garrison, between five and six hundred in number, though
+surprised, resisted gallantly, and were all put to the sword.  Of the
+invaders, not a single man lost his life.  Sidney most generously
+rewarded from his own purse the adventurous soldiers who had swum the
+moat; and it was to his care and intelligence that the success of Prince
+Maurice's scheme was generally attributed.  The achievement was hailed
+with great satisfaction, and it somewhat raised the drooping spirits of
+the patriots after their severe losses at Grave and Venlo.  "This victory
+hath happened in good time," wrote Thomas Cecil to his father, "and hath
+made us somewhat to lift up our heads."  A garrison of eight hundred,
+under Colonel Pyron, was left in Axel, and the dykes around were then
+pierced.  Upwards of two millions' worth of property in grass, cattle,
+corn, was thus immediately destroyed in the territory of the obedient
+Netherlands.
+
+After an unsuccessful attempt to surprise Gravelines, the governor of
+which place, the veteran La Motte, was not so easily taken napping; Sir
+Philip having gained much reputation by this conquest of Axel, then
+joined the main body of the army, under Leicester, at Arnheim.
+
+Yet, after all, Sir Philip had not grown in favour with her Majesty
+during his service in the Low Countries.  He had also been disappointed
+in the government of Zeeland, to which post his uncle had destined him.
+The cause of Leicester's ambition had been frustrated by the policy of
+Barneveld and Buys, in pursuance of which Count or Prince Maurice--as he
+was now purposely designated, in order that his rank might surpass that
+of the Earl--had become stadholder and captain general both of Holland
+and Zeeland.  The Earl had given his nephew, however, the colonelcy of
+the Zeeland regiment, vacant by the death of Admiral Haultain on the
+Kowenstyn Dyke.  This promotion had excited much anger among the high
+officers in the Netherlands who, at the instigation of Count Hohenlo,
+had presented a remonstrance upon the subject to the governor-general.
+It had always been the custom, they said, with the late Prince of Orange,
+to confer promotion according to seniority, without regard to social
+rank, and they were therefore unwilling that a young foreigner, who had
+just entered the service; should thus be advanced over the heads of
+veterans who had been campaigning there so many weary years.  At the same
+time the gentlemen who signed the paper protested to Sir Philip, in
+another letter, "with all the same hands," that they had no personal
+feeling towards him, but, on the contrary, that they wished him all
+honour.
+
+Young Maurice himself had always manifested the most friendly feelings
+toward Sidney, although influenced in his action by the statesmen who
+were already organizing a powerful opposition to Leicester.  "Count
+Maurice showed himself constantly, kind in the matter of the regiment,"
+said Sir Philip, "but Mr. Paul Buss has so many busses in his head, such
+as you shall find he will be to God and man about one pitch.  Happy is
+the communication of them that join in the fear of God."  Hohenlo, too,
+or Hollock, as he was called by the French and English, was much governed
+by Buys and Olden-Barneveld.  Reckless and daring, but loose of life and
+uncertain of purpose, he was most dangerous, unless under safe guidance.
+Roger Williams--who vowed that but for the love he bore to Sidney and
+Leicester, he would not remain ten days in the Netherlands--was much
+disgusted by Hohenlo's conduct in regard to the Zeeland regiment.  "'Tis
+a mutinous request of Hollock," said he, "that strangers should not
+command Netherlanders.  He and his Alemaynes are farther born from
+Zeeland than Sir Philip is.  Either you must make Hollock assured to you,
+or you must disgrace him.  If he will not be yours, I will show you means
+to disinherit him of all his commands at small danger.  What service doth
+he, Count Solms, Count Overatein, with their Almaynes, but spend treasure
+and consume great contributions?"
+
+It was, very natural that the chivalrous Sidney, who had come to the
+Netherlands to win glory in the field, should be desirous of posts that
+would bring danger and distinction with them.  He was not there merely
+that he might govern Flushing, important as it was, particularly as the
+garrison was, according to his statement, about as able to maintain the
+town, "as the Tower was to answer for London."  He disapproved of his
+wife's inclination to join him in Holland, for he was likely--so he wrote
+to her father, Walsingham--"to run such a course as would not be fit for
+any of the feminine gender."  He had been, however; grieved to the heart,
+by the spectacle which was perpetually exhibited of the Queen's
+parsimony, and of the consequent suffering of the soldiers.  Twelve or
+fifteen thousand Englishmen were serving in the Netherlands--more than
+two thirds of them in her Majesty's immediate employment.  No troops had
+ever fought better, or more honourably maintained the ancient glory of
+England.  But rarely had more ragged and wretched warriors been seen than
+they, after a few months' campaigning.
+
+The Irish Kernes--some fifteen hundred of whom were among the
+auxiliaries--were better off, for they habitually dispensed with
+clothing; an apron from waist to knee being the only protection of these
+wild Kelts, who fought with the valour, and nearly, in the costume of
+Homeric heroes.  Fearing nothing, needing nothing, sparing nothing, they
+stalked about the fens of Zeeland upon their long stilts, or leaped
+across running rivers, scaling ramparts, robbing the highways, burning,
+butchering, and maltreating the villages and their inhabitants, with as
+little regard for the laws of Christian warfare as for those of civilized
+costume.
+
+Other soldiers, more sophisticated as to apparel, were less at their
+ease.  The generous Sidney spent all his means, and loaded himself with
+debt, in order to relieve the necessities of the poor soldiers.  He
+protested that if the Queen would not pay her troops, she would lose her
+troops, but that no living man should say the fault was in him.  "What
+relief I can do them I will," he wrote to his father-in-law; "I will
+spare no danger, if occasion serves.  I am sure that no creature shall
+lay injustice to my charge."
+
+Very soon it was discovered that the starving troops had to contend not
+only with the Queen's niggardliness but with the dishonesty of her
+agents.  Treasurer Norris was constantly accused by Leicester and Sidney
+of gross peculation.  Five per cent., according to Sir Philip, was lost
+to the Zeeland soldiers in every payment, "and God knows," he said, "they
+want no such hindrance, being scarce able to keep life with their entire
+pay.  Truly it is but poor increase to her Majesty, considering what loss
+it is to the miserable soldier."  Discipline and endurance were sure to
+be sacrificed, in the end, to such short-sighted economy.  "When
+soldiers," said Sidney, "grow to despair, and give up towns, then it is
+too late to buy with hundred thousands what might have been saved with a
+trifle."
+
+This plain dealing, on the part of Sidney, was anything but agreeable to
+the Queen, who was far from feeling regret that his high-soaring
+expectations had been somewhat blighted in the Provinces.  He often
+expressed his mortification that her Majesty was disposed to interpret
+everything to, his disadvantage.  "I understand," said he, "that I am
+called ambitious, and very proud at home, but certainly, if they knew my
+heart, they would not altogether so judge me."  Elizabeth had taken part
+with Hohenlo against Sir Philip in the matter of the Zeeland regiment,
+and in this perhaps she was not entirely to be blamed.  But she inveighed
+needlessly against his ambitious seeking of the office, and--as
+Walsingham observed--"she was very apt, upon every light occasion,
+to find fault with him."  It is probable that his complaints against the
+army treasurer, and his manful defence of the "miserable soldiers," more
+than counterbalanced, in the Queen's estimation, his chivalry in the
+field.
+
+Nevertheless he had now the satisfaction of having gained an important
+city in Flanders; and on subsequently joining the army under his uncle,
+he indulged the hope of earning still greater distinction.
+
+Martin Schenk had meanwhile been successfully defending Rheinberg, for
+several weeks, against Parma's forces.  It was necessary, however, that
+Leicester, notwithstanding the impoverished condition of his troops,
+should make some diversion, while his formidable antagonist was thus
+carrying all before him.
+
+He assembled, accordingly, in the month of August, all the troops that
+could be brought into the field, and reviewed them, with much ceremony,
+in the neighbourhood of Arnheim.  His army--barely numbered seven
+thousand foot and two thousand horse,  but he gave out, very extensively,
+that he had fourteen thousand under his command, and he was moreover
+expecting a force of three thousand reiters, and as many pikemen recently
+levied in Germany.  Lord Essex was general of the cavalry, Sir William
+Pelham--a distinguished soldier, who had recently arrived out of England,
+after the most urgent solicitations to the Queen, for that end, by
+Leicester--was lord-marshal of the camp, and Sir John Norris was colonel-
+general of the infantry.
+
+After the parade, two sermons were preached upon the hillside to
+the soldiers, and then there was a council of war: It was decided--
+notwithstanding the Earl's announcement of his intentions to attack Parma
+in person--that the condition of the army did not warrant such an
+enterprise.  It was thought better to lay siege to Zutphen.  This step,
+if successful, would place in the power of the republic and her ally a
+city of great importance and strength.  In every event the attempt would
+probably compel Farnese to raise the siege of Berg.
+
+Leicester, accordingly, with "his brave troop of able and likely men"
+--five thousand of the infantry being English--advanced as far as
+Doesburg.  This city, seated at the confluence of the ancient canal of
+Drusus and the Yssel, five miles above Zutphen, it was necessary, as a
+preliminary measure, to secure.  It was not a very strong place, being
+rather slightly walled with brick, and with a foss drawing not more than
+three feet of water.  By the 30th August it had been completely invested.
+
+On the same night, at ten o'clock, Sir William Pelham, came to the Earl
+to tell him "what beastly pioneers the Dutchmen were.  "Leicester
+accordingly determined, notwithstanding the lord-marshal's entreaties,
+to proceed to the trenches in person.  There being but faint light, the
+two lost their way, and soon found themselves nearly, at the gate of the
+town.  Here, while groping about in the dark; and trying to effect their
+retreat, they were saluted with a shot, which struck Sir William in the
+stomach.  For an instant; thinking himself mortally injured, he expressed
+his satisfaction that he had been, between the commander-in-chief and the
+blow, and made other "comfortable and resolute speeches."  Very
+fortunately, however, it proved that the marshal was not seriously hurt,
+and, after a few days, he was about his work as usual, although obliged--
+as the Earl of Leicester expressed it--"to carry a bullet in his belly as
+long as he should live."
+
+Roger Williams, too, that valiant adventurer--"but no, more valiant than
+wise, and worth his weight in gold," according to the appreciative
+Leicester--was shot through the arm.  For the dare-devil Welshman, much
+to the Earl's regret, persisted in running up and down the trenches "with
+a great plume of feathers in his gilt morion," and in otherwise making a
+very conspicuous mark of himself "within pointblank of a caliver."
+
+Notwithstanding these mishaps, however, the siege went successfully
+forward.  Upon the 2nd September the Earl began to batter, and after a
+brisk cannonade, from dawn till two in the afternoon, he had considerably
+damaged the wall in two places.  One of the breaches was eighty feet
+wide, the other half as large, but the besieged had stuffed them full of
+beds, tubs, logs of wood, boards, and "such like trash," by means whereof
+the ascent was not so easy as it seemed.  The soldiers were excessively
+eager for the assault.  Sir John Norris came to Leicester to receive his
+orders as to the command of the attacking party.
+
+The Earl referred the matter to him.  "There is no man," answered Sir
+John, "fitter for that purpose than myself; for I am colonel-general of
+the infantry."
+
+But Leicester, not willing to indulge so unreasonable a proposal,
+replied that he would reserve him for service of less hazard and greater
+importance.  Norris being, as usual, "satis prodigus magnae animae," was
+out of humour at the refusal, and ascribed it to the Earl's persistent
+hostility to him and his family.  It was then arranged that the assault
+upon the principal breach should be led by younger officers, to be
+supported by Sir John and other veterans.  The other breach was assigned
+to the Dutch and Scotch-black Norris scowling at them the while with
+jealous eyes; fearing that they might get the start of the English party,
+and be first to enter the town.  A party of noble volunteers clustered
+about Sir John-Lord Burgh, Sir Thomas Cecil, Sir Philip Sidney, and his
+brother Robert among the rest--most impatient for the signal.  The race
+was obviously to be a sharp one.  The governor-general forbade these
+violent demonstrations, but Lord Burgh, "in a most vehement passion,
+waived the countermand," and his insubordination was very generally
+imitated.  Before the signal was given, however, Leicester sent a trumpet
+to summon the town to surrender, and could with difficulty restrain his
+soldiers till the answer should be returned.  To the universal
+disappointment, the garrison agreed to surrender.  Norris himself then
+stepped forward to the breach, and cried aloud the terms, lest the
+returning herald, who had been sent back by Leicester, should offer too
+favourable a capitulation.  It was arranged that the soldiers should
+retire without arms, with white wands in their hands--the officers
+remaining prisoners--and that the burghers, their lives, and property,
+should be at Leicester's disposal.  The Earl gave most peremptory orders
+that persons and goods should be respected, but his commands were dis
+obeyed.  Sir William Stanley's men committed frightful disorders, and
+thoroughly, rifled the town."
+
+"And because," said Norris, "I found fault herewith, Sir William began to
+quarrel with me, hath braved me extremely, refuseth to take any direction
+from me, and although I have sought for redress, yet it is proceeded in
+so coldly, that he taketh encouragement rather to increase the quarrel
+than to leave it."
+
+Notwithstanding therefore the decree of Leicester, the expostulations and
+anger of Norris, and the energetic efforts of Lord Essex and other
+generals, who went about smiting the marauders on the head, the soldiers
+sacked the city, and committed various disorders, in spite of the
+capitulation.
+
+Doesburg having been thus reduced, the Earl now proceeded toward the more
+important city which he had determined to besiege.  Zutphen, or South-
+Fen, an antique town of wealth and elegance, was the capital of the old
+Landgraves of Zutphen.  It is situate on the right bank of the Yssel,
+that branch of the Rhine which flows between Gelderland and Overyssel
+into the Zuyder-Zee.
+
+The ancient river, broad, deep, and languid, glides through a plain of
+almost boundless extent, till it loses itself in the flat and misty
+horizon.  On the other side of the stream, in the district called the
+Veluwe, or bad meadow, were three sconces, one of them of remarkable
+strength.  An island between the city and the shore was likewise well
+fortified.  On the landward side the town was protected by a wall and
+moat sufficiently strong in those infant days of artillery.  Near the
+hospital-gate, on the east, was an external fortress guarding the road to
+Warnsfeld.  This was a small village, with a solitary slender church-
+spire, shooting up above a cluster of neat one-storied houses.  It was
+about an English mile from Zutphen, in the midst of a wide, low, somewhat
+fenny plain, which, in winter, became so completely a lake, that peasants
+were not unfrequently drowned in attempting to pass from the city to the
+village.  In summer, the vague expanse of country was fertile and
+cheerful of aspect.  Long rows of poplars marking the straight highways,
+clumps of pollard willows scattered around the little meres, snug farm-
+houses, with kitchen-gardens and brilliant flower-patches dotting the
+level plain, verdant pastures sweeping off into seemingly infinite
+distance, where the innumerable cattle seemed to swarm like insects,
+wind-mills swinging their arms in all directions, like protective giants,
+to save the country from inundation, the lagging sail of market-boats
+shining through rows of orchard trees--all gave to the environs of
+Zutphen a tranquil and domestic charm.
+
+Deventer and Kampen, the two other places on the river, were in the hands
+of the States.  It was, therefore, desirable for the English and the
+patriots, by gaining possession of Zutphen, to obtain control of the
+Yssel; driven, as they had been, from the Meuse and Rhine.
+
+Sir John Norris, by Leicester's direction, took possession of a
+small rising-ground, called 'Gibbet Dill' on the land-side; where he
+established a fortified camp, and proceeded to invest the city.  With him
+were Count Lewis William of Nassau, and Sir Philip Sidney, while the Earl
+himself, crossing the Yssel on a bridge of boats which he had
+constructed, reserved for himself the reduction of the forts upon the
+Veluwe side.
+
+Farnese, meantime, was not idle; and Leicester's calculations proved
+correct.  So soon as the Prince was informed of this important
+demonstration of the enemy he broke up--after brief debate with his
+officers--his camp before Rheinberg, and came to Wesel.  At this place
+he built a bridge over the Rhine, and fortified it with two block-houses.
+These he placed under command of Claude Berlot, who was ordered to watch
+strictly all communication up the river with the city of Rheinberg, which
+he thus kept in a partially beleaguered state.  Alexander then advanced
+rapidly by way of Groll and Burik, both which places he took possession
+of, to the neighbourhood of Zutphen.  He was determined, at every hazard,
+to relieve that important city; and although, after leaving necessary
+detachments on the, way; he had but five thousand men under his command,
+besides fifteen hundred under Verdugo--making sixty-five hundred in all
+--he had decided that the necessity of the case, and his own honour;
+required him to seek the enemy, and to leave, as he said, the issue with
+the God of battles, whose cause it was.
+
+Tassis, lieutenant-governor of Gelderland, was ordered into the city with
+two cornets of horse and six hundred foot.  As large a number, had
+already been stationed there.  Verdugo, who had been awaiting the arrival
+of the Prince at Borkelo, a dozen miles from Zutphen, with four hundred
+foot and two hundred horse, now likewise entered the city.
+
+On the night of 29th August Alexander himself entered Zutphen for
+the purpose of encouraging the garrison by promise of-relief, and of
+ascertaining the position of the enemy by personal observation.  His
+presence as it always did, inspired the soldiers with enthusiasm, so that
+they could with difficulty be restrained from rushing forth to assault
+the besiegers.  In regard to the enemy he found that Gibbet Hill was
+still occupied by Sir John Norris, "the best soldier, in his opinion,
+that they had," who had entrenched himself very strongly, and was
+supposed to have thirty-five hundred men under his command.  His position
+seemed quite impregnable.  The rest of the English were on the other side
+of the river, and Alexander observed, with satisfaction, that they had
+abandoned a small redoubt, near the leper-house, outside the Loor-Gate,
+through which the reinforcements must enter the city.  The Prince
+determined to profit by this mistake, and to seize the opportunity thus
+afforded of sending those much needed supplies.  During the night the
+enemy were found to be throwing up works "most furiously," and
+skirmishing parties were sent out of the town to annoy them.  In the
+darkness nothing of consequence was effected, but a Scotch officer was
+captured, who informed the Spanish commander that the enemy was fifteen
+thousand strong--a number which was nearly double that of Leicester's
+actual force.  In the morning Alexander returned to his camp at Borkelo
+--leaving Tassis in command of the Veluwe Forts, and Verdugo in the city
+itself--and he at once made rapid work in collecting victuals.  He had
+soon wheat and other supplies in readiness, sufficient to feed four
+thousand mouths for three months, and these he determined to send into
+the city immediately, and at every hazard.
+
+The great convoy which was now to be despatched required great care and a
+powerful escort.  Twenty-five hundred musketeers and pikemen, of whom one
+thousand were Spaniards, and six hundred cavalry, Epirotes; Spaniards,
+and Italians, under Hannibal Gonzaga, George Crescia, Bentivoglio, Sesa,
+and others, were accordingly detailed for this expedition.  The Marquis
+del Vasto, to whom was entrusted the chief command, was ordered to march
+from Borkelo at midnight on Wednesday, October 1 (St. Nov.) [N.S.].  It
+was calculated that he would reach a certain hillock not far from
+Warnsfeld by dawn of day.  Here he was to pause, and send forward an
+officer towards the town, communicating his arrival, and requesting the
+cooperation of Verdugo, who was to make a sortie with one thousand men,
+according to Alexander's previous arrangements.  The plan was
+successfully carried out.  The Marquis arrived by daybreak at the spot
+indicated, and despatched Captain de Vega who contrived to send
+intelligence of the fact.  A trooper, whom Parma had himself sent to
+Verdugo with earlier information of the movement, had been captured on
+the way.  Leicester had therefore been apprized, at an early moment, of
+the Prince's intentions, but he was not aware that the convoy would be
+accompanied by so strong a force as had really been detailed.
+
+He had accordingly ordered Sir John Norris, who commanded on the outside
+of the town near the road which the Spaniards must traverse, to place
+an ambuscade in his way.  Sir John, always ready for adventurous
+enterprises, took a body of two hundred cavalry, all picked men,
+and ordered Sir William Stanley, with three hundred pikemen, to follow.
+A much stronger force of infantry was held in reserve and readiness,
+but it was not thought that it would be required.  The ambuscade was
+successfully placed, before the dawn of Thursday morning, in the
+neighbourhood of Warnsfeld church.  On the other hand, the Earl of
+Leicester himself, anxious as to the result, came across the river just
+at daybreak.  He was accompanied by the chief gentlemen in his camp, who
+could never be restrained when blows were passing current.
+
+The business that morning was a commonplace and practical though an
+important, one--to "impeach" a convoy of wheat and barley, butter,
+cheese, and beef--but the names of those noble and knightly volunteers,
+familiar throughout Christendom, sound like the roll-call for some
+chivalrous tournament.  There were Essex and Audley, Stanley, Pelham,
+Russell, both the Sidneys, all the Norrises, men whose valour had been.
+proved on many a hard-fought battle-field.  There, too, was the famous
+hero of British ballad whose name was so often to ring on the plains of
+the Netherlands--
+
+                   "The brave Lord Willoughby,
+                    Of courage fierce and fell,
+                    Who would not give one inch of way
+                    For all the devils in hell."
+
+Twenty such volunteers as these sat on horseback that morning around the
+stately Earl of Leicester.  It seemed an incredible extravagance to send
+a handful of such heroes against an army.
+
+But the English commander-in-chief had been listening to the insidious
+tongue of Roland York--that bold, plausible, unscrupulous partisan,
+already twice a renegade, of whom more was ere long to be heard in the
+Netherlands and England.  Of the man's courage there could be no doubt,
+and he was about to fight that morning in the front rank at the head of
+his company.  But he had, for some mysterious reason, been bent upon
+persuading the Earl that the Spaniards were no match for Englishmen at a
+hand-to-hand contest.  When they could ride freely up and down, he said,
+and use their lances as they liked, they were formidable.  But the
+English were stronger men, better riders, better mounted, and better
+armed.  The Spaniards hated helmets and proof armour, while the English
+trooper, in casque, cuirass, and greaves, was a living fortress
+impregnable to Spanish or Italian light horsemen.  And Leicester seemed
+almost convinced by his reasoning.
+
+It was five o'clock of a chill autumn morning.  It was time for day to
+break, but the fog was so thick that a man at the distance of five yards
+was quite invisible.  The creaking of waggon-wheels and the measured
+tramp of soldiers soon became faintly audible however to Sir John Norris
+and his five hundred as they sat there in the mist.  Presently came
+galloping forward in hot haste those nobles and gentlemen, with their
+esquires, fifty men in all--Sidney, Willoughby, and the rest--whom
+Leicester had no longer been able to restrain from taking part in the
+adventure.
+
+A force of infantry, the amount of which cannot be satisfactorily
+ascertained, had been ordered by the Earl to cross the bridge at a later
+moment.  Sidney's cornet of horse was then in Deventer, to which place it
+had been sent in order to assist in quelling an anticipated revolt, so
+that he came, like most of his companions, as a private volunteer and
+knight-errant.
+
+The arrival of the expected convoy was soon more distinctly heard, but
+no scouts or outposts had been stationed to give timely notice, of the
+enemy's movements.  Suddenly the fog, which had shrouded the scene so
+closely, rolled away like a curtain, and in the full light of an October
+morning the Englishmen found themselves face to face with a compact body
+of more than three thousand men.  The Marquis del Vasto rode at the head
+of the forces surrounded by a band of mounted arquebus men.  The cavalry,
+under the famous Epirote chief George Crescia, Hannibal Gonzaga,
+Bentivoglio, Sesa, Conti, and other distinguished commanders, followed;
+the columns of pikemen and musketeers lined the, hedge-rows on both sides
+the causeway; while between them the long train of waggons came slowly
+along under their protection.  The whole force had got in motion after
+having sent notice of their arrival to Verdugo, who, with one or two
+thousand men, was expected to sally forth almost immediately from the
+city-gate.
+
+There was but brief time for deliberation.  Notwithstanding the
+tremendous odds there was no thought of retreat.  Black Norris called to
+Sir William Stanley, with whom he had been at variance so lately at
+Doesburg.
+
+"There hath been ill-blood between us," he said.  "Let us be friends
+together this day, and die side by side, if need be, in her Majesty's
+cause."
+
+"If you see me not serve my prince with faithful courage now," replied
+Stanley, "account, me for ever a coward.  Living or dying I will stand
+err lie by you in friendship."
+
+As they were speaking these words the young Earl of Essex, general of the
+horse, cried to his, handful of troopers:
+
+"Follow me, good fellows, for the honour of England and of England's
+Queen!"
+
+As he spoke he dashed, lance in rest, upon the enemy's cavalry,
+overthrew the foremost man, horse and rider, shivered his own spear to
+splinters, and then, swinging his cartel-axe, rode merrily forward.  His
+whole little troop, compact, as an arrow-head, flew with an irresistible
+shock against the opposing columns, pierced clean through them, and
+scattered them in all directions.  At the very first charge one hundred
+English horsemen drove the Spanish and Albanian cavalry back upon the
+musketeers and pikemen.  Wheeling with rapidity, they retired before a
+volley of musket-shot, by which many horses and a few riders were killed;
+and then formed again to renew the attack.  Sir Philip Sidney, an coming
+to the field, having met Sir William Pelham, the veteran lord marshal,
+lightly armed, had with chivalrous extravagance thrown off his own
+cuishes, and now rode to the battle with no armour but his cuirass.
+At the second charge his horse was shot under him, but, mounting another,
+he was seen everywhere, in the thick of the fight, behaving himself with
+a gallantry which extorted admiration even from the enemy.
+
+For the battle was a series of personal encounters in which high officers
+were doing the work of private, soldiers.  Lord North, who had been lying
+"bed-rid" with a musket-shot in the leg, had got himself put on
+horseback, and with "one boot on and one boot off," bore himself, "most
+lustily" through the whole affair.  "I desire that her Majesty may know;"
+he said, "that I live but to, serve her.  A better barony than I have
+could not hire the Lord North to live, on meaner terms."  Sir William
+Russell laid about him with his curtel-axe to such purpose that the
+Spaniards pronounced him a devil and not a man.  "Wherever," said an eye-
+witness, "he saw five or six of the enemy together; thither would he,
+and with his hard knocks soon separated their friendship."  Lord
+Willoughby encountered George Crescia, general of the famed Albanian
+cavalry, unhorsed him at the first shock, and rolled him into the ditch.
+"I yield me thy prisoner," called out the Epirote in French, "for thou
+art a 'preux chevalier;'" while Willoughby, trusting to his captive's
+word, galloped onward, and with him the rest of the little troop, till
+they seemed swallowed up by the superior numbers of the enemy.  His horse
+was shot under him, his basses were torn from his legs, and he was nearly
+taken a prisoner, but fought his way back with incredible strength and
+good fortune.  Sir William Stanley's horse had seven bullets in him, but
+bore his rider unhurt to the end of the battle.  Leicester declared Sir
+William and "old Reads" to be "worth their, weight in pearl."
+
+Hannibal Gonzaga, leader of the Spanish cavalry, fell mortally wounded
+a The Marquis del Vasto, commander of the expedition, nearly met the same
+fate.  An Englishman was just cleaving his head with a battle-axe, when a
+Spaniard transfixed the soldier with his pike.  The most obstinate
+struggle took place about the train of waggons.  The teamsters had fled
+in the beginning of the action, but the English and Spanish soldiers,
+struggling with the horses, and pulling them forward and backward, tried
+in vain to get exclusive possession of the convoy which was the cause of
+the action.  The carts at last forced their way slowly nearer and nearer
+to the town, while the combat still went on, warm as ever, between the
+hostile squadrons.  The action, lasted an hour and a half, and again and
+again the Spanish horsemen wavered and broke before the handful of
+English, and fell back upon their musketeers.  Sir Philip Sidney, in the
+last charge, rode quite through the enemy's ranks till he came upon their
+entrenchments, when a musket-ball from the camp struck him upon the
+thigh, three inches above the knee.  Although desperately wounded in a
+part which should have been protected by the cuishes which he had thrown
+aside, he was not inclined to leave the field; but his own horse had been
+shot under him at the-beginning of the action, and the one upon which he
+was now mounted became too restive for him, thus crippled, to control.
+He turned reluctantly away, and rode a mile and a half back to the
+entrenchments, suffering extreme pain, for his leg was dreadfully
+shattered.  As he past along the edge of the battle-field his attendants
+brought him a bottle of water to quench his raging thirst.  At, that
+moment a wounded English soldier, "who had eaten his last at the same
+feast," looked up wistfully, in his face, when Sidney instantly handed
+him the flask, exclaiming, "Thy necessity is even greater than mine."
+He then pledged his dying comrade in a draught, and was soon afterwards
+met by his uncle.  "Oh, Philip," cried Leicester, in despair, "I am truly
+grieved to see thee in this plight."  But Sidney comforted him with
+manful words, and assured him that death was sweet in the cause of his
+Queen and country.  Sir William Russell, too, all blood-stained from the
+fight, threw his arms around his friend, wept like a child, and kissing
+his hand, exclaimed, "Oh! noble Sir Philip, never did man attain hurt so
+honourably or serve so valiantly as you."  Sir William Pelham declared
+"that Sidney's noble courage in the face of our enemies had won him a
+name of continuing honour."
+
+The wounded gentleman was borne back to the camp, and thence in a barge
+to Arnheim.  The fight was over.  Sir John Norris bade Lord Leicester
+"be merry, for," said he, "you have had the honourablest day.  A handful
+of men has driven the enemy three times to retreat.  "But, in truth, it
+was now time for the English to retire in their turn.  Their reserve
+never arrived.  The whole force engaged against the thirty-five hundred
+Spaniards had never exceeded two hundred and fifty horse and three
+hundred foot, and of this number the chief work had beer done by the
+fifty or sixty volunteers and their followers.  The heroism which had
+been displayed was fruitless, except as a proof--and so Leicester wrote
+to the Palatine John Casimir--"that Spaniards were not invincible."  Two
+thousand men now sallied from the Loor Gate under Verdugo and Tassis,
+to join the force under Vasto, and the English were forced to retreat.
+The whole convoy was then carried into the city, and the Spaniards
+remained masters of the field.
+
+Thirteen troopers and twenty-two foot soldiers; upon the English side,
+were killed.  The enemy lost perhaps two hundred men.  They were thrice
+turned from their position, and thrice routed, but they succeeded at last
+in their attempt to carry their convoy into Zutphen.  Upon that day, and
+the succeeding ones, the town was completely victualled.  Very little,
+therefore, save honour, was gained by the display of English valour
+against overwhelming numbers; five hundred against, near, four thousand.
+Never in the whole course of the war had there been such fighting, for
+the troops upon both sides were picked men and veterans.  For a long time
+afterwards it was the custom of Spaniards and Netherlanders, in
+characterising a hardly-contested action, to call it as warm as the fight
+at Zutphen.
+
+"I think I may call it," said Leicester, "the most notable encounter that
+hath been in our age, and it will remain to our posterity famous."
+
+Nevertheless it is probable that the encounter would have been forgotten
+by posterity but for the melancholy close upon that field to Sidney's
+bright career.  And perhaps the Queen of England had as much reason to
+blush for the incompetency of her general and favourite as to be proud.
+of the heroism displayed by her officers and soldiers.
+
+"There were too many indeed at this skirmish of the better sort," said
+Leicester; "only a two hundred and fifty horse, and most of them the best
+of this camp, and unawares to me.  I was offended when I knew it, but
+could not fetch them back; but since they all so well escaped (save my
+dear nephew), I would not for ten thousand pounds but they had been
+there, since they have all won that honour they have.  Your Lordship
+never heard of such desperate charges as they gave upon the enemies in
+the face of their muskets."
+
+He described Sidney's wound as "very dangerous, the bone being broken in
+pieces;" but said that the surgeons were in good hope.  "I pray God to
+save his life," said the Earl, "and I care not how lame he be."  Sir
+Philip was carried to Arnheim, where the best surgeons were immediately
+in attendance upon him.  He submitted to their examination and the pain
+which they inflicted, with great cheerfulness, although himself persuaded
+that his wound was mortal.  For many days the result was doubtful, and
+messages were sent day by day to England that he was convalescent--
+intelligence which was hailed by the Queen and people as a matter not of
+private but of public rejoicing.  He soon began to fail, however.  Count
+Hohenlo was badly wounded a few days later before the great fort of
+Zutphen.  A musket-ball entered his mouth; and passed through his cheek,
+carrying off a jewel which hung in his ear.  Notwithstanding his own
+critical condition, however, Hohenlo sent his surgeon, Adrian van den
+Spiegel, a man of great skill, to wait upon Sir Philip, but Adrian soon
+felt that the case was hopeless.  Meantime fever and gangrene attacked
+the Count himself; and those in attendance upon him, fearing for his
+life, sent for his surgeon.  Leicester refused to allow Adrian to depart,
+and Hohenlo very generously acquiescing in the decree, but, also
+requiring the surgeon's personal care, caused himself to be transported
+in a litter to Arnheim.
+
+Sidney was first to recognise the symptoms of mortification, which made a
+fatal result inevitable.  His demeanour during his sickness and upon his
+death-bed was as beautiful as his life.  He discoursed with his friends
+concerning the immortality of the soul, comparing the doctrines of Plato
+and of other ancient philosophers, whose writings were so familiar to
+him, with the revelations of Scripture and with the dictates of natural
+religion.  He made his will with minute and elaborate provisions, leaving
+bequests, remembrances, and rings, to all his friends.  Then he indulged
+himself with music, and listened particularly to a strange song which he
+had himself composed during his illness, and which he had entitled 'La
+Cuisse rompue.'  He took leave of the friends around him with perfect
+calmness; saying to his brother Robert, "Love my memory.  Cherish my
+friends.  Above all, govern your will and affections by the will and word
+of your Creator; in me beholding the end of this world with all her
+vanities."
+
+And thus this gentle and heroic spirit took its flight.
+
+Parma, after thoroughly victualling Zutphen, turned his attention to the
+German levies which Leicester was expecting under the care of Count
+Meurs.  "If the enemy is reinforced by these six thousand fresh troops,"
+said Alexander; "it will make him master of the field."  And well he
+might hold this opinion, for, in the meagre state of both the Spanish and
+the liberating armies, the addition of three thousand fresh reiters and
+as many infantry would be enough to turn the scale.  The Duke of Parma--
+for, since the recent death of his father, Farnese had succeeded to his
+title--determined in person to seek the German troops, and to destroy
+them if possible.  But they never gave him the chance.  Their muster-
+place was Bremen, but when they heard that the terrible 'Holofernese' was
+in pursuit of them, and that the commencement of their service would be a
+pitched battle with his Spaniards and Italians, they broke up and
+scattered about the country.  Soon afterwards the Duke tried another
+method of effectually dispersing them, in case they still retained a wish
+to fulfil their engagement with Leicester.  He sent a messenger to treat
+with them, and in consequence two of their rittmeisters; paid him a
+visit.  He offered to give them higher pay, and "ready money in place of
+tricks and promises."  The mercenary heroes listened very favourably to
+his proposals, although they had already received--besides the tricks and
+promises--at least one hundred thousand florins out of the States'
+treasury.
+
+After proceeding thus far in the negotiation, however, Parma concluded,
+as the season was so far advanced, that it was sufficient to have
+dispersed them, and to have deprived the English and patriots of their
+services.  So he gave the two majors a gold chain a-piece, and they went
+their way thoroughly satisfied.  "I have got them away from the enemy for
+this year," said Alexander; "and this I hold to be one of the best
+services that has been rendered for many a long day to your Majesty."
+
+During the period which intervened between the action at Warnsfeld and
+the death of Sidney, the siege-operations before Zutphen had been
+continued.  The city, strongly garrisoned and well supplied with
+provisions, as it had been by Parma's care, remained impregnable; but the
+sconces beyond the river and upon the island fell into Leicester's hands.
+The great fortress which commanded the Veluwe, and which was strong
+enough to have resisted Count Hohenlo on a former, occasion for nearly a
+whole year, was the scene of much hard fighting.  It was gained at last
+by the signal valour of Edward Stanley, lieutenant to Sir William.  That
+officer, at the commencement of an assault upon a not very practicable
+breach, sprang at the long pike of a Spanish soldier, who was endeavoring
+to thrust him from the wall, and seized it with both hands.  The Spaniard
+struggled to maintain his hold of the weapon, Stanley to wrest it from
+his grasp.  A dozen other soldiers broke their pikes upon his cuirass or
+shot at him with their muskets.  Conspicuous by his dress, being all in
+yellow but his corslet, he was in full sight of Leicester and of fire
+thousand men.  The earth was so shifty and sandy that the soldiers who
+were to follow him were not able to climb the wall.  Still Stanley
+grasped his adversary's pike, but, suddenly changing his plan, he allowed
+the Spaniard to lift him from the ground.  Then, assisting himself with
+his feet against the wall, he, much to the astonishment of the
+spectators, scrambled quite over the parapet, and dashed sword in hand
+among the defenders of the fort.  Had he been endowed with a hundred
+lives it seemed impossible for him to escape death.  But his followers,
+stimulated by his example, made ladders for themselves of each others'
+shoulders, clambered at last with great exertion over the broken wall,
+overpowered the garrison, and made themselves masters of the sconce.
+Leicester, transported with enthusiasm for this noble deed of daring,
+knighted Edward Stanley upon the spot, besides presenting him next day
+with forty pounds in gold and an annuity of one hundred marks, sterling
+for life.  "Since I was born, I did never see any man behave himself as
+he did," said the Earl.  "I shall never forget it, if I live a thousand
+year, and he shall have a part of my living for it as long as I live."
+
+The occupation of these forts terminated the military operations of the
+year, for the rainy season, precursor of the winter, had now set in.
+Leicester, leaving Sir William Stanley, with twelve hundred English and
+Irish horse, in command of Deventer; Sir John Burrowes, with one thousand
+men, in Doesburg; and Sir Robert Yorke, with one thousand more, in the
+great sconce before Zutphen; took his departure for the Hague.  Zutphen
+seemed so surrounded as to authorize the governor to expect ere long its
+capitulation.  Nevertheless, the results of the campaign had not been
+encouraging.  The States had lost ground, having been driven from the
+Meuse and Rhine, while they had with difficulty maintained themselves on
+the Flemish coast and upon the Yssel.
+
+It is now necessary to glance at the internal politics of the Republic
+during the period of Leicester's administration and to explain the
+position in which he found himself at the close of the year.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+And thus this gentle and heroic spirit took its flight
+Five great rivers hold the Netherland territory in their coils
+High officers were doing the work of private, soldiers
+I did never see any man behave himself as he did
+There is no man fitter for that purpose than myself
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v48
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History of the United Netherlands, Volume 49, 1586
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+     Should Elizabeth accept the Sovereignty?--The Effects of her Anger--
+     Quarrels between the Earl and the Staten--The Earl's three
+     Counsellors--Leicester's Finance--Chamber--Discontent of the
+     Mercantile Classes--Paul Buys and the Opposition--Been Insight of
+     Paul Buys--Truchsess becomes a Spy upon him--Intrigues of Buys with
+     Denmark--His Imprisonment--The Earl's Unpopularity--His Quarrels
+     with the States--And with the Norrises--His Counsellors Wilkes and
+     Clerke--Letter from the Queen to Leicester--A Supper Party at
+     Hohenlo's--A drunken Quarrel--Hohenlo's Assault upon Edward Norris--
+     Ill Effects of the Riot.
+
+The brief period of sunshine had been swiftly followed by storms.  The
+Governor Absolute had, from the outset, been placed in a false position.
+Before he came to the Netherlands the Queen had refused the sovereignty.
+Perhaps it was wise in her to decline so magnificent an offer; yet
+certainly her acceptance would have been perfectly honourable.  The
+constituted authorities of the Provinces formally made the proposition.
+There is no doubt whatever that the whole population ardently desired to
+become her subjects.  So far as the Netherlands were concerned, then, she
+would have been fully justified in extending her sceptre over a free
+people, who, under no compulsion and without any, diplomatic chicane, had
+selected her for their hereditary chief.  So far as regarded England, the
+annexation to that country of a continental cluster of states, inhabited
+by a race closely allied to it by blood, religion, and the instinct for
+political freedom, seemed, on the whole, desirable.
+
+In a financial point of view, England would certainly lose nothing by the
+union.  The resources of the Provinces were at leant equal to her own.
+We have seen the astonishment which the wealth and strength of the
+Netherlands excited in their English visitors.  They were amazed by the
+evidences of commercial and manufacturing prosperity, by the spectacle of
+luxury and advanced culture, which met them on every side.  Had the
+Queen--as it had been generally supposed--desired to learn whether the
+Provinces were able and willing to pay the expenses of their own defence
+before she should definitely decide on, their offer of sovereignty, she
+was soon thoroughly enlightened upon the subject.  Her confidential
+agents all--held one language.  If she would only, accept the
+sovereignty, the amount which the Provinces would pay was in a manner
+boundless.  She was assured that the revenue of her own hereditary realm
+was much inferior to that of the possessions thus offered to her sway.
+
+In regard to constitutional polity, the condition of the Netherlands was
+at least, as satisfactory as that of England. The great amount of civil
+freedom enjoyed by those countries--although perhaps an objection--in the
+eyes of Elizabeth Tudor--should certainly have been a recommendation
+to her liberty-loving subjects.  The question of defence had been
+satisfactorily answered.  The Provinces, if an integral part of the
+English empire, could protect themselves, and would become an additional
+element of strength--not a troublesome encumbrance.
+
+The difference of language was far, less than that which already existed
+between the English and their Irish fellow-subjects, while it was
+counterbalanced by sympathy, instead of being aggravated by mutual
+hostility in the matter of religion.
+
+With regard to the great question of abstract sovereignty, it was
+certainly impolitic for an absolute monarch to recognize the right of a
+nation to repudiate its natural allegiance.  But Elizabeth had already
+countenanced that step by assisting the rebellion against Philip.  To
+allow the rebels to transfer their obedience from the King of Spain to
+herself was only another step in the same direction.  The Queen, should
+she annex the Provinces, would certainly be accused by the world of
+ambition; but the ambition was a noble one, if, by thus consenting to the
+urgent solicitations of a free people, she extended the region of civil
+and religious liberty, and raised up a permanent bulwark against
+sacerdotal and royal absolutism.
+
+A war between herself and Spain was inevitable if she accepted the
+sovereignty, but peace had been already rendered impossible by the treaty
+of alliance.  It is true that the Queen imagined the possibility of
+combining her engagements towards the States with a conciliatory attitude
+towards their ancient master, but it was here that she committed the
+gravest error.  The negotiations of Parma and his sovereign with the
+English court were a masterpiece of deceit on the part of Spain.  We have
+shown, by the secret correspondence, and we shall in the sequel make it
+still clearer, that Philip only intended to amuse his antagonists; that
+he had already prepared his plan for the conquest of England, down to the
+minutest details; that the idea of tolerating religious liberty had never
+entered his mind; and that his fixed purpose was not only thoroughly to
+chastise the Dutch rebels, but to deprive the heretic Queen who had
+fostered their rebellion both of throne and life.  So far as regarded the
+Spanish King, then, the quarrel between him and Elizabeth was already
+mortal; while in a religious, moral, political, and financial point of
+view, it would be difficult to show that it was wrong, or imprudent for
+England to accept the sovereignty over his ancient subjects.  The cause
+of human, freedom seemed likely to gain by the step, for the States did
+not consider themselves strong enough to maintain the independent
+republic which had already risen.
+
+It might be a question whether, on the whole, Elizabeth made a mistake in
+declining the sovereignty.  She was certainly wrong, however, in wishing
+the lieutenant-general of her six thousand auxiliary troops to be
+clothed, as such, with vice-regal powers.  The States-General, in a
+moment of enthusiasm, appointed him governor absolute, and placed in his
+hands, not only the command of the forces, but the entire control of
+their revenues, imposts, and customs, together with the appointment of
+civil and military officers.  Such an amount of power could only be
+delegated by the sovereign.  Elizabeth had refused the sovereignty: it
+then rested with the States.  They only, therefore, were competent to
+confer the power which Elizabeth wished her favourite to exercise simply
+as her lieutenant-general.
+
+Her wrathful and vituperative language damaged her cause and that of the
+Netherlands more severely than can now be accurately estimated.  The Earl
+was placed at once in a false, a humiliating, almost a ridiculous
+position.  The authority which the States had thus a second time offered
+to England was a second time and most scornfully thrust back upon them.
+Elizabeth was indignant that "her own man" should clothe himself in the
+supreme attributes which she had refused.  The States were forced by the
+violence of the Queen to take the authority into their own hands again,
+and Leicester was looked upon as a disgraced man.
+
+Then came the neglect with which the Earl was treated by her Majesty and
+her ill-timed parsimony towards the cause.  No letters to him in four
+months, no remittances for the English troops, not a penny of salary for
+him.  The whole expense of the war was thrown for the time upon their
+hands, and the English soldiers seemed only a few thousand starving,
+naked, dying vagrants, an incumbrance instead of an aid.
+
+The States, in their turn, drew the purse-strings.  The two hundred
+thousand florins monthly were paid.  The four hundred thousand florins
+which had been voted as an additional supply were for a time held back,
+as Leicester expressly stated, because of the discredit which had been
+thrown upon him from home.
+
+     [Strangely enough, Elizabeth was under the impression that the extra
+     grant of 400,000 florins (L40,000) for four months was four hundred
+     thousand pounds sterling.  "The rest that was granted by the States,
+     as extraordinary to levy an army, which was 400,000 florins, not
+     pounds, as I hear your Majesty taketh it.  It is forty thousand
+     pounds, and to be paid In March, April, May, and June last," &c.
+     Leicester to the Queen, l1 Oct.  1586.  (S. P.  Office MS.)]
+
+The military operations were crippled for want of funds, but more fatal
+than everything else were the secret negotiations for peace.  Subordinate
+individuals, like Grafigni and De Loo, went up and down, bringing
+presents out of England for Alexander Farnese, and bragging that Parma
+and themselves could have peace whenever they liked to make it, and
+affirming that Leicester's opinions were of no account whatever.
+Elizabeth's coldness to the Earl and to the Netherlands was affirmed to
+be the Prince of Parma's sheet-anchor; while meantime a house was
+ostentatiously prepared in Brussels by their direction for the reception
+of an English ambassador, who was every moment expected to arrive.  Under
+such circumstances it was in, vain for the governor-general to protest
+that the accounts of secret negotiations were false, and quite natural
+that the States should lose their confidence in the Queen.  An unfriendly
+and suspicious attitude towards her representative was a necessary
+result, and the demonstrations against the common enemy became still more
+languid.  But for these underhand dealings, Grave, Venlo, and Neusz,
+might have been saved, and the current 'of the Meuse and Rhine have
+remained in the hands of the patriots.
+
+The Earl was industrious, generous, and desirous of playing well his
+part.  His personal courage was undoubted, and, in the opinion of his
+admirers--themselves, some of them, men of large military experience--his
+ability as a commander was of a high order.  The valour displayed by the
+English nobles and gentlemen who accompanied him was magnificent, worthy
+the descendants of the victors at Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt; and the
+good behaviour of their followers--with a few rare exceptions--had been
+equally signal.  But now the army was dwindling to a ghastly array of
+scarecrows, and the recruits, as they came from England, were appalled by
+the spectacle presented by their predecessors.  "Our old ragged rogues
+here have so discouraged our new men," said Leicester; "as I protest to
+you they look like dead men."  Out of eleven hundred freshly-arrived
+Englishmen, five hundred ran away in two days.  Some were caught and
+hanged, and all seemed to prefer hanging to remaining in the service,
+while the Earl declared that he would be hanged as well rather than again
+undertake such a charge without being assured payment for his troops
+beforehand!
+
+The valour of Sidney and Essex, Willoughby and Pelham, Roger Williams
+and Martin Schenk, was set at nought by such untoward circumstances.
+Had not Philip also left his army to starve and Alexander Farnese to
+work miracles, it would have fared still worse with Holland and England,
+and with the cause of civil and religious liberty in the year 1586.
+
+The States having resumed, as much as possible; their former authority,
+were on very unsatisfactory terms with the governor-general.  Before
+long, it was impossible for the, twenty or thirty individuals called the
+States to be in the same town with the man whom, at the commencement of
+the, year, they had greeted so warmly.  The hatred between the Leicester
+faction and the municipalities became intense, for the foundation of the
+two great parties which were long to divide the Netherland commonwealth
+was already laid.  The mercantile patrician interest, embodied in the
+states of Holland and Zeeland and inclined to a large toleration in the
+matter of religion, which afterwards took the form of Arminianism, was
+opposed by a strict Calvinist party, which desired to subject the
+political commonwealth to the reformed church; which nevertheless
+indulged in very democratic views of the social compact; and which was
+controlled by a few refugees from Flanders and Brabant, who had succeeded
+in obtaining the confidence of Leicester.
+
+Thus the Earl was the nominal head of the Calvinist democratic party;
+while young Maurice of Nassau; stadholder of Holland and Zeeland, and
+guided by Barneveld, Buys, and other leading statesmen of these
+Provinces; was in an attitude precisely the reverse of the one which he
+was destined at a later and equally memorable epoch to assume.  The
+chiefs of the faction which had now succeeded in gaining the confidence
+of Leicester were Reingault, Burgrave, and Deventer, all refugees.
+
+The laws of Holland and of the other United States were very strict on
+the subject of citizenship, and no one but a native was competent to hold
+office in each Province.  Doubtless, such regulations were narrow-
+spirited; but to fly in the face of them was the act of a despot, and
+this is what Leicester did.  Reingault was a Fleming.  He was a bankrupt
+merchant, who had been taken into the protection of Lamoral Egmont, and
+by that nobleman recommended to Granvelle for an office under the
+Cardinal's government.  The refusal of this favour was one of the
+original causes of Egmont's hostility to Granvelle.  Reingault
+subsequently entered the service of the Cardinal, however, and rewarded
+the kindness of his former benefactor by great exertions in finding, or
+inventing, evidence to justify the execution of that unfortunate
+nobleman.  He was afterwards much employed by the Duke of Alva and by the
+Grand Commander Requesens; but after the pacification of Ghent he had
+been completely thrown out of service.  He had recently, in a subordinate
+capacity, accompanied the legations of the States to France and to
+England, and had now contrived to ingratiate himself with the Earl of
+Leicester.  He affected great zeal for the Calvinistic religion--an
+exhibition which, in the old servant of Granvelle and Alva, was far from
+edifying--and would employ no man or maid-servant in his household until
+their religious principles had been thoroughly examined by one or two
+clergymen.  In brief, he was one of those, who, according to a homely
+Flemish proverb, are wont to hang their piety on the bell-rope; but, with
+the exception of this brief interlude in his career, he lived and died a
+Papist.
+
+Gerard Proninck, called Deventer, was a respectable inhabitant of Bois-
+le-Duc, who had left that city after it had again become subject to the
+authority of Spain.  He was of decent life and conversation, but a
+restless and ambitious demagogue.  As a Brabantine, he was unfit for
+office; and yet, through Leicester's influence and the intrigues of the
+democratic party, he obtained the appointment of burgomaster in the city
+of Utrecht.  The States-General, however, always refused to allow him to
+appear at their sessions as representative of that city.
+
+Daniel de Burgrave was a Flemish mechanic, who, by the exertion of much
+energy and talent, had risen to the poet of procureur-general of
+Flanders.  After the conquest of the principal portion of that Province
+by Parma, he had made himself useful to the English governor-general in
+various ways, and particularly as a linguist.  He spoke English--a tongue
+with which few Netherlanders of that day were familiar--and as the Earl
+knew no other, except (very imperfectly) Italian, he found his services
+in speaking and writing a variety of languages very convenient.  He was
+the governor's private secretary, and, of course, had no entrance to the
+council of state, but he was accused of frequently thrusting himself into
+their hall of sessions, where, under pretence of arranging the Earl's
+table, or portfolio, or papers, he was much addicted to whispering into
+his master's ear, listening to conversation,--to eaves-dropping; in
+short, and general intrusiveness.
+
+"A most faithful, honest servant is Burgrave," said Leicester; "a
+substantial, wise man.  'Tis as sufficient a man as ever I met withal of
+any nation; very well learned, exceeding wise, and sincere in religion.
+I cannot commend the man too much.  He is the only comfort I have had of
+any of this nation."
+
+These three personages were the leaders of the Leicester faction.  They
+had much, influence with all the refugees from Flanders, Brabant, and the
+Walloon Provinces.  In Utrecht, especially, where the Earl mainly
+resided, their intrigues were very successful.  Deventer was appointed,
+as already stated, to the important post of burgomaster; many, of the
+influential citizens were banished, without cause or, trial; the upper
+branch of the municipal government, consisting of the clerical delegates
+of the colleges, was in an arbitrary manner abolished; and, finally, the
+absolute sovereignty of, the Province, without condition, was offered to
+the Queen, of England.
+
+Leicester was now determined to carry out one of the great objects which
+the Queen had in view when she sent him to the Netherlands.  She desired
+thoroughly to ascertain the financial resources of the Provinces, and
+their capacity to defend themselves.  It was supposed by the States, and
+hoped by the Earl and by a majority of the Netherland people, that she
+would, in case the results were satisfactory, accept, after all, the
+sovereignty.  She certainly was not to be blamed that she wished to make
+this most important investigation, but it was her own fault that any new
+machinery had been rendered necessary.  The whole control of the finances
+had, in the beginning of the year, been placed in the Earl's hands, and
+it was only by her violently depriving him of his credit and of the
+confidence of the country that he had not retained it.  He now
+established a finance-chamber, under the chief control of Reingault, who
+promised him mountains of money, and who was to be chief treasurer.  Paul
+Buys was appointed by Leicester to fill a subordinate position in the new
+council.  He spurned the offer with great indignation, saying that
+Reingault was not fit to be his clerk, and that he was not likely
+himself, therefore, to accept a humble post under the administration of
+such an individual.  This scornful refusal filled to the full the hatred
+of Leicester against the ex-Advocate of Holland.
+
+The mercantile interest at once took the alarm, because it was supposed
+that the finance-chamber, was intended to crush the merchants.  Early in
+April an Act had been passed by the state-council, prohibiting commerce
+with the Spanish possessions.  The embargo was intended to injure the
+obedient Provinces and their sovereign, but it was shown that its effect
+would be to blast the commerce of Holland.  It forbade the exportation
+from the republic not only of all provisions and munitions of war, but of
+all goods and merchandize whatever, to Spain, Portugal, the Spanish
+Netherlands, or any other of Philip's territories, either in Dutch or
+neutral vessel.  It would certainly seem, at first sight, that such an
+act was reasonable, although the result would really be, not to deprive
+the enemy of supplies, but to throw the whole Baltic trade into the hands
+of the Bremen, Hamburg, and "Osterling" merchants.  Leicester expected to
+derive a considerable revenue by granting passports and licenses to such
+neutral traders, but the edict became so unpopular that it was never
+thoroughly enforced, and was before long rescinded.
+
+The odium of the measure was thrown upon the governor-general, yet he had
+in truth opposed it in the state-council, and was influential in
+procuring its repeal.
+
+Another important Act had been directed against the mercantile interest,
+and excited much general discontent.  The Netherlands wished the staple
+of the English cloth manufacture to be removed from Emden--the petty,
+sovereign of which place was the humble servant of Spain--to Amsterdam or
+Delft.  The desire was certainly, natural, and the Dutch merchants sent a
+committee to confer with Leicester.  He was much impressed with their
+views, and with the sagacity of their chairman, one Mylward, "a wise
+fellow and well languaged, an ancient man and very, religious," as the
+Earl pronounced him to be.
+
+Notwithstanding the wisdom however, of this well-languaged fellow,
+the Queen, for some strange reason, could not be induced to change the
+staple from Emden, although it was shown that the public revenue of the
+Netherlands would gain twenty thousand pounds a year by the measure.
+"All Holland will cry out for it," said Leicester; "but I had rather they
+cried than that England should weep."
+
+Thus the mercantile community, and especially the patrician families of
+Holland and Zeeland, all engaged in trade, became more and more hostile
+to the governor-general and to his financial trio, who were soon almost
+as unpopular as the famous Consults of Cardinal Granvelle had been.  It
+was the custom of the States to consider the men who surrounded the Earl
+as needy and unprincipled renegades and adventurers.  It was the policy
+of his advisers to represent the merchants and the States--which mainly
+consisted of, or were controlled by merchants--as a body of corrupt,
+selfish, greedy money-getters.
+
+The calumnies put in circulation against the States by Reingault and his
+associates grew at last so outrageous, and the prejudice created in the
+mind of Leicester and his immediate English adherents so intense, that it
+was rendered necessary for the States, of Holland and Zeeland to write to
+their agent Ortell in London, that he might forestall the effect of these
+perpetual misrepresentations on her Majesty's government.  Leicester, on
+the other hand, under the inspiration; of his artful advisers, was
+vehement in his entreaties that Ortell should be sent away from England.
+
+The ablest and busiest of the opposition-party, the "nimblest head" in
+the States-General was the ex-Advocate of Holland; Paul Buys.  This man
+was then the foremost statesman in, the Netherlands.  He had been the
+firmest friend to the English alliance; he had resigned his office when
+the States were-offering the sovereignty to France, and had been on the
+point of taking service in Denmark.  He had afterwards been prominent in
+the legation which offered the sovereignty to Elizabeth, and, for a long
+time, had been the most firm, earnest, and eloquent advocate of the
+English policy.  Leicester had originally courted him, caressed him,
+especially recommended him to the Queen's favour, given him money--as he
+said, "two hundred pounds sterling thick at a time"--and openly
+pronounced him to be "in ability above all men."  "No man hath ever
+sought a man," he said, "as I have sought P. B."
+
+The period of their friendship was, however, very brief.  Before many
+weeks had passed there was no vituperative epithet that Leicester was not
+in the daily habit of bestowing upon Paul.  The Earl's vocabulary of
+abuse was not a limited one, but he exhausted it on the head of the
+Advocate.  He lacked at last words and breath to utter what was like him.
+He pronounced his former friend "a very dangerous man, altogether hated
+of the people and the States;"--"a lewd sinner, nursled in revolutions;
+a most covetous, bribing fellow, caring for nothing but to bear the sway
+and grow rich;"--"a man who had played many parts, both lewd and
+audacious;"--"a very knave, a traitor to his country;"--"the most
+ungrateful wretch alive, a hater of the Queen and of all the English;
+a most unthankful man to her Majesty; a practiser to make himself rich
+and great, and nobody else;"--"among all villains the greatest;"--
+"a bolsterer of all papists and ill men, a dissembler, a devil, an
+atheist," a "most naughty man, and a most notorious drunkard in the worst
+degree."
+
+Where the Earl hated, his hatred was apt to be deadly, and he was
+determined, if possible, to have the life of the detested Paul.  "You
+shall see I will do well enough with him, and that shortly," he said.
+"I will course him as he was not so this twenty year.  I will warrant him
+hanged and one or two of his fellows, but you must not tell your shirt of
+this yet;" and when he was congratulating the government on his having at
+length procured the execution of Captain Hemart, the surrenderer of
+Grave, he added, pithily, "and you shall hear that Mr. P. B. shall
+follow."
+
+Yet the Earl's real griefs against Buys may be easily summed up.  The
+lewd sinner, nursled in revolutions, had detected the secret policy of
+the Queen's government, and was therefore perpetually denouncing the
+intrigues going on with Spain.  He complained that her Majesty was tired
+of having engaged in the Netherland enterprise; he declared that she
+would be glad to get fairly out of it; that her reluctance to spend a
+farthing more in the cause than she was obliged to do was hourly
+increasing upon her; that she was deceiving and misleading the States-
+General; and that she was hankering after a peace.  He said that the Earl
+had a secret intention to possess himself of certain towns in Holland,
+in which case the whole question of peace and war would be in the hands
+of the Queen, who would also have it thus in her power to reimburse
+herself at once for all expenses that she had incurred.
+
+It would be difficult to show that there was anything very calumnious in
+these charges, which, no doubt, Paul was in the habit of making.  As to
+the economical tendencies of her Majesty, sufficient evidence has been
+given already from Leicester's private letters.  "Rather than spend one
+hundred pounds," said Walsingham, "she can be content to be deceived of
+five thousand."  That she had been concealing from the Staten, from
+Walsingham, from Leicester, during the whole summer, her secret
+negotiations with Spain, has also been made apparent.  That she was
+disgusted with the enterprise in which she had embarked, Walsingham,
+Burghley, Hatton, and all the other statesmen of England, most abundantly
+testified.  Whether Leicester had really an intention to possess himself
+of certain cities in Holland--a charge made by Paul Buys, and denounced
+as especially slanderous by the Earl--may better appear from his own
+private statements.
+
+"This I will do," he wrote to the Queen, "and I hope not to fail of it,
+to get into my hands three or four most principal places in North
+Holland; which will be such a strength and assurance for your Majesty,
+as you shall see you shall both rule these men and make war or peace as
+you list, always provided--whatsoever you hear, or is--part not with the
+Brill; and having these places in your hands, whatsoever should chance to
+these countries, your Majesty, I will warrant sure enough to make what
+peace you will in an hour, and to have your debts and charges readily
+answered."  At a somewhat later moment it will be seen what came of these
+secret designs.  For the present, Leicester was very angry with Paul for
+daring to suspect him of such treachery.
+
+The Earl complained, too, that the influence of Buys with Hohenlo and
+young Maurice of Nassau was most pernicious.  Hohenlo had formerly stood
+high in Leicester's opinion.  He was a "plain, faithful soldier, a most
+valiant gentleman," and he was still more important, because about to
+marry Mary of Nassau; eldest slaughter, of William the Silent, and
+coheiress with Philip William, to the Buren property.  But he had been
+tampered with by the intriguing Paul Buys, and had then wished to resign
+his office under Leicester.  Being pressed for reasons, he had "grown
+solemn," and withdrawn himself almost entirely.
+
+Maurice; with his "solemn, sly wit," also gave the Earl much trouble,
+saying little; but thinking much, and listening to the insidious Paul.
+He "stood much on making or marring," so Leicester thought, "as he met
+with good counsel."  He had formerly been on intimate terms with the
+governor-general, who affected to call him his son; but he had
+subsequently kept aloof, and in three months had not come near him.
+The Earl thought that money might do much, and was anxious for Sir
+Francis Drake to come home from the Indies with millions of gold, that
+the Queen might make both Hohenlo and Maurice a handsome present before
+it should be too late.
+
+Meantime he did what he could with Elector Truchsess to lure them back
+again.  That forlorn little prelate was now poorer and more wretched than
+ever.  He was becoming paralytic, though young, and his heart was broken
+through want.  Leicester, always generous as the sun, gave him money,
+four thousand florins at a time, and was most earnest that the Queen
+should put him on her pension list.  "His wisdom, his behaviour, his
+languages, his person," said the Earl, "all would like her well.  He is
+in great melancholy for his town of Neusz, and for his poverty, having a
+very noble mind.  If, he be lost, her Majesty had better lose a hundred
+thousand pounds."
+
+The melancholy Truchsess now became a spy and a go-between.  He
+insinuated himself into the confidence of Paul Buys, wormed his secrets
+from him, and then communicated them to Hohenlo and to Leicester; "but he
+did it very wisely," said the Earl, "so that he was not mistrusted."  The
+governor always affected, in order to screen the elector from suspicion,
+to obtain his information from persons in Utrecht; and he had indeed many
+spies in that city; who diligently reported Paul's table-talk.
+Nevertheless, that "noble gentleman, the elector," said Leicester, "hath
+dealt most deeply with him, to seek out the bottom."  As the ex-Advocate
+of Holland was very communicative in his cups, and very bitter against
+the governor-general, there was soon such a fund of information collected
+on the subject by various eaves-droppers, that Leicester was in hopes of
+very soon hanging Mr. Paul Buys, as we have already seen.
+
+The burthen of the charges against the culprit was his statement that
+the Provinces would be gone if her Majesty did not declare herself,
+vigorously and generously, in their favour; but, as this was the
+perpetual cry of Leicester himself, there seemed hardly hanging matter in
+that.  That noble gentleman, the elector, however, had nearly saved the
+hangman his trouble, having so dealt with Hohenlo as to "bring him into
+as good a mind as ever he was;" and the first fruits of this good mind
+were, that the honest Count--a man of prompt dealings--walked straight to
+Paul's house in order to kill him on the spot.  Something fortunately
+prevented the execution of this plan; but for a time at least the
+energetic Count continued to be "governed greatly" by the ex-archbishop,
+and "did impart wholly unto him his most secret heart."
+
+Thus the "deep wise Truxy," as Leicester called him, continued to earn
+golden opinions, and followed up his conversion of Hohenlo by undertaking
+to "bring Maurice into tune again also," and the young Prince was soon on
+better terms with his "affectionate father" than he had ever been before.
+Paul Buys was not so easily put down, however, nor the two magnates so
+thoroughly gained over.  Before the end of the season Maurice stood in
+his old position, the nominal head of the Holland or patrician party,
+chief of the opposition to Leicester, while Hohenlo had become more
+bitter than ever against the Earl.  The quarrel between himself and
+Edward Norris, to which allusion will soon be made, tended to increase
+the dissatisfaction, although he singularly misunderstood Leicester's
+sentiments throughout the whole affair.  Hohenlo recovered of his wound
+before Zutphen; but, on his recovery, was more malcontent than ever.  The
+Earl was obliged at last to confess that "he was a very dangerous man,
+inconstant, envious; and hateful to all our nation, and a very traitor to
+the cause.  There is no dealing to win him," he added, "I have sought it
+to my cost.  His best friends tell me he is not to be trusted."
+
+Meantime that lewd sinner, the indefatigable Paul, was plotting
+desperately--so Leicester said and believed--to transfer the sovereignty
+of the Provinces to the King of Denmark.  Buys, who was privately of
+opinion that the States required an absolute head, "though it were but an
+onion's head," and that they would thankfully continue under Leicester as
+governor absolute if Elizabeth would accept the sovereignty, had made up
+his mind that the Queen would never take that step.  He was therefore
+disposed to offer the crown to the King of Denmark, and was believed to
+have brought Maurice--who was to espouse that King's daughter--to the
+same way of thinking.  Young Count Rantzan, son of a distinguished Danish
+statesman, made a visit to the Netherlands in order to confer with Buys.
+Paul was also anxious to be appointed envoy to Denmark, ostensibly to
+arrange for the two thousand cavalry, which the King had long before
+promised for the assistance of the Provinces, but in reality, to examine
+the details of this new project; and Leicester represented to the Queen
+very earnestly how powerful the Danish monarch would become, thus
+rendered master of the narrow seas, and how formidable to England.
+
+In the midst of these plottings, real or supposed, a party of armed men,
+one fine summer's morning, suddenly entered Paul's bedroom as he lay
+asleep at the house of the burgomaster, seized his papers, and threw him:
+into prison in the wine-cellar of the town-house.  "Oh my papers, oh my
+papers!"  cried the unfortunate politician, according to Leicester's
+statement, "the Queen of England will for ever hate me."  The Earl
+disavowed all, participation in the arrest; but he was not believed.  He
+declared himself not sorry that the measure had been taken, and promised
+that he would not "be hasty to release him," not doubting that "he would
+be found faulty enough."  Leicester maintained that there was stuff
+enough discovered to cost Paul his head; but he never lost his head,
+nor was anything treasonable or criminal ever found against him.  The
+intrigue with Denmark--never proved--and commenced, if undertaken at all,
+in utter despair of Elizabeth's accepting the sovereignty, was the
+gravest charge.  He remained, however, six months in prison, and at the
+beginning of 1587 was released, without trial or accusation, at the
+request of the English Queen.
+
+The States could hardly be blamed for their opposition to the Earl's
+administration, for he had thrown himself completely into the arms of a
+faction, whose object was to vilipend and traduce them, and it was now
+difficult for him to recover the functions of which the Queen had
+deprived him.  "The government they had given from themselves to me stuck
+in their stomachs always," he said.  Thus on the one side, the States
+were," growing more stately than ever," and were-always "jumbling
+underhand," while the aristocratic Earl, on, his part, was resolute not
+to be put down by "churls and tinkers."  He was sure that the people were
+with him, and that, "having always been governed by some prince, they,
+never did nor could consent to be ruled by bakers, brewers, and hired
+advocates.  I know they hate them," said this high-born tribune of the
+people.  He was much disgusted with the many-headed chimaera, the
+monstrous republic, with which he found himself in such unceasing
+conflict, and was disposed to take a manful stand.  "I have been fain of
+late," he said, "to set the better leg foremost, to handle some of my
+masters somewhat plainly; for they thought I would droop; and whatsoever
+becomes of me, you shall hear I will keep my reputation, or die for it."
+
+But one great accusation, made against the churls and tinkers, and bakers
+and hired advocates, and Mr. Paul Buys at their head, was that they were
+liberal towards the Papists.  They were willing that Catholics should
+remain in the country and exercise the rights of citizens, provided they,
+conducted themselves like good citizens.  For this toleration--a lesson
+which statesmen like Buys and Barneveld had learned in the school of
+William the Silent--the opposition-party were denounced as bolsterers of
+Papists, and Papists themselves at heart, and "worshippers of idolatrous
+idols."
+
+From words, too, the government of Leicester passed to acts.  Seventy
+papists were banished from the city of Utrecht at the time of the arrest
+of Buys.  The Queen had constantly enforced upon Leicester the importance
+of dealing justly with the Catholics in the Netherlands, on the ground
+that they might be as good patriots and were as much interested in the
+welfare of their country as were the Protestants; and he was especially
+enjoined "not to meddle in matters of religion."  This wholesome advice
+it would have been quite impossible for the Earl, under the guidance of
+Reingault, Burgrave, and Stephen Perret, to carry out.  He protested that
+he should have liked to treat Papists and Calvinists "with indifference,"
+but that it had proved impossible; that the Catholics were perpetually
+plotting with the Spanish faction, and that no towns were safe except
+those in which Papists had been excluded from office.  "They love the
+Pope above all," he said, "and the Prince of Parma hath continual
+intelligence with them."  Nor was it Catholics alone who gave the
+governor trouble.  He was likewise very busy in putting down other
+denominations that differed from the Calvinists.  "Your Majesty will not
+believe," he said, "the number of sects that are in most towns;
+especially Anabaptists, Families of Love, Georgians; and I know not what.
+The godly and good ministers were molested by them in many places, and
+ready to give over; and even such diversities grew among magistrates in
+towns, being caused by some sedition-sowers here."  It is however,
+satisfactory to reflect that the anabaptists and families of love,
+although discouraged and frowned upon, were not burned alive, buried
+alive, drowned in dungeons, and roasted at slow fires, as had been the
+case with them and with every other species of Protestants, by thousands
+and tens of thousands, so long as Charles V. and Philip II. had ruled the
+territory of that commonwealth.  Humanity had acquired something by the
+war which the Netherlanders had been waging for twenty years, and no man
+or woman was ever put to death for religious causes after the
+establishment of the republic.
+
+With his hands thus full of business, it was difficult for the Earl to
+obey the Queen's command not to meddle in religious matters; for he was
+not of the stature of William the Silent, and could not comprehend that
+the great lesson taught by the sixteenth century was that men were not to
+meddle with men in matters of religion.
+
+But besides his especial nightmare--Mr. Paul Buys--the governor-general
+had a whole set of incubi in the Norris family.  Probably no two persons
+ever detested each other more cordially than did Leicester and Sir John
+Norris.  Sir John had been commander of the forces in the Netherlands
+before Leicester's arrival, and was unquestionably a man of larger
+experience than the Earl.  He had, however, as Walsingham complained,
+acquired by his services in "countries where neither discipline military
+nor religion carried any sway," a very rude and licentious kind of
+government.  "Would to God," said the secretary, "that, with his value
+and courage, he carried the mind and reputation of a religious soldier."
+But that was past praying for.  Sir John was proud, untractable,
+turbulent, very difficult to manage.  He hated Leicester, and was furious
+with Sir William Pelham, whom Leicester had made marshal of the camp.  He
+complained, not unjustly, that from the first place in the army, which he
+had occupied in the Netherlands, he had been reduced to the fifth.  The
+governor-general--who chose to call Sir John the son of his ancient
+enemy, the Earl of Sussex--often denounced him in good set terms.  "His
+brother Edward is as ill as he," he said, "but John is right the late
+Earl of Sussex' son; he will so dissemble and crouch, and so cunningly
+carry his doings, as no man living would imagine that there were half
+the malice or vindictive mind that plainly his words prove to be."
+Leicester accused him of constant insubordination, insolence, and malice,
+complained of being traduced by him everywhere in the Netherlands and in
+England, and declared that he was followed about by "a pack of lewd
+audacious fellows," whom the Earl vowed he would hang, one and all,
+before he had done with them.  He swore openly, in presence of all his
+camp, that he would hang Sir John likewise; so that both the brothers,
+who had never been afraid of anything since they had been born into the
+world, affected to be in danger of their lives.
+
+The Norrises were on bad terms with many officers--with Sir William
+Pelham of course, with "old Reade," Lord North, Roger Williams, Hohenlo,
+Essex, and other nobles--but with Sir Philip Sidney, the gentle and
+chivalrous, they were friends.  Sir John had quarrelled in former times--
+according to Leicester--with Hohenlo and even with the "good and brave"
+La None, of the iron arm; "for his pride," said the Earl, "was the spirit
+of the devil."  The governor complained every day of his malignity, and
+vowed that he "neither regarded the cause of God, nor of his prince, nor
+country."
+
+He consorted chiefly with Sir Thomas Cecil, governor of Brill, son of
+Lord Burghley, and therefore no friend to Leicester; but the Earl
+protested that "Master Thomas should bear small rule," so long as he was
+himself governor-general.  "Now I have Pelham and Stanley, we shall do
+well enough," he said, "though my young master would countenance him.
+I will be master while I remain here, will they, nill they."
+
+Edward Norris, brother of Sir John, gave the governor almost as much
+trouble as he; but the treasurer Norris, uncle to them both, was, if
+possible, more odious to him than all.  He was--if half Leicester's
+accusations are to be believed--a most infamous peculator.  One-third of
+the money sent by the Queen for the soldiers stuck in his fingers.  He
+paid them their wretched four-pence a-day in depreciated coin, so that
+for their "naughty money they could get but naughty ware."  Never was
+such "fleecing of poor soldiers," said Leicester.
+
+On the other hand, Sir John maintained that his uncle's accounts were
+always ready for examination, and earnestly begged the home-government
+not to condemn that functionary without a hearing.  For himself, he
+complained that he was uniformly kept in the background, left in
+ignorance of important enterprises, and sent on difficult duty with
+inadequate forces.  It was believed that Leicester's course was inspired
+by envy, lest any military triumph that might be gained should redound to
+the glory of Sir John, one of the first commanders of the age, rather
+than to that of the governor-general.  He was perpetually thwarted,
+crossed, calumniated, subjected to coarse and indecent insults, even from
+such brave men as Lord North and Roger Williams, and in the very presence
+of the commander-in-chief, so that his talents were of no avail, and he
+was most anxious to be gone from the country.
+
+Thus with the tremendous opposition formed to his government in the
+States-General, the incessant bickerings with the Norrises, the
+peculations of the treasurer, the secret negotiations with Spain, and
+the impossibility of obtaining money from home for himself or for his
+starving little army, the Earl was in anything but a comfortable
+position.  He was severely censured in England; but he doubted, with much
+reason, whether there were many who would take his office, and spend
+twenty thousand pounds sterling out of their own pockets, as he had done.
+The Earl was generous and brave as man could be, full of wit, quick of
+apprehension; but inordinately vain, arrogant, and withal easily led by
+designing persons.  He stood up manfully for the cause in which he was
+embarked, and was most strenuous in his demands for money.  "Personally
+he cared," he said, "not sixpence for his post; but would give five
+thousand sixpences, and six thousand shillings beside, to be rid of it;"
+but it was contrary to his dignity to "stand bucking with the States" for
+his salary.  "Is it reason," he asked, "that I, being sent from so great
+a prince as our sovereign is, must come to strangers to beg my
+entertainment:  If they are to pay me, why is there no remembrance made
+of it by her Majesty's letters, or some of the lords?"
+
+The Earl and those around him perpetually and vehemently urged upon the
+Queen to reconsider her decision, and accept the sovereignty of the
+Provinces at once.  There was no other remedy for the distracted state
+of the country--no other safeguard for England.  The Netherland people
+anxiously, eagerly desired it.  Her Majesty was adored by all the
+inhabitants, who would gladly hang the fellows called the States.  Lord
+North was of this opinion--so was Cavendish.  Leicester had always held
+it.  "Sure I am," he said, "there is but one way for our safety, and that
+is, that her Majesty may take that upon her which I fear she will not."
+Thomas Wilkes, who now made his appearance on the scene, held the same
+language.  This distinguished civilian had been sent by the Queen, early
+in August, to look into the state of Netherland affairs.  Leicester
+having expressly urged the importance of selecting as wise a politician
+as could be found--because the best man in England would hardly be found
+a match for the dullards and drunkards, as it was the fashion there to
+call the Dutch statesmen--had selected Wilkes.  After fulfilling this
+important special mission, he was immediately afterwards to return to the
+Netherlands as English member of the state-council, at forty shillings
+a-day, in the place of "little Hal Killigrew," whom Leicester pronounced
+a "quicker and stouter fellow" than he had at first taken him for,
+although he had always thought well of him.  The other English
+counsellor, Dr. Bartholomew Clerk, was to remain, and the Earl declared
+that he too, whom he had formerly undervalued, and thought to have
+"little stuff in him," was now "increasing greatly in understanding."
+But notwithstanding this intellectual progress, poor Bartholomew, who
+was no beginner, was most anxious to retire.  He was a man of peace,
+a professor, a doctor of laws, fonder of the learned leisure and the
+trim gardens of England than of the scenes which now surrounded him.
+"I beseech your good Lordship to consider," he dismally observed to
+Burghley, "what a hard case it is for a man that these fifteen years hath
+had vitam sedentariam, unworthily in a place judicial, always in his long
+robe, and who, twenty-four years since, was a public reader in the
+University (and therefore cannot be young), to come now among guns and
+drums, tumbling up and down, day and night, over waters and banks, dykes
+and ditches, upon every occasion that falleth out; hearing many
+insolences with silence, bearing many hard measures with patience--
+a course most different from my nature, and most unmeet for him that
+hath ever professed learning."
+
+Wilkes was of sterner stuff.  Always ready to follow the camp and to
+face the guns and drums with equanimity, and endowed beside with keen
+political insight, he was more competent than most men to unravel the
+confused skein of Netherland politics.  He soon found that the Queen's
+secret negotiations with Spain, and the general distrust of her
+intentions in regard to the Provinces, were like to have fatal
+consequences.  Both he and Leicester painted the anxiety of the
+Netherland people as to the intention of her Majesty in vivid colours.
+
+The Queen could not make up her mind--in the very midst of the Greenwich
+secret conferences, already described--to accept the Netherland
+sovereignty.  "She gathereth from your letter," wrote Walsingham, "that
+the only salve for this sore is to make herself proprietary of the
+country, and to put in such an army as may be able to make head to the
+enemy.  These two things being so contrary to her Majesty's disposition--
+the one, for that it breedeth a doubt of a perpetual war, the other, for
+that it requireth an increase of charges--do marvellously distract her,
+and make her repent that ever she entered into the action."
+
+Upon the great subject of the sovereignty, therefore, she was unable to
+adopt the resolution so much desired by Leicester and by the people of
+the Provinces; but she answered the Earl's communications concerning
+Maurice and Hohenlo, Sir John Norris and the treasurer, in characteristic
+but affectionate language.  And thus she wrote:
+
+"Rob, I am afraid you will suppose, by my wandering writings, that a
+midsummer's moon hath taken large possession of my brains this month; but
+you must needs take things as they come in my head, though order be left
+behind me.  When I remember your request to have a discreet and honest
+man that may carry my mind, and see how all goes there, I have chosen
+this bearer (Thomas Wilkes), whom you know and have made good trial of.
+I have fraught him full of my conceipts of those country matters, and
+imparted what way I mind to take and what is fit for you to use.  I am
+sure you can credit him, and so I will be short with these few notes.
+First, that Count Maurice and Count Hollock (Hohenlo) find themselves
+trusted of you, esteemed of me, and to be carefully regarded, if ever
+peace should happen, and of that assure them on my word, that yet never
+deceived any.  And for Norris and other captains that voluntarily,
+without commandment, have many years ventured their lives and won our
+nation honour and themselves fame, let them not be discouraged by any
+means, neither by new-come men nor by old trained soldiers elsewhere.
+If there be fault in using of soldiers, or making of profit by them, let
+them hear of it without open shame, and doubt not I will well chasten
+them therefore.  It frets me not a little that the poor soldiers that
+hourly venture life should want their due, that well deserve rather
+reward; and look, in whom the fault may truly be proved, let them smart
+therefore.  And if the treasurer be found untrue or negligent, according
+to desert he shall be used.  But you know my old wont, that love not to
+discharge from office without desert.  God forbid!  I pray you let this
+bearer know what may be learned herein, and for the treasure I have
+joined Sir Thomas Shirley to see all this money discharged in due sort,
+where it needeth and behoveth.
+
+"Now will I end, that do imagine I talk still with you, and therefore
+loathly say farewell one hundred thousand times; though ever I pray God
+bless you from all harm, and save you from all foes.  With my million and
+legion of thanks for all your pains and cares,
+
+                         "As you know ever the same,
+
+                                                       "E. R.
+
+"P. S.  Let Wilkes see that he is acceptable to you.  If anything there
+be that W. shall desire answer of be such as you would have but me to
+know, write it to myself.  You know I can keep both others' counsel and
+mine own.  Mistrust not that anything you would have kept shall be
+disclosed by me, for although this bearer ask many things, yet you may
+answer him such as you shall think meet, and write to me the rest."
+
+Thus, not even her favourite Leicester's misrepresentations could make
+the Queen forget her ancient friendship for "her own crow;" but meantime
+the relations between that "bunch of brethren," black Norris and the
+rest, and Pelham, Hollock, and other high officers in Leicester's army,
+had grown worse than ever.
+
+One August evening there was a supper-party at Count Hollock's quarters
+in Gertruydenberg.  A military foray into Brabant had just taken place,
+under the lead of the Count, and of the Lord Marshal, Sir William Pelham.
+The marshal had requested Lord Willoughby, with his troop of horse and
+five hundred foot, to join in the enterprise, but, as usual, particular
+pains had been taken that Sir John Norris should know nothing of the
+affair.  Pelham and Hollock--who was "greatly in love with Mr. Pelham"--
+had invited several other gentlemen high in Leicester's confidence to
+accompany the expedition; and, among the rest, Sir Philip Sidney, telling
+him that he "should see some good service."  Sidney came accordingly, in
+great haste, from Flushing, bringing along with him Edward Norris--that
+hot-headed young man, who, according to Leicester, "greatly governed his
+elder brother"--but they arrived at Gertruydenberg too late.  The foray
+was over, and the party--"having burned a village, and killed some boors"
+--were on their return.  Sidney, not perhaps much regretting the loss of
+his share in this rather inglorious shooting party, went down to the
+water-side, accompanied by Captain Norris, to meet Hollock and the other
+commanders.
+
+As the Count stepped on shore he scowled ominously, and looked very much
+out of temper.
+
+"What has come to Hollock?"  whispered Captain Patton, a Scotchman,
+to Sidney.  "Has he a quarrel with any of the party?  Look at his face!
+He means mischief to somebody."
+
+But Sidney was equally amazed at the sudden change in the German
+general's countenance, and as unable to explain it.
+
+Soon afterwards, the whole party, Hollock, Lewis William of Nassau, Lord
+Carew, Lord Essex, Lord Willoughby, both the Sidneys, Roger Williams,
+Pelham, Edward Norris, and the rest, went to the Count's lodgings, where
+they supped, and afterwards set themselves seriously to drinking.
+
+Norris soon perceived that he was no welcome guest; for he was not--like
+Sidney--a stranger to the deep animosity which had long existed between
+Sir John Norris and Sir William Pelham and his friends.  The carouse was
+a tremendous one, as usually was the case where Hollock was the
+Amphitryon, and, as the potations grew deeper, an intention became
+evident on the part of some of the company to behave unhandsomely to
+Norris.
+
+For a time the young Captain ostentatiously restrained himself, very much
+after the fashion of those meek individuals who lay their swords on the
+tavern-table, with "God grant I may have no need of thee!"  The custom
+was then prevalent at banquets for the revellers to pledge each other in
+rotation, each draining a great cup, and exacting the same feat from his
+neighbour, who then emptied his goblet as a challenge to his next
+comrade.
+
+The Lord Marshal took a beaker, and called out to Edward Norris.
+"I drink to the health of my Lord Norris, and of my lady; your mother."
+So saying, he emptied his glass.
+
+The young man did not accept the pledge.
+
+"Your Lordship knows," he said somewhat sullenly, "that I am not wont to
+drink deep.  Mr. Sidney there can tell you that, for my health's sake,
+I have drank no wine these eight days.  If your Lordship desires the
+pleasure of seeing me drunk, I am not of the same mind.  I pray you at
+least to take a smaller glass."
+
+Sir William insisted on the pledge.  Norris then, in no very good humour,
+emptied his cup to the Earl of Essex.
+
+Essex responded by draining a goblet to Count Hollock.
+
+"A Norris's father," said the young Earl; as he pledged the Count, who
+was already very drunk, and looking blacker than ever.
+
+"An 'orse's father--an 'orse's father!" growled' Hollock; "I never drink
+to horses, nor to their fathers either:" and with this wonderful
+witticism he declined the pledge.
+
+Essex explained that the toast was Lord Norris, father of the Captain;
+but the Count refused to understand, and held fiercely, and with damnable
+iteration, to his jest.
+
+The Earl repeated his explanation several times with no better success.
+Norris meanwhile sat swelling with wrath, but said nothing.
+
+Again the Lord Marshal took the same great glass, and emptied it to the
+young Captain.
+
+Norris, not knowing exactly what course to take, placed the glass at the
+side of his plate, and glared grimly at Sir William.
+
+Pelham was furious.  Reaching over the table, he shoved the glass towards
+Norris with an angry gesture.
+
+"Take your glass, Captain Norris," he cried; "and if you have a mind to
+jest, seek other companions.  I am not to be trifled with; therefore, I
+say, pledge me at once."
+
+"Your Lordship shall not force me to drink more wine than I list,"
+returned the other.  "It is your pleasure to take advantage of your
+military rank.  Were we both at home, you would be glad to be my
+companion."
+
+Norris was hard beset, and although his language was studiously moderate,
+it was not surprising that his manner should be somewhat insolent.  The
+veteran Lord Marshal, on the other hand, had distinguished himself on
+many battle-fields, but his deportment at this banqueting-table was not
+much to his credit.  He paused a moment, and Norris, too, held his peace,
+thinking that his enemy would desist.
+
+It was but for a moment.
+
+"Captain Norris," cried Pelham, "I bid you pledge me without more ado.
+Neither you nor your best friends shall use me as you list.  I am better
+born than you and your brother, the colonel-general, and the whole of
+you."
+
+"I warn you to say nothing disrespectful against my brother," replied the
+Captain.  "As for yourself, I know how to respect your age and superior
+rank."
+
+"Drink, drink, drink!" roared the old Marshal.  "I tell you I am better
+born than the best of you.  I have advanced you all too, and you know it;
+therefore drink to me."
+
+Sir William was as logical as men in their cups are prone to be.
+
+"Indeed, you have behaved well to my brother Thomas," answered Norris,
+suddenly becoming very courteous, "and for this I have ever loved your
+Lordship, and would, do you any service."
+
+"Well, then," said the Marshal, becoming tender in his turn, "forget what
+hath past this night, and do as you would have done before."
+
+"Very well said, indeed!" cried Sir Philip Sidney, trying to help the
+natter into the smoother channel towards which it was tending.
+
+Norris, seeing that the eyes of the whole company were upon them; took
+the glass accordingly, and rose to his feet.
+
+"My Lord Marshal," he said, "you have done me more wrong this night than
+you can easily make satisfaction for.  But I am unwilling that any
+trouble or offence should grow through me.  Therefore once more I pledge
+you."
+
+He raised the cup to his lips.  At that instant Hollock, to whom nothing
+had been said, and who had spoken no word since his happy remark about
+the horse's father, suddenly indulged in a more practical jest; and
+seizing the heavy gilt cover of a silver vase, hurled it at the head of
+Norris.  It struck him full on the forehead, cutting him to the bone.
+The Captain, stunned for a moment, fell back in his chair, with the blood
+running down his eyes and face.  The Count, always a man of few words,
+but prompt in action, now drew his dagger, and strode forward, with the
+intention of despatching him upon the spot.  Sir Philip Sidney threw his
+arms around Hollock, however, and, with the assistance of others in the
+company, succeeded in dragging him from the room.  The affair was over in
+a few seconds.
+
+Norris, coming back to consciousness, sat for a moment as one amazed,
+rubbing the blood out of his eyes; then rose from the table to seek his
+adversary; but he was gone.
+
+Soon afterwards he went to his lodgings.  The next morning he was advised
+to leave the town as speedily as possible; for as it was under the
+government of Hollock, and filled with his soldiers, he was warned that
+his life would not be safe there an hour.  Accordingly he went to his
+boat, accompanied only by his man and his page, and so departed with his
+broken head, breathing vengeance against Hollock, Pelham, Leicester, and
+the whole crew, by whom he had been thus abused.
+
+The next evening there was another tremendous carouse at the Count's,
+and, says the reporter of the preceding scene, "they were all on such
+good terms, that not one of the company had falling band or ruff left
+about his neck.  All were clean torn away, and yet there was no blood
+drawn."
+
+Edward Norris--so soon as might be afterwards--sent a cartel to the
+Count, demanding mortal combat with sword and dagger.  Sir Philip Sidney
+bore the message.  Sir John Norris, of course warmly and violently
+espoused the cause of his brother, and was naturally more incensed
+against the Lord Marshal than ever, for Sir William Pelham was considered
+the cause of the whole affray.  "Even if the quarrel is to be excused by
+drink," said an eye-witness, "'tis but a slender defence for my Lord to
+excuse himself by his cups; and often drink doth bewray men's humours and
+unmask their malice.  Certainly the Count Hollock thought to have done a
+pleasure to the company in killing him."
+
+Nothing could be more ill-timed than this quarrel, or more vexatious to
+Leicester.  The Count--although considering himself excessively injured
+at being challenged by a simple captain and an untitled gentleman, whom
+he had attempted to murder--consented to waive his privilege, and grant
+the meeting.
+
+Leicester interposed, however, to delay, and, if possible, to patch up
+the affair.  They were on the eve of active military operations, and it
+was most vexatious for the commander-in-chief to see, as he said, "the
+quarrel with the enemy changed to private revenge among ourselves."  The
+intended duel did not take place; for various influential personages
+succeeded in deferring the meeting.  Then came the battle of Zutphen.
+
+Sidney fell, and Hollock was dangerously wounded in the attack which was
+soon afterwards made upon the fort.  He was still pressed to afford the
+promised satisfaction, however, and agreed to do so whenever he should
+rise from his bed.
+
+Strange to say, the Count considered Leicester, throughout the whole
+business, to have taken part against him.
+
+Yet there is no doubt whatever that the Earl--who detested the Norrises,
+and was fonder of Pelham than of any man living--uniformly narrated
+the story most unjustly, to the discredit of the young Captain.
+He considered him extremely troublesome, represented him as always
+quarrelling with some one--with Colonel Morgan, Roger Williams, old
+Reade, and all the rest--while the Lord Marshal, on the contrary, was
+depicted as the mildest of men.  "This I must say," he observed, "that
+all present, except my two nephews (the Sidneys), who are not here yet,
+declare the greatest fault to be in Edward Norris, and that he did most
+arrogantly use the Marshal."
+
+It is plain, however, that the old Marshal, under the influence of wine,
+was at least quite as much to blame as the young Captain; and Sir Philip
+Sidney sufficiently showed his sense of the matter by being the bearer of
+Edward Norris's cartel.  After Sidney's death, Sir John Norris, in his
+letter of condolence to Walsingham for the death of his illustrious son-
+in-law, expressed the deeper regret at his loss because Sir Philip's
+opinion had been that the Norrises were wronged.  Hollock had conducted
+himself like a lunatic, but this he was apt to do whether in his cups or
+not.  He was always for killing some one or another on the slightest
+provocation, and, while the dog-star of 1586 was raging, it was not his
+fault if he had not already despatched both Edward Norris and the
+objectionable "Mr. P. B."
+
+For these energetic demonstrations against Leicester's enemies he
+considered himself entitled to the Earl's eternal gratitude, and was
+deeply disgusted at his apparent coldness.  The governor was driven
+almost to despair by these quarrels.
+
+His colonel-general, his lord marshal, his lieutenant-general, were all
+at daggers drawn.  "Would God I were rid of this place!" he exclaimed.
+"What man living would go to the field and have his officers divided
+almost into mortal quarrel?  One blow but by any of their lackeys brings
+us altogether by the ears."
+
+It was clear that there was not room enough on the Netherland soil for
+the Earl of Leicester and the brothers Norris.  The queen, while
+apparently siding with the Earl, intimated to Sir John that she did not
+disapprove his conduct, that she should probably recall him to England,
+and that she should send him back to the Provinces after the Earl had
+left that country.
+
+Such had been the position of the governor-general towards the Queen,
+towards the States-General, and towards his own countrymen, during the
+year 1586.
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Are wont to hang their piety on the bell-rope
+Arminianism
+As logical as men in their cups are prone to be
+Tolerating religious liberty had never entered his mind
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v49
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 50, 1586
+
+
+
+CHAPTER. XI
+
+     Drake in the Netherlands--Good Results of his Visit--The Babington
+     Conspiracy--Leicester decides to visit England--Exchange of parting
+     Compliments.
+
+Late in the autumn of the same year an Englishman arrived in the
+Netherlands, bearer of despatches from the Queen.  He had been entrusted
+by her Majesty with a special mission to the States-General, and he had
+soon an interview with that assembly at the Hague.
+
+He was a small man, apparently forty-five years of age, of a fair but
+somewhat weather-stained complexion, with light-brown, closely-curling
+hair, an expansive forehead, a clear blue eye, rather commonplace
+features, a thin, brown, pointed beard, and a slight moustache.  Though
+low of stature, he was broad-chested, with well-knit limbs.  His hands,
+which were small and nervous, were brown and callous with the marks of
+toil.  There was something in his brow and glance not to be mistaken,
+and which men willingly call master; yet he did not seem, to have sprung
+of the born magnates of the earth.  He wore a heavy gold chain about his
+neck, and it might be observed that upon the light full sleeves of his
+slashed doublet the image of a small ship on a terrestrial globe was
+curiously and many times embroidered.
+
+It was not the first time that he had visited the Netherlands.  Thirty
+years before the man had been apprentice on board a small lugger, which
+traded between the English coast and the ports of Zeeland.  Emerging in
+early boyhood from his parental mansion--an old boat, turned bottom
+upwards on a sandy down he had naturally taken to the sea, and his
+master, dying childless not long afterwards, bequeathed to him the
+lugger.  But in time his spirit, too much confined by coasting in the
+narrow seas, had taken a bolder flight.  He had risked his hard-earned
+savings in a voyage with the old slave-trader, John Hawkins--whose
+exertions, in what was then considered an honourable and useful vocation,
+had been rewarded by Queen Elizabeth with her special favour, and with a
+coat of arms, the crest whereof was a negro's head, proper, chained--but
+the lad's first and last enterprise in this field was unfortunate.
+Captured by Spaniards, and only escaping with life, he determined to
+revenge himself on the whole Spanish nation; and this was considered a
+most legitimate proceeding according to the "sea divinity" in which he,
+had been schooled.  His subsequent expeditions against the Spanish
+possessions in the West Indies were eminently successful, and soon the
+name of Francis Drake rang through the world, and startled Philip in the
+depths of his Escorial.  The first Englishman, and the second of any
+nation, he then ploughed his memorable "furrow round the earth," carrying
+amazement and, destruction to the Spaniards as he sailed, and after three
+years brought to the Queen treasure enough, as it was asserted, to
+maintain a war with the Spanish King for seven years, and to pay himself
+and companions, and the merchant-adventurers who had participated in his
+enterprise, forty-seven pounds sterling for every pound invested in the
+voyage.  The speculation had been a fortunate one both, for himself and
+for the kingdom.
+
+The terrible Sea-King was one of the great types of the sixteenth
+century.  The self-helping private adventurer, in his little vessel the
+'Golden Hind,' one hundred tons burthen, had waged successful war against
+a mighty empire, and had shown England how to humble Philip.  When he
+again set foot on his native soil he was followed by admiring crowds,
+and became the favourite hero of romance and ballad; for it was not the
+ignoble pursuit of gold alone, through toil and peril, which had endeared
+his name to the nation.  The popular instinct recognized that the true
+means had been found at last for rescuing England and Protestantism from
+the overshadowing empire of Spain.  The Queen visited him in his 'Golden
+Hind,' and gave him the honour of knighthood.
+
+The treaty between the United Netherlands and England had been followed
+by an embargo upon English vessels, persons, and property, in the ports
+of Spain; and after five years of unwonted repose, the privateersman
+again set forth with twenty-five small vessels--of which five or six only
+were armed--under his command, conjoined with that of General Carlisle.
+This time the voyage was undertaken with full permission and assistance
+of the Queen who, however, intended to disavow him, if she should find
+such a step convenient.  This was the expedition in which Philip Sidney
+had desired to take part.  The Queen watched its result with intense
+anxiety, for the fate of her Netherland adventure was thought to be
+hanging on the issue.  "Upon Drake's voyage, in very truth, dependeth the
+life and death of the cause, according to man's judgment," said
+Walsingham.
+
+The issue was encouraging, even, if the voyage--as a mercantile
+speculation--proved not so brilliant as the previous enterprises of Sir
+Francis had been.  He returned in the midsummer of 1586, having captured
+and brandschatzed St. Domingo and Carthagena; and burned St. Augustine.
+"A fearful man to the King of Spain is Sir Francis Drake," said Lord
+Burghley.  Nevertheless, the Queen and the Lord-Treasurer--as we have
+shown by the secret conferences at Greenwich--had, notwithstanding these
+successes, expressed a more earnest desire for peace than ever.
+
+A simple, sea-faring Englishman, with half-a-dozen miserable little
+vessels, had carried terror, into the Spanish possessions all over the
+earth: but even then the great Queen had not learned to rely on the
+valour of her volunteers against her most formidable enemy.
+
+Drake was, however, bent on another enterprise.  The preparations for
+Philip's great fleet had been going steadily forward in Lisbon, Cadiz,
+and other ports of Spain and Portugal, and, despite assurances to the
+contrary, there was a growing belief that England was to be invaded.
+To destroy those ships before the monarch's face, would be, indeed, to
+"singe his beard."  But whose arm was daring enough for such a stroke?
+Whose but that of the Devonshire skipper who had already accomplished so
+much?
+
+And so Sir Francis, "a man true to his word, merciful to those under him,
+and hating nothing so much as idleness," had come to the Netherlands to
+talk over his project with the States-General, and with the Dutch
+merchants and sea-captains.  His visit was not unfruitful.  As a body the
+assembly did nothing; but they recommended that in every maritime city of
+Holland and Zeeland one or two ships should be got ready, to participate
+in all the future enterprises of Sir Francis and his comrades.
+
+The martial spirit of volunteer sailors, and the keen instinct of
+mercantile speculation, were relied upon--exactly as in England--
+to furnish men, ships, and money, for these daring and profitable
+adventures.  The foundation of a still more intimate connection between
+England and Holland was laid, and thenceforth Dutchmen and Englishmen
+fought side by side, on land and sea, wherever a blow was to be struck in
+the cause of human freedom against despotic Spain.
+
+The famous Babington conspiracy, discovered by Walsingham's "travail and
+cost," had come to convince the Queen and her counsellors--if further
+proof were not superfluous--that her throne and life were both
+incompatible with Philip's deep designs, and that to keep that monarch
+out of the Netherlands, was as vital to her as to keep him out of
+England.  "She is forced by this discovery to countenance the cause by
+all outward means she may," said Walsingham, "for it appeareth unto her
+most plain, that unless she had entered into the action, she had been
+utterly undone, and that if she do not prosecute the same she cannot
+continue."  The Secretary had sent Leicester information at an early day
+of the great secret, begging his friend to "make the letter a heretic
+after be had read the same," and expressing the opinion that "the matter,
+if well handled, would break the neck of all dangerous practices during
+her Majesty's reign."
+
+The tragedy of Mary Stuart--a sad but inevitable portion of the vast
+drama in which the emancipation of England and Holland, and, through
+them, of half Christendom, was accomplished--approached its catastrophe;
+and Leicester could not restrain his anxiety for her immediate execution.
+He reminded Walsingham that the great seal had been put upon a warrant
+for her execution for a less crime seventeen years before, on the
+occasion of the Northumberland and Westmorland rebellion.  "For who can
+warrant these villains from her," he said, "if that person live, or shall
+live any time?  God forbid!  And be you all stout and resolute in this
+speedy execution, or be condemned of all the world for ever.  It is most.
+certain, if you will have your Majesty safe, it must be done, for justice
+doth crave it beside policy."  His own personal safety was deeply
+compromised.  "Your Lordship and I," wrote Burghley, "were very great
+motes in the traitors' eyes; for your Lordship there and I here should
+first, about one time, have been killed.  Of your Lordship they thought
+rather of poisoning than slaying.  After us two gone, they purposed her
+Majesty's death."
+
+But on this great affair of state the Earl was not swayed by such
+personal considerations.  He honestly thought--as did all the statesmen
+who governed England--that English liberty, the very existence of the
+English commonwealth, was impossible so long as Mary Stuart lived.  Under
+these circumstances he was not impatient, for a time at least, to leave
+the Netherlands.  His administration had not been very successful.
+He had been led away by his own vanity, and by the flattery of artful
+demagogues, but the immense obstacles with which he had to contend in the
+Queen's wavering policy, and in the rivalry of both English and Dutch
+politicians have been amply exhibited.  That he had been generous,
+courageous, and zealous, could not be denied; and, on the whole, he had
+accomplished as much in the field as could have been expected of him with
+such meagre forces, and so barren an exchequer.
+
+It must be confessed, however, that his leaving the Netherlands at that
+moment was a most unfortunate step, both for his own reputation and for
+the security of the Provinces.  Party-spirit was running high, and a
+political revolution was much to be dreaded in so grave a position of
+affairs, both in England and Holland.  The arrangements--and particularly
+the secret arrangements which he made at his departure--were the most
+fatal measures of all; but these will be described in the following
+chapter.
+
+On the 31st October; the Earl announced to the state-council his
+intention of returning to England, stating, as the cause of this sudden
+determination, that he had been summoned to attend the parliament then
+sitting in Westminster.  Wilkes, who was of course present, having now
+succeeded Killigrew as one of the two English members, observed that "the
+States and council used but slender entreaty to his Excellency for his
+stay and countenance there among them, whereat his Excellency and we that
+were of the council for her Majesty did not a little marvel."
+
+Some weeks later, however, upon the 21st November, Leicester summoned
+Barneveld, and five other of the States General, to discuss the necessary
+measures for his departure, when those gentlemen remonstrated very
+earnestly upon the step, pleading the danger and confusion of affairs
+which must necessarily ensue.  The Earl declared that he was not retiring
+from the country because he was offended, although he had many causes for
+offence: and he then alluded to the, Navigation Act, to the establishment
+council, and spoke of the finance of Burgrave and Reingault, for his
+employment of which individuals so much obloquy had been heaped upon his,
+head.  Burgrave he pronounced, as usual, a substantial, wise, faithful,
+religious personage, entitled to fullest confidence; while Reingault--
+who had been thrown into prison by the States on charges of fraud,
+peculation, and sedition--he declared to be a great financier, who had
+promised, on penalty of his head, to bring "great sums into the treasury
+for carrying on the war, without any burthen to the community."  Had he
+been able to do this, he had certainly claim to be considered the
+greatest of financiers; but the promised "mountains of gold" were never
+discovered, and Reingault was now awaiting his trial.
+
+The deputies replied that the concessions upon the Navigation Act had
+satisfied the country, but that Reingault was a known instrument of the
+Spaniards, and Burgrave a mischief-making demagogue, who consorted with
+malignants, and sent slanderous reports concerning the States and the
+country to her Majesty.  They had in consequence felt obliged to write
+private despatches to envoy Ortel in England, not because they suspected
+the Earl, but in order to counteract the calumnies of his chief advisers.
+They had urged the agent to bring the imprisonment of Paul Buys before
+her Majesty, but for that transaction Leicester boldly disclaimed all
+responsibility.
+
+It was agreed between the Earl and the deputies that, during his absence,
+the whole government, civil and military, should devolve upon the state-
+council, and that Sir John Norris should remain in command of the English
+forces.
+
+Two days afterwards Leicester, who knew very well that a legation was
+about to proceed to England, without any previous concurrence on his
+part, summoned a committee of the States-General, together with
+Barneveld, into the state-council.  Counsellor Wilkes on his behalf then
+made a speech, in which he observed that more ample communications on the
+part of the States were to be expected.  They had in previous colloquies
+touched upon comparatively unimportant matters, but he now begged to be
+informed why these commissioners were proceeding to England, and what was
+the nature of their instructions.  Why did not they formally offer the
+sovereignty of the Provinces to the Queen without conditions?  That step
+had already been taken by Utrecht.
+
+The deputies conferred apart for a little while, and then replied that
+the proposition made by Utrecht was notoriously factious, illegal, and
+altogether futile.  Without the sanction of all the United States, of
+what value was the declaration of Utrecht?  Moreover the charter of that
+province had been recklessly violated, its government overthrown, and its
+leading citizens banished.  The action of the Province under such
+circumstances was not deserving of comment; but should it appear that her
+Majesty was desirous of assuming the sovereignty of the Provinces upon
+reasonable conditions, the States of Holland and of Zeeland would not be
+found backward in the business.
+
+Leicester proposed that Prince Maurice of Nassau should go with him to
+England, as nominal chief of the embassy, and some of the deputies
+favoured the suggestion.  It was however, vigorously and successfully
+opposed by Barneveld, who urged that to leave the country without a head
+in such a dangerous position of affairs, would be an act of madness.
+Leicester was much annoyed when informed of this decision.  He was
+suspected of a design, during his absence, of converting Maurice entirely
+to his own way of thinking.  If unsuccessful, it was believed by the
+Advocate and by many others that the Earl would cause the young Prince to
+be detained in England as long as Philip William, his brother, had been
+kept in Spain.  He observed peevishly that he knew how it had all been
+brought about.
+
+Words, of course, and handsome compliments were exchanged between the
+Governor and the States-General on his departure.  He protested that he
+had never pursued any private ends during his administration, but had
+ever sought to promote the good of the country and the glory of the
+Queen, and that he had spent three hundred thousand florins of his own
+money in the brief period of his residence there.
+
+The Advocate, on part of the States, assured him that they were all aware
+that in the friendship of England lay their only chance of salvation, but
+that united action was the sole means by which that salvation could be
+effected, and the one which had enabled the late Prince of Orange to
+maintain a contest unequalled by anything recorded in history.  There was
+also much disquisition on the subject of finance--the Advocate observing
+that the States now raised as much in a month as the Provinces in the
+time of the Emperor used to levy in a year--and expressed the hope that
+the Queen would increase her contingent to ten thousand foot, and two
+thousand horse.  He repudiated, in the name of the States-General and his
+own, the possibility of peace-negotiations; deprecated any allusion to
+the subject as fatal to their religion, their liberty, their very
+existence, and equally disastrous to England and to Protestantism, and
+implored the Earl, therefore, to use all his influence in opposition to
+any pacific overtures to or from Spain.
+
+On the 24th November, acts were drawn up and signed by the Earl,
+according to which the supreme government of the United Netherlands was
+formally committed to the state-council during his absence.  Decrees were
+to be pronounced in the name of his Excellency, and countersigned by
+Maurice of Nassau.
+
+On the following day, Leicester, being somewhat indisposed, requested a
+deputation of the States-General to wait upon him in his own house.  This
+was done, and a formal and affectionate farewell was then read to him by
+his secretary, Mr. Atye.  It was responded to in complimentary fashion by
+Advocate Barneveld, who again took occasion at this parting interview to
+impress upon the governor the utter impossibility, in his own opinion and
+that of the other deputies, of reconciling the Provinces with Spain.
+
+Leicester received from the States--as a magnificent parting present--
+a silver gilt vase "as tall as a man," and then departed for Flushing to
+take shipping for England.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+     Ill-timed Interregnum in the Provinces--Firmness of the English and
+     Dutch People--Factions during Leicester's Government--Democratic
+     Theories of the Leicestriana--Suspicions as to the Earl's Designs--
+     Extreme Views of the Calvinists--Political Ambition of the Church--
+     Antagonism of the Church and States--The States inclined to
+     Tolerance--Desolation of the Obedient Provinces--Pauperism and
+     Famine--Prosperity of the Republic--The Year of Expectation.
+
+It was not unnatural that the Queen should desire the presence of her
+favourite at that momentous epoch, when the dread question, "aut fer aut
+feri," had at last demanded its definite solution.  It was inevitable,
+too, that Leicester should feel great anxiety to be upon the spot where
+the great tragedy, so full of fate to all Christendom, and in which his
+own fortunes were so closely involved, was to be enacted.  But it was
+most cruel to the Netherlands--whose well-being was nearly as important
+to Elizabeth as that of her own realm--to plunge them into anarchy at
+such a moment.  Yet this was the necessary result of the sudden
+retirement of Leicester.
+
+He did not resign his government.  He did not bind himself to return.
+The question of sovereignty was still unsettled, for it was still hoped
+by a large and influential party, that the English Queen would accept the
+proposed annexation.  It was yet doubtful, whether, during the period of
+abeyance, the States-General or the States-Provincial, each within their
+separate sphere, were entitled to supreme authority.  Meantime, as if
+here were not already sufficient elements of dissension and doubt, came a
+sudden and indefinite interregnum, a provisional, an abnormal, and an
+impotent government.  To the state-council was deputed the executive
+authority.  But the state-council was a creature of the States-General,
+acting in concert with the governor-general, and having no actual life of
+its own.  It was a board of consultation, not of decision, for it could
+neither enact its own decrees nor interpose a veto upon the decrees of
+the governor.
+
+Certainly the selection of Leicester to fill so important a post had not
+been a very fortunate one; and the enthusiasm which had greeted him, "as
+if he had been a Messiah," on his arrival, had very rapidly dwindled
+away, as his personal character became known.  The leading politicians of
+the country had already been aware of the error which they had committed
+in clothing with almost sovereign powers the delegate of one who had
+refused the sovereignty.  They, were too adroit to neglect the
+opportunity, which her Majesty's anger offered them, of repairing what
+they considered their blunder.  When at last the quarrel, which looked so
+much like a lovers' quarrel, between Elizabeth and 'Sweet Robin,' had
+been appeased to the satisfaction of Robin, his royal mistress became
+more angry with the States for circumscribing than she had before been
+for their exaggeration of his authority.  Hence the implacable hatred of
+Leicester to Paul Buys and Barneveld.
+
+Those two statesmen, for eloquence, learning, readiness, administrative
+faculty, surpassed by few who have ever wielded the destinies of free
+commonwealths, were fully equal to the task thrown upon their hands by
+the progress of events.  That task was no slight one, for it was to the
+leading statesmen of Holland and England, sustained by the indomitable
+resistance to despotism almost universal in the English and Dutch
+nations, that the liberty of Europe was entrusted at that, momentous
+epoch.  Whether united under one crown, as the Netherlands ardently
+desired, or closely allied for aggression and defence, the two peoples
+were bound indissolubly together.  The clouds were rolling up from the
+fatal south, blacker and more portentous than ever; the artificial
+equilibrium of forces, by which the fate of France was kept in suspense,
+was obviously growing every day more uncertain; but the prolonged and
+awful interval before the tempest should burst over the lands of freedom
+and Protestantism, gave at least time for the prudent to prepare.  The
+Armada was growing every day in the ports of Spain and Portugal, and
+Walsingham doubted, as little as did Buys or Barneveld, toward what
+shores that invasion was to be directed.  England was to be conquered in
+order that the rebellious Netherlands might be reduced; and 'Mucio' was
+to be let slip upon the unhappy Henry III. so soon as it was thought
+probable that the Bearnese and the Valois had sufficiently exhausted each
+other.  Philip was to reign in Paris, Amsterdam, London, and Edinburgh,
+without stirring from the Escorial.  An excellent programme, had there
+not been some English gentlemen, some subtle secretaries of state, some
+Devonshire skippers, some Dutch advocates and merchants, some Zeeland
+fly-boatsmen, and six million men, women, and children, on the two sides
+of the North Sea, who had the power of expressing their thoughts rather
+bluntly than otherwise, in different dialects of old Anglo-Saxon speech.
+
+Certainly it would be unjust and ungracious to disparage the heroism of
+the great Queen when the hour of danger really came, nor would it be
+legitimate for us, who can scan that momentous year of expectation, 1587,
+by the light of subsequent events and of secret contemporaneous record,
+to censure or even sharply to criticise the royal hankering for peace,
+when peace had really become impossible.  But as we shall have occasion
+to examine rather closely the secrets of the Spanish, French, English,
+and Dutch councils, during this epoch, we are likely to find, perhaps,
+that at least as great a debt is due to the English and Dutch people, in
+mass, for the preservation of European liberty at that disastrous epoch
+as to any sovereign, general, or statesman.
+
+For it was in the great waters of the sixteenth century that the nations
+whose eyes were open, discovered the fountain of perpetual youth, while
+others, who were blind, passed rapidly onward to decrepitude.  England
+was, in many respects, a despotism so far as regarded governmental forms;
+and no doubt the Catholics were treated with greater rigour than could be
+justified even by the perpetual and most dangerous machinations of the
+seminary priests and their instigators against the throne and life of
+Elizabeth.  The word liberty was never musical in Tudor ears, yet
+Englishmen had blunt tongues and sharp weapons which rarely rusted for
+want of use.  In the presence of a parliament, and the absence of a
+standing army, a people accustomed to read the Bible in the vernacular,
+to handle great questions of religion and government freely, and to bear
+arms at will, was most formidable to despotism.  There was an advance on
+the olden time.  A Francis Drake, a John Hawkins, a Roger Williams, might
+have been sold, under the Plantagenets, like an ox or an ass.  A 'female
+villain' in the reign of Henry III. could have been purchased for
+eighteen shillings--hardly the price of a fatted pig, and not one-third
+the value of an ambling palfrey--and a male villain, such an one as could
+in Elizabeth's reign circumnavigate the globe in his own ship, or take
+imperial field-marshals by the beard, was worth but two or three pounds
+sterling in the market.  Here was progress in three centuries, for the
+villains were now become admirals and generals in England and Holland,
+and constituted the main stay of these two little commonwealths, while
+the commanders who governed the 'invincible' fleets and armies of
+omnipotent Spain, were all cousins of emperors, or grandees of bluest
+blood.  Perhaps the system of the reformation would not prove the least
+effective in the impending crisis.
+
+It was most important, then, that these two nations should be united in
+council, and should stand shoulder to shoulder as their great enemy
+advanced.  But this was precisely what had been rendered almost
+impossible by the course of events during Leicester's year of
+administration, and by his sudden but not final retirement at its close.
+The two great national parties which had gradually been forming, had
+remained in a fluid state during the presence of the governor-general.
+During his absence they gradually hardened into the forms which they were
+destined to retain for centuries.  In the history of civil liberty, these
+incessant contests, these oral and written disquisitions, these sharp
+concussions of opinion, and the still harder blows, which, unfortunately,
+were dealt on a few occasions by the combatants upon each other, make the
+year 1587 a memorable one.  The great questions of the origin of
+government, the balance of dynastic forces, the distribution of powers,
+were dealt with by the ablest heads, both Dutch and English, that could
+be employed in the service of the kingdom and republic.  It was a war of
+protocols, arguments, orations, rejoinders, apostilles, and pamphlets;
+very wholesome for the cause of free institutions and the intellectual
+progress of mankind.  The reader may perhaps be surprised to see with how
+much vigour and boldness the grave questions which underlie all polity,
+were handled so many years before the days of Russell and Sidney, of
+Montesquieu and Locke, Franklin, Jefferson, Rousseau, and Voltaire; and
+he may be even more astonished to find exceedingly democratic doctrines
+propounded, if not believed in, by trained statesmen of the Elizabethan
+school.  He will be also apt to wonder that a more fitting time could not
+be found for such philosophical debate than the epoch at which both the
+kingdom and the republic were called upon to strain every sinew against
+the most formidable and aggressive despotism that the world had known
+since the fall of the Roman Empire.
+
+The great dividing-line between the two parties, that of Leicester and
+that of Holland, which controlled the action of the States-General, was
+the question of sovereignty.  After the declaration of independence and
+the repudiation of Philip, to whom did the sovereignty belong?  To the
+people, said the Leicestrians.  To the States-General and the States-
+Provincial, as legitimate representatives of the people, said the Holland
+party.  Without looking for the moment more closely into this question,
+which we shall soon find ably discussed by the most acute reasoners of
+the time, it is only important at present to make a preliminary
+reflection.  The Earl of Leicester, of all men is the world, would seem
+to have been precluded by his own action, and by the action of his Queen,
+from taking ground against the States.  It was the States who, by solemn
+embassy, had offered the sovereignty to Elizabeth.  She had not accepted
+the offer, but she had deliberated on the subject, and certainly she had
+never expressed a doubt whether or not the offer had been legally made.
+By the States, too, that governor-generalship had been conferred upon the
+Earl, which had been so thankfully and eagerly accepted.  It was strange,
+then, that he should deny the existence of the power whence his own
+authority was derived.  If the States were not sovereigns of the
+Netherlands, he certainly was nothing.  He was but general of a few
+thousand English troops.
+
+The Leicester party, then, proclaimed extreme democratic principles as to
+the origin of government and the sovereignty of the people.  They sought
+to strengthen and to make almost absolute the executive authority of
+their chief, on the ground that such was the popular will; and they
+denounced with great acrimony the insolence of the upstart members of the
+States, half a dozen traders, hired advocates, churls, tinkers, and the
+like--as Leicester was fond of designating the men who opposed him--in
+assuming these airs of sovereignty.
+
+This might, perhaps, be philosophical doctrine, had its supporters not
+forgotten that there had never been any pretence at an expression of the
+national will, except through the mouths of the States.  The States-
+General and the States-Provincial, without any usurpation, but as a
+matter of fact and of great political convenience, had, during fifteen
+years, exercised the authority which had fallen from Philip's hands.
+The people hitherto had acquiesced in their action, and certainly there
+had not yet been any call for a popular convention, or any other device
+to ascertain the popular will.  It was also difficult to imagine what was
+the exact entity of this abstraction called the "people" by men who
+expressed such extreme contempt for "merchants, advocates, town-orators,
+churls, tinkers, and base mechanic men, born not to command but to obey."
+Who were the people when the educated classes and the working classes
+were thus carefully eliminated?  Hardly the simple peasantry--the boors--
+who tilled the soil.  At that day the agricultural labourers less than
+all others dreamed of popular sovereignty, and more than all others
+submitted to the mild authority of the States.  According to the theory
+of the Netherland constitutions, they were supposed--and they had
+themselves not yet discovered the fallacies to which such doctrines could
+lead--to be represented by the nobles and country-squires who maintained
+in the States of each Province the general farming interests of the
+republic.  Moreover, the number of agricultural peasants was
+comparatively small.  The lower classes were rather accustomed to plough
+the sea than the land, and their harvests were reaped from that element,
+which to Hollanders and Zeelanders was less capricious than the solid
+earth.  Almost every inhabitant of those sea-born territories was, in one
+sense or another, a mariner; for every highway was a canal; the soil was
+percolated by rivers and estuaries, pools and meres; the fisheries were
+the nurseries in which still more daring navigators rapidly learned their
+trade, and every child took naturally to the ocean as to its legitimate
+home.
+
+The "people," therefore, thus enthroned by the Leicestrians over all
+the inhabitants of the country, appeared to many eyes rather a misty
+abstraction, and its claim of absolute sovereignty a doctrine almost as
+fantastic as that of the divine right of kings.  The Netherlanders were,
+on the whole, a law-abiding people, preferring to conduct even a
+revolution according to precedent, very much attached to ancient usages
+and traditions, valuing the liberties, as they called them, which they
+had wrested from what had been superior force, with their own right
+hands, preferring facts to theories, and feeling competent to deal with
+tyrants in the concrete rather than to annihilate tyranny in the abstract
+by a bold and generalizing phraseology.  Moreover the opponents of the
+Leicester party complained that the principal use to which this newly
+discovered "people" had been applied, was to confer its absolute
+sovereignty unconditionally upon one man.  The people was to be sovereign
+in order that it might immediately abdicate in favour of the Earl.
+
+Utrecht, the capital of the Leicestrians, had already been deprived of
+its constitution.  The magistracy was, according to law, changed every
+year.  A list of candidates was furnished by the retiring board, an equal
+number of names was added by the governor of the Province, and from the
+catalogue thus composed the governor with his council selected the new
+magistrates for the year.  But De Villiers, the governor of the Province,
+had been made a prisoner by the enemy in the last campaign; Count Moeurs
+had been appointed provisional stadholder by the States; and, during his
+temporary absence on public affairs, the Leicestrians had seized upon the
+government, excluded all the ancient magistrates, banished many leading
+citizens from the town, and installed an entirely new board, with Gerard
+Proninck, called Deventer, for chief burgomaster, who was a Brabantine
+refugee just arrived in the Province, and not eligible to office until
+after ten years' residence.
+
+It was not unnatural that the Netherlanders, who remembered the scenes
+of bloodshed and disorder produced by the memorable attempt of the Duke
+of Anjou to obtain possession of Antwerp and other cities, should be
+suspicious of Leicester.  Anjou, too, had been called to the Provinces by
+the voluntary action of the States.  He too had been hailed as a Messiah
+and a deliverer.  In him too had unlimited confidence been reposed, and
+he had repaid their affection and their gratitude by a desperate attempt
+to obtain the control of their chief cities by the armed hand, and thus
+to constitute himself absolute sovereign of the Netherlands.  The
+inhabitants had, after a bloody contest, averted the intended massacre
+and the impending tyranny; but it was not astonishing that--so very, few
+years having elapsed since those tragical events--they should be inclined
+to scan severely the actions of the man who had already obtained by
+unconstitutional means the mastery of a most important city, and was
+supposed to harbour designs upon all the cities.
+
+No, doubt it was a most illiberal and unwise policy for the inhabitants
+of the independent States to exclude from office the wanderers, for
+conscience' sake, from the obedient Provinces.  They should have been
+welcomed heart and hand by those who were their brethren in religion and
+in the love of freedom.  Moreover, it was notorious that Hohenlo,
+lieutenant-general under Maurice of Nassau, was a German, and that by the
+treaty with England, two foreigners sat in the state council, while the
+army swarmed with English, Irish, end German officers in high command.
+Nevertheless, violently to subvert the constitution of a Province, and to
+place in posts of high responsibility men who were ineligible--some whose
+characters were suspicious, and some who were known to be dangerous, and
+to banish large numbers of respectable burghers--was the act of a despot.
+
+Besides their democratic doctrines, the Leicestrians proclaimed and
+encouraged an exclusive and rigid Calvinism.
+
+It would certainly be unjust and futile to detract from the vast debt
+which the republic owed to the Geneva Church.  The reformation had
+entered the Netherlands by the Walloon gate.  The earliest and most
+eloquent preachers, the most impassioned converts, the sublimest martyrs,
+had lived, preached, fought, suffered, and died with the precepts of
+Calvin in their hearts.  The fire which had consumed the last vestige of
+royal and sacerdotal despotism throughout the independent republic, had
+been lighted by the hands of Calvinists.
+
+Throughout the blood-stained soil of France, too, the men who were
+fighting the same great battle as were the Netherlanders against Philip
+II. and the Inquisition, the valiant cavaliers of Dauphiny and Provence,
+knelt on the ground, before the battle, smote their iron breasts with
+their mailed hands, uttered a Calvinistic prayer, sang a psalm of Marot,
+and then charged upon Guise, or upon Joyeuse, under the white plume of
+the Bearnese.  And it was on the Calvinist weavers and clothiers of
+Rochelle that the great Prince relied in the hour of danger as much as on
+his mountain chivalry.  In England too, the seeds of liberty, wrapped up
+in Calvinism and hoarded through many trying years, were at last destined
+to float over land and sea, and to bear large harvests of temperate
+freedom for great commonwealths, which were still unborn.  Nevertheless
+there was a growing aversion in many parts of the States for the rigid
+and intolerant spirit of the reformed religion.  There were many men in
+Holland who had already imbibed the true lesson--the only, one worth
+learning of the reformation--liberty of thought; but toleration in the
+eyes of the extreme Calvinistic party was as great a vice as it could be
+in the estimation of Papists.  To a favoured few of other habits of
+thought, it had come to be regarded as a virtue; but the day was still
+far distant when men were to scorn the very word toleration as an insult
+to the dignity of man; as if for any human being or set of human beings,
+in caste, class, synod, or church, the right could even in imagination be
+conceded of controlling the consciences of their fellow-creatures.
+
+But it was progress for the sixteenth century that there were
+individuals, and prominent individuals, who dared to proclaim liberty
+of conscience for all.  William of Orange was a Calvinist, sincere and
+rigid, but he denounced all oppression of religion, and opened wide the
+doors of the Commonwealth to Papists, Lutherans, and Anabaptists alike.
+The Earl of Leicester was a Calvinist, most rigid in tenet, most edifying
+of conversation, the acknowledged head of the Puritan party of England,
+but he was intolerant and was influenced only by the most intolerant of
+his sect.  Certainly it would have required great magnanimity upon his
+part to assume a friendly demeanour towards the Papists.  It is easier
+for us, in more favoured ages, to rise to the heights of philosophical
+abstraction, than for a man, placed as was Leicester, in the front rank
+of a mighty battle, in which the triumph of either religion seemed to
+require the bodily annihilation of all its adversaries.  He believed that
+the success of a Catholic conspiracy against the life of Elizabeth or of
+a Spanish invasion of England, would raise Mary to the throne and consign
+himself to the scaffold.  He believed that the subjugation of the
+independent Netherlands would place the Spaniards instantly in England,
+and he frequently received information, true or false, of Popish plots
+that were ever hatching in various parts of the Provinces against the
+English Queen.  It was not surprising, therefore, although it was unwise,
+that he should incline his ear most seriously to those who counselled
+severe measures not only against Papists, but against those who were not
+persecutors of Papists, and that he should allow himself to be guided by
+adventurers, who wore the mask of religion only that they might plunder
+the exchequer and rob upon the highway.
+
+Under the administration of this extreme party, therefore, the Papists
+were maltreated, disfranchised, banished, and plundered.  The
+distribution of the heavy war-taxes, more than two-thirds of which were
+raised in Holland only, was confided to foreigners, and regulated mainly
+at Utrecht, where not one-tenth part of the same revenue was collected.
+This naturally excited the wrath of the merchants and manufacturers of
+Holland and the other Provinces, who liked not that these hard-earned and
+lavishly-paid subsidies should be meddled with by any but the cleanest
+hands.
+
+The clergy, too, arrogated a direct influence in political affairs.
+Their demonstrations were opposed by the anti-Leicestrians, who cared not
+to see a Geneva theocracy in the place of the vanished Papacy.  They had
+as little reverence in secular affairs for Calvinistic deacons as for the
+college of cardinals, and would as soon accept the infallibility of
+Sixtus V. as that of Herman Modet.  The reformed clergy who had
+dispossessed and confiscated the property of the ancient ecclesiastics
+who once held a constitutional place in the Estates of Utrecht--although
+many of those individuals were now married and had embraced the reformed
+religion who had demolished, and sold at public auction, for 12,300
+florins, the time-honoured cathedral where the earliest Christians of the
+Netherlands had worshipped, and St. Willibrod had ministered, were
+roundly rebuked, on more than one occasion, by the blunt matters beyond
+their sphere.
+
+The party of the States-General, as opposed to the Leicester party,
+was guided by the statesmen of Holland.  At a somewhat later period was
+formed the States-right party, which claimed sovereignty for each
+Province, and by necessary consequence the hegemony throughout the
+confederacy, for Holland.  At present the doctrine maintained was that
+the sovereignty forfeited by Philip had naturally devolved upon the
+States-General.  The statesmen of this party repudiated the calumny that
+it had therefore lapsed into the hands of half a dozen mechanics and men
+of low degree.  The States of each Province were, they maintained,
+composed of nobles and country-gentlemen, as representing the
+agricultural interest, and of deputies from the 'vroedschappen,'
+or municipal governments, of every city and smallest town.
+
+Such men as Adrian Van der Werff, the heroic burgomaster of Leyden during
+its famous siege, John Van der Does, statesman, orator, soldier, poet,
+Adolphus Meetkerke, judge, financier, politician, Carl Roorda, Noel de
+Carom diplomatist of most signal ability, Floris Thin, Paul Buys, and
+Olden-Barneveld, with many others, who would have done honour to the
+legislative assemblies and national councils in any country or any age,
+were constantly returned as members of the different vroedschaps in the
+commonwealth.
+
+So far from its being true then that half a dozen ignorant mechanics had
+usurped the sovereignty of the Provinces, after the abjuration of the
+Spanish King, it may be asserted in general terms, that of the eight
+hundred thousand inhabitants of Holland at least eight hundred persons
+were always engaged in the administration of public affairs, that these
+individuals were perpetually exchanged for others, and that those whose
+names became most prominent in the politics of the day were remarkable
+for thorough education, high talents, and eloquence with tongue and pen.
+It was acknowledged by the leading statesmen of England and France, on
+repeated occasions throughout the sixteenth century, that the
+diplomatists and statesmen of the Netherlands were even more than a match
+for any politicians who were destined to encounter them, and the profound
+respect which Leicester expressed for these solid statesmen, these
+"substantial, wise, well-languaged" men, these "big fellows," so soon as
+he came in contact with them, and before he began to hate them for
+outwitting him, has already appeared.  They were generally men of the
+people, born without any of the accidents of fortune; but, the leaders
+had studied in the common schools, and later in the noble universities of
+a land where to be learned and eloquent was fast becoming almost as great
+an honour as to be wealthy or high born.
+
+The executive, the legislative, and the judiciary departments were more
+carefully and scientifically separated than could perhaps have been
+expected in that age.  The lesser municipal courts, in which city-
+senators presided, were subordinate to the supreme court of Holland,
+whose officers were appointed by the stadholders and council; the
+supplies were in the hands of the States-Provincial, and the supreme
+administrative authority was confided to a stadholder appointed by the
+states.
+
+The States-General were constituted of similar materials to those of
+which the States-Provincial were constructed, and the same individuals
+were generally prominent in both. They were deputies appointed by the
+Provincial Estates, were in truth rather more like diplomatic envoys than
+senators, were generally bound very strictly by instructions, and were
+often obliged, by the jealousy springing from the States-right principle,
+to refer to their constituents, on questions when the times demanded a
+sudden decision, and when the necessary delay was inconvenient and
+dangerous.
+
+In religious matters, the States-party, to their honour, already leaned
+to a wide toleration.  Not only Catholics were not burned, but they were
+not banished, and very large numbers remained in the territory, and were
+quite undisturbed in religious matters, within their own doors.  There
+were even men employed in public affairs who were suspected of papistical
+tendencies, although their hostility, to Spain and their attachment to
+their native land could not fairly be disputed.  The leaders of the
+States-party had a rooted aversion to any political influence on the part
+of the clergy of any denomination whatever.  Disposed to be lenient to
+all forms of worship, they were disinclined to an established church, but
+still more opposed to allowing church-influence in secular affairs.  As a
+matter of course, political men with such bold views in religious matters
+were bitterly assailed by their rigid opponents.  Barneveld, with his
+"nil scire tutissima fides," was denounced as a disguised Catholic or an
+infidel, and as for Paul Buys, he was a "bolsterer of Papists, an
+atheist, a devil," as it has long since been made manifest.
+
+Nevertheless these men believed that they understood the spirit of their
+country and of the age.  In encouragement to an expanding commerce, the
+elevation and education of the masses, the toleration of all creeds, and
+a wide distribution of political functions and rights, they looked for
+the salvation of their nascent republic from destruction, and the
+maintenance of the true interests of the people.  They were still loyal
+to Queen Elizabeth, and desirous that she should accept the sovereignty
+of the Provinces.  But they were determined that the sovereignty should
+be a constitutional one, founded upon and limited by the time-honoured
+laws and traditions of their commonwealth; for they recognised the value
+of a free republic with an hereditary chief, however anomalous it might
+in theory appear.  They knew that in Utrecht the Leicestrian party were
+about to offer the Queen the sovereignty of their Province, without
+conditions, but they were determined that neither Queen Elizabeth nor
+any other monarch should ever reign in the Netherlands, except under
+conditions to be very accurately defined and well secured.
+
+Thus, contrasted, then, were the two great parties in the Netherlands, at
+the conclusion of Leicester's first year of administration.  It may
+easily be understood that it was not an auspicious moment to leave the
+country without a chief.
+
+The strength of the States-party lay in Holland, Zeeland, Friesland.
+The main stay of the democratic or Leicester faction was in the city of
+Utrecht, but the Earl had many partizans in Gelderland, Friesland, and in
+Overyssel, the capital of which Province, the wealthy and thriving
+Deventer, second only in the republic to Amsterdam for commercial and
+political importance, had been but recently secured for the Provinces by
+the vigorous measures of Sir William Pelham.
+
+The condition of the republic and of the Spanish Provinces was, at that
+moment, most signally contrasted.  If the effects of despotism and of
+liberty could ever be exhibited at a single glance, it was certainly only
+necessary to look for a moment at the picture of the obedient and of the
+rebel Netherlands.
+
+Since the fall of Antwerp, the desolation of Brabant, Flanders, and of
+the Walloon territories had become complete.  The King had recovered the
+great commercial capital, but its commerce was gone.  The Scheldt, which,
+till recently, had been the chief mercantile river in the world, had
+become as barren as if its fountains had suddenly dried up.  It was as if
+it no longer flowed to the ocean, for its mouth was controlled by
+Flushing.  Thus Antwerp was imprisoned and paralyzed.  Its docks and
+basins, where 2500 ships had once been counted, were empty, grass was
+growing in its streets, its industrious population had vanished, and the
+Jesuits had returned in swarms.  And the same spectacle was presented by
+Ghent, Bruges, Valenciennes, Tournay, and those other fair cities, which
+had once been types of vigorous industry and tumultuous life.  The sea-
+coast was in the hands of two rising commercial powers, the great and
+free commonwealths of the future.  Those powers were acting in concert,
+and commanding the traffic of the world, while the obedient Provinces
+were excluded from all foreign intercourse and all markets, as the result
+of their obedience.  Commerce, manufactures, agriculture; were dying
+lingering deaths.  The thrifty farms, orchards, and gardens, which had
+been a proverb and wonder of industry were becoming wildernesses.  The
+demand for their produce by the opulent and thriving cities, which had
+been the workshops of the world, was gone.  Foraging bands of Spanish and
+Italian mercenaries had succeeded to the famous tramp of the artizans and
+mechanics, which had often been likened to an army, but these new
+customers were less profitable to the gardeners and farmers.  The
+clothiers, the fullers, the tapestry-workers, the weavers, the cutlers,
+had all wandered away, and the cities of Holland, Friesland, and of
+England, were growing skilful and rich by the lessons and the industry of
+the exiles to whom they afforded a home.  There were villages and small
+towns in the Spanish Netherlands that had been literally depopulated.
+Large districts of country had gone to waste, and cane-brakes and squalid
+morasses usurped the place of yellow harvest-fields.  The fog, the wild
+boar, and the wolf, infested the abandoned homes of the peasantry;
+children could not walk in safety in the neighbourhood even of the larger
+cities; wolves littered their young in the deserted farm-houses; two
+hundred persons, in the winter of 1586-7, were devoured by wild beasts in
+the outskirts of Ghent.  Such of the remaining labourers and artizans as
+had not been converted into soldiers, found their most profitable
+employment as brigands, so that the portion of the population spared by
+war and emigration was assisting the enemy in preying upon their native
+country.  Brandschatzung, burglary, highway-robbery, and murder, had
+become the chief branches of industry among the working classes.  Nobles
+and wealthy burghers had been changed to paupers and mendicants.  Many a
+family of ancient lineage, and once of large possessions, could be seen
+begging their bread, at the dusk of evening, in the streets of great
+cities, where they had once exercised luxurious hospitality; and they
+often begged in vain.
+
+For while such was the forlorn aspect of the country--and the portrait,
+faithfully sketched from many contemporary pictures, has not been
+exaggerated in any of its dark details--a great famine smote the land
+with its additional scourge.  The whole population, soldiers and
+brigands, Spaniards and Flemings, beggars and workmen, were in danger
+of perishing together.  Where the want of employment had been so great
+as to cause a rapid depopulation, where the demand for labour had almost
+entirely ceased, it was a necessary result, that during the process,
+prices should be low, even in the presence of foreign soldiery, and
+despite the inflamed' profits, which such capitalists as remained
+required, by way not only of profit but insurance, in such troublous
+times.  Accordingly, for the last year or two, the price of rye at
+Antwerp and Brussels had been one florin for the veertel (three bushels)
+of one hundred and twenty pounds; that of wheat, about one-third of a
+florin more.  Five pounds of rye, therefore, were worth, one penny
+sterling, reckoning, as was then usual, two shillings to the florin.  A
+pound weight of wheat was worth about one farthing.  Yet this was forty-
+one years after the discovery of the mines of Potosi (A.D. 1545), and
+full sixteen years after the epoch; from which is dated that rapid fall
+in the value of silver, which in the course of seventy years, caused the
+average price of corn and of all other commodities, to be tripled or even
+quadrupled.  At that very moment the average cost of wheat in England was
+sixty-four shillings the quarter, or about seven and sixpence sterling
+the bushel, and in the markets of Holland, which in truth regulated all
+others, the same prices prevailed.  A bushel of wheat in England was
+equal therefore to eight bushels in Brussels.
+
+Thus the silver mines, which were the Spanish King's property, had
+produced their effect everywhere more signally than within the obedient
+Provinces.  The South American specie found its way to Philip's coffers,
+thence to the paymasters of his troops in Flanders, and thence to the
+commercial centres of Holland and England.  Those countries, first to
+feel and obey the favourable expanding impulse of the age, were moving
+surely and steadily on before it to greatness.  Prices were rising with
+unexampled rapidity, the precious metals were comparatively a drug, a
+world-wide commerce, such as had never been dreamed of, had become an
+every-day concern, the arts and sciences and a most generous culture in
+famous schools and universities, which had been founded in the midst of
+tumult and bloodshed, characterized the republic, and the golden age of
+English poetry, which was to make the Elizabethan era famous through all
+time, had already begun.
+
+In the Spanish Netherlands the newly-found treasure served to pay the
+only labourers required in a subjugated and almost deserted country, the
+pikemen of Spain and Italy, and the reiters of Germany.  Prices could not
+sustain themselves in the face of depopulation.  Where there was no
+security for property, no home-market, no foreign intercourse, industrial
+pursuits had become almost impossible.  The small demand for labour had
+caused it, as it were, to disappear, altogether.  All men had become
+beggars, brigands, or soldiers.  A temporary reaction followed.  There
+were no producers.  Suddenly it was discovered that no corn had been
+planted, and that there was no harvest.  A famine was the inevitable
+result.  Prices then rose with most frightful rapidity.  The veertel of
+rye, which in the previous year had been worth one florin at Brussels and
+Antwerp, rose in the winter of 1586-7 to twenty, twenty-two, and even
+twenty-four florins; and wheat advanced from one and one-third florin to
+thirty-two florins the veertel.  Other articles were proportionally
+increased in market-value; but it is worthy of remark that mutton was
+quoted in the midst of the famine at nine stuyvers (a little more than
+ninepence sterling) the pound, and beef at fivepence, while a single cod-
+fish sold for twenty-two florins.  Thus wheat was worth sixpence sterling
+the pound weight (reckoning the veertel of one hundred and twenty pounds
+at thirty florins), which was a penny more than the price of a pound of
+beef; while an ordinary fish was equal in value to one hundred and six
+pounds of beef.  No better evidence could be given that the obedient
+Provinces were relapsing into barbarism, than that the only agricultural
+industry then practised was to allow what flocks and herds were remaining
+to graze at will over the ruined farms and gardens, and that their
+fishermen were excluded from the sea.
+
+The evil cured itself, however, and, before the expiration of another
+year, prices were again at their previous level.  The land was
+sufficiently cultivated to furnish the necessaries of life for a
+diminishing population, and the supply of labour was more than enough,
+for the languishing demand.  Wheat was again at tenpence the bushel, and
+other commodities valued in like proportion, and far below the market-
+prices in Holland and England.
+
+On the other, hand, the prosperity of the republic was rapidly
+increasing.  Notwithstanding the war, which had beer raging for a
+terrible quarter.  of a century without any interruption, population was
+increasing, property rapidly advancing in value, labour in active demand.
+Famine was impossible to a state which commanded the ocean.  No corn grew
+in Holland and Zeeland, but their ports were the granary of the world.
+The fisheries were a mine of wealth almost equal to the famous Potosi,
+with which the commercial world was then ringing.  Their commerce with
+the Baltic nations was enormous.  In one month eight hundred vessels left
+their havens for the eastern ports alone.  There was also no doubt
+whatever--and the circumstance was a source of constant complaint and of
+frequent ineffective legislation--that the rebellious Provinces were
+driving a most profitable trade with Spain and the Spanish possessions,
+in spite of their revolutionary war.  The mines of Peru and Mexico were
+as fertile for the Hollanders and Zeelanders as for the Spaniards
+themselves.  The war paid for the war, one hundred large frigates were
+constantly cruising along the coasts to protect the fast-growing traffic,
+and an army of twenty thousand foot soldiers and two thousand cavalry
+were maintained on land.  There were more ships and sailors at that
+moment in Holland and Zeeland than in the whole kingdom of England.
+
+While the sea-ports were thus rapidly increasing in importance, the towns
+in the interior were advancing as steadily.  The woollen manufacture, the
+tapestry, the embroideries of Gelderland, and Friesland, and Overyssel,
+were becoming as famous as had been those of Tournay, Ypres, Brussels,
+and Valenciennes.  The emigration from the obedient Provinces and from
+other countries was very great.  It was difficult to obtain lodgings in
+the principal cities; new houses, new streets, new towns, were rising
+every day.  The single Province of Holland furnished regularly, for war-
+expenses alone, two millions of florins (two hundred thousand pounds) a
+year, besides frequent extraordinary grants for the same purpose, yet the
+burthen imposed upon the vigorous young commonwealth seemed only to make
+it the more elastic.  "The coming generations may see," says a
+contemporary historian, "the fortifications erected at that epoch in the
+cities, the costly and magnificent havens, the docks, the great extension
+of the cities; for truly the war had become a great benediction to the
+inhabitants."  Such a prosperous commonwealth as this was not a prize to
+be lightly thrown away.  There is no doubt whatever that a large majority
+of the inhabitants, and of the States by whom the people were
+represented, ardently and affectionately desired to be annexed to the
+English crown.  Leicester had become unpopular, but Elizabeth was adored,
+and there was nothing unreasonable in the desire entertained by the
+Provinces of retaining their ancient constitutions, and of transferring
+their allegiance to the English Queen.
+
+But the English Queen could not resolve to take the step.  Although the
+great tragedy which was swiftly approaching its inevitable catastrophe,
+the execution of the Scottish Queen, was to make peace with Philip
+impossible--even if it were imaginable before--Elizabeth, during the year
+1587, was earnestly bent on peace.  This will be made manifest in
+subsequent pages, by an examination of the secret correspondence of the
+court.  Her most sagacious statesmen disapproved her course, opposed it,
+and were often overruled, although never convinced; for her imperious
+will would have its way.
+
+The States-General loathed the very name of peace with Spain.  The people
+loathed it.  All knew that peace with Spain meant the exchange of a
+thriving prosperous commonwealth, with freedom of religion,
+constitutional liberty, and self-government, for provincial subjection to
+the inquisition and to despotism: To dream of any concession from Philip
+on the religious point was ridiculous.  There was a mirror ever held up
+before their eyes by the obedient Provinces, in which they might see
+their own image, should, they too return to obedience.  And there was
+never a pretence, on the part of any honest adviser of Queen Elizabeth in
+the Netherlands, whether Englishman or Hollander, that the idea of peace-
+negotiation could be tolerated for a moment by States or people.  Yet the
+sum of the Queen's policy, for the year 1587, may be summed up in one
+word--peace; peace for the Provinces, peace for herself, with their
+implacable enemy.
+
+In France, during the same year of expectation, we shall see the long
+prologue to the tragic and memorable 1588 slowly enacting; the same
+triangular contest between the three Henrys and their partizans still
+proceeding.  We shall see the misguided and wretched Valois lamenting
+over his victories, and rejoicing over his defeats; forced into hollow
+alliance with his deadly enemy; arrayed in arms against his only
+protector and the true champion of the realm; and struggling vainly in
+the toils of his own mother and his own secretary of state, leagued with
+his most powerful foes.  We shall see 'Mucio,' with one 'hand extended in
+mock friendship toward the King, and with the other thrust backward to
+grasp the purse of 300,000 crowns held forth to aid his fellow-
+conspirator's dark designs against their common victim; and the Bearnese,
+ever with lance in rest, victorious over the wrong antagonist, foiled of
+the fruits of victory, proclaiming himself the English Queen's devoted
+knight, but railing at her parsimony; always in the saddle, always
+triumphant, always a beggar, always in love, always cheerful, and always
+confident to outwit the Guises and Philip, Parma and the Pope.
+
+And in Spain we shall have occasion to look over the King's shoulder, as
+he sits at his study-table, in his most sacred retirement; and we shall
+find his policy for the year 1587 summed up in two words--invasion of
+England.  Sincerely and ardently as Elizabeth meant peace with Philip,
+just so sincerely did Philip intend war with England, and the
+dethronement and destruction of the Queen.  To this great design all
+others were now subservient, and it was mainly on account of this
+determination that there was sufficient leisure in the republic for the
+Leicestrians and the States-General to fight out so thoroughly their
+party-contests.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Acknowledged head of the Puritan party of England (Leicester)
+Geneva theocracy in the place of the vanished Papacy
+Hankering for peace, when peace had really become impossible
+Hating nothing so much as idleness
+Mirror ever held up before their eyes by the obedient Provinces
+Rigid and intolerant spirit of the reformed religion
+Scorn the very word toleration as an insult
+The word liberty was never musical in Tudor ears
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v50
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 51, 1587
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+     Barneveld's Influence in the Provinces--Unpopularity of Leicester
+     intrigues--of his Servants--Gossip of his Secretary--
+     Its mischievous Effects--The Quarrel of Norris and Hollock--
+     The Earl's Participation in the Affair--His increased Animosity to
+     Norris--Seizure of Deventer--Stanley appointed its Governor--York
+     and Stanley--Leicester's secret Instructions--Wilkes remonstrates
+     with Stanley--Stanley's Insolence and Equivocation--Painful Rumours
+     as to him and York--Duplicity of York--Stanley's Banquet at
+     Deventer--He surrenders the City to Tassis--Terms of the Bargain--
+     Feeble Defence of Stanley's Conduct--Subsequent Fate of Stanley and
+     York--Betrayal of Gelder to Parma--These Treasons cast Odium on the
+     English--Miserable Plight of the English Troops--Honesty and Energy
+     of Wilkes--Indignant Discussion in the Assembly.
+
+The government had not been laid down by Leicester on his departure. It
+had been provisionally delegated, as already mentioned to the state-
+council.  In this body-consisting of eighteen persons--originally
+appointed by the Earl, on nomination by the States, several members were
+friendly to the governor, and others were violently opposed to him.  The
+Staten of Holland, by whom the action of the States-General was mainly
+controlled, were influenced in their action by Buys and Barneveld.  Young
+Maurice of Nassau, nineteen years of age, was stadholder of Holland and
+Zeeland.  A florid complexioned, fair-haired young man, of sanguine-
+bilious temperament; reserved, quiet, reflective, singularly self-
+possessed; meriting at that time, more than his father had ever done, the
+appellation of the taciturn; discreet, sober, studious.  "Count Maurice
+saith but little, but I cannot tell what he thinketh," wrote Leicester's
+eaves-dropper-in-chiefs.  Mathematics, fortification, the science of war
+--these were his daily pursuits.  "The sapling was to become the tree,"
+and meantime the youth was preparing for the great destiny which he felt,
+lay before him.  To ponder over the works and the daring conceptions of
+Stevinus, to build up and to batter the wooden blocks of mimic citadels;
+to arrange in countless combinations, great armies of pewter soldiers;
+these were the occupations of his leisure-hours.  Yet he was hardly
+suspected of bearing within him the germs of the great military
+commander.  "Small desire hath Count Maurice to follow the wars," said
+one who fancied himself an acute observer at exactly this epoch.  "And
+whereas it might be supposed that in respect to his birth and place, he
+would affect the chief military command in these countries, it is found
+by experience had of his humour, that there is no chance of his entering
+into competition with the others."  A modest young man, who could bide
+his time--but who, meanwhile, under the guidance of his elders, was doing
+his best, both in field and cabinet, to learn the great lessons of the
+age--he had already enjoyed much solid practical instruction, under such
+a desperate fighter as Hohenlo, and under so profound a statesman as
+Barneveld.  For at this epoch Olden-Barneveld was the preceptor, almost
+the political patron of Maurice, and Maurice, the official head of the
+Holland party, was the declared opponent of the democratic-Calvinist
+organization.  It is not necessary, at this early moment, to foreshadow
+the changes which time was to bring.  Meantime it would be seen, perhaps
+ere long, whether or no, it would be his humour to follow the wars.  As
+to his prudent and dignified deportment there was little doubt.  "Count
+Maurice behaveth himself very discreetly all this while," wrote one, who
+did not love him, to Leicester, who loved him less: "He cometh every day
+to the council, keeping no company with Count Hollock, nor with any of
+them all, and never drinks himself full with any of them, as they do
+every day among themselves."
+
+Certainly the most profitable intercourse that Maurice could enjoy with
+Hohenlo was upon the battle-field.  In winter-quarters, that hard-
+fighting, hard-drinking, and most turbulent chieftain, was not the best
+Mentor for a youth whose destiny pointed him out as the leader of a free
+commonwealth.  After the campaigns were over--if they ever could be over-
+-the Count and other nobles from the same country were too apt to indulge
+in those mighty potations, which were rather characteristic of their
+nation and the age.
+
+"Since your Excellency's departure," wrote Leicester's secretary, "there
+hath been among the Dutch Counts nothing but dancing and drinking, to the
+grief of all this people; which foresee that there can come no good of
+it.  Specially Count Hollock, who hath been drunk almost a fortnight
+together."
+
+Leicester had rendered himself unpopular with the States-General, and
+with all the leading politicians and generals; yet, at that moment, he
+had deeply mortgaged his English estates in order to raise funds to
+expend in the Netherland cause.  Thirty thousand pounds sterling--
+according to his own statement--he was already out of pocket, and, unless
+the Queen would advance him the means to redeem his property; his broad
+lands were to be brought to the hammer.  But it was the Queen, not the
+States-General, who owed the money; for the Earl had advanced these sums
+as a portion of the royal contingent.  Five hundred and sixty thousand
+pounds sterling had been the cost of one year's war during the English
+governor's administration; and of this sum one hundred and forty thousand
+had been paid by England.  There was a portion of the sum, over and above
+their monthly levies; for which the States had contracted a debt, and
+they were extremely desirous to obtain, at that moment, an additional
+loan of fifty thousand pounds from Elizabeth; a favour which--Elizabeth
+was very firmly determined not to grant.  It was this terror at the
+expense into which the Netherland war was plunging her, which made the
+English sovereign so desirous for peace, and filled the anxious mind of
+Walsingham with the most painful forebodings.
+
+Leicester, in spite of his good qualities--such as they were--had not
+that most necessary gift for a man in his position, the art of making
+friends.  No man made so many enemies.  He was an excellent hater, and
+few men have been more cordially hated in return.  He was imperious,
+insolent, hot-tempered.  He could brook no equal.  He had also the fatal
+defect of enjoying the flattery, of his inferiors in station.  Adroit
+intriguers burned incense to him as a god, and employed him as their
+tool.  And now he had mortally offended Hohenlo, and Buys, and Barneveld,
+while he hated Sir John Norris with a most passionate hatred.  Wilkes,
+the English representative, was already a special object of his aversion.
+The unvarnished statements made by the stiff counsellor, of the expense
+of the past year's administration, and the various errors committed, had
+inspired Leicester with such ferocious resentment, that the friends of
+Wilkes trembled for his life.
+
+     ["It is generally bruited here," wrote Henry Smith to his brother-
+     in-law Wilkes, "of a most heavy displeasure conceived by my Lord of
+     Leicester against you, and it is said to be so great as that he hath
+     protested to be revenged of you; and to procure you the more
+     enemies, it is said he hath revealed to my Lord Treasurer, and
+     Secretary Davison some injurious speeches (which I cannot report)
+     you should have used of them to him at your last being with him.
+     Furthermore some of the said Lord's secretaries have reported here
+     that it were good for you never to return hither, or, if their Lord
+     be appointed to go over again, it will be too hot for you to tarry
+     there.  These things thus coming to the ears of your friends have
+     stricken a great fear and grief into the minds of such as love you,
+     lest the wonderful force and authority of this man being bent
+     against you, should do you hurt, while there is none to answer for
+     you."  Smith to Wilkes, 26 Jan.  1587.  (S. P.  Office MS.)]
+
+Cordiality between the governor-general and Count Maurice had become
+impossible.  As for Willoughby and Sir William Pelham, they were both
+friendly to him, but Willoughby was a magnificent cavalry officer, who
+detested politics, and cared little for the Netherlands, except as the
+best battle-field in Europe, and the old marshal of the camp--the only
+man that Leicester ever loved--was growing feeble in health, was broken
+down by debt, and hardly possessed, or wished for, any general influence.
+
+Besides Deventer of Utrecht, then, on whom, the Earl chiefly relied
+during his, absence, there were none to support him cordially, except two
+or three members of the state-council.  "Madame de Brederode hath sent
+unto you a kind of rose," said his intelligencer, "which you have asked
+for, and beseeches you to command anything she has in her garden, or
+whatsoever.  M. Meetkerke, M. Brederode, and Mr. Dorius, wish your return
+with all, their hearts.  For the rest I cannot tell, and will not swear.
+But Mr. Barneveld is not your very great friend, whereof I can write no
+more at this time."
+
+This certainly was a small proportion out of a council of eighteen, when
+all the leading politicians of the country were in avowed hostility to
+the governor.  And thus the Earl was, at this most important crisis, to
+depend upon the subtle and dangerous Deventer, and upon two inferior
+personages, the "fellow Junius"  and a non-descript, whom Hohenlo
+characterized as a "long lean Englishman, with a little black beard."
+This meagre individual however seems to have been of somewhat doubtful
+nationality.  He called himself Otheman, claimed to be a Frenchman, had
+lived much in England, wrote with great fluency and spirit, both in
+French and English, but was said, in reality, to be named Robert Dale.
+
+It was not the best policy for the representative of the English Queen to
+trust to such counsellors at a moment when the elements of strife between
+Holland and England were actively at work; and when the safety, almost
+the existence, of the two commonwealths depended upon their acting
+cordially in concert.  "Overyssel, Utrecht, Friesland, and Gelderland,
+have agreed to renew the offer of sovereignty to her Majesty," said
+Leicester.  "I shall be able to make a better report of their love and
+good inclination than I can of Holland."  It was thought very desirable
+by the English government that this great demonstration should be made
+once more, whatever might be the ultimate decision of her Majesty upon so
+momentous a measure.  It seemed proper that a solemn embassy should once
+more proceed to England in order to confer with Elizabeth; but there was
+much delay in regard to the step, and much indignation, in consequence,
+on the part of the Earl.  The opposition came, of course, from the
+Barneveld party.  "They are in no great haste to offer the sovereignty,"
+said Wilkes.  "First some towns of Holland made bones thereat, and now
+they say that Zeeland is not resolved."
+
+The nature and the causes of the opposition offered by Barneveld and the
+States of Holland have been sufficiently explained.  Buys, maddened by
+his long and unjustifiable imprisonment, had just been released by the
+express desire of Hohenlo; and that unruly chieftain, who guided the
+German and Dutch magnates; such as Moeurs and Overstein, and who even
+much influenced Maurice and his cousin Count Lewis William, was himself
+governed by Barneveld.  It would have been far from impossible for
+Leicester, even then, to conciliate the whole party.  It was highly
+desirable that he should do so, for not one of the Provinces where he
+boasted his strength was quite secure for England.  Count Moeurs, a
+potent and wealthy noble, was governor of Utrecht and Gelderland, and he
+had already begun to favour the party in Holland which claimed for that
+Province a legal jurisdiction over the whole ancient episcopate.  Under
+these circumstances common prudence would have suggested that as good an
+understanding as possible might be kept up with the Dutch and German
+counts, and that the breach might not be rendered quite irreparable.
+
+Yet, as if there had not been administrative blunders enough committed in
+one year, the unlucky lean Englishman, with the black beard, who was the
+Earl's chief representative, contrived--almost before his master's back
+was turned--to draw upon himself the wrath of all the fine ladies in
+Holland.  That this should be the direful spring of unutterable
+disasters, social and political, was easy to foretell.
+
+Just before the governor's departure Otheman came to pay his farewell
+respects, and receive his last commands.  He found Leicester seated at
+chess with Sir Francis Drake.
+
+"I do leave you here, my poor Otheman," said the Earl, "but so soon as I
+leave you I know very well that nobody will give you a good look."
+
+"Your Excellency was a true prophet," wrote the secretary a few weeks
+later, "for, my good Lord, I have been in as great danger of my life as
+ever man was.  I have been hunted at Delft from house to house, and then
+besieged in my lodgings four or five hours, as though I had been the
+greatest thief, murderer, and traitor in the land."
+
+And why was the unfortunate Otheman thus hunted to his lair?  Because he
+had chosen to indulge in 'scandalum magnatum,' and had thereby excited
+the frenzy of all the great nobles whom it was most important for the
+English party to conciliate.
+
+There had been gossip about the Princess of Chimay and one Calvaert, who
+lived in her house, much against the advice of all her best friends.  One
+day she complained bitterly to Master Otheman of the spiteful ways of the
+world.
+
+"I protest," said she, "that I am the unhappiest lady upon earth to have
+my name thus called in question."
+
+So said Otheman, in order to comfort her: "Your Highness is aware that
+such things are said of all.  I am sure I hear every day plenty of
+speeches about lords and ladies, queens and princesses.  You have little
+cause to trouble yourself for such matters, being known to live honestly,
+and like a good Christian lady.  Your Highness is not the only lady
+spoken of."
+
+The Princess listened with attention.
+
+"Think of the stories about the Queen of England and my Lord of
+Leicester!" said Otheman, with infinite tact.  "No person is exempted
+from the tongues of evil, speakers; but virtuous and godly men do put all
+such foolish matter under their feet.  Then there is the Countess of
+Hoeurs, how much evil talk does one hear about her!"
+
+The Princess seemed still more interested and even excited; and the
+adroit Otheman having thus, as he imagined, very successfully smoothed
+away her anger, went off to have a little more harmless gossip about the
+Princess and the Countess, with Madame de Meetkerke, who had sent
+Leicester the rose from her garden.
+
+But, no sooner, had he gone, than away went her Highness to Madame de
+Moeurs, "a marvellous wise and well-spoken gentlewoman and a grave," and
+informed her and the Count, with some trifling exaggeration, that the
+vile Englishman, secretary to the odious Leicester, had just been there,
+abusing and calumniating the Countess in most lewd and abominable
+fashion.  He had also, she protested, used "very evil speeches of all the
+ladies in the country."  For her own part the Princess avowed her
+determination to have him instantly murdered.  Count Moeurs was quite of
+the same mind, and desired nothing better than to be one of his
+executioners.  Accordingly, the next Sunday, when the babbling secretary
+had gone down to Delft to hear the French sermon, a select party,
+consisting of Moeurs, Lewis William of Nassau, Count Overstein, and
+others, set forth for that city, laid violent hands on the culprit, and
+brought him bodily before Princess Chimay.  There, being called upon to
+explain his innuendos, he fell into much trepidation, and gave the names
+of several English captains, whom he supposed to be at that time in
+England.  "For if I had denied the whole matter," said he, "they would
+have given me the lie, and used me according to their evil mind."  Upon
+this they relented, and released their prisoner, but, the next day they
+made another attack upon him, hunted him from house to house, through the
+whole city of Delft, and at last drove him to earth in his own lodgings,
+where they kept him besieged several hours.  Through the intercession of
+Wilkes and the authority of the council of state, to which body he
+succeeded in conveying information of his dangerous predicament, he was,
+in his own language, "miraculously preserved," although remaining still in
+daily danger of his life.  "I pray God keep me hereafter from the anger
+of a woman," he exclaimed, "quia non est ira supra iram mulieris."
+
+He was immediately examined before the council, and succeeded in clearing
+and justifying himself to the satisfaction of his friends.  His part was
+afterwards taken by the councillors, by all the preachers and godly men,
+and by the university of Leyden.  But it was well understood that the
+blow and the affront had been levelled at the English governor and the
+English nation.
+
+"All your friends do see," said Otheman, "that this disgrace is not meant
+so much to me as to your Excellency; the Dutch Earls having used such
+speeches unto me, and against all law, custom, and reason, used such
+violence to me, that your Excellency shall wonder to hear of it."
+
+Now the Princess Chimay, besides being of honourable character, was a
+sincere and exemplary member of the Calvinist church, and well inclined
+to the Leicestrians.  She was daughter of Count Meghem, one of the
+earliest victims of Philip II., in the long tragedy of Netherland
+independence, and widow of Lancelot Berlaymont.  Count Moeurs was
+governor of Utrecht, and by no means, up to that time, a thorough
+supporter of the Holland party; but thenceforward he went off most
+abruptly from the party of England, became hand and glove with Hohenlo,
+accepted the influence of Barneveld, and did his best to wrest the city
+of Utrecht from English authority.  Such was the effect of the
+secretary's harmless gossip.
+
+"I thought Count Moeurs and his wife better friends to your Excellency
+than I do see them to be," said Otheman afterwards.  "But he doth now
+disgrace the English nation many ways in his speeches--saying that they
+are no soldiers, that they do no good to this country, and that these
+Englishmen that are at Arnheim have an intent to sell and betray the town
+to the enemy."
+
+But the disgraceful squabble between Hohenlo and Edward Norris had been
+more unlucky for Leicester than any other incident during the year, for
+its result was to turn the hatred of both parties against himself.  Yet
+the Earl of all men, was originally least to blame for the transaction.
+It has been seen that Sir Philip Sidney had borne Norris's cartel to
+Hohenlo, very soon after the outrage had been committed.  The Count had
+promised satisfaction, but meantime was desperately wounded in the attack
+on Fort Zutphen.  Leicester afterwards did his best to keep Edward Norris
+employed in distant places, for he was quite aware that Hohenlo, as
+lieutenant-general and count of the empire, would consider himself
+aggrieved at being called to the field by a simple English captain,
+however deeply he might have injured him.  The governor accordingly
+induced the Queen to recall the young man to England, and invited him--
+much as he disliked his whole race--to accompany him on his departure for
+that country.
+
+The Captain then consulted with his brother Sir John, regarding the
+pending dispute with Hohenlo.  His brother advised that the Count should
+be summoned to keep his promise, but that Lord Leicester's permission
+should previously be requested.
+
+A week before the governor's departure, accordingly, Edward Norris
+presented himself one morning in the dining-room, and, finding the Earl
+reclining on a window-seat, observed to him that "he desired his
+Lordship's favour towards the discharging of his reputation."
+
+"The Count Hollock is now well," he proceeded, "and is fasting and
+banqueting in his lodgings, although he does not come abroad."
+
+"And what way will you take?"  inquired Leicester, "considering that he
+keeps his house."
+
+"'Twill be best, I thought," answered Norris, "to write unto him, to
+perform his promise he made me to answer me in the field."
+
+"To whom did he make that promise?"  asked the Earl.
+
+"To Sir Philip Sidney," answered the Captain.
+
+"To my nephew Sidney," said Leicester, musingly; "very well; do as you
+think best, and I will do for you what I can."
+
+And the governor then added many kind expressions concerning the interest
+he felt in the young man's reputation.  Passing to other matters, Morris
+then spoke of the great charges he had recently been put to by reason of
+having exchanged out of the States' service in order to accept a
+commission from his Lordship to levy a company of horse.  This levy had
+cost him and his friends three hundred pounds, for which he had not been
+able to "get one groat."
+
+"I beseech your Lordship to stand good for me," said he; "considering the
+meanest captain in all the country hath as good entertainment as I."
+
+"I can do but little for you before my departure," said Leicester; "but
+at my return I will advise to do more."
+
+After this amicable conversation Morris thanked his Lordship, took his
+leave, and straightway wrote his letter to Count Hollock.
+
+That personage, in his answer, expressed astonishment that Norris should
+summon him, in his "weakness and indisposition;" but agreed to give him
+the desired meeting; with sword and dagger, so soon as he should be
+sufficiently recovered.  Morris, in reply, acknowledged his courteous
+promise, and hoped that he might be speedily restored to health.
+
+The state-council, sitting at the Hague, took up the matter at once
+however, and requested immediate information of the Earl.  He accordingly
+sent for Norris and his brother Sir John, who waited upon him in his bed-
+chamber, and were requested to set down in writing the reasons which had
+moved them in the matter.  This statement was accordingly furnished,
+together with a copy of the correspondence.  The Earl took the papers,
+and promised to allow most honourably of it in the Council.
+
+Such is the exact narrative, word for word, as given by Sir John and
+Edward Norris, in a solemn memorial to the Lords of Her Majesty's privy
+council, as well as to the state-council of the United Provinces.  A very
+few days afterwards Leicester departed for England, taking Edward Norris
+with him.
+
+Count Hohenlo was furious at the indignity, notwithstanding the polite
+language in which he had accepted the challenge.  "'T was a matter
+punishable with death," he said, "in all kingdoms and countries, for a
+simple captain to send such a summons to a man of his station, without
+consent of the supreme authority.  It was plain," he added, "that the
+English governor-general had connived at the affront," for Norris had been
+living in his family and dining at his table.  Nay, more, Lord Leicester
+had made him a knight at Flushing just before their voyage to England.
+There seems no good reason to doubt the general veracity of the brothers
+Norris, although, for the express purpose of screening Leicester, Sir
+John represented at the time to Hohenlo and others that the Earl had not
+been privy to the transaction.  It is very certain, however, that so soon
+as the general indignation of Hohenlo and his partizans began to be
+directed against Leicester, he at once denied, in passionate and abusive
+language, having had any knowledge whatever of Norris's intentions.  He
+protested that he learned, for the first time, of the cartel from
+information furnished to the council of state.
+
+The quarrel between Hohenlo and Norris was afterwards amicably arranged
+by Lord Buckhurst, during his embassy to the States, at the express
+desire of the Queen.  Hohenlo and Sir John Norris became very good
+friends, while the enmity between them and Leicester grew more deadly
+every day.  The Earl was frantic with rage whenever he spoke of the
+transaction, and denounced Sir John Norris as "a fool, liar, and coward"
+on all occasions, besides overwhelming his brother, Buckhurst, Wilkes,
+and every other person who took their part, with a torrent of abuse; and
+it is well known that the Earl was a master of Billingsgate.
+
+"Hollock says that I did procure Edward Norris to send him his cartel,"
+observed Leicester on one occasion, "wherein I protest before the Lord,
+I was as ignorant as any man in England.  His brother John can tell
+whether I did not send for him to have committed him for it; but that, in
+very truth, upon the perusing of it" (after it had been sent), "it was
+very reasonably written, and I did consider also the great wrong offered
+him by the Count, and so forbore it.  I was so careful for the Count's
+safety after the brawl between him and Norris, that I charged Sir John,
+if any harm came to the Count's person by any of his or under him, that
+he should answer it.  Therefore, I take the story to be bred in the bosom
+of some much like a thief or villain, whatsoever he were."
+
+And all this was doubtless true so far as regarded the Earl's original
+exertions to prevent the consequences of the quarrel, but did not touch
+the point of the second correspondence preceded by the conversation in
+the dining-room, eight days before the voyage to England.  The affair, in
+itself of slight importance, would not merit so much comment at this late
+day had it not been for its endless consequences.  The ferocity with
+which the Earl came to regard every prominent German, Hollander, and
+Englishman, engaged in the service of the States, sprang very much from
+the complications of this vulgar brawl.  Norris, Hohenlo, Wilkes,
+Buckhurst, were all denounced to the Queen as calumniators, traitors, and
+villains; and it may easily be understood how grave and extensive must
+have been the effects of such vituperation upon the mind of Elizabeth,
+who, until the last day of his life, doubtless entertained for the Earl
+the deepest affection of which her nature was susceptible.  Hohenlo, with
+Count Maurice, were the acknowledged chiefs of the anti-English party,
+and the possibility of cordial cooperation between the countries may be
+judged of by the entanglement which had thus occurred.
+
+Leicester had always hated Sir John Norris, but he knew that the mother
+had still much favour with the Queen, and he was therefore the more
+vehement in his denunciations of the son the more difficulty be found in
+entirely destroying his character, and the keener jealousy he felt that
+any other tongue but his should influence her Majesty.  "The story of
+John Norris about the cartel is, by the Lord God, most false," he
+exclaimed; "I do beseech you not to see me so dealt withal, but that
+especially her Majesty may understand these untruths, who perhaps, by the
+mother's fair speeches and the son's smooth words, may take some other
+conceit of my doings than I deserve."
+
+He was most resolute to stamp the character of falsehood upon both the
+brothers, for he was more malignant towards Sir John than towards any man
+in the world, not even excepting Wilkes.  To the Queen, to the Lords of
+the Privy Council, to Walsingham, to Burghley, he poured forth endless
+quantities of venom, enough to destroy the characters of a hundred honest
+men.
+
+"The declaration of the two Norrises for the cartel is most false, as I
+am a Christian," he said to Walsingham.  "I have a dozen witnesses, as
+good and some better than they, who will testify that they were present
+when I misliked the writing of the letter before ever I saw it.  And by
+the allegiance I owe to her Majesty, I never knew of the letter, nor gave
+consent to it, nor heard of it till it was complained of from Count
+Hollock.  But, as they are false in this, so you will find J. N. as false
+in his other answers; so that he would be ashamed, but that his old
+conceit hath made him past shame, I fear.  His companions in Ireland, as
+in these countries, report that Sir John Norris would often say that he
+was but an ass and a fool, who, if a lie would serve his turn, would
+spare it.  I remember I have heard that the Earl of Sussex would say so;
+and indeed this gentleman doth imitate him in divers things."
+
+But a very grave disaster to Holland and England was soon the fruit of
+the hatred borne by Leicester to Sir John Norris.  Immediately after the
+battle of Zutphen and the investment of that town by the English and
+Netherlanders, great pains were taken to secure the city of Deventer.
+This was, after Amsterdam and Antwerp, the most important mercantile
+place in all the Provinces.  It was a large prosperous commercial and
+manufacturing capital, a member of the Hanseatic League, and the great
+centre of the internal trade of the Netherlands with the Baltic nations.
+There was a strong Catholic party in the town, and the magistracy were
+disposed to side with Parma.  It was notorious that provisions and
+munitions were supplied from thence to the beleaguered Zutphen; and
+Leicester despatched Sir William Pelham, accordingly, to bring the
+inhabitants to reason.  The stout Marshal made short work of it.  Taking
+Sir William Stanley and the greater part of his regiment with him, he
+caused them, day by day, to steal into the town, in small parties of ten
+and fifteen.  No objection was made to this proceeding on the part of the
+city government.  Then Stanley himself arrived in the morning, and the
+Marshal in the evening, of the 20th of October.  Pelham ordered the
+magistrates to present themselves forthwith at his lodgings, and told
+them, with grim courtesy, that the Earl of Leicester excused himself from
+making them a visit, not being able, for grief at the death of Sir Philip
+Sidney, to come so soon near the scene of his disaster.  His Excellency
+had therefore sent him to require the town to receive an English
+garrison.  "So make up your minds, and delay not," said Pelham; "for I
+have many important affairs on my hands, and must send word to his
+Excellency at once.  To-morrow morning, at eight o'clock, I shall expect
+your answer."
+
+Next day, the magistrates were all assembled in the townhouse before six.
+Stanley had filled the great square with his troops, but he found that
+the burghers-five thousand of whom constituted the municipal militia--had
+chained the streets and locked the gates.  At seven o'clock Pelham
+proceeded, to the town-house, and, followed by his train, made his
+appearance before the magisterial board.  Then there was a knocking at
+the door, and Sir William Stanley entered, having left a strong guard of
+soldiers at the entrance to the hall.
+
+"I am come for an answer," said the Lord Marshal; "tell me straight."
+The magistrates hesitated, whispered, and presently one of them slipped
+away.
+
+"There's one of you gone," cried the Marshal.  "Fetch him straight back;
+or, by the living God, before whom I stand, there is not one of you shall
+leave this place with life."
+
+So the burgomasters sent for the culprit, who returned.
+
+"Now, tell me," said Pelham, "why you have, this night, chained your
+streets and kept such strong watch while your friends and defenders were
+in the town?  Do you think we came over here to spend our lives and our
+goods, and to leave all we have, to be thus used and thus betrayed by
+you?  Nay, you shall find us trusty to our friends, but as politic as
+yourselves.  Now, then; set your hands to this document," he proceeded,
+as he gave them a new list of magistrates, all selected from stanch
+Protestants.
+
+"Give over your government to the men here nominated, Straight; dally
+not!"  The burgomasters signed the paper.
+
+"Now," said Pelham, "let one of you go to the watch, discharge the guard,
+bid them unarm, and go home to their lodgings."
+
+A magistrate departed on the errand.
+
+"Now fetch me the keys of the gate," said Pelham, "and that straightway,
+or, before God, you shall die."
+
+The keys were brought, and handed to the peremptory old Marshal.  The old
+board of magistrates were then clapped into prison, the new ones
+installed, and Deventer was gained for the English and Protestant party.
+
+There could be no doubt that a city so important and thus fortunately
+secured was worthy to be well guarded.  There could be no doubt either
+that it would be well to conciliate the rich and influential Papists in
+the place, who, although attached to the ancient religion, were not
+necessarily disloyal to the republic; but there could be as little that,
+under the circumstances of this sudden municipal revolution, it would be
+important to place a garrison of Protestant soldiers there, under the
+command of a Protestant officer of known fidelity.
+
+To the astonishment of the whole commonwealth, the Earl appointed Sir
+William Stanley to be governor of the town, and stationed in it a
+garrison of twelve hundred wild Irishmen.
+
+Sir William was a cadet of one of the noblest English houses.  He was the
+bravest of the brave.  His gallantry at the famous Zutphen fight had
+attracted admiration, where nearly all had performed wondrous exploits,
+but he was known to be an ardent Papist and a soldier of fortune, who had
+fought on various sides, and had even borne arms in the Netherlands under
+the ferocious Alva.  Was it strange that there should be murmurs at the
+appointment of so dangerous a chief to guard a wavering city which had so
+recently been secured?
+
+The Irish kernes--and they are described by all contemporaries, English
+and Flemish, in the same language--were accounted as the wildest and
+fiercest of barbarians.  There was something grotesque, yet appalling,
+in the pictures painted of these rude, almost naked; brigands, who ate
+raw flesh, spoke no intelligible language, and ranged about the country,
+burning, slaying, plundering, a terror to the peasantry and a source of
+constant embarrassment to the more orderly troops in the service of the
+republic.  "It seemed," said one who had seen them, "that they belonged
+not to Christendom, but to Brazil."  Moreover, they were all Papists,
+and, however much one might be disposed to censure that great curse of
+the age, religious intolerance--which was almost as flagrant in the
+councils of Queen Elizabeth as in those of Philip--it was certainly a
+most fatal policy to place such a garrison, at that critical juncture, in
+the newly-acquired city.  Yet Leicester, who had banished Papists from
+Utrecht without cause and without trial, now placed most notorious
+Catholics in Deventer.
+
+Zutphen, which was still besieged by the English and the patriots, was
+much crippled by the loss of the great fort, the capture of which, mainly
+through the brilliant valour of Stanley's brother Edward, has already
+been related.  The possession of Deventer and of this fort gave the
+control of the whole north-eastern territory to the patriots; but, as if
+it were not enough to place Deventer in the hands of Sir William Stanley,
+Leicester thought proper to confide the government of the fort to Roland
+York.  Not a worse choice could be made in the whole army.
+
+York was an adventurer of the most audacious and dissolute character.  He
+was a Londoner by birth, one of those "ruing blades" inveighed against by
+the governor-general on his first taking command of the forces.  A man of
+desperate courage, a gambler, a professional duellist, a bravo, famous in
+his time among the "common hacksters and swaggerers" as the first to
+introduce the custom of foining, or thrusting with the rapier in single
+combats--whereas before his day it had been customary among the English
+to fight with sword and shield, and held unmanly to strike below the
+girdle--he had perpetually changed sides, in the Netherland wars, with
+the shameless disregard to principle which characterized all his actions.
+He had been lieutenant to the infamous John Van Imbyze, and had been
+concerned with him in the notorious attempt to surrender Dendermonde and
+Ghent to the enemy, which had cost that traitor his head.  York had been
+thrown into prison at Brussels, but there had been some delay about his
+execution, and the conquest of the city by Parma saved him from the
+gibbet.  He had then taken service under the Spanish commander-in-chief,
+and had distinguished himself, as usual, by deeds of extraordinary
+valour, having sprung on board the, burning volcano-ship at the siege of
+Antwerp.  Subsequently returning to England, he had, on Leicester's
+appointment, obtained the command of a company in the English contingent,
+and had been conspicuous on the field of Warnsveld; for the courage which
+he always displayed under any standard was only equalled by the audacity
+with which he was ever ready to desert from it.  Did it seem credible
+that the fort of Zutphen should be placed in the hands of Roland York?
+
+Remonstrances were made by the States-General at once.  With regard to
+Stanley, Leicester maintained that he was, in his opinion, the fittest
+man to take charge of the whole English army, during his absence in
+England.  In answer to a petition made by the States against the
+appointment of York, "in respect to his perfidious dealings before," the
+Earl replied that he would answer for his fidelity as for his own
+brother; adding peremptorily--"Do you trust me?  Then trust York."
+
+But, besides his other qualifications for high command, Stanley possessed
+an inestimable one in Leicester's eyes.  He was, or at least had been, an
+enemy of Sir John Norris.  To be this made a Papist pardonable.  It was
+even better than to be a Puritan.
+
+But the Earl did more than to appoint the traitor York and the Papist
+Stanley to these important posts.  On the very day of his departure, and
+immediately after his final quarrel with Sir John about the Hohenlo
+cartel, which had renewed all the ancient venom, he signed a secret
+paper, by which he especially forbade the council of state to interfere
+with or set aside any appointments to the government of towns or forts,
+or to revoke any military or naval commissions, without his consent.
+
+Now supreme executive authority had been delegated to the state-council
+by the Governor-General during his absence.  Command in chief over all
+the English forces, whether in the Queen's pay or the State's pay, had
+been conferred upon Norris, while command over the Dutch and German
+troops belonged to Hohenlo; but, by virtue of the Earl's secret paper,
+Stanley and York were now made independent of all authority.  The evil
+consequences natural to such a step were not slow in displaying
+themselves.
+
+Stanley at once manifested great insolence towards Norris.  That
+distinguished general was placed in a most painful position.  A post of
+immense responsibility was confided to him.  The honour of England's
+Queen and of England's soldiers was entrusted to his keeping; at a moment
+full of danger, and in a country where every hour might bring forth some
+terrible change; yet he knew himself the mark at which the most powerful
+man in England was directing all his malice, and that the Queen, who was
+wax in her great favourite's hands, was even then receiving the most
+fatal impressions as to his character and conduct.  "Well I know," said
+he to Burghley, "that the root of the former malice borne me is not
+withered, but that I must look for like fruits therefrom as before;"
+and he implored the Lord-Treasurer, that when his honour and reputation
+should be called in question, he might be allowed to return to England
+and clear himself.  "For myself," said he, "I have not yet received any
+commission, although I have attended his Lordship of Leicester to his
+ship.  It is promised to be sent me, and in the meantime I understand
+that my Lord hath granted separate commissions to Sir William Stanley and
+Roland York, exempting them from obeying of me.  If this be true, 'tis
+only done to nourish factions, and to interrupt any better course in our
+doings than before hath been."  He earnestly requested to be furnished
+with a commission directly from her Majesty.  "The enemy is reinforcing,"
+he added.  "We are very weak, our troops are unpaid these three months,
+and we are grown odious, to our friends."
+
+Honest Councillor Wilkes, who did his best to conciliate all parties, and
+to do his duty to England and Holland, to Leicester and to Norris, had
+the strongest sympathy with Sir John.  "Truly, besides the value, wisdom,
+and many other good parts that are in him," he said, "I have noted
+wonderful patience and modesty in the man, in bearing many apparent
+injuries done unto him, which I have known to be countenanced and
+nourished, contrary to all reason, to disgrace him.  Please therefore
+continue your honourable opinion of him in his absence, whatsoever may be
+maliciously reported to his disadvantage, for I dare avouch, of my own
+poor skill, that her Majesty hath not a second subject of his place and
+quality able to serve in those countries as he .  .  .  .  .  I doubt not
+God will move her Majesty, in despite of the devil, to respect him as he
+deserves."
+
+Sir John disclaimed any personal jealousy in regard to Stanley's
+appointment, but, within a week or two of the Earl's departure, he
+already felt strong anxiety as to its probable results.  "If it prove no
+hindrance to the service," he said, "it shall nothing trouble me.  I
+desire that my doings may show what I am; neither will I seek, by
+indirect means to calumniate him or any other, but will let them show
+themselves."
+
+Early in December he informed the Lord-Treasurer that Stanley's own men
+were boasting that their master acknowledged no superior authority to his
+own, and that he had said as much himself to the magistracy of Deventer.
+The burghers had already complained, through the constituted guardians of
+their liberties, of his insolence and rapacity, and of the turbulence of
+his troops, and had appealed to Sir John; but the colonel-general's
+remonstrances had been received by Sir William with contumely and abuse,
+and by daunt that he had even a greater commission than any he had yet
+shown.
+
+"Three sheep, an ox, and a whole hog," were required weekly of the
+peasants for his table, in a time of great scarcity, and it was
+impossible to satisfy the rapacious appetites of the Irish kernes.  The
+paymaster-general of the English forces was daily appealed to by Stanley
+for funds--an application which was certainly not unreasonable, as her
+Majesty's troops had not received any payment for three months--but there
+"was not a denier in the treasury," and he was therefore implored to
+wait.  At last the States-General sent him a month's pay for himself and
+all his troops, although, as he was in the Queen's service, no claim
+could justly be made upon them.
+
+Wilkes, also, as English member of the state council, faithfully conveyed
+to the governor-general in England the complaints which came up to all
+the authorities of the republic, against Sir William Stanley's conduct in
+Deventer.  He had seized the keys of the gates, he kept possession of the
+towers and fortifications, he had meddled with the civil government, he
+had infringed all their privileges.  Yet this was the board of
+magistrates, expressly set up by Leicester, with the armed hand, by the
+agency of Marshal Pelham and this very Colonel Stanley--a board of
+Calvinist magistrates placed but a few weeks before in power to control a
+city of Catholic tendencies.  And here was a papist commander displaying
+Leicester's commission in their faces, and making it a warrant for
+dealing with the town as if it were under martial law, and as if he were
+an officer of the Duke of Parma.  It might easily be judged whether such
+conduct were likely to win the hearts of Netherlanders to Leicester and
+to England.
+
+"Albeit, for my own part," said Wilkes, "I do hold Sir William Stanley to
+be a wise and a discreet gent., yet when I consider that the magistracy
+is such as was established by your Lordship, and of the religion, and
+well affected to her Majesty, and that I see how heavily the matter is
+conceived of here by the States and council, I do fear that all is not
+well.  The very bruit of this doth begin to draw hatred upon our nation.
+Were it not that I doubt some dangerous issue of this matter, and that I
+might be justly charged with negligence, if I should not advertise you
+beforehand, I would, have forborne to mention this dissension, for the
+States are about to write to your Lordship and to her Majesty for
+reformation in this matter."  He added that he had already written
+earnestly to Sir William, "hoping to persuade him to carry a mild hand
+over the people."
+
+Thus wrote Councillor Wilkes, as in duty bound, to Lord Leicester, so
+early as the 9th December, and the warning voice of Norris had made
+itself heard in England quite as soon.  Certainly the governor-general,
+having, upon his own responsibility; and prompted, it would seem, by
+passion more than reason, made this dangerous appointment, was fortunate
+in receiving timely and frequent notice of its probable results.
+
+And the conscientious Wilkes wrote most earnestly, as he said he had
+done, to the turbulent Stanley.
+
+"Good Sir William," said he, "the magistrates and burgesses of Deventer
+complain to this council, that you have by violence wrested from them the
+keys of one of their gates, that you assemble your garrison in arms to
+terrify them, that you have seized one of their forts, that the Irish
+soldiers do commit many extortions and exactions upon the inhabitants,
+that you have imprisoned their burgesses, and do many things against
+their laws and privileges, so that it is feared the best affected, of the
+inhabitants towards her Majesty will forsake the town.  Whether any of
+these things be true, yourself doth best know, but I do assure you that
+the apprehension thereof here doth make us and our government hateful.
+For mine own part, I have always known you for a gentleman of value,
+wisdom; and judgment, and therefore should hardly believe any such thing.
+.  .  .  .  I earnestly require you to take heed of consequences, and to
+be careful of the honour of her Majesty and the reputation of our nation.
+You will consider that the gaining possession of the town grew by them
+that are now in office, who being of the religion, and well affected to
+his Excellency's government, wrought his entry into the same .  .  .  .
+I know that Lord Leicester is sworn to maintain all the inhabitants of
+the Provinces in their ancient privileges and customs.  I know further
+that your commission carreeth no authority to warrant you to intermeddle
+any further than with the government of the soldiers and guard of the
+town.  Well, you may, in your own conceipt, confer some words to
+authorize you in some larger sort, but, believe me, Sir, they will not
+warrant you sufficiently to deal any further than I have said, for I have
+perused a copy of your commission for that purpose.  I know the name
+itself of a governor of a town is odious to this people, and hath been
+ever since the remembrance of the Spanish government, and if we, by any
+lack of foresight, should give the like occasion, we should make
+ourselves as odious as they are; which God forbid.
+
+"You are to consider that we are not come into these countries for their
+defence only, but for the defence of her Majesty and our own native
+country, knowing that the preservation of both dependeth altogether upon
+the preserving of these.  Wherefore I do eftsoons intreat and require you
+to forbear to intermeddle any further.  If there shall follow any
+dangerous effect of your proceedings, after this my friendly advice,
+I shall be heartily sorry for your sake, but I shall be able to testify
+to her Majesty that I have done my duty in admonishing you."
+
+Thus spake the stiff councillor, earnestly and well, in behalf of
+England's honour and the good name of England's Queen.
+
+But the brave soldier, whose feet were fast sliding into the paths of
+destruction, replied, in a tone of indignant innocence, more likely to
+aggravate than to allay suspicion.  "Finding," said Stanley, "that you
+already threaten, I have gone so far as to scan the terms of my
+commission, which I doubt not to execute, according to his Excellency's
+meaning and mine honour.  First, I assure you that I have maintained
+justice, and that severely; else hardly would the soldiers have been
+contented with bread and bare cheese."
+
+He acknowledged possessing himself of the keys of the town, but defended
+it on the ground of necessity; and of the character of the people, "who
+thrust out the Spaniards and Almaynes, and afterwards never would obey
+the Prince and States."  "I would be," he said, "the sorriest man that
+lives, if by my negligence the place should be lost.  Therefore I thought
+good to seize the great tower and ports.  If I meant evil, I needed no
+keys, for here is force enough."
+
+With much effrontery, he then affected to rely for evidence of his
+courteous and equitable conduct towards the citizens, upon the very
+magistrates who had been petitioning the States-General, the state-
+council, and the English Queen, against his violence:
+
+"For my courtesy and humanity," he said, "I refer me unto the magistrates
+themselves.  But I think they sent rhetoricians, who could, allege of
+little grief, and speak pitiful, and truly I find your ears have been as
+pitiful in so timorously condemning me.  I assure you that her Majesty
+hath not a better servant than I nor a more faithful in these parts.
+This I will prove with my flesh and blood.  Although I know there be
+divers flying reports spread by my enemies, which are come to my ears, I
+doubt not my virtue and truth will prove them calumniators and men of
+little.  So, good Mr. Wilkes, I pray you, consider gravely, give ear
+discreetly, and advertise into England soundly.  For me, I have been and
+am your friend, and glad to hear any admonition from one so wise as
+yourself."
+
+He then alluded ironically to the "good favour and money" with which he
+had been so contented of late, that if Mr. Wilkes would discharge him of
+his promise to Lord Leicester, he would take his leave with all his
+heart.  Captain, officers, and soldiers, had been living on half a pound
+of cheese a day.  For himself, he had received but one hundred and twenty
+pounds in five months, and was living at three pounds by the day.  "This
+my wealth will not long hold out," he observed, "but yet I will never
+fail of my promise to his Excellency, whatsoever I endure.  It is for her
+Majesty's service and for the love I bear to him."
+
+He bitterly complained of the unwillingness of the country-people to
+furnish vivers, waggons, and other necessaries, for the fort before
+Zutphen.  "Had it not been," he said, "for the travail extraordinary of
+myself, and patience of my brother, Yorke, that fort would have been in
+danger.  But, according to his desire and forethought, I furnished that
+place with cavalry and infantry; for I know the troops there be
+marvellous weak."
+
+In reply, Wilkes stated that the complaints had been made "by no
+rhetorician," but by letter from the magistrates themselves (on whom he
+relied so confidently) to the state-council.  The councillor added,
+rather tartly, that since his honest words of defence and of warning,
+had been "taken in so scoffing a manner," Sir William might be sure of
+not being troubled with any more of his letters.
+
+But, a day or two before thus addressing him, he had already enclosed to
+Leicester very important letters addressed by the council of Gelderland
+to Count Moeurs, stadholder of the Province, and by him forwarded to the
+state-council.  For there were now very grave rumours concerning the
+fidelity of "that patient and foreseeing brother York," whom Stanley had
+been so generously strengthening in Fort Zutphen.  The lieutenant of
+York, a certain Mr. Zouch, had been seen within the city of Zutphen, in
+close conference with Colonel Tassis, Spanish governor of the place.
+Moreover there had been a very frequent exchange of courtesies--by which
+the horrors of war seemed to be much mitigated--between York on the
+outside and Tassis within.  The English commander sent baskets of
+venison, wild fowl, and other game, which were rare in the market of a
+besieged town.  The Spanish governor responded with baskets of excellent
+wine and barrels of beer.  A very pleasant state of feeling, perhaps, to
+contemplate--as an advance in civilization over the not very distant days
+of the Haarlem and Leyden sieges, when barrels of prisoners' heads, cut
+off, a dozen or two at a time, were the social amenities usually
+exchanged between Spaniards and Dutchmen--but somewhat suspicious to
+those who had grown grey in this horrible warfare.
+
+The Irish kernes too, were allowed to come to mass within the city, and
+were received there with as much fraternity by, the Catholic soldiers of
+Tassis as the want of any common dialect would allow--a proceeding which
+seemed better perhaps for the salvation of their souls, than--for the
+advancement of the siege.
+
+The state-council had written concerning these rumours to Roland York,
+but the patient man had replied in a manner which Wilkes characterized as
+"unfit to have been given to such as were the executors of the Earl of
+Leicester's authority."  The councillor implored the governor-general
+accordingly to send some speedy direction in this matter, as well to
+Roland York as to Sir William Stanley; for he explicitly and earnestly
+warned him, that those personages would pay no heed to the remonstrances
+of the state-council.
+
+Thus again and again was Leicester--on whose head rested, by his own
+deliberate act, the whole responsibility--forewarned that some great
+mischief was impending.  There was time enough even then--for it was but
+the 16th December--to place full powers in the hands of the state-
+council, of Norris, or of Hohenlo, and secretly and swiftly to secure the
+suspected persons, and avert the danger.  Leicester did nothing.  How
+could he acknowledge his error?  How could he manifest confidence in the
+detested Norris?  How appeal to the violent and deeply incensed Hohenlo?
+
+Three weeks more rolled by, and the much-enduring Roland York was still
+in confidential correspondence with Leicester and Walsingham, although
+his social intercourse with the Spanish governor of Zutphen continued to
+be upon the most liberal and agreeable footing.  He was not quite
+satisfied with the general, aspect of the Queen's cause in the
+Netherlands, and wrote to the Secretary of State in a tone of
+despondency, and mild expostulation.  Walsingham would have been less
+edified by these communications, had he been aware that York, upon first
+entering Leicester's service, had immediately opened  a correspondence
+with the Duke of Parma, and had secretly given him to understand that his
+object was to serve the cause of Spain.  This was indeed the fact, as the
+Duke informed the King, "but then he is such a scatter-brained, reckless
+dare-devil," said Parma, "that I hardly expected much of him."  Thus the
+astute Sir Francis had been outwitted, by  the adventurous Roland, who
+was perhaps destined also to surpass the anticipations of the Spanish
+commander-in-chief.
+
+Meantime York informed his English patrons, on the 7th January, that
+matters were not proceeding so smoothly in the political world as he
+could wish.  He had found "many cross and indirect proceedings," and so,
+according to Lord Leicester's desire, he sent him a "discourse" on the
+subject, which he begged Sir Francis to "peruse, add to, or take away
+from," and then to inclose to the Earl.  He hoped he should be forgiven
+if the style of the production was not quite satisfactory; for, said he,
+"the place where I am doth too much torment my memory, to call every
+point to my remembrance."
+
+It must, in truth, have been somewhat a hard task upon his memory, to
+keep freshly in mind every detail of the parallel correspondence which he
+was carrying on with the Spanish and with the English government.  Even a
+cool head like Roland's might be forgiven for being occasionally puzzled.
+"So if there be anything hard to be understood," he observed to
+Walsingham, "advertise me, and I will make it plainer."  Nothing could be
+more ingenuous.  He confessed, however, to being out of pocket.  "Please
+your honour," said he, "I have taken great pains to make a bad place
+something, and it has cost me all the money I had, and here I can receive
+nothing but discontentment.  I dare not write you all lest you should
+think it impossible," he added--and it is quite probable that even
+Walsingham would have been astonished, had Roland written all.  The game
+playing by York and Stanley was not one to which English gentlemen were
+much addicted.
+
+"I trust the bearer, Edward Stanley; a discreet, brave gentleman," he
+said, "with details."  And the remark proves that the gallant youth who
+had captured this very Fort Zutphen in, so brilliant a manner was not
+privy to the designs of his brother and of York; for the object of the
+"discourse" was to deceive the English government.
+
+"I humbly beseech that you will send for me home," concluded Roland,
+"for true as I humbled my mind to please her Majesty, your honour, and
+the dead, now am I content to humble myself lower to please myself, for
+now, since his, Excellency's departure, there is no form of proceeding
+neither honourably nor honestly."
+
+Three other weeks passed over, weeks of anxiety and dread throughout the
+republic.  Suspicion grew darker than ever, not only as to York and
+Stanley, but as to all the English commanders, as to the whole English
+nation.  An Anjou plot, a general massacre, was expected by many, yet
+there were no definite grounds for such dark anticipations.  In vain had
+painstaking, truth-telling Wilkes summoned Stanley to his duty, and
+called on Leicester, time after time, to interfere.  In vain did Sir John
+Norris, Sir John Conway, the members of the state-council, and all others
+who should have had authority, do their utmost to avert a catastrophe.
+Their hands were all tied by the fatal letter of the 24th November.  Most
+anxiously did all implore the Earl of Leicester to return.  Never was a
+more dangerous moment than this for a country to be left to its fate.
+Scarcely ever in history was there a more striking exemplification of the
+need of a man--of an individual--who should embody the powers and wishes,
+and concentrate in one brain and arm, the whole energy, of a
+commonwealth.  But there was no such man, for the republic had lost its
+chief when Orange died.  There was much wisdom and patriotism now.
+Olden-Barneveld was competent, and so was Buys, to direct the councils of
+the republic, and there were few better soldiers than Norris and Hohenlo
+to lead her armies against Spain.  But the supreme authority had been
+confided to Leicester.  He had not perhaps proved himself extraordinarily
+qualified for his post, but he was the governor-in-chief, and his
+departure, without resigning his powers, left the commonwealth headless,
+at a moment when singleness of action was vitally important.
+
+At last, very late in January, one Hugh Overing, a haberdasher from
+Ludgate Hill, was caught at Rotterdam, on his way to Ireland, with a
+bundle of letters from Sir William Stanley, and was sent, as a suspicious
+character, to the state-council at the Hague.  On the same day, another
+Englishman, a small youth, "well-favoured," rejoicing in a "very little
+red beard, and in very ragged clothes," unknown by name; but ascertained
+to be in the service of Roland York and to have been the bearer of
+letters to Brussels, also passed through Rotterdam.  By connivance of the
+innkeeper, one Joyce, also an Englishman, he succeeded in making his
+escape.  The information contained in the letters thus intercepted was
+important, but it came too late, even if then the state-council could
+have acted without giving mortal offence to Elizabeth and to Leicester.
+
+On the evening of 28th January (N. S.), Sir William Stanley entertained
+the magistrates of Deventer at a splendid banquet.  There was free
+conversation at table concerning the idle suspicions which had been rife
+in the Provinces as to his good intentions and the censures which had
+been cast upon him for the repressive measures which he had thought
+necessary to adopt for the security of the city.  He took that occasion
+to assure his guests that the Queen of England had not a more loyal
+subject than himself, nor the Netherlands a more devoted friend.  The
+company expressed themselves fully restored to confidence in his
+character and purposes, and the burgomasters, having exchanged pledges of
+faith and friendship with the commandant in flowing goblets, went home
+comfortably to bed, highly pleased with their noble entertainer and with
+themselves.
+
+Very late that same night, Stanley placed three hundred of his wild Irish
+in the Noorenberg tower, a large white structure which commanded the
+Zutphen gate, and sent bodies of chosen troops to surprise all the
+burgher-guards at their respective stations.  Strong pickets of cavalry
+were also placed in all the principal thoroughfares of the city.  At
+three o'clock in the following morning he told his officers that he was
+about to leave Deventer for a few hours, in order to bring in some
+reinforcements for which he had sent, as he had felt much anxiety for
+some time past as to the disposition of the burghers.  His officers,
+honest Englishmen, suspecting no evil and having confidence in their
+chief, saw nothing strange in this proceeding, and Sir William rode
+deliberately out of Zutphen.  After he had been absent an hour or two,
+the clatter of hoofs and the tramp of infantry was heard without, and
+presently the commandant returned, followed by a thousand musketeers and
+three or four hundred troopers.  It was still pitch dark; but, dimly
+lighted by torches, small detachments of the fresh troops picked their
+way through the black narrow streets, while the main body poured at once
+upon the Brink, or great square.  Here, quietly and swiftly, they were
+marshalled into order, the cavalry, pikemen, and musketeers, lining all
+sides of the place, and a chosen band--among whom stood Sir William
+Stanley, on foot, and an officer of high rank on horseback--occupying the
+central space immediately in front of the town-house.
+
+The drums then beat, and proclamation went forth through the city that
+all burghers, without any distinction--municipal guards and all--were to
+repair forthwith to the city-hall, and deposit their arms.  As the
+inhabitants arose from their slumbers, and sallied forth into the streets
+to inquire the cause of the disturbance, they soon discovered that they
+had, in some mysterious manner, been entrapped.  Wild Irishmen, with
+uncouth garb, threatening gesture, and unintelligible jargon, stood
+gibbering at every corner, instead of the comfortable Flemish faces of
+the familiar burgher-guard.  The chief burgomaster, sleeping heavily
+after Sir William's hospitable banquet, aroused himself at last, and sent
+a militia-captain to inquire the cause of the unseasonable drum-beat and
+monstrous proclamation.  Day was breaking as the trusty captain made his
+way to the scene of action.  The wan light of a cold, drizzly January
+morning showed him the wide, stately square--with its leafless lime-trees
+and its tall many storied, gable-ended houses rising dim and spectral
+through the mist-filled to overflowing with troops, whose uniforms and
+banners resembled nothing that he remembered in Dutch and English
+regiments.  Fires were lighted at various corners, kettles were boiling,
+and camp-followers and sutlers were crouching over them, half perished
+with cold--for it had been raining dismally all night--while burghers,
+with wives and children, startled from their dreams by the sudden
+reveillee, stood gaping about, with perplexed faces and despairing
+gestures.  As he approached the town-house--one of those magnificent,
+many-towered, highly-decorated, municipal palaces of the Netherlands--he
+found troops all around it; troops guarding the main entrance, troops on
+the great external staircase leading to the front balcony, and officers,
+in yellow jerkin and black bandoleer, grouped in the balcony itself.
+
+The Flemish captain stood bewildered, when suddenly the familiar form of
+Stanley detached itself from the central group and advanced towards him.
+Taking him by the hand with much urbanity, Sir William led the militia-
+man through two or three ranks of soldiers, and presented him to the
+strange officer on horseback
+
+"Colonel Tassis," said he, "I recommend to you a very particular friend
+of mine.  Let me bespeak your best offices in his behalf."
+
+"Ah God!"  cried the honest burgher, "Tassis!  Tassis!  Then are we
+indeed most miserably betrayed."
+
+Even the Spanish colonel who was of Flemish origin, was affected by the
+despair of the Netherlander.
+
+"Let those look to the matter of treachery whom it concerns," said he;
+"my business here is to serve the King, my master."
+
+"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the
+things which are God's," said Stanley, with piety.
+
+The burgher-captain was then assured that no harm was intended to the
+city, but that it now belonged to his most Catholic Majesty of Spain--
+Colonel Stanley, to whom its custody had been entrusted, having freely
+and deliberately restored it to its lawful owner.  He was then bid to go
+and fetch the burgomasters and magistrates.
+
+Presently they appeared--a dismal group, weeping and woe-begone--the same
+board of strict Calvinists forcibly placed in office but three months
+before by Leicester, through the agency of this very Stanley, who had so
+summarily ejected their popish predecessors, and who only the night
+before had so handsomely feasted themselves.  They came forward, the
+tears running down their cheeks, crying indeed so piteously that even
+Stanley began to weep bitterly himself.  "I have not done this," he
+sobbed, "for power or pelf.  Not the hope of reward, but the love of God
+hath moved me."
+
+Presently some of the ex-magistrates made their appearance, and a party
+of leading citizens went into a private house with Tassis and Stanley to
+hear statements and explanations--as if any satisfactory ones were
+possible.
+
+Sir William, still in a melancholy tone, began to make a speech, through
+an interpreter, and again to protest that he had not been influenced by
+love of lucre.  But as he stammered and grew incoherent as he approached
+the point, Tassis suddenly interrupted the conference.  "Let us look
+after our soldiers,"  said he, "for they have been marching in the foul
+weather half the night."  So the Spanish troops, who had been, standing
+patiently to be rained upon after their long march, until the burghers
+had all deposited their arms in the city-hall, were now billeted on the
+townspeople.  Tassis gave peremptory orders that no injury should be
+offered to persons or property on pain of death; and, by way of wholesome
+example, hung several Hibernians the same day who had been detected in
+plundering the inhabitants.
+
+The citizens were, as usual in such cases, offered the choice between
+embracing the Catholic religion or going into exile, a certain interval
+being allowed them to wind up their affairs.  They were also required to
+furnish Stanley and his regiment full pay for the whole period of their
+service since coming to the Provinces, and to Tassis three months' wages
+for his Spaniards in advance.  Stanley offered his troops the privilege
+of remaining with him in the service of Spain, or of taking their
+departure unmolested.  The Irish troops were quite willing to continue
+under their old chieftain, particularly as it was intimated to them that
+there was an immediate prospect of a brisk campaign in their native
+island against the tyrant Elizabeth, under the liberating banners of
+Philip.  And certainly, in an age where religion constituted country,
+these fervent Catholics could scarcely be censured for taking arms
+against the sovereign who persecuted their religion and themselves.
+These honest barbarians had broken no oath, violated no trust, had
+never pretended sympathy with freedom; or affection for their Queen.
+They had fought fiercely under the chief who led them into battle--they
+had robbed and plundered voraciously as opportunity served, and had been
+occasionally hanged for their exploits; but Deventer and Fort Zutphen had
+not been confided to their keeping; and it was a pleasant thought to
+them, that approaching invasion of Ireland.  "I will ruin the whole
+country from Holland to Friesland," said Stanley to Captain Newton, "and
+then I will play such a game in Ireland as the Queen has never seen the
+like all the days of her life."
+
+Newton had already been solicited by Roland York to take service under
+Parma, and had indignantly declined.  Sir Edmund Carey and his men, four
+hundred in all, refused, to a man, to take part in the monstrous treason,
+and were allowed to leave the city.  This was the case with all the
+English officers.  Stanley and York were the only gentlemen who on this
+occasion sullied the honour of England.
+
+Captain Henchman, who had been taken prisoner in a skirmish a few days
+before the surrender of Deventer, was now brought to that city, and
+earnestly entreated by Tassis and by Stanley to seize this opportunity
+of entering the service of Spain.
+
+"You shall have great advancement and preferment," said Tassis.  "His
+Catholic Majesty has got ready very many ships for Ireland, and Sir
+William Stanley is to be general of the expedition."
+
+"And you shall choose your own preferment," said Stanley, "for I know you
+to be a brave man."
+
+"I would rather," replied Henchman, "serve my prince in loyalty as a
+beggar, than to be known and reported a rich traitor, with breach of
+conscience."
+
+"Continue so," replied Stanley, unabashed; "for this is the very
+principle of my own enlargement: for, before, I served the devil,
+and now I am serving God."
+
+The offers and the arguments of the Spaniard and the renegade were
+powerless with the blunt captain, and notwithstanding "divers other
+traitorous alledgements by Sir William for his most vile facts," as
+Henchman expressed it, that officer remained in poverty and captivity
+until such time as he could be exchanged.
+
+Stanley subsequently attempted in various ways to defend his character.
+He had a commission from Leicester, he said, to serve whom he chose--as
+if the governor-general had contemplated his serving Philip II. with that
+commission; he had a passport to go whither he liked--as if his passport
+entitled him to take the city of Deventer along with him; he owed no
+allegiance to the States; he was discharged from his promise to the Earl;
+he was his own master; he wanted neither money nor preferment; he had
+been compelled by his conscience and his duty to God to restore the city
+to its lawful master, and so on, and so on.
+
+But whether he owed the States allegiance or not, it is certain that he
+had accepted their money to relieve himself and his troops eight days
+before his treason.  That Leicester had discharged him from his promises
+to such an extent as to justify his surrendering a town committed to his
+honour for safe keeping, certainly deserved no answer; that his duty to
+conscience required him to restore the city argued a somewhat tardy
+awakening of that monitor in the breast of the man who three months
+before had wrested the place with the armed hand from men suspected of
+Catholic inclinations; that his first motive however was not the mere
+love of money, was doubtless true.  Attachment to his religion, a desire
+to atone for his sins against it, the insidious temptings of his evil
+spirit, York, who was the chief organizer of the conspiracy, and the
+prospect of gratifying a wild and wicked ambition--these were the springs
+that moved him.  Sums--varying from L30,000 to a pension of 1500
+pistolets a year--were mentioned, as the stipulated price of his treason,
+by Norris, Wilkes, Conway, and others;  but the Duke of Parma, in
+narrating the whole affair in a private letter to the King, explicitly
+stated that he had found Stanley "singularly disinterested."
+
+"The colonel was only actuated by religious motives," he said, "asking
+for no reward, except that be might serve in his Majesty's army
+thenceforth--and this is worthy to be noted."
+
+At the same time it appears from this correspondence, that the Duke,
+recommended, and that the King bestowed, a "merced," which Stanley did
+not refuse; and it was very well known that to no persons in, the world
+was Philip apt to be so generous as to men of high rank, Flemish,
+Walloon, or English, who deserted the cause of his rebellious subjects to
+serve under his own banners.  Yet, strange to relate, almost at the very
+moment that Stanley was communicating his fatal act of treason, in order
+that he might open a high career for his ambition, a most brilliant
+destiny was about to dawn upon him.  The Queen had it in contemplation,
+in recompense for his distinguished services, and by advice of Leicester,
+to bestow great honors and titles upon him, and to appoint him Viceroy of
+Ireland--of that very country which he was now proposing, as an enemy to
+his sovereign and as the purchased tool of a foreign despot, to invade.
+
+Stanley's subsequent fate was obscure.  A price of 3000 florins was put
+by the States upon his head and upon that of York.  He went to Spain, and
+afterwards returned to the Provinces.  He was even reported to have
+become, through the judgment of God, a lunatic, although the tale wanted
+confirmation; and it is certain that at the close of the year he had
+mustered his regiment under Farnese, prepared to join the Duke in the
+great invasion of England.
+
+Roland York, who was used to such practices, cheerfully consummated his
+crime on the same day that witnessed the surrender of Deventer.  He rode
+up to the gates of that city on the morning of the 29th January, inquired
+quietly whether Tassis was master of the place, and then galloped
+furiously back the ten miles to his fort.  Entering, he called his
+soldiers together, bade them tear in pieces the colours of England, and
+follow him into the city of Zutphen.  Two companies of States' troops
+offered resistance, and attempted to hold the place; but they were
+overpowered by the English and Irish, assisted by a force of Spaniards,
+who, by a concerted movement, made their appearance from the town.  He
+received a handsome reward, having far surpassed the Duke of Parma's
+expectations, when he made his original offer of service.  He died very
+suddenly, after a great banquet at Deventer, in the course of the sane
+year, not having succeeded in making his escape into Spain to live at
+ease on his stipend.  It was supposed that he was poisoned; but the
+charge in those days was a common one, and nobody cared to investigate
+the subject.  His body was subsequently exhumed when Deventer came into
+the hands of the patriots--and with impotent and contemptible malice
+hanged upon a gibbet.  This was the end of Roland York.
+
+Parma was highly gratified, as may be imagined, at such successful
+results.  "Thus Fort Zutphen," said he, "about which there have been so
+many fisticuffs, and Deventer--which was the real object of the last
+campaign, and which has cost the English so much blood and money, and is
+the safety of Groningen and of all those Provinces--is now your
+Majesty's.  Moreover, the effect of this treason must be to sow great
+distrust between the English and the rebels, who will henceforth never
+know in whom they can confide."
+
+Parma was very right in this conjuncture.  Moreover, there was just then
+a fearful run against the States.  The castle of Wauw, within a league of
+Bergen-op-Zoom, which had been entrusted to one Le Marchand, a Frenchman
+in the service of the republic, was delivered by him to Parma for 16,000
+florins.  "'Tis a very important post," said the Duke, "and the money was
+well laid out."
+
+The loss of the city of Gelder, capital of the Province of the same name,
+took place in the summer.  This town belonged to the jurisdiction of
+Martin Schenk, and was, his chief place of deposit for the large and
+miscellaneous property acquired by him during his desultory, but most
+profitable, freebooting career.  The Famous partisan was then absent,
+engaged in a lucrative job in the way of his profession.  He had made a
+contract--in a very-business-like way--with the States, to defend the
+city of Rheinberg and all the country, round against the Duke of Parma,
+pledging himself to keep on foot for that purpose an army of 3300 foot
+and 700 horse.  For this extensive and important operation, he was to
+receive 20,000 florins a month from the general exchequer; and in
+addition he was to be allowed the brandschatz--the black-mail, that is
+to say--of the whole country-side, and the taxation upon all vessels
+going up and down the river before Rheinberg; an ad valorem duty, in
+short, upon all river-merchandise, assessed and collected in summary
+fashion.  A tariff thus enforced was not likely to be a mild one; and
+although the States considered that they had got a "good penny-worth" by
+the job, it was no easy thing to get the better, in a bargain, of the
+vigilant Martin, who was as thrifty a speculator as he was a desperate
+fighter.  A more accomplished highwayman, artistically and
+enthusiastically devoted to his pursuit, never lived.  Nobody did his
+work more thoroughly--nobody got himself better paid for his work--and
+Thomas Wilkes, that excellent man of business, thought the States not
+likely to make much by their contract.  Nevertheless, it was a comfort to
+know that the work would not be neglected.
+
+Schenk was accordingly absent, jobbing the Rheinberg siege, and in his
+place one Aristotle Patton, a Scotch colonel in the States' service, was
+commandant of Gelders.  Now the thrifty Scot had an eye to business, too,
+and was no more troubled with qualms of conscience than Rowland York
+himself.  Moreover, he knew himself to be in great danger of losing his
+place, for Leicester was no friend to him, and intended to supersede him.
+Patton had also a decided grudge against Schenk, for that truculent
+personage had recently administered to him a drubbing, which no doubt he
+had richly deserved.  Accordingly, when; the Duke of Parma made a secret
+offer to him of 36,000 florins if he would quietly surrender the city
+entrusted to him, the colonel jumped at so excellent an opportunity of
+circumventing Leicester, feeding his grudge against Martin, and making a
+handsome fortune for himself.  He knew his trade too well, however, to
+accept the offer too eagerly, and bargained awhile for better terms, and
+to such good purpose, that it was agreed he should have not only the
+36,000 florins, but all the horses, arms, plate, furniture, and other
+moveables in the city belonging to Schenk, that he could lay his hands
+upon.  Here were revenge and solid damages for the unforgotten assault
+and battery--for Schenk's property alone made no inconsiderable fortune--
+and accordingly the city, towards Midsummer, was surrendered to the
+Seigneur d'Haultepenne.  Moreover, the excellent Patton had another and
+a loftier motive.  He was in love.  He had also a rival.  The lady of his
+thoughts was the widow of Pontus de Noyelle, Seigneur de Bours, who had
+once saved the citadel of Antwerp, and afterwards sold that city and
+himself.  His rival was no other than the great Seigneur de Champagny,
+brother of Cardinal Granvelle, eminent as soldier, diplomatist, and
+financier, but now growing old, not in affluent circumstances, and much
+troubled with the gout.  Madame de Bours had, however, accepted his hand,
+and had fixed the day for the wedding, when the Scotchman, thus suddenly
+enriched, renewed a previously unsuccessful suit.  The widow then,
+partially keeping her promise, actually celebrated her nuptials on the
+appointed evening; but, to the surprise of the Provinces, she became not
+the 'haulte et puissante dame de Champagny,' but Mrs. Aristotle Patton.
+
+For this last treason neither Leicester nor the English were responsible.
+Patton was not only a Scot, but a follower of Hohenlo, as Leicester
+loudly protested.  Le Merchant was a Frenchman.  But Deventer and Zutphen
+were places of vital importance, and Stanley an Englishman of highest
+consideration, one who had been deemed worthy of the command in chief in
+Leicester's absence.  Moreover, a cornet in the service of the Earl's
+nephew, Sir Robert Sidney, had been seen at Zutphen in conference with
+Tassis; and the horrible suspicion went abroad that even the illustrious
+name of Sidney was to be polluted also.  This fear was fortunately false,
+although the cornet was unquestionably a traitor, with whom the enemy had
+been tampering; but the mere thought that Sir Robert Sidney could betray
+the trust reposed in him was almost enough to make the still unburied
+corpse of his brother arise from the dead.
+
+Parma was right when he said that all confidence of the Netherlanders in
+the Englishmen would now be gone, and that the Provinces would begin to
+doubt their best friends.  No fresh treasons followed, but they were
+expected every day.  An organized plot to betray the country was believed
+in, and a howl of execration swept through the land.  The noble deeds of
+Sidney and Willoughby, and Norris and Pelham, and Roger Williams, the
+honest and valuable services of Wilkes, the generosity and courage of
+Leicester, were for a season forgotten.  The English were denounced in
+every city and village of the Netherlands as traitors and miscreants.
+Respectable English merchants went from hostelry to hostelry, and from
+town to town, and were refused a lodging for love or money.  The nation
+was put under ban.  A most melancholy change from the beginning of the
+year, when the very men who were now loudest in denunciation and fiercest
+in hate, had been the warmest friends of Elizabeth, of England, and of
+Leicester.
+
+At Hohenlo's table the opinion was loudly expressed, even in the presence
+of Sir Roger Williams, that it was highly improbable, if a man like
+Stanley, of such high rank in the kingdom of England, of such great
+connections and large means, could commit such a treason, that he could
+do so without the knowledge and consent of her Majesty.
+
+Barneveld, in council of state, declared that Leicester, by his
+restrictive letter of 24th November, had intended to carry the authority
+over the republic into England, in order to dispose of everything at his
+pleasure, in conjunction with the English cabinet-council, and that the
+country had never been so cheated by the French as it had now been by the
+English, and that their government had become insupportable.
+
+Councillor Carl Roorda maintained at the table of Elector Truchsess that
+the country had fallen 'de tyrannide in tyrrannidem;' and--if they had
+spurned the oppression of the Spaniards and the French--that it was now
+time to, rebel against the English.  Barneveld and Buys loudly declared
+that the Provinces were able to protect themselves without foreign
+assistance, and that it was very injurious to impress a contrary opinion
+upon the public mind.
+
+The whole college of the States-General came before the state-council,
+and demanded the name of the man to whom the Earl's restrictive letter
+had been delivered--that document by which the governor had dared
+surreptitiously to annul the authority which publicly he had delegated to
+that body, and thus to deprive it of the power of preventing anticipated
+crimes.  After much colloquy the name of Brackel was given, and, had not
+the culprit fortunately been absent, his life might have, been in danger,
+for rarely had grave statesmen been so thoroughly infuriated.
+
+No language can exaggerate the consequences of this wretched treason.
+Unfortunately, too; the abject condition to which the English troops had
+been reduced by the niggardliness of their sovereign was an additional
+cause of danger.  Leicester was gone, and since her favourite was no
+longer in the Netherlands, the Queen seemed to forget that there was a
+single Englishman upon that fatal soil.  In five months not one penny had
+been sent to her troops.  While the Earl had been there one hundred and
+forty thousand pounds had been sent in seven or eight months.  After his
+departure not five thousand pounds were sent in one half year.
+
+The English soldiers, who had fought so well in every Flemish battle-
+field of freedom, had become--such as were left of them--mere famishing
+half naked vagabonds and marauders.  Brave soldiers had been changed by
+their sovereign into brigands, and now the universal odium which suddenly
+attached itself to the English name converted them into outcasts.
+Forlorn and crippled creatures swarmed about the Provinces, but were
+forbidden to come through the towns, and so wandered about, robbing hen-
+roosts and pillaging the peasantry.  Many deserted to the enemy.  Many
+begged their way to England, and even to the very gates of the palace,
+and exhibited their wounds and their misery before the eyes of that good
+Queen Bess who claimed to be the mother of her subjects,--and begged for
+bread in vain.
+
+The English cavalry, dwindled now to a body of five hundred, starving and
+mutinous, made a foray into Holland, rather as highwaymen than soldiers.
+Count Maurice commanded their instant departure, and Hohenlo swore that
+if the order were not instantly obeyed, he would put himself at the head
+of his troops and cut every man of them to pieces.  A most painful and
+humiliating condition for brave men who had been fighting the battles of
+their Queen and of the republic, to behold themselves--through the
+parsimony of the one and the infuriated sentiment of the other--compelled
+to starve, to rob, or to be massacred by those whom they had left their
+homes to defend.
+
+At last, honest Wilkes, ever watchful of his duty, succeeded in borrowing
+eight hundred pounds sterling for two months, by "pawning his own
+carcase" as he expressed himself.  This gave the troopers about thirty
+shillings a man, with which relief they became, for a time, contented and
+well disposed.
+
+Is this picture exaggerated?  Is it drawn by pencils hostile to the
+English nation or the English Queen?  It is her own generals and
+confidential counsellors who have told a story in all its painful
+details, which has hardly found a place in other chronicles.  The
+parsimony of the great Queen must ever remain a blemish on her character,
+and it was never more painfully exhibited than towards her brave soldiers
+in Flanders in the year 1587.  Thomas Wilkes, a man of truth, and a man
+of accounts, had informed Elizabeth that the expenses of one year's war,
+since Leicester had been governor-general, had amounted to exactly five
+hundred and seventy-nine thousand three hundred and sixty pounds and
+nineteen shillings, of which sum one hundred and forty-six thousand three
+hundred and eighty-six pounds and eleven shillings had been spent by her
+Majesty, and the balance had been paid, or was partly owing by the
+States.  These were not agreeable figures, but the figures of honest
+accountants rarely flatter, and Wilkes was not one of those financiers
+who have the wish or the gift to make things pleasant.  He had
+transmitted the accounts just as they had been delivered, certified by
+the treasurers of the States and by the English paymasters, and the Queen
+was appalled at the sum-totals.  She could never proceed with such a war
+as that, she said, and she declined a loan of sixty thousand pounds which
+the States requested, besides stoutly refusing to advance her darling
+Robin a penny to pay off the mortgages upon two-thirds of his estates,
+on which the equity of redemption was fast expiring, or to give him the
+slightest help in furnishing him forth anew for the wars.
+
+Yet not one of her statesmen doubted that these Netherland battles were
+English battles, almost as much as if the fighting-ground had been the
+Isle of Wight or the coast of Kent, the charts of which the statesmen and
+generals of Spain were daily conning.
+
+Wilkes, too, while defending Leicester stoutly behind his back, doing his
+best, to explain his short-comings, lauding his courage and generosity,
+and advocating his beloved theory of popular sovereignty with much
+ingenuity and eloquence, had told him the truth to his face.  Although
+assuring him that if he came back soon, he might rule the States "as a
+schoolmaster doth his boys," he did not fail to set before him the
+disastrous effects of his sudden departure and of his protracted absence;
+he had painted in darkest colours the results of the Deventer treason,
+he had unveiled the cabals against his authority, he had repeatedly and
+vehemently implored his return; he had, informed the Queen, that
+notwithstanding some errors of, administration, he was much the fittest
+man to represent her in the Netherlands, and, that he could accomplish,
+by reason of his experience, more in three months than any other man
+could do in a year.  He bad done his best to reconcile the feuds which
+existed between him and important personages in the Netherlands, he had
+been the author of the complimentary letters sent to him in the name of
+the States-General--to the great satisfaction of the Queen--but he had
+not given up his friendship with Sir John Norris, because he said "the
+virtues of the man made him as worthy of love as any one living, and
+because the more he knew him, the more he had cause to affect and to
+admire him."
+
+This was the unpardonable offence, and for this, and for having told the
+truth about the accounts, Leicester denounced Wilkes to the Queen as a
+traitor and a hypocrite, and threatened repeatedly to take his life.  He
+had even the meanness to prejudice Burghley against him--by insinuating
+to the Lord-Treasurer that he too had been maligned by Wilkes--and thus
+most effectually damaged the character of the plain-spoken councillor
+with the Queen and many of her advisers; notwithstanding that he
+plaintively besought her to "allow him to reiterate his sorry song, as
+doth the cuckoo, that she would please not condemn her poor servant
+unheard."
+
+Immediate action was taken on the Deventer treason, and on the general
+relations between the States-General and the English government.
+Barneveld immediately drew up a severe letter to the Earl of Leicester.
+On the 2nd February Wilkes came by chance into the assembly of the
+States-General, with the rest of the councillors, and found Barneveld
+just demanding the public reading of that document.  The letter was read.
+Wilkes then rose and made a few remarks.
+
+"The letter seems rather sharp upon his Excellency," he observed.  "There
+is not a word in it," answered Barneveld curtly, "that is not perfectly
+true;" and with this he cut the matter short, and made a long speech upon
+other matters which were then before the assembly.
+
+Wilkes, very anxious as to the effect of the letter, both upon public
+feeling in England and upon his own position as English councillor,
+waited immediately upon Count Maurice, President van der Myle, and upon
+Villiers the clergyman, and implored their interposition to prevent the
+transmission of the epistle.  They promised to make an effort to delay
+its despatch or to mitigate its tone.  A fortnight afterwards, however,
+Wilkes learned with dismay, that the document (the leading passages of
+which will be given hereafter) had been sent to its destination.
+
+Meantime, a consultation of civilians and of the family council of Count
+Maurice was held, and it was determined that the Count should assume the
+title of Prince more formally than he had hitherto done, in order that
+the actual head of the Nassaus might be superior in rank to Leicester or
+to any man who could be sent from England.  Maurice was also appointed by
+the States, provisionally, governor-general, with Hohenlo for his
+lieutenant-general.  That formidable personage, now fully restored to
+health, made himself very busy in securing towns and garrisons for the
+party of Holland, and in cashiering all functionaries suspected of
+English tendencies.  Especially he became most intimate with Count
+Moeurs, stadholder of Utrecht--the hatred of which individual and his
+wife towards Leicester and the English nation; springing originally from
+the unfortunate babble of Otheman, had grown more intense than ever,--
+"banquetting and feasting" with him all day long, and concocting a
+scheme; by which, for certain considerations, the province of Utrecht was
+to be annexed to Holland under the perpetual stadholderate of Prince
+Maurice.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Defect of enjoying the flattery, of his inferiors in station
+The sapling was to become the tree
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v51
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 52, 1587
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+     Leicester in England--Trial of the Queen of Scots--Fearful
+     Perplexity at the English Court--Infatuation and Obstinacy of the
+     Queen--Netherland Envoys in England--Queen's bitter Invective
+     against them--Amazement of the Envoys--They consult with her chief
+     Councillors--Remarks of Burghley and Davison--Fourth of February
+     Letter from the States--Its severe Language towards Leicester--
+     Painful Position of the Envoys at Court--Queen's Parsimony towards
+     Leicester.
+
+The scene shifts, for a brief interval, to England.  Leicester had
+reached the court late in November.  Those "blessed beams," under whose
+shade he was wont to find so much "refreshment and nutrition," had again
+fallen with full radiance upon him.  "Never since I was born," said he,
+"did I receive a more gracious welcome."--[Leicester to 'Wilkes, 4 Dec.
+1587.  (S. P. Office MS)]--Alas, there was not so much benignity for the
+starving English soldiers, nor for the Provinces, which were fast growing
+desperate; but although their cause was so intimately connected with the
+"great cause," which then occupied Elizabeth, almost to the exclusion of
+other matter, it was, perhaps, not wonderful, although unfortunate, that
+for a time the Netherlands should be neglected.
+
+The "daughter of debate" had at last brought herself, it was supposed,
+within the letter of the law, and now began those odious scenes of
+hypocrisy on the part of Elizabeth, that frightful comedy--more
+melancholy even than the solemn tragedy which it preceded and followed--
+which must ever remain the darkest passage in the history of the Queen.
+
+It is unnecessary, in these pages, to make more than a passing allusion
+to the condemnation and death of the Queen of Scots.  Who doubts her
+participation in the Babington conspiracy?  Who doubts that she was the
+centre of one endless conspiracy by Spain and Rome against the throne and
+life of Elizabeth?  Who doubts that her long imprisonment in England was
+a violation of all law, all justice, all humanity?  Who doubts that the
+fineing, whipping, torturing, hanging, embowelling of men, women, and
+children, guilty of no other crime than adhesion to the Catholic faith,
+had assisted the Pope and Philip, and their band of English, Scotch, and
+Irish conspirators, to shake Elizabeth's throne and endanger her life?
+Who doubts that; had the English sovereign been capable of conceiving the
+great thought of religious toleration, her reign would have been more
+glorious than, it was, the cause of Protestantism and freedom more
+triumphant, the name of Elizabeth Tudor dearer to human hearts?  Who
+doubts that there were many enlightened and noble spirits among her
+Protestant subjects who lifted up their voices, over and over again, in
+parliament and out of it, to denounce that wicked persecution exercised
+upon their innocent Catholic brethren, which was fast converting loyal
+Englishmen, against their will, into traitors and conspirators?  Yet who
+doubts that it would have required, at exactly that moment, and in the
+midst of that crisis; more elevation of soul than could fairly be
+predicated of any individual, for Elizabeth in 1587 to pardon Mary,
+or to relax in the severity of her legislation towards English Papists?
+
+Yet, although a display of sublime virtue, such as the world has rarely
+seen, was not to be expected, it was reasonable to look for honest and
+royal dealing, from a great sovereign, brought at last face to face with
+a great event.  The "great cause" demanded, a great, straightforward
+blow.  It was obvious, however, that it would be difficult, in the midst
+of the tragedy and the comedy, for the Netherland business to come fairly
+before her Majesty.  "Touching the Low Country causes," said Leicester;
+"very little is done yet, by reason of the continued business we have had
+about the Queen of Scots' matters.  All the speech I have had with her
+Majesty hitherto touching those causes hath been but private."--
+[Leicester to Wilkes, 4 Des 1586.  (S. P. Office MS.)]--Walsingham,
+longing for retirement, not only on account of his infinite grief for the
+death of Sir Philip Sidney, "which hath been the cause;" he said, "that I
+have ever since betaken myself into solitariness, and withdrawn; from
+public affairs," but also by reason of the perverseness an difficulty
+manifested in the gravest affairs by the sovereign he so faithfully
+served, sent information, that, notwithstanding the arrival of some of
+the States' deputies, Leicester was persuading her Majesty to proceed
+first in the great cause.  "Certain principal persons, chosen as
+committees," he said, "of both Houses are sent as humble suitors, to her
+Majesty to desire that she would be pleased to give order for the
+execution of the Scottish Queen.  Her Majesty made answer that she was
+loath to proceed in so violent a course against the said Queen; as the
+taking away of her life, and therefore prayed them to think of some other
+way which might be for her own and their safety.  They replied, no other
+way but her execution.  Her Majesty, though she yielded no answer to this
+their latter reply, is contented to give order that the proclamation be
+published, and so also it is hoped that she, will be moved by this, their
+earnest instance to proceed to the thorough ending of the cause."
+
+And so the cause went slowly on to its thorough ending.  And when
+"no other way" could be thought of but to take Mary's life, and when
+"no other way of taking that life could be devised," at Elizabeth's
+suggestion, except by public execution, when none of the gentlemen
+"of the association," nor Paulet, nor Drury--how skilfully soever their
+"pulses had been felt" by Elizabeth's command--would commit assassination
+to serve a Queen who was capable of punishing them afterwards for the
+murder, the great cause came to its inevitable conclusion, and Mary
+Stuart was executed by command of Elizabeth Tudor.  The world may
+continue to differ as to the necessity of the execution but it has long
+since pronounced a unanimous verdict as to the respective display of
+royal dignity by the two Queens upon that great occasion.
+
+During this interval the Netherland matter, almost as vital to England as
+the execution of Mary, was comparatively neglected.  It was not
+absolutely in abeyance, but the condition of the Queen's mind coloured
+every state-affair with its tragic hues.  Elizabeth, harassed, anxious,
+dreaming dreams, and enacting a horrible masquerade, was in the worst
+possible temper to be approached by the envoys.  She was furious with the
+Netherlanders for having maltreated her favourite.  She was still more
+furious because their war was costing so much money.  Her disposition
+became so uncertain, her temper so ungovernable, as to drive her
+counsellors to their wit's ends.  Burghley confessed himself "weary of
+his miserable life," and protested "that the only desire he had in the
+world was to be delivered from the ungrateful burthen of service, which
+her Majesty laid upon him so very heavily."  Walsingham wished himself
+"well established in Basle."  The Queen set them all together by the
+ears.  She wrangled spitefully over the sum-totals from the Netherlands;
+she worried Leicester, she scolded Burghley for defending Leicester, and
+Leicester abused Burghley for taking part against him.
+
+The Lord-Treasurer, overcome with "grief which pierced both his body and
+his heart," battled his way--as best he could--through the throng of
+dangers which beset the path of England in that great crisis.  It was
+most obvious to every statesman in the realm that this was not the time--
+when the gauntlet had been thrown full in the face of Philip and Sixtus
+and all Catholicism, by the condemnation of Mary--to leave the Netherland
+cause "at random," and these outer bulwarks of her own kingdom
+insufficiently protected.
+
+"Your Majesty will hear," wrote Parma to Philip, "of the disastrous,
+lamentable, and pitiful end of the, poor Queen of Scots.  Although for
+her it will be immortal glory, and she will be placed among the number of
+the many martyrs whose blood has been shed in the kingdom of England, and
+be crowned in Heaven with a diadem more precious than the one she wore on
+earth, nevertheless one cannot repress one's natural emotions.  I believe
+firmly that this cruel deed will be the concluding crime of the many
+which that Englishwoman has committed, and that our Lord will be pleased
+that she shall at last receive the chastisement which she has these many
+long years deserved, and which has been reserved till now, for her
+greater ruin and confusion."--[Parma to Philip IL, 22 March.  1587.
+(Arch. de Simancas, MS.)]--And with this, the Duke proceeded to discuss
+the all important and rapidly-preparing invasion of England.  Farnese was
+not the man to be deceived by the affected reluctance of Elizabeth before
+Mary's scaffold, although he was soon to show that he was himself a
+master in the science of grimace.  For Elizabeth--more than ever disposed
+to be friends with Spain and Rome, now that war to the knife was made
+inevitable--was wistfully regarding that trap of negotiation, against
+which all her best friends were endeavouring to warn her.  She was more
+ill-natured than ever to the Provinces, she turned her back upon the
+Warnese, she affronted Henry III. by affecting to believe in the fable of
+his envoy's complicity in the Stafford conspiracy against her life.
+
+"I pray God to open her eyes," said Walsingham, "to see the evident peril
+of the course she now holdeth .  .  .  .  If it had pleased her to have
+followed the advice given her touching the French ambassador, our ships
+had been released .  .  .  .  but she has taken a very strange course by
+writing a very sharp letter unto the French King, which I fear will cause
+him to give ear to those of the League, and make himself a party with
+them, seeing so little regard had to him here.  Your Lordship may see
+that our courage doth greatly increase, for that we make no difficulty to
+fall out with all the world .  .  .  .  .  I never saw her worse affected
+to the poor King of Navarre, and yet doth she seek in no sort to yield
+contentment to the French King.  If to offend all the world;" repeated
+the Secretary bitterly, "be it good cause of government, then can we not
+do amiss .  .  .  .  . I never found her less disposed to take a course
+of prevention of the approaching mischiefs toward this realm than at this
+present.  And to be plain with you, there is none here that hath either
+credit or courage to deal effectually with her in any of her great
+causes."
+
+Thus distracted by doubts and dangers, at war with her best friends, with
+herself, and with all-the world, was Elizabeth during the dark days and
+months which, preceded and followed the execution of the Scottish Queen.
+If the great fight was at last to be fought triumphantly through, it was
+obvious that England was to depend upon Englishmen of all ranks and
+classes, upon her prudent and far-seeing statesmen, upon her nobles and
+her adventurers, on her Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman blood ever mounting
+against, oppression, on Howard and Essex, Drake and Williams, Norris, and
+Willoughby, upon high-born magnates, plebeian captains, London merchants,
+upon yeomen whose limbs were made in England, and upon Hollanders and
+Zeelanders whose fearless mariners were to swarm to the protection of her
+coasts, quite as much in that year of anxious expectation as upon the
+great Queen herself.  Unquestionable as were her mental capacity and her
+more than woman's courage, when fairly, brought face, to face with the
+danger, it was fortunately not on one man or woman's brain and arm that
+England's salvation depended in that crisis of her fate.
+
+As to the Provinces, no one ventured to speak very boldly in their
+defence.  "When I lay before her the peril," said Walsingham, "she
+scorneth at it.  The hope of a peace with Spain has put her into a most
+dangerous security."  Nor would any man now assume responsibility.  The
+fate of Davison--of the man who had already in so detestable a manner
+been made the scape-goat for Leicester's sins in the Netherlands, and
+who had now been so barbarously sacrificed by the Queen for faithfully
+obeying her orders in regard to the death-warrant, had sickened all
+courtiers and counsellors for the time.  "The late severe, dealing
+used by her Highness towards Mr. Secretary Davison," said Walsingham
+to Wilkes, "maketh us very circumspect and careful not to proceed in
+anything but wherein we receive direction from herself, and therefore
+you must not find it strange if we now be more sparing than heretofore
+hath been accustomed."
+
+Such being the portentous state of the political atmosphere, and such
+the stormy condition of the royal mind, it may be supposed that the
+interviews of the Netherland envoys with her Majesty during this period
+were not likely to be genial.  Exactly at the most gloomy moment--
+thirteen days before the execution of Mary--they came first into
+Elizabeth's presence at Greenwich.
+
+The envoys were five in number, all of them experienced and able
+statesmen--Zuylen van Nyvelt, Joos de Menyn, Nicasius de Silla, Jacob
+Valck, and Vitus van Kammings.  The Queen was in the privy council-
+chamber, attended by the admiral of England, Lord Thomas Howard, Lord
+Hunsdon, great-chamberlain, Sir Christopher Hatton, vice-chamberlain,
+Secretary Davison, and many other persons of distinction.
+
+The letters of credence were duly presented, but it was obvious from the
+beginning of the interview that the Queen was ill-disposed toward the
+deputies, and had not only been misinformed as to matters of fact, but as
+to the state of feeling of the Netherlanders and of the States-General
+towards herself.
+
+Menyu, however, who was an orator by profession--being pensionary of
+Dort--made, in the name of his colleagues, a brief but pregnant speech,
+to which the Queen listened attentively, although, with frequent
+indications of anger and impatience.  He commenced by observing that
+the United Provinces still entertained the hope that her Majesty would
+conclude, upon further thoughts, to accept the sovereignty over them,
+with reasonable conditions; but the most important passages of his
+address were those relating to the cost of the war.  "Besides our
+stipulated contributions," said the pensionary, "of 200,000 florins the
+month, we have furnished 500,000 as an extraordinary grant; making for
+the year 2,900,000 florins, and this over and above the particular and
+special expenditures of the Provinces, and other sums for military
+purposes.  We confess, Madam, that the succour of your Majesty is a truly
+royal one, and that there have been few princes in history who have given
+such assistance to their neighbours unjustly oppressed.  It is certain
+that by means of that help, joined with the forces of the United
+Provinces, the Earl of Leicester has been able to arrest the course
+of the Duke of Parma's victories and to counteract his designs.
+Nevertheless, it appears, Madam, that these forces have not been
+sufficient to drive the enemy out of the country.  We are obliged, for
+regular garrison work and defence of cities, to keep; up an army of at
+least 27,000 foot and 3500 horse.  Of this number your Majesty pays 5000
+foot and 1000 horse, and we are now commissioned, Madam, humbly to
+request an increase of your regular succour during the war to 10,000 foot
+and 2000 horse.  We also implore the loan of L60,000 sterling, in order
+to assist us in maintaining for the coming season a sufficient force in
+the field."
+
+Such, in brief, was the oration of pensionary Menyn, delivered in the
+French language.  He had scarcely concluded, when the Queen--evidently in
+a great passion--rose to her feet, and without any hesitation, replied in
+a strain of vehement eloquence in the same tongue.
+
+"Now I am not deceived, gentlemen," she said, "and that which I have been
+fearing has occurred.  Our common adage, which we have in England, is a
+very good one.  When one fears that an evil is coming, the sooner it
+arrives the better.  Here is a quarter of a year that I have been
+expecting you, and certainly for the great benefit I have conferred on
+you, you have exhibited a great ingratitude, and I consider myself very
+ill treated by you.  'Tis very strange that you should begin by
+soliciting still greater succour without rendering me any satisfaction
+for your past actions, which have been so extraordinary, that I swear by
+the living God I think it impossible to find peoples or states more
+ungrateful or ill-advised than yourselves.
+
+"I have sent you this year fifteen, sixteen, aye seventeen or eighteen
+thousand men.  You have left them without payment, you have let some of
+them die of hunger, driven others to such desperation that they have
+deserted to the enemy.  Is it not mortifying for the English nation and
+a great shame for you that Englishmen should say that they have found
+more courtesy from Spaniards than from Netherlanders?  Truly, I tell you
+frankly that I will never endure such indignities.  Rather will I act
+according to my will, and you may do exactly, as you think best.
+
+"If I chose, I could do something very good without you, although some
+persons are so fond of saying that it was quite necessary for the Queen
+of England to do what she does for her own protection.  No, no!  Disabuse
+yourselves of that impression.  These are but false persuasions.  Believe
+boldly that I can play an excellent game without your assistance, and a
+better one than I ever did with it!  Nevertheless, I do not choose to do
+that, nor do I wish you so much harm.  But likewise do I not choose that
+you should hold such language to me.  It is true that I should not wish
+the Spaniard so near me if he should be my enemy.  But why should I
+not live in peace, if we were to be friends to each other?  At the
+commencement of my reign we lived honourably together, the King of Spain
+and I, and he even asked me to, marry him, and, after that, we lived a
+long time very peacefully, without any attempt having been made against
+my life.  If we both choose, we can continue so to do.
+
+"On the other hand, I sent you the Earl of Leicester, as lieutenant of
+my forces, and my intention was that he should have exact knowledge of
+your finances and contributions.  But, on the contrary, he has never
+known anything about them, and you have handled them in your own manner
+and amongst yourselves.  You have given him the title of governor, in
+order, under this name, to cast all your evils on his head.  That title
+he accepted against my will, by doing which he ran the risk of losing his
+life, and his estates, and the grace and favour of his Princess, which
+was more important to him than all.  But he did it in order to maintain
+your tottering state.  And what authority, I pray you, have you given
+him?  A shadowy authority, a purely imaginary one.  This is but mockery.
+He is, at any rate, a gentleman, a man of honour and of counsel.  You had
+no right to treat him thus.  If I had accepted the title which you wished
+to give me, by the living God, I would not have suffered you so to treat
+me.
+
+"But you are so badly advised that when there is a man of worth who
+discovers your tricks you wish him ill, and make an outcry against him;
+and yet some of you, in order to save your money, and others in the hope
+of bribes, have been favouring the Spaniard, and doing very wicked work.
+No, believe me that God will punish those who for so great a benefit wish
+to return me so much evil.  Believe, boldly too, that the King of Spain
+will never trust men who have abandoned the party to which they belonged,
+and from which they have received so many benefits, and will never
+believe a word of what they promise him.  Yet, in order to cover up their
+filth, they spread the story that the Queen of England is thinking of
+treating for peace without their knowledge.  No, I would rather be dead
+than that any one should have occasion to say that I had not kept my
+promise.  But princes must listen to both sides, and that can be done
+without breach of faith.  For they transact business in a certain way,
+and with a princely intelligence, such as private persons cannot imitate.
+
+"You are States, to be sure, but private individuals in regard to
+princes.  Certainly, I would never choose to do anything without your
+knowledge, and I would never allow the authority which you have among
+yourselves, nor your privileges, nor your statutes, to be infringed.
+Nor will I allow you to be perturbed in your consciences.  What then
+would you more of me?  You have issued a proclamation in your country
+that no one is to talk of peace.  Very well, very good.  But permit
+princes likewise to do as they shall think best for the security of their
+state, provided it does you no injury.  Among us princes we are not wont
+to make such long orations as you do, but you ought to be content with
+the few words that we bestow upon you, and make yourself quiet thereby.
+
+"If I ever do anything for you again, I choose to be treated more
+honourably.  I shall therefore appoint some personages of my council to
+communicate with you.  And in the first place I choose to hear and see
+for myself what has taken place already, and have satisfaction about
+that, before I make any reply to what you have said to me as to greater
+assistance.  And so I will leave you to-day, without troubling you
+further."
+
+With this her Majesty swept from the apartment, leaving the deputies
+somewhat astounded at the fierce but adroit manner in which the tables
+had for a moment been turned upon them.
+
+It was certainly a most unexpected blow, this charge of the States having
+left the English soldiers--whose numbers the Queen had so suddenly
+multiplied by three--unpaid and unfed.  Those Englishmen who, as
+individuals, had entered the States' service, had been--like all the
+other troops regularly paid.  This distinctly appeared from the
+statements of her own counsellors and generals.  On the other hand,
+the Queen's contingent, now dwindled to about half their original
+number, had been notoriously unpaid for nearly six months.
+
+This has already been made sufficiently clear from the private letters
+of most responsible persons.  That these soldiers were starving,
+deserting; and pillaging, was, alas! too true; but the envoys of the
+States hardly expected to be censured by her Majesty, because she had
+neglected to pay her own troops.  It was one of the points concerning
+which they had been especially enjoined to complain, that the English
+cavalry, converted into highwaymen by want of pay, had been plundering
+the peasantry, and we have seen that Thomas Wilkes had "pawned his
+carcase" to provide for their temporary relief.
+
+With regard to the insinuation that prominent personages in the country
+had been tampered with by the enemy, the envoys were equally astonished
+by such an attack.  The great Deventer treason had not yet been heard of
+in England for it had occurred only a week before this first interview--
+but something of the kind was already feared; for the slippery dealings
+of York and Stanley with Tassis and Parma, had long been causing painful
+anxiety, and had formed the subject of repeated remonstrances on the part
+of the 'States' to Leicester and to the Queen.  The deputies were hardly,
+prepared therefore to defend their own people against dealing privately
+with the King of Spain.  The only man suspected of such practices was
+Leicester's own favourite and financier, Jacques Ringault, whom the Earl
+had persisted in employing against the angry remonstrances of the States,
+who believed him to be a Spanish spy; and the man was now in prison, and
+threatened with capital punishment.
+
+To suppose that Buys or Barneveld, Roorda, Meetkerk, or any other leading
+statesman in the Netherlands, was contemplating a private arrangement
+with Philip II., was as ludicrous a conception as to imagine Walsingham
+a pensioner of the Pope, or Cecil in league with the Duke of Guise.  The
+end and aim of the States' party was war.  In war they not only saw the
+safety of the reformed religion, but the only means of maintaining the
+commercial prosperity of the commonwealth.  The whole correspondence of
+the times shows that no politician in the country dreamed of peace,
+either by public or secret negotiation.  On the other hand--as will be
+made still clearer than ever--the Queen was longing for peace, and was
+treating for peace at that moment through private agents, quite without
+the knowledge of the States, and in spite of her indignant disavowals in
+her speech to the envoys.
+
+Yet if Elizabeth could have had the privilege of entering--as we are
+about to do--into the private cabinet of that excellent King of Spain,
+with whom, she had once been such good friends, who had even sought her
+hand in marriage, and with whom she saw no reason whatever why she should
+not live at peace, she might have modified her expressions an this
+subject.  Certainly, if she could have looked through the piles of
+papers--as we intend to do--which lay upon that library-table, far beyond
+the seas and mountains, she would have perceived some objections to the
+scheme of living at peace with that diligent letter-writer.
+
+Perhaps, had she known how the subtle Farnese was about to express
+himself concerning the fast-approaching execution of Mary, and the as
+inevitably impending destruction of "that Englishwoman" through the
+schemes of his master and himself, she would have paid less heed to the
+sentiments couched in most exquisite Italian which Alexander was at the
+same time whispering in her ear, and would have taken less offence at the
+blunt language of the States-General.
+
+Nevertheless, for the present, Elizabeth would give no better answer than
+the hot-tempered one which had already somewhat discomfited the deputies.
+
+Two days afterwards, the five envoys had an interview with several
+members of her Majesty's council, in the private apartment of the Lord-
+Treasurer in Greenwich Palace.  Burghley, being indisposed, was lying
+upon his bed.  Leicester, Admiral Lord Howard, Lord Hunsden, Sir
+Christopher Hatton, Lord Buckhurst, and Secretary Davison, were present,
+and the Lord-Treasurer proposed that the conversation should be in Latin,
+that being the common language most familiar to them all.  Then, turning
+over the leaves of the report, a copy of which lay on his bed, he asked
+the envoys, whether, in case her Majesty had not sent over the assistance
+which she had done under the Earl of Leicester, their country would not
+have been utterly ruined.
+
+"To all appearance, yes," replied Menyn.
+
+"But," continued Burghley, still running through the pages of the
+document, and here and there demanding an explanation of an obscure
+passage or two, "you are now proposing to her Majesty to send 10,000 foot
+and 2000 horse, and to lend L60,000.  This is altogether monstrous and
+excessive.  Nobody will ever dare even to speak to her Majesty on the
+subject.  When you first came in 1585, you asked for 12,000 men, but you
+were fully authorized to accept 6000.  No doubt that is the case now."
+
+"On that occasion," answered Menyn, "our main purpose was to induce her
+Majesty to accept the sovereignty, or at least the perpetual protection
+of our country.  Failing in that we broached the third point, and not
+being able to get 12,000 soldiers we compounded for 5000, the agreement
+being subject to ratification by our principals.  We gave ample security
+in shape of the mortgaged cities.  But experience has shown us that these
+forces and this succour are insufficient.  We have therefore been sent to
+beg her Majesty to make up the contingent to the amount originally
+requested."
+
+"But we are obliged to increase the garrisons in the cautionary towns,"
+said one of the English councillors, "as 800 men in a city like Flushing
+are very little."
+
+"Pardon me," replied Valck, "the burghers are not enemies but friends to
+her Majesty and to the English nation.  They are her dutiful subjects
+like all the inhabitants of the Netherlands."
+
+"It is quite true," said Burghley, after having made some critical
+remarks upon the military system of the Provinces, "and a very common
+adage, 'quod tunc tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet,' but,
+nevertheless, this war principally concerns you.  Therefore you are bound
+to do your utmost to meet its expenses in your own country, quite as much
+as a man who means to build a house is expected to provide the stone and
+timber himself.  But the States have not done their best.  They have not
+at the appointed time come forward with their extraordinary contributions
+for the last campaign.  "How many men," he asked, "are required for
+garrisons in all the fortresses and cities, and for the field?"
+
+"But," interposed Lord Hunsden, "not half so many men are needed in the
+garrisons; for the burghers ought to be able to defend their own cities.
+Moreover it is probable that your ordinary contributions might be
+continued and doubled and even tripled."
+
+"And on the whole," observed the Lord Admiral, "don't you think that the
+putting an army in the field might be dispensed with for this year?  Her
+Majesty at present must get together and equip a fleet of war vessels
+against the King of Spain, which will be an excessively large pennyworth,
+besides the assistance which she gives her neighbours."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Secretary Davison, "it would be difficult to
+exaggerate the enormous expense which her Majesty must encounter this
+year for defending and liberating her own kingdoms against the King of
+Spain.  That monarch is making great naval preparations, and is treating
+all Englishmen in the most hostile manner.  We are on the brink of
+declared war with Spain, with the French King, who is arresting all
+English persons and property within his kingdom, and with Scotland, all
+which countries are understood to have made a league together on account
+of the Queen of Scotland, whom it will be absolutely necessary to put to
+death in order to preserve the life of her Majesty, and are about to make
+war upon England.  This matter then will cost us, the current year, at
+least eight hundred thousand pounds sterling.  Nevertheless her Majesty
+is sure to assist you so far as her means allow; and I, for my part, will
+do my best to keep her Majesty well disposed to your cause, even as I
+have ever done, as you well know."
+
+Thus spoke poor Davison, but a few days before the fatal 8th of February,
+little dreaming that the day for his influencing the disposition of her
+Majesty would soon be gone, and that he was himself to be crushed for
+ever by the blow which was about to destroy the captive Queen.  The
+political combinations resulting from the tragedy were not to be exactly
+as he foretold, but there is little doubt that in him the Netherlands,
+and Leicester, and the Queen of England, were to lose an honest,
+diligent, and faithful friend.
+
+"Well, gentlemen," said the Lord-Treasurer, after a few more questions
+concerning the financial abilities of the States had been asked and
+answered, "it is getting late into the evening, and time for you all to
+get back to London.  Let me request you, as soon as may be, to draw up
+some articles in writing, to which we will respond immediately."
+
+Menyn then, in the name of the deputies, expressed thanks for the
+urbanity shown them in the conference, and spoke of the deep regret with
+which they had perceived, by her Majesty's answer two days before, that
+she was so highly offended with them and with the States-General.  He
+then, notwithstanding Burghley's previous hint as to the lateness of the
+hour, took up the Queen's answer, point by point, contradicted all its
+statements, appealing frequently to Lord Leicester for confirmation of
+what he advanced, and concluded by begging the councillors to defend the
+cause of the Netherlands to her Majesty, Burghley requested them to make
+an excuse or reply to the Queen in writing, and send it to him to
+present.  Thus the conference terminated, and the envoys returned to
+London.  They were fully convinced by the result of, these interviews,
+as they told their constituents, that her Majesty, by false statements
+and reports of persons either grossly ignorant or not having the good of
+the commonwealth before their eyes, had been very incorrectly informed as
+to the condition of the Provinces, and of the great efforts made by the
+States-General to defend their country against the enemy: It was obvious,
+they said, that their measures had been exaggerated in order to deceive
+the Queen and her council.
+
+And thus statements and counter-statements, protocols and apostilles,
+were glibly exchanged; the heap of diplomatic rubbish was rising higher
+and higher, and the councillors and envoys, pleased with their work, were
+growing more and more amicable, when the court was suddenly startled by
+the news of the Deventer and Zutphen treason.  The intelligence was
+accompanied by the famous 4th of February letter, which descended, like a
+bombshell, in the midst of the, decorous council-chamber.  Such language
+had rarely been addressed to the Earl of Leicester, and; through him; to
+the imperious sovereign herself, as the homely truths with which
+Barneveld, speaking with the voice of the States-General, now smote the
+delinquent governor.
+
+"My Lord," said he, "it is notorious; and needs no illustration whatever,
+with what true confidence and unfeigned affection we received your
+Excellency in our land; the States-General, the States-Provincial,
+the magistrates, and the communities of the chief cities in the United
+Provinces, all uniting to do honour to her serene Majesty of England
+and to yourself, and to confer upon you the government-general over us.
+And although we should willingly have placed some limitations upon the
+authority thus bestowed on you; in, order that by such a course your own
+honour and the good and constitutional condition of the country might be
+alike preserved, yet finding your Excellency not satisfied with those
+limitations, we postponed every objection, and conformed ourselves
+to your pleasure.  Yet; before coming to that decision, we had well
+considered that by doing so we might be opening a door to many ambitious,
+avaricious, and pernicious persons, both of these countries and from
+other nations, who might seize the occasion to advance their own private
+profits, to the detriment of the country and the dishonour of your
+Excellency.
+
+"And, in truth, such persons have done their work so efficiently as to
+inspire you with distrust against the most faithful and capable men in
+the Provinces, against the Estates General and Provincial, magistrates,
+and private persons, knowing very well that they could never arrive
+at their own ends so long as you were guided by the constitutional
+authorities of the country.  And precisely upon the distrust; thus
+created as a foundation, they raised a back-stairs council, by means
+of which they were able to further their ambitious, avaricious, and
+seditious practices, notwithstanding the good advice and remonstrances
+of the council of state, and the States General and Provincial."
+
+He proceeded to handle the subjects of the English rose-noble; put in
+circulation by Leicester's finance or back-stairs council at two florins
+above its value, to the manifest detriment of the Provinces, to the
+detestable embargo which had prevented them from using the means bestowed
+upon them by God himself to defend their country, to the squandering.
+and embezzlement of the large sums contributed by the Province; and
+entrusted to the Earl's administration; to the starving condition of the
+soldiers; maltreated by government, and thus compelled to prey upon the
+inhabitants--so that troops in the States' service had never been so
+abused during the whole war, although the States had never before voted
+such large contributions nor paid them so promptly--to the placing in
+posts of high honour and trust men of notoriously bad character and even
+Spanish spies; to the taking away the public authority from those to whom
+it legitimately belonged, and conferring it on incompetent and
+unqualified persons; to the illegal banishment of respectable citizens,
+to the violation of time-honoured laws and privileges, to the shameful
+attempts to repudiate the ancient authority of the States, and to usurp a
+control over the communities and nobles by them represented, and to the
+perpetual efforts to foster dissension, disunion, and rebellion among the
+inhabitants.  Having thus drawn up a heavy bill of indictment, nominally
+against the Earl's illegal counsellors, but in reality against the Earl
+himself, he proceeded to deal with the most important matter of all.
+
+"The principal cities and fortresses in the country have been placed in
+hands of men suspected by the States on legitimate grounds, men who had
+been convicted of treason against these Provinces, and who continued to
+be suspected, notwithstanding that your Excellency had pledged your own
+honour for their fidelity.  Finally, by means of these scoundrels, it was
+brought to pass, that the council of state having been invested by your
+Excellency with supreme authority during your absence--a secret document,
+was brought to light after your departure, by which the most substantial
+matters, and those most vital to the defence of the country, were
+withdrawn from the disposition of that council.  And now, alas, we see
+the effects of these practices!
+
+"Sir William Stanley, by you appointed governor of Deventer, and Rowland
+York, governor of Fort Zutphen, have refused, by virtue of that secret
+document, to acknowledge any authority in this country.  And
+notwithstanding that since your departure they and their soldiers have
+been supported at our expense, and had just received a full month's pay
+from the States, they have traitorously and villainously delivered the
+city and the fortress to the enemy, with a declaration made by Stanley
+that he did the deed to ease his conscience, and to render to the King of
+Spain the city which of right was belonging to him.  And this is a crime
+so dishonourable, scandalous, ruinous, and treasonable, as that, during
+this, whole war, we have never seen the like.  And we are now, in daily
+fear lest the English commanders in Bergen-op-Zoom, Ostend, and other
+cities, should commit the same crime.  And although we fully suspected
+the designs of Stanley and York, yet your Excellency's secret document
+had deprived us of the power to act.
+
+"We doubt not that her Majesty and your Excellency will think this
+strange language.  But we can assure you, that we too think it strange
+and grievous that those places should have been confided to such men,
+against our repeated remonstrances, and that, moreover, this very Stanley
+should have been recommended by your Excellency for general of all the
+forces.  And although we had many just and grave reasons for opposing
+your administration--even as our ancestors were often wont to rise
+against the sovereigns of the country--we have, nevertheless, patiently
+suffered for a long time, in order not to diminish your authority, which
+we deemed so important to our welfare, and in the hope that you would at
+last be moved by the perilous condition of the commonwealth, and awake to
+the artifices of your advisers.
+
+"But at last-feeling that the existence of the state can no longer be
+preserved without proper authority, and that the whole community is full
+of emotion and distrust, on account of these great treasons--we, the
+States-General, as well as the States-Provincial, have felt constrained
+to establish such a government as we deem meet for the emergency.  And of
+this we think proper to apprize your Excellency."
+
+He then expressed the conviction that all these evil deeds had been
+accomplished against the intentions of the Earl and the English
+government, and requested his Excellency so to deal with her Majesty that
+the contingent of horse and foot hitherto accorded by her "might be
+maintained in good order, and in better pay."
+
+Here, then, was substantial choleric phraseology, as good plain speaking
+as her Majesty had just been employing, and with quite as sufficient
+cause.  Here was no pleasant diplomatic fencing, but straightforward
+vigorous thrusts.  It was no wonder that poor Wilkes should have thought
+the letter "too sharp," when he heard it read in the assembly, and that
+he should have done his best to prevent it from being despatched.  He
+would have thought it sharper could he have seen how the pride of her
+Majesty and of Leicester was wounded by it to the quick.  Her list of
+grievances against the States seem to vanish into air.  Who had been
+tampering with the Spaniards now?  Had that "shadowy and imaginary
+authority" granted to Leicester not proved substantial enough?  Was it
+the States-General, the state-council, or was it the "absolute governor"
+--who had carried off the supreme control of the commonwealth in his
+pocket--that was responsible for the ruin effected by Englishmen who had
+scorned all "authority" but his own?
+
+The States, in another blunt letter to the Queen herself, declared the
+loss of Deventer to be more disastrous to them than even the fall of
+Antwerp had been; for the republic had now been split asunder, and its
+most ancient and vital portions almost cut away.  Nevertheless they were
+not "dazzled nor despairing," they said, but more determined than ever to
+maintain their liberties, and bid defiance to the Spanish tyrant.  And
+again they demanded of, rather than implored; her Majesty to be true to
+her engagements with them.
+
+The interviews which followed were more tempestuous than ever.  "I had
+intended that my Lord of Leicester should return to you," she said to the
+envoys.  "But that shall never be.  He has been treated with gross
+ingratitude, he has served the Provinces with ability, he has consumed
+his own property there, he has risked his life, he has lost his near
+kinsman, Sir Philip Sidney, whose life I should be glad to purchase with
+many millions, and, in place of all reward, he receives these venomous
+letters, of which a copy has been sent to his sovereign to blacken him
+with her."  She had been advising him to return, she added, but she was
+now resolved that he should "never set foot in the Provinces again."
+
+Here the Earl, who, was present, exclaimed--beating himself on the
+breast--"a tali officio libera nos, Domine!"
+
+But the States, undaunted by these explosions of wrath, replied that it
+had ever been their custom, when their laws and liberties were invaded,
+to speak their mind boldly to kings and governors, and to procure redress
+of their grievances, as became free men.
+
+During that whole spring the Queen was at daggers drawn with all her
+leading counsellors, mainly in regard to that great question of
+questions--the relations of England with the Netherlands and Spain.
+Walsingham--who felt it madness to dream of peace, and who believed it
+the soundest policy to deal with Parma and his veterans upon the soil of
+Flanders, with the forces of the republic for allies, rather than to
+await his arrival in London--was driven almost to frenzy by what he
+deemed the Queen's perverseness.
+
+"Our sharp words continue," said the Secretary, "which doth greatly
+disquiet her Majesty, and discomfort her poor servants that attend her.
+The Lord-Treasurer remaineth still in disgrace, and, behind my back,
+her Majesty giveth out very hard speeches of myself, which I the rather
+credit, for that I find, in dealing with her, I am nothing gracious;
+and if her Majesty could be otherwise served, I know I should not be used
+.  .  .  .  .  Her Majesty doth wholly lend herself to devise some
+further means to disgrace her poor council, in respect whereof she
+neglecteth all other causes .  .  .  .  .  The discord between her
+Majesty and her council hindereth the necessary consultations that were
+to be destined for the preventing of the manifold perils that hang over
+this realm .  .  .  .  .  .  Sir Christopher Hatton hath dealt very
+plainly and dutifully with her, which hath been accepted in so evil part
+as he is resolved to retire for a time.  I assure you I find every man
+weary of attendance here .  .  .  .  .  .  I would to God I could find
+as good resolution in her Majesty to proceed in a princely course in
+relieving the United Provinces, as I find an honorable disposition in
+your Lordship to employ yourself in their service."
+
+The Lord-Treasurer was much puzzled, very wretched, but philosophically
+resigned.  "Why her Majesty useth me thus strangely, I know not," he
+observed.  "To some she saith that she meant not I should have gone from
+the court; to some she saith, she may not admit me, nor give me
+contentment.  I shall dispose myself to enjoy God's favour, and shall do
+nothing to deserve her disfavour.  And if I be suffered to be a stranger
+to her affairs, I shall have a quieter life."
+
+Leicester, after the first burst of his anger was over, was willing to
+return to the Provinces.  He protested that he had a greater affection
+for the Netherland people--not for the governing powers--even than he
+felt for the people of England.--"There is nothing sticks in my
+stomach," he said, "but the good-will of that poor afflicted people, for
+whom, I take God to record, I could be content to lose any limb I have to
+do them good."  But he was crippled with debt, and the Queen resolutely
+refused to lend him a few thousand pounds, without which he could not
+stir.  Walsingham in vain did battle with her parsimony, representing how
+urgently and vividly the necessity of his return had been depicted by all
+her ministers in both countries, and how much it imported to her own
+safety and service.  But she was obdurate.  "She would rather," he said
+bitterly to Leicester, "hazard the increase of confusion there--which may
+put the whole country in peril--than supply your want.  The like course
+she holdeth in the rest of her causes, which maketh me to wish myself
+from the helm."  At last she agreed to advance him ten thousand pounds,
+but on so severe conditions, that the Earl declared himself heart-broken
+again, and protested that he would neither accept the money, nor ever set
+foot in the Netherlands.  "Let Norris stay there," he said in a fury;
+"he will do admirably, no doubt.  Only let it not be supposed that I can
+be there also.  Not for one hundred thousand pounds would I be in that
+country with him."
+
+Meantime it was agreed that Lord Buckhurst should be sent forth on what
+Wilkes termed a mission of expostulation, and a very ill-timed one.  This
+new envoy was to inquire into the causes of the discontent, and to do his
+best to remove them: as if any man in England or in Holland doubted as to
+the causes, or as to the best means of removing them; or as if it were
+not absolutely certain that delay was the very worst specific that could
+be adopted--delay--which the Netherland statesmen, as well as the Queen's
+wisest counsellors, most deprecated, which Alexander and Philip most
+desired, and by indulging in which her Majesty was most directly playing
+into her adversary's hand.  Elizabeth was preparing to put cards upon the
+table against an antagonist whose game was close, whose honesty was
+always to be suspected, and who was a consummate master in what was then
+considered diplomatic sleight of hand.  So Lord Buckhurst was to go forth
+to expostulate at the Hague, while transports were loading in Cadiz and
+Lisbon, reiters levying in Germany, pikemen and musketeers in Spain and
+Italy, for a purpose concerning which Walsingham and Barneveld had for a
+long time felt little doubt.
+
+Meantime Lord Leicester went to Bath to drink the waters, and after
+he had drunk the waters, the Queen, ever anxious for his health, was
+resolved that he should not lose the benefit of those salubrious draughts
+by travelling too soon, or by plunging anew into the fountains of
+bitterness which flowed perennially in the Netherlands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+     Buckhurst sent to the Netherlands--Alarming State of Affairs on his
+     Arrival--His Efforts to conciliate--Democratic Theories of Wilkes--
+     Sophistry of the Argument--Dispute between Wilkes and Barneveld--
+     Religious Tolerance by the States--Their Constitutional Theory--
+     Deventer's bad Counsels to Leicester--Their pernicious Effect--Real
+     and supposed Plots against Hohenlo--Mutual Suspicion and Distrust--
+     Buckhurst seeks to restore good Feeling--The Queen angry and
+     vindictive--She censures Buckhurst's Course--Leicester's wrath at
+     Hohenlo's Charges of a Plot by the Earl to murder him--Buckhurst's
+     eloquent Appeals to the Queen--Her perplexing and contradictory
+     Orders--Despair of Wilkes--Leicester announces his Return--His
+     Instructions--Letter to Junius--Barneveld denounces him in the
+     States.
+
+We return to the Netherlands.  If ever proof were afforded of the
+influence of individual character on the destiny of nations and of the
+world, it certainly was seen in the year 1587.  We have lifted the
+curtain of the secret council-chamber at Greenwich.  We have seen all
+Elizabeth's advisers anxious to arouse her from her fatal credulity,
+from her almost as fatal parsimony.  We have seen Leicester anxious to
+return, despite all fancied indignities, Walsingham eager to expedite the
+enterprise, and the Queen remaining obdurate, while month after month of
+precious time was melting away.
+
+In the Netherlands, meantime, discord and confusion had been increasing
+every day; and the first great cause of such a dangerous condition of
+affairs was the absence of the governor.  To this all parties agreed.
+The Leicestrians, the anti-Leicestriana, the Holland party, the Utrecht
+party, the English counsellors, the English generals, in private letter,
+in solemn act, all warned the Queen against the lamentable effects
+resulting from Leicester's inopportune departure and prolonged absence.
+
+On the first outbreak of indignation after the Deventer Affair, Prince
+Maurice was placed at the head of the general government, with the
+violent Hohenlo as his lieutenant.  The greatest exertions were made by
+these two nobles and by Barneveld, who guided the whole policy of the
+party, to secure as many cities as possible to their cause.  Magistrates
+and commandants of garrisons in many towns willingly gave in their
+adhesion to the new government; others refused; especially Diedrich
+Sonoy, an officer of distinction, who was governor of Enkhuyzen, and
+influential throughout North Holland, and who remained a stanch partisan
+of Leicester.  Utrecht, the stronghold of the Leicestrians, was wavering
+and much torn by faction; Hohenlo and Moeurs had "banquetted and feasted"
+to such good purpose that they had gained over half the captains of the
+burgher-guard, and, aided by the branch of nobles, were making a good
+fight against the Leicester magistracy and the clerical force, enriched
+by the plunder of the old Catholic livings, who denounced as Papistical
+and Hispaniolized all who favoured the party of Maurice and Barneveld.
+
+By the end of March the envoys returned from London, and in their company
+came Lord Buckhurst, as special ambassador from the Queen.
+
+Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst--afterwards Earl of Dorset and lord-
+treasurer--was then fifty-one years of age.  A man of large culture-poet,
+dramatist, diplomatist-bred to the bar; afterwards elevated to the
+peerage; endowed with high character and strong intellect; ready with
+tongue and pen; handsome of person, and with a fascinating address, he
+was as fit a person to send on a mission of expostulation as any man to
+be found in England.  But the author of the 'Induction to the Mirror for
+Magistrates' and of 'Gorboduc,' had come to the Netherlands on a forlorn
+hope.  To expostulate in favour of peace with a people who knew that
+their existence depended on war, to reconcile those to delay who felt
+that delay was death, and to, heal animosities between men who were
+enemies from their cradles to their graves, was a difficult mission.
+But the chief ostensible object of Buckhurst was to smooth the way for
+Leicester, and, if possible, to persuade the Netherlanders as to the good
+inclinations of the English government.  This was no easy task, for they
+knew that their envoys had been dismissed, without even a promise of
+subsidy.  They had asked for twelve thousand soldiers and sixty thousand
+pounds, and had received a volley of abuse.  Over and over again, through
+many months, the Queen fell into a paroxysm of rage when even an allusion
+was made to the loan of fifty or sixty thousand pounds; and even had she
+promised the money, it would have given but little satisfaction.  As
+Count Moeurs observed, he would rather see one English rose-noble than a
+hundred royal promises.  So the Hollanders and Zeelanders--not fearing
+Leicester's influence within their little morsel of a territory--were
+concentrating their means of resistance upon their own soil, intending to
+resist Spain, and, if necessary, England, in their last ditch, and with
+the last drop of their blood.
+
+While such was the condition of affairs, Lord Buckhurst landed at
+Flushing--four months after the departure of Leicester--on the 24th
+March, having been tossing three days and nights at sea in a great storm,
+"miserably sick and in great danger of drowning."  Sir William Russell,
+governor of Flushing, informed him of the progress making by Prince
+Maurice in virtue of his new authority.  He told him that the Zeeland
+regiment, vacant by Sidney's death, and which the Queen wished bestowed
+upon Russell himself, had been given to Count Solms; a circumstance which
+was very sure to exite her Majesty's ire; but that the greater number,
+and those of the better sort; disliked the alteration of government, and
+relied entirely upon the Queen.  Sainte Aldegonde visited him at
+Middelburgh, and in a "long discourse" expressed the most friendly
+sentiments towards England, with free offers of personal service.
+"Nevertheless," said Buckhurst, cautiously, "I mean to trust the effect,
+not his words, and so I hope he will not much deceive me.  His opinion is
+that the Earl of Leicester's absence hath chiefly caused this change, and
+that without his return it will hardly be restored again, but that upon
+his arrival all these clouds will prove but a summershower."
+
+As a matter of course the new ambassador lifted up his voice, immediately
+after setting foot on shore, in favour of the starving soldiers of his
+Queen.  "'Tis a most lamentable thing," said he, "to hear the complaints
+of soldiers and captains for want of pay."  .  .  .  .  Whole companies
+made their way into his presence, literally crying aloud for bread.  "For
+Jesus' sake," wrote Buckhurst, "hasten to send relief with all speed, and
+let such victuallers be appointed as have a conscience not to make
+themselves rich with the famine of poor soldiers.  If her Majesty send
+not money, and that with speed, for their payment, I am afraid to think
+what mischief and miseries are like to follow."
+
+Then the ambassador proceeded to the Hague, holding interviews with
+influential personages in private, and with the States-General in public.
+Such was the charm of his manner, and so firm the conviction of sincerity
+and good-will which he inspired, that in the course of a fortnight there
+was already a sensible change in the aspect of affairs.  The enemy, who,
+at the time of their arrival, had been making bonfires and holding
+triumphal processions for joy of the great breach between Holland and
+England, and had been "hoping to swallow them all up, while there were so
+few left who knew how to act," were already manifesting disappointment.
+
+In a solemn meeting of the States-General with the State-council,
+Buckhurst addressed the assembly upon the general subject of her
+Majesty's goodness to the Netherlands.  He spoke of the gracious
+assistance rendered by her, notwithstanding her many special charges for
+the common cause, and of the mighty enmities which she had incurred for
+their sake.  He sharply censured the Hollanders for their cruelty to men
+who had shed their blood in their cause, but who were now driven forth
+from their towns; and left to starve on the highways, and hated for their
+nation's sake; as if the whole English name deserved to be soiled "for
+the treachery of two miscreants."  He spoke strongly of their demeanour
+towards the Earl of Leicester, and of the wrongs they had done him, and
+told them, that, if they were not ready to atone to her Majesty for such
+injuries, they were not to wonder if their deputies received no better
+answer at her hands.  "She who embraced your cause," he said, "when other
+mighty princes forsook you, will still stand fast unto you, yea, and
+increase her goodness, if her present state may suffer it."
+
+After being addressed in this manner the council of state made what
+Counsellor Clerk called a "very honest, modest, and wise answer;" but the
+States-General, not being able "so easily to discharge that which had so
+long boiled within them," deferred their reply until the following day.
+They then brought forward a deliberate rejoinder, in which they expressed
+themselves devoted to her Majesty, and, on the whole, well disposed to
+the Earl.  As to the 4th February letter, it had been written "in
+amaritudine cordis," upon hearing the treasons of York and Stanley, and
+in accordance with "their custom and liberty used towards all princes,
+whereby they had long preserved their estate," and in the conviction that
+the real culprits for all the sins of his Excellency's government were
+certain "lewd persons who sought to seduce his Lordship, and to cause him
+to hate the States."
+
+Buckhurst did not think it well to reply, at that moment, on the ground
+that there had been already crimination and recrimination more than
+enough, and that "a little bitterness more had rather caused them to
+determine dangerously than solve for the best."
+
+They then held council together--the envoys and the State-General, as to
+the amount of troops absolutely necessary--casting up the matter "as
+pinchingly as possibly might be." And the result was, that 20,000 foot
+and 2000 horse for garrison work, and an army of 13,000 foot, 5000 horse,
+and pioneers, for a campaign of five or six months, were pronounced
+indispensable.  This would require all their L240,000 sterling a-year,
+regular contribution, her Majesty's contingent of L140,000, and an extra
+sum of L150,000 sterling.  Of this sum the States requested her Majesty
+should furnish two-thirds, while they agreed to furnish the other third,
+which would make in all L240,000 for the Queen, and L290,000 for the
+States.  As it was understood that the English subsidies were only a
+loan, secured by mortgage of the cautionary towns, this did not seem very
+unreasonable, when the intimate blending of England's welfare with that
+of the Provinces was considered.
+
+Thus it will be observed that Lord Buckhurst--while doing his best to
+conciliate personal feuds and heart-burnings--had done full justice to
+the merits of Leicester, and had placed in strongest light the favours
+conferred by her Majesty.
+
+He then proceeded to Utrecht, where he was received with many
+demonstrations of respect, "with solemn speeches" from magistrates and
+burgher-captains, with military processions, and with great banquets,
+which were, however, conducted with decorum, and at which even Count
+Moeurs excited universal astonishment by his sobriety.  It was difficult,
+however, for matters to go very smoothly, except upon the surface.  What
+could be more disastrous than for a little commonwealth--a mere handful
+of people, like these Netherlanders, engaged in mortal combat with the
+most powerful monarch in the world, and with the first general of the
+age, within a league of their borders--thus to be deprived of all
+organized government at a most critical moment, and to be left to wrangle
+with their allies and among themselves, as to the form of polity to be
+adopted, while waiting the pleasure of a capricious and despotic woman?
+
+And the very foundation of the authority by which the Spanish yoke had
+been abjured, the sovereignty offered to Elizabeth, and the government-
+general conferred on Leicester, was fiercely assailed by the confidential
+agents of Elizabeth herself.  The dispute went into the very depths of
+the social contract.  Already Wilkes, standing up stoutly for the
+democratic views of the governor, who was so foully to requite him, had
+assured the English government that the "people were ready to cut the
+throats" of the Staten-General at any convenient moment.  The sovereign
+people, not the deputies, were alone to be heeded, he said, and although
+he never informed the world by what process he had learned the deliberate
+opinion of that sovereign, as there had been no assembly excepting those
+of the States-General and States-Provincial--he was none the less fully
+satisfied that the people were all with Leicester, and bitterly opposed
+to the States.
+
+"For the sovereignty, or supreme authority," said he, through failure of
+a legitimate prince, belongs to the people, and not to you, gentlemen,
+who are only servants, ministers, and deputies of the people.  You have
+your commissions or instructions surrounded by limitations--which
+conditions are so widely different from the power of sovereignty, as the
+might of the subject is in regard to his prince, or of a servant in,
+respect to his master.  For sovereignty is not limited either as to power
+or as to time.  Still less do you represent the sovereignty; for the
+people, in giving the general and absolute government to the Earl of
+Leicester, have conferred upon him at once the exercise of justice, the
+administration of polity, of naval affairs, of war, and of all the other
+points of sovereignty.  Of these a governor-general is however only the
+depositary or guardian, until such time as it may please the prince or
+people to revoke the trust; there being no other in this state who can do
+this; seeing that it was the people, through the instrumentality of your
+offices--through you as its servants--conferred on his Excellency, this
+power, authority, and government.  According to the common rule law,
+therefore, 'quo jure quid statuitur, eodem jure tolli debet.'  You having
+been fully empowered by the provinces and cities, or, to speak more
+correctly, by your masters and superiors, to confer the government on
+his Excellency, it follows that you require a like power in order to take
+it away either in whole or in part.  If then you had no commission to
+curtail his authority, or even that of the state-council, and thus to
+tread upon and usurp his power as governor general and absolute, there
+follows of two things one: either you did not well understand what you
+were doing, nor duly consider how far that power reached, or--much more
+probably--you have fallen into the sin of disobedience, considering how
+solemnly you swore allegiance to him.
+
+Thus subtly and ably did Wilkes defend the authority of the man who had
+deserted his post at a most critical moment, and had compelled the
+States, by his dereliction, to take the government into their own hands.
+
+For, after all, the whole argument of the English counsellor rested upon
+a quibble.  The people were absolutely sovereign, he said, and had lent
+that sovereignty to Leicester.  How had they made that loan?  Through the
+machinery of the States-General.  So long then as the Earl retained the
+absolute sovereignty, the States were not even representatives of the
+sovereign people.  The sovereign people was merged into one English Earl.
+The English Earl had retired--indefinitely--to England.  Was the
+sovereign people to wait for months, or years, before it regained its
+existence?  And if not, how was it to reassert its vitality?  How but
+through the agency of the States-General, who--according to Wilkes
+himself--had been fully empowered by the Provinces and Cities to confer
+the government on the Earl?  The people then, after all, were the
+provinces and cities.  And the States-General were at that moment as much
+qualified to represent those provinces and cities as they ever had been,
+and they claimed no more.  Wilkes, nor any other of the Leicester party,
+ever hinted at a general assembly of the people.  Universal suffrage was
+not dreamed of at that day.  By the people, he meant, if he meant
+anything, only that very small fraction of the inhabitants of a country,
+who, according to the English system, in the reign of Elizabeth,
+constituted its Commons.  He chose, rather from personal and political
+motives than philosophical ones, to draw a distinction between the people
+and the States, but it is quite obvious, from the tone of his private
+communications, that by the 'States' he meant the individuals who
+happened, for the time-being, to be the deputies of the States of each
+Province.  But it was almost an affectation to accuse those individuals
+of calling or considering themselves 'sovereigns;' for it was very well
+known that they sat as envoys, rather than as members of a congress, and
+were perpetually obliged to recur to their constituents, the States of
+each Province, for instructions.  It was idle, because Buys and
+Barneveld, and Roorda, and other leaders, exercised the influence due to
+their talents, patriotism, and experience, to stigmatize them as usurpers
+of sovereignty, and to hound the rabble upon them as tyrants and
+mischief-makers.  Yet to take this course pleased the Earl of Leicester,
+who saw no hope for the liberty of the people, unless absolute and
+unconditional authority over the people, in war, naval affairs, justice,
+and policy, were placed in his hands.  This was the view sustained by the
+clergy of the Reformed Church, because they found it convenient, through
+such a theory, and by Leicester's power, to banish Papists, exercise
+intolerance in matters of religion, sequestrate for their own private
+uses the property of the Catholic Church, and obtain for their own a
+political power which was repugnant to the more liberal ideas of the
+Barneveld party.
+
+The States of Holland--inspired as it were by the memory of that great
+martyr to religious and political liberty, William the Silent--maintained
+freedom of conscience.
+
+The Leicester party advocated a different theory on the religious
+question.  They were also determined to omit no effort to make the States
+odious.
+
+"Seeing their violent courses," said Wilkes to Leicester, "I have not
+been negligent, as well by solicitations to the ministers, as by my
+letters to such as have continued constant in affection to your Lordship,
+to have the people informed of the ungrateful and dangerous proceedings
+of the States.  They have therein travailed with so good effect, as the
+people are now wonderfully well disposed, and have delivered everywhere
+in speeches, that if, by the overthwart dealings of the States, her
+Majesty shall be drawn to stay her succours and goodness to them, and
+that thereby your Lordship be also discouraged to return, they will cut
+their throats."
+
+Who the "people" exactly were, that had been so wonderfully well disposed
+to throat-cutting by the ministers of the Gospel, did not distinctly
+appear.  It was certain, however, that they were the special friends of
+Leicester, great orators, very pious, and the sovereigns of the country.
+So much could not be gainsaid.
+
+"Your Lordship would wonder," continued the councillor, "to see the
+people--who so lately, by the practice of the said States and the
+accident of Deventer, were notably alienated--so returned to their former
+devotion towards her Majesty, your Lordship, and our nation."
+
+Wilkes was able moreover to gratify the absent governor-general with the
+intelligence--of somewhat questionable authenticity however--that the
+States were very "much terrified with these threats of the people."  But
+Barneveld came down to the council to inquire what member of that body it
+was who had accused the States of violating the Earl's authority.
+"Whoever he is," said the Advocate, "let him deliver his mind frankly,
+and he shall be answered."  The man did not seem much terrified by the
+throat-cutting orations.  "It is true," replied Wilkes, perceiving
+himself to be the person intended, "that you have very injuriously, in
+many of your proceedings, derogated from and trodden the authority of his
+Lordship and of this council under your feet."
+
+And then he went into particulars, and discussed, 'more suo,' the
+constitutional question, in which various Leicestrian counsellors
+seconded him.
+
+But Barneveld grimly maintained that the States were the sovereigns,
+and that it was therefore unfit that the governor, who drew his authority
+from them, should call them to account for their doings.  "It was as if
+the governors in the time of Charles V.," said the Advocate, "should have
+taxed that Emperor for any action of his done in the government."
+
+In brief, the rugged Barneveld, with threatening voice, and lion port,
+seemed to impersonate the Staten, and to hold reclaimed sovereignty in
+his grasp.  It seemed difficult to tear it from him again.
+
+"I did what I could," said Wilkes, "to beat them from this humour of
+their sovereignty, showing that upon that error they had grounded the
+rest of their wilful absurdities."
+
+Next night, he drew up sixteen articles, showing the disorders of the
+States, their breach of oaths, and violations of the Earl's authority;
+and with that commenced a series of papers interchanged by the two
+parties, in which the topics of the origin of government and the
+principles of religious freedom were handled with much ability on both
+sides, but at unmerciful length.
+
+On the religious question, the States-General, led by Barneveld and by
+Francis Franck, expressed themselves manfully, on various occasions,
+during the mission of Buckhurst.
+
+"The nobles and cities constituting the States," they said, "have been
+denounced to Lord Leicester as enemies of religion, by the self-seeking
+mischief-makers who surround him.  Why?  Because they had refused the
+demand of certain preachers to call a general synod, in defiance of the
+States-General, and to introduce a set of ordinances, with a system of
+discipline, according to their arbitrary will.  This the late Prince of
+Orange and the States-General had always thought detrimental both to
+religion and polity.  They respected the difference in religious
+opinions, and leaving all churches in their freedom, they chose to compel
+no man's conscience--a course which all statesmen, knowing the diversity
+of human opinions, had considered necessary in order to maintain
+fraternal harmony."
+
+Such words shine through the prevailing darkness of the religious
+atmosphere at that epoch, like characters of light.  They are beacons in
+the upward path of mankind.  Never before, had so bold and wise a tribute
+to the genius of the reformation been paid by an organized community.
+Individuals walking in advance of their age had enunciated such truths,
+and their voices had seemed to die away, but, at last, a little,
+struggling, half-developed commonwealth had proclaimed the rights of
+conscience for all mankind--for Papists and Calvinists, Jews and
+Anabaptists--because "having a respect for differences in religious
+opinions, and leaving all churches in their freedom, they chose to compel
+no man's conscience."
+
+On the constitutional question, the States commenced by an astounding
+absurdity.  "These mischief-makers, moreover," said they, "have not been
+ashamed to dispute, and to cause the Earl of Leicester to dispute, the
+lawful constitution of the Provinces; a matter which has not been
+disputed for eight hundred years."
+
+This was indeed to claim a respectable age for their republic.  Eight
+hundred years took them back to the days of Charlemagne, in whose time it
+would have been somewhat difficult to detect a germ of their States-
+General and States-Provincial.  That the constitutional government--
+consisting of nobles and of the vroedschaps of chartered cities--should
+have been in existence four hundred and seventeen years before the first
+charter had ever been granted to a city, was a very loose style of
+argument.  Thomas Wilkes, in reply; might as well have traced the English
+parliament to Hengist and Horsa.  "For eight hundred years;" they said,
+"Holland had been governed by Counts and Countesses, on whom the nobles
+and cities, as representing the States, had legally conferred
+sovereignty."
+
+Now the first incorporated city of Holland and Zeeland that ever existed
+was Middelburg, which received its charter from Count William I. of
+Holland and Countess Joan of Flanders; in the year 1217.  The first Count
+that had any legal recognized authority was Dirk the First to whom
+Charles the Simple presented the territory of Holland, by letters-patent,
+in 922.  Yet the States-General, in a solemn and eloquent document,
+gravely dated their own existence from the year 787, and claimed the
+regular possession and habitual delegation of sovereignty from that epoch
+down!
+
+After this fabulous preamble, they proceeded to handle the matter of fact
+with logical precision.  It was absurd, they said, that Mr. Wilkes and
+Lord Leicester should affect to confound the persons who appeared in the
+assembly with the States themselves; as if those individuals claimed or
+exercised sovereignty.  Any man who had observed what had been passing
+during the last fifteen years, knew very well that the supreme authority
+did not belong to the thirty or forty individuals who came to the
+meetings .  .  .  .  .  The nobles, by reason of their ancient dignity
+and splendid possessions, took counsel together over state matters, and
+then, appearing at the assembly, deliberated with the deputies of the
+cities.  The cities had mainly one form of government--a college of
+counsellors; or wise men, 40, 32, 28, or 24 in number, of the most
+respectable out of the whole community.  They were chosen for life, and
+vacancies were supplied by the colleges themselves out of the mass of
+citizens.  These colleges alone governed the city, and that which had
+been ordained by them was to be obeyed by all the inhabitants--a system
+against which there had never been any rebellion.  The colleges again,
+united with those of the nobles, represented the whole state, the whole
+body of the population; and no form of government could be imagined,
+they said, that could resolve, with a more thorough knowledge of the
+necessities of the country, or that could execute its resolves with more
+unity of purpose and decisive authority.  To bring the colleges into an
+assembly could only be done by means of deputies.  These deputies, chosen
+by their colleges, and properly instructed, were sent to the place of
+meeting.  During the war they had always been commissioned to resolve in
+common on matters regarding the liberty of the land.  These deputies,
+thus assembled, represented, by commission, the States; but they are not,
+in their own persons, the States; and no one of them had any such
+pretension.  "The people of this country," said the States, "have an
+aversion to all ambition; and in these disastrous times, wherein nothing
+but trouble and odium is to be gathered by public employment, these
+commissions are accounted 'munera necessaria' .  .  .  .  .  This form of
+government has, by God's favour, protected Holland and Zeeland, during
+this war, against a powerful foe, without lose of territory, without any
+popular outbreak, without military mutiny, because all business has been
+transacted with open doors; and because the very smallest towns are all
+represented, and vote in the assembly."
+
+In brief, the constitution of the United Provinces was a matter of fact.
+It was there in good working order, and had, for a generation of mankind,
+and throughout a tremendous war, done good service.  Judged by the
+principles of reason and justice, it was in the main a wholesome
+constitution, securing the independence and welfare of the state, and
+the liberty and property of the individual, as well certainly as did any
+polity then existing in the world.  It seemed more hopeful to abide by it
+yet a little longer than to adopt the throat-cutting system by the
+people, recommended by Wilkes and Leicester as an improvement on the old
+constitution.  This was the view of Lord Buckhurst.  He felt that threats
+of throat-cutting were not the best means of smoothing and conciliating,
+and he had come over to smooth and conciliate.
+
+"To spend the time," said he, "in private brabbles and piques between the
+States and Lord Leicester, when we ought to prepare an army against the
+enemy, and to repair the shaken and torn state, is not a good course for
+her Majesty's service."  Letters were continually circulating from hand
+to hand among the antagonists of the Holland party, written out of
+England by Leicester, exciting the ill-will of the populace against the
+organized government.  "By such means to bring the States into hatred,"
+said Buckhurst, "and to stir up the people against them; tends to great
+damage and miserable end.  This his Lordship doth full little consider,
+being the very way to dissolve all government, and so to bring all into
+confusion, and open the door for the enemy.  But oh, how lamentable a
+thing it is, and how doth my Lord of Leicester abuse her Majesty, making
+her authority the means to uphold and justify, and under her name to
+defend and maintain, all his intolerable errors.  I thank God that
+neither his might nor his malice shall deter me from laying open all
+those things which my conscience knoweth, and which appertaineth to be
+done for the good of this cause and of her Majesty's service.  Herein,
+though I were sure to lose my life, yet will I not offend neither the
+one nor the other, knowing very well that I must die; and to die in her
+Majesty's faithful service, and with a good conscience, is far more happy
+than the miserable life that I am in.  If Leicester do in this sort stir
+up the people against the States to follow his revenge against them, and
+if the Queen do yield no better aid, and the minds of Count Maurice and
+Hohenlo remain thus in fear and hatred of him, what good end or service
+can be hoped for here?"--[Buckhurst to Walsingham, 13th June, 1587.
+(Brit. Mus.  Galba, D. I. p. 95, MS.)]
+
+Buckhurst was a man of unimpeached integrity and gentle manners.  He had
+come over with the best intentions towards the governor-general, and it
+has been seen that he boldly defended him in, his first interviews with
+the States.  But as the intrigues and underhand plottings of the Earl's
+agents were revealed to him, he felt more and more convinced that there
+was a deep laid scheme to destroy the government, and to constitute a
+virtual and absolute sovereignty for Leicester.  It was not wonderful
+that the States were standing vigorously on the defensive.
+
+The subtle Deventer, Leicester's evil genius, did not cease to poison the
+mind of the governor, during his protracted absence, against all persons
+who offered impediments to the cherished schemes of his master and
+himself.  "Your Excellency knows very well," he said, "that the state of
+this country is democratic, since, by failure of a prince, the sovereign
+disposition of affairs has returned to the people.  That same people is
+everywhere so incredibly affectionate towards you that the delay in your
+return drives them to extreme despair.  Any one who would know the real
+truth has but to remember the fine fear the States-General were in when
+the news of your displeasure about the 4th February letter became known."
+
+Had it not been for the efforts of Lord Buckhurst in calming the popular
+rage, Deventer assured the Earl that the writers of the letter would
+"have scarcely saved their skins;" and that they had always continued in
+great danger.
+
+He vehemently urged upon Leicester, the necessity of his immediate
+return--not so much for reasons drawn from the distracted state of the
+country, thus left to a provisional government and torn by faction--but
+because of the facility with which he might at once seize upon arbitrary
+power.  He gratified his master by depicting in lively colours the abject
+condition into which Barneveld, Maurice, Hohenlo, and similar cowards,
+would be thrown by his sudden return.
+
+"If," said he, "the States' members and the counts, every one of them,
+are so desperately afraid of the people, even while your Excellency is
+afar off, in what trepidation will they be when you are here!  God,
+reason, the affection of the sovereign people, are on your side.  There
+needs, in a little commonwealth like ours, but a wink of the eye, the
+slightest indication of dissatisfaction on your part, to take away all
+their valour from men who are only brave where swords are too short.
+A magnanimous prince like yourself should seek at once the place where
+such plots are hatching, and you would see the fury of the rebels change
+at once to cowardice.  There is more than one man here in the Netherlands
+that brags of what he will do against the greatest and most highly
+endowed prince in England, because he thinks he shall never see him
+again, who, at the very first news of your return, my Lord, would think
+only of packing his portmanteau, greasing his boots, or, at the very
+least, of sneaking back into his hole."
+
+But the sturdy democrat was quite sure that his Excellency, that most
+magnanimous prince of England would not desert his faithful followers--
+thereby giving those "filthy rascals," his opponents, a triumph, and
+"doing so great an injury to the sovereign people, who were ready to get
+rid of them all at a single blow, if his Excellency would but say the
+word."
+
+He then implored the magnanimous prince to imitate the example of Moses,
+Joshua, David, and that of all great emperors and captains, Hebrew,
+Greek, and Roman, to come at once to the scene of action, and to smite
+his enemies hip and thigh.  He also informed his Excellency, that if the
+delay should last much longer, he would lose all chance of regaining
+power, because the sovereign people had quite made up their mind to
+return to the dominion of Spain within three months, if they could not
+induce his Excellency to rule over them.  In that way at least, if in
+no other, they could circumvent those filthy rascals whom they so much
+abhorred, and frustrate the designs of Maurice, Hohenlo, and Sir John
+Norris, who were represented as occupying the position of the triumvirs
+after the death of Julius Caesar.
+
+To place its neck under the yoke of Philip II.  and the Inquisition,
+after having so handsomely got rid of both, did not seem a sublime
+manifestation of sovereignty on the part of the people, and even Deventer
+had some misgivings as to the propriety of such a result.  "What then
+will become of our beautiful churches?"  he cried, "What will princes
+say, what will the world in general say, what will historians say, about
+the honour of the English nation?"
+
+As to the first question, it is probable that the prospect of the
+reformed churches would not have been cheerful, had the inquisition been
+re-established in Holland and Utrecht, three months after that date.  As
+to the second, the world and history were likely to reply, that the
+honour of the English nation was fortunately not entirely, entrusted at
+that epoch to the "magnanimous prince" of Leicester, and his democratic,
+counsellor-in-chief, burgomaster Deventer.
+
+These are but samples of the ravings which sounded incessantly in the
+ears of the governor-general.  Was it strange that a man, so thirsty for
+power, so gluttonous of flattery, should be influenced by such passionate
+appeals?  Addressed in strains of fulsome adulation, convinced that
+arbitrary power was within his reach, and assured that he had but to wink
+his eye to see his enemies scattered before him, he became impatient of
+all restraint; and determined, on his return, to crush the States into
+insignificance.
+
+Thus, while Buckhurst had been doing his best as a mediator to prepare
+the path for his return, Leicester himself end his partisans had been
+secretly exerting themselves to make his arrival the signal for discord;
+perhaps of civil war.  The calm, then, immediately succeeding the mission
+of Buckhurst was a deceitful one, but it seemed very promising. The best
+feelings were avowed and perhaps entertained.  The States professed great
+devotion to her Majesty and friendly regard for the governor.  They
+distinctly declared that the arrangements by which Maurice and Hohenlo
+had been placed in their new positions were purely provisional ones,
+subject to modifications on the arrival of the Earl.  "All things are
+reduced to a quiet calm," said Buckhurst, "ready to receive my Lord of
+Leicester and his authority, whenever he cometh."
+
+The quarrel of Hohenlo with Sir Edward Norris had been, by the exertions
+of Buckhurst, amicably arranged: the Count became an intimate friend of
+Sir John, "to the gladding of all such as wished well to, the country;"
+but he nourished a deadly hatred to the Earl.  He ran up and down like a
+madman whenever his return was mentioned.  "If the Queen be willing to
+take the sovereignty," he cried out at his own dinner-table to a large
+company, "and is ready to proceed roundly in this action, I will serve
+her to the last drop of my blood; but if she embrace it in no other sort
+than hitherto she hath done, and if Leicester is to return, then am I as
+good a man as Leicester, and will never be commanded by him.  I mean to
+continue on my frontier, where all who love me can come and find me."
+
+He declared to several persons that he had detected a plot on the
+part of Leicester to have him assassinated; and the assertion seemed so
+important, that Villiers came to Councillor Clerk to confer with him on
+the subject.  The worthy Bartholomew, who had again, most reluctantly,
+left his quiet chambers in the Temple to come again among the guns and
+drums, which his soul abhorred, was appalled by such a charge. It was
+best to keep it a secret, he said, at least till the matter could be
+thoroughly investigated.  Villiers was of the same opinion, and
+accordingly the councillor, in the excess of his caution, confided the
+secret only--to whom?  To Mr. Atye, Leicester's private secretary.  Atye,
+of course, instantly told his master--his master in a frenzy of rage,
+told the Queen, and her Majesty, in a paroxysm of royal indignation at
+this new insult to her favourite, sent furious letters to her envoys,
+to the States-General, to everybody in the Netherlands--so that the
+assertion of Hohenlo became the subject of endless recrimination.
+Leicester became very violent, and denounced the statement as an impudent
+falsehood, devised wilfully in order to cast odium upon him and to
+prevent his return.  Unquestionably there was nothing in the story but
+table-talk; but the Count would have been still more ferocious towards
+Leicester than he was, had he known what was actually happening at that
+very moment.
+
+While Buckhurst was at Utrecht, listening to the "solemn-speeches" of the
+militia-captains and exchanging friendly expressions at stately banquets
+with Moeurs, he suddenly received a letter in cipher from her Majesty.
+Not having the key, he sent to Wilkes at the Hague.  Wilkes was very ill;
+but the despatch was marked pressing and immediate, so he got out of bed
+and made the journey to Utrecht.  The letter, on being deciphered, proved
+to be an order from the Queen to decoy Hohenlo into some safe town, on
+pretence of consultation and then to throw him into prison, on the ground
+that he had been tampering with the enemy, and was about to betray the
+republic to Philip.
+
+The commotion which would have been excited by any attempt to enforce
+this order, could be easily imagined by those familiar with Hohenlo and
+with the powerful party in the Netherlands of which he was one of the
+chiefs.  Wilkes stood aghast as he deciphered the letter.  Buckhurst felt
+the impossibility of obeying the royal will.  Both knew the cause, and
+both foresaw the consequences of the proposed step.  Wilkes had heard
+some rumours of intrigues between Parma's agents at Deventer and Hohenlo,
+and had confided them to Walsingham, hoping that the Secretary would keep
+the matter in his own breast, at least till further advice.  He was
+appalled at the sudden action proposed on a mere rumour, which both
+Buckhurst and himself had begun to consider an idle one.  He protested,
+therefore, to Walsingham that to comply with her Majesty's command would
+not only be nearly impossible, but would, if successful, hazard the ruin
+of the republic.  Wilkes was also very anxious lest the Earl of Leicester
+should hear of the matter.  He was already the object of hatred to that
+powerful personage, and thought him capable of accomplishing his
+destruction in any mode.  But if Leicester could wreak his vengeance
+upon his enemy Wilkes by the hand of his other deadly enemy Hohenlo,
+the councillor felt that this kind of revenge would have a double
+sweetness for him.  The Queen knows what I have been saying, thought
+Wilkes, and therefore Leicester knows it; and if Leicester knows it, he
+will take care that Hohenlo shall hear of it too, and then wo be unto me.
+"Your honour knoweth," he said to Walsingham, "that her Majesty can hold
+no secrets, and if she do impart it to Leicester, then am I sped."
+
+Nothing came of it however, and the relations of Wilkes and Buckhurst
+with Hohenlo continued to be friendly.  It was a lesson to Wilkes to
+be more cautious even with the cautious Walsingham.  "We had but bare
+suspicions," said Buckhurst, "nothing fit, God knoweth, to come to such a
+reckoning.  Wilkes saith he meant it but for a premonition to you there;
+but I think it will henceforth be a premonition to himself--there being
+but bare presumptions, and yet shrewd presumptions."
+
+Here then were Deventer and Leicester plotting to overthrow the
+government of the States; the States and Hohenlo arming against
+Leicester; the extreme democratic party threatening to go over to the
+Spaniards within three months; the Earl accused of attempting the life of
+Hohenlo; Hohenlo offering to shed the last drop of his blood for Queen
+Elizabeth; Queen Elizabeth giving orders to throw Hohenlo into prison as
+a traitor; Councillor Wilkes trembling for his life at the hands both of
+Leicester and Hohenlo; and Buckhurst doing his best to conciliate all
+parties, and imploring her Majesty in vain to send over money to help on
+the war, and to save her soldiers from starving.
+
+For the Queen continued to refuse the loan of fifty thousand pounds which
+the provinces solicited, and in hope of which the States had just agreed
+to an extra contribution of a million florins (L100,000), a larger sum
+than had been levied by a single vote since the commencement of the war.
+It must be remembered, too, that the whole expense of the war fell upon
+Holland and Zeeland.  The Province of Utrecht, where there was so strong
+a disposition to confer absolute authority upon Leicester, and to destroy
+the power of the States-General contributed absolutely nothing.  Since
+the Loss of Deventer, nothing could be raised in the Provinces of
+Utrecht, Gelderland or Overyssel; the Spaniards levying black mail upon
+the whole territory, and impoverishing the inhabitants till they became
+almost a nullity.  Was it strange then that the States of Holland and
+Zeeland, thus bearing nearly the whole; burden of the war, should be
+dissatisfied with the hatred felt toward them by their sister Provinces
+so generously protected by them?  Was it unnatural that Barneveld, and
+Maurice, and Hohenlo, should be disposed to bridle the despotic
+inclinations of Leicester, thus fostered by those who existed, as it
+were, at their expense?
+
+But the Queen refused the L50,000, although Holland and Zeeland had voted
+the L100,000.  "No reason that breedeth charges," sighed Walsingham, "can
+in any sort be digested."
+
+It was not for want of vehement entreaty on the part of the Secretary of
+State and of Buckhurst that the loan was denied.  At least she was
+entreated to send over money for her troops, who for six months past were
+unpaid.  "Keeping the money in your coffers," said Buckhurst, "doth yield
+no interest to you, and--which is above all earthly, respects--it shall
+be the means of preserving the lives of many of your faithful subjects
+which otherwise must needs, daily perish.  Their miseries, through want
+of meat and money, I do protest to God so much moves, my soul with
+commiseration of that which is past, and makes my heart tremble to think
+of the like to come again, that I humbly beseech your Majesty, for Jesus
+Christ sake, to have compassion on their lamentable estate past, and send
+some money to prevent the like hereafter."
+
+These were moving words,--but the money did not come--charges could not
+be digested.
+
+"The eternal God," cried Buckhurst, "incline your heart to grant the
+petition of the States for the loan of the L50,000, and that speedily,
+for the dangerous terms of the State here and the mighty and forward
+preparation of the enemy admit no minute of delay; so that even to grant
+it slowly is to deny it utterly."
+
+He then drew a vivid picture of the capacity of the Netherlands to assist
+the endangered realm of England, if delay were not suffered to destroy
+both commonwealths, by placing the Provinces in an enemy's hand.
+
+"Their many and notable good havens," he said, "the great number of ships
+and mariners, their impregnable towns, if they were in the hands of a
+potent prince that would defend them, and, lastly, the state of this
+shore; so near and opposite unto the land and coast of England--lo, the
+sight of all this, daily in mine eye, conjoined with the deep, enrooted
+malice of that your so mighty enemy who seeketh to regain them; these
+things entering continually into the, meditations of my heart--so much do
+they import the safety of yourself and your estate--do enforce me, in the
+abundance of my love and duty to your Majesty, most earnestly to speak,
+write, and weep unto you, lest when the occasion yet offered shall be
+gone by, this blessed means of your defence, by God's provident goodness
+thus put into your hand, will then be utterly lost, lo; never, never more
+to be recovered again."
+
+It was a noble, wise, and eloquent appeal, but it was muttered in vain.
+Was not Leicester--his soul filled with petty schemes of reigning in
+Utrecht, and destroying the constitutional government of the Provinces
+--in full possession of the royal ear?  And was not the same ear lent,
+at most critical moment, to the insidious Alexander Farnese, with his
+whispers of peace, which were potent enough to drown all the preparations
+for the invincible Armada?
+
+Six months had rolled away since Leicester had left the Netherlands; six
+months long, the Provinces, left in a condition which might have become
+anarchy, had been saved by the wise government of the States-General; six
+months long the English soldiers had remained unpaid by their sovereign;
+and now for six weeks the honest, eloquent, intrepid, but gentle
+Buckhurst had done his best to conciliate all parties, and to mould the
+Netherlanders into an impregnable bulwark for the realm of England.  But
+his efforts were treated with scorn by the Queen.  She was still maddened
+by a sense of the injuries done by the States to Leicester.  She was
+indignant that her envoy should have accepted such lame apologies for the
+4th of February letter; that he should have received no better atonement
+for their insolent infringements of the Earl's orders during his absence;
+that he should have excused their contemptuous proceedings and that, in
+short, he should have been willing to conciliate and forgive when he
+should have stormed and railed.  "You conceived, it seemeth," said her
+Majesty, "that a more sharper manner of proceeding would have exasperated
+matters to the prejudice of the service, and therefore you did think it
+more fit to wash the wounds rather with water than vinegar, wherein we
+would rather have wished, on the other side, that you had better
+considered that festering wounds had more need of corrosives than
+lenitives.  Your own judgment ought to have taught that such a alight and
+mild kind of dealing with a people so ingrate and void of consideration
+as the said Estates have showed themselves toward us, is the ready way to
+increase their contempt."
+
+The envoy might be forgiven for believing that at any rate there would be
+no lack of corrosives or vinegar, so long as the royal tongue or pen
+could do their office, as the unfortunate deputies had found to their
+cost in their late interviews at Greenwich, and as her own envoys in the
+Netherlands were perpetually finding now.  The Queen was especially
+indignant that the Estates should defend the tone of their letters to the
+Earl on the ground that he had written a piquant epistle to them.  "But
+you can manifestly see their untruths in naming it a piquant letter,"
+said Elizabeth, "for it has no sour or sharp word therein, nor any clause
+or reprehension, but is full of gravity and gentle admonition.  It
+deserved a thankful answer, and so you may maintain it to them to their
+reproof."
+
+The States doubtless thought that the loss of Deventer and, with it, the
+almost ruinous condition of three out of the seven Provinces, might
+excuse on their part a little piquancy of phraseology, nor was it easy
+for them to express gratitude to the governor for his grave and gentle
+admonitions, after he had, by his secret document of 24th November,
+rendered himself fully responsible for the disaster they deplored.
+
+She expressed unbounded indignation with Hohenlo, who, as she was well
+aware, continued to cherish a deadly hatred for Leicester.  Especially
+she was exasperated, and with reason, by the assertion the Count had made
+concerning the governor's murderous designs upon him.  "'Tis a matter,"
+said the Queen, "so foul and dishonourable that doth not only touch
+greatly the credit of the Earl, but also our own honour, to have one who
+hath been nourished and brought up by us, and of whom we have made show
+to the world to have extraordinarily favoured above any other of our own
+subjects, and used his service in those countries in a place of that
+reputation he held there, stand charged with so horrible and unworthy a
+crime.  And therefore our pleasure is, even as you tender the continuance
+of our favour towards you, that you seek, by all the means you may,
+examining the Count Hollock, or any other party in this matter, to
+discover and to sift out how this malicious imputation hath been wrought;
+for we have reason to think that it hath grown out of some cunning device
+to stay the Earl's coming, and to discourage him from the continuance of
+his service in those countries."
+
+And there the Queen was undoubtedly in the right.  Hohenlo was resolved,
+if possible, to make the Earl's government of the Netherlands impossible.
+There was nothing in the story however; and all that by the most diligent
+"sifting" could ever be discovered, and all that the Count could be
+prevailed upon to confess, was an opinion expressed by him that if he had
+gone with Leicester to England, it might perhaps have fared ill with him.
+But men were given to loose talk in those countries.  There was great
+freedom of tongue and pen; and as the Earl, whether with justice or not,
+had always been suspected of strong tendencies to assassination, it was
+not very wonderful that so reckless an individual as Hohenlo should
+promulgate opinions on such subjects, without much reserve.  "The number
+of crimes that have been imputed to me," said Leicester, "would be
+incomplete, had this calumny not been added to all preceding ones."
+It is possible that assassination, especially poisoning, may have been
+a more common-place affair in those days than our own.  At any rate, it
+is certain that accusations of such crimes were of ordinary occurrence.
+Men were apt to die suddenly if they had mortal enemies, and people would
+gossip.  At the very same moment, Leicester was deliberately accused not
+only of murderous intentions towards Hohenlo, but towards Thomas Wilkes
+and Count Lewis William of Nassau likewise.  A trumpeter, arrested in
+Friesland, had just confessed that he had been employed by the Spanish
+governor of that Province, Colonel Verdugo, to murder Count Lewis, and
+that four other persons had been entrusted with the same commission.
+The Count wrote to Verdugo, and received in reply an indignant denial
+of the charge.  "Had I heard of such a project," said the Spaniard,
+"I would, on the contrary, have given you warning.  And I give you one
+now."  He then stated, as a fact known to him on unquestionable
+authority, that the Earl of Leicester had assassins at that moment in his
+employ to take the life of Count Lewis, adding that as for the trumpeter,
+who had just been hanged for the crime suborned by the writer, he was a
+most notorious lunatic.  In reply, Lewis, while he ridiculed this plea of
+insanity set up for a culprit who had confessed his crime succinctly and
+voluntarily, expressed great contempt for the counter-charge against
+Leicester.  "His Excellency," said the sturdy little Count," is a
+virtuous gentleman, the most pious and God-fearing I have ever known.  I
+am very sure that he could never treat his enemies in the manner stated,
+much less his friends.  As for yourself, may God give me grace, in
+requital of your knavish trick, to make such a war upon you as becomes an
+upright soldier and a man of honour."
+
+Thus there was at least one man--and a most important, one--in the
+opposition--party who thoroughly believed in the honour of the governor-
+general.
+
+The Queen then proceeded to lecture Lord Buckhurst very severely for
+having tolerated an instant the States' proposition to her for a loan of
+L50,000.  "The enemy," she observed, "is quite unable to attempt the
+siege of any town."
+
+Buckhurst was, however, instructed, in case the States' million should
+prove insufficient to enable the army to make head against the enemy, and
+in the event of "any alteration of the good-will of the people towards
+her, caused by her not yielding, in this their necessity, some convenient
+support," to let them then understand, "as of himself, that if they would
+be satisfied with a loan of ten or fifteen thousand pounds, he, would do
+his best endeavour to draw her Majesty to yield unto the furnishing of
+such a sum, with assured hope to obtaining the same at her hands."
+
+Truly Walsingham was right in saying that charges of any kind were
+difficult of digestion: Yet, even at that moment, Elizabeth had no more
+attached subjects in England than sere the burghers of the Netherlands;
+who were as anxious ever to annex their territory to her realms.
+
+'Thus, having expressed an affection for Leicester which no one doubted,
+having once more thoroughly brow-beaten the states, and having soundly
+lectured Buckhurst--as a requital for his successful efforts to bring
+about a more wholesome condition of affairs--she gave the envoy a parting
+stab, with this postscript;--"There is small disproportion," she said
+"twist a fool who useth not wit because he hath it not, and him that useth
+it not when it should avail him."  Leicester, too, was very violent in
+his attacks upon Buckhurst.  The envoy had succeeded in reconciling
+Hohenlo with the brothers Norris, and had persuaded Sir John to offer the
+hand of friendship to Leicester, provided it were sure of being accepted.
+Yet in this desire to conciliate, the Earl found renewed cause for
+violence.  "I would have had more regard of my Lord of Buckhurst," he
+said, "if the case had been between him and Norris, but I must regard my
+own reputation the more that I see others would impair it.  You have
+deserved little thanks of me, if I must deal plainly, who do equal me
+after this sort with him, whose best place is colonel under me, and once
+my servant, and preferred by me to all honourable place he had."  And
+thus were enterprises of great moment, intimately affecting the, safety
+of Holland, of England, of all Protestantism, to be suspended between
+triumph and ruin, in order that the spleen of one individual--one Queen's
+favourite--might be indulged.  The contempt of an insolent grandee for a
+distinguished commander--himself the son, of a Baron, with a mother the
+dear friend of her sovereign--was to endanger the existence of great
+commonwealths.  Can the influence of the individual, for good or bad,
+upon the destinies of the race be doubted, when the characters and
+conduct of Elizabeth and Leicester, Burghley and Walsingham, Philip and
+Parma, are closely scrutinized and broadly traced throughout the wide
+range of their effects?
+
+"And I must now, in your Lordship's sight," continued Leicester, "be made
+a counsellor with this companion, who never yet to this day hath done so
+much as take knowledge of my mislike of him; no, not to say this much,
+which I think would well become his better, that he was sorry, to hear I
+had mislike to him, that he desired my suspension till he might either
+speak with me, or be charged from me, and if then he were not able to
+satisfy me, he would acknowledge his fault, and make me any honest
+satisfaction.  This manner of dealing would have been no disparagement to
+his better.  And even so I must think that your Lordship doth me wrong,
+knowing what you do, to make so little difference between John Norris, my
+man not long since, and now but my colonel under me, as though we were
+equals.  And I cannot but more than marvel at this your proceeding, when
+I remember your promises of friendship, and your opinions resolutely set
+down .  .  .  .  You were so determined before you went hence, but must
+have become wonderfully enamoured of those men's unknown virtues in a few
+days of acquaintance, from the alteration that is grown by their own
+commendations of themselves.  You know very well that all the world
+should not make me serve with John Norris.  Your sudden change from
+mislike to liking has, by consequence, presently cast disgrace upon me.
+But all is not gold that glitters, nor every shadow a perfect
+representation .  .  .  .  You knew he should not serve with me, but
+either you thought me a very inconstant man, or else a very simple soul,
+resolving with you as I did, for you to take the course you have done."
+He felt, however, quite strong in her Majesty's favour.  He knew himself
+her favourite, beyond all chance or change, and was sure, so long as
+either lived, to thrust his enemies, by her aid, into outer darkness.
+Woe to Buckhurst, and Norris, and Wilkes, and all others who consorted
+with his enemies.  Let them flee from the wrath to come!  And truly they
+were only too anxious to do so, for they knew that Leicester's hatred was
+poisonous.  "He is not so facile to forget as ready to revenge," said
+poor Wilkes, with neat alliteration.  "My very heavy and mighty adversary
+will disgrace and undo me.
+
+"It sufficeth," continued Leicester, "that her Majesty both find my
+dealings well enough, and so, I trust will graciously use me.  As for the
+reconciliations and love-days you have made there, truly I have liked
+well of it; for you did sow me your disposition therein before, and I
+allowed of it, and I had received letters both from Count Maurice and
+Hohenlo of their humility and kindness, but now in your last letters you
+say they have uttered the cause of their mislike towards me, which you
+forbear to write of, looking so speedily for my return."
+
+But the Earl knew well enough what the secret was, for had it not been
+specially confided by the judicious Bartholomew to Atye, who had
+incontinently told his master?  "This pretense that I should kill
+Hohenlo," cried Leicester, "is a matter properly foisted in to bring me
+to choler.  I will not suffer it to rest, thus.  Its authors shall be
+duly and severely punished.  And albeit I see well enough the plot of
+this wicked device, yet shall it not work the effect the devisers have
+done it for.  No, my Lord, he is a villain and a false lying knave
+whosoever he be, and of what, nation soever that hath forged this device.
+Count Hohenlo doth know I never gave him cause to fear me so much.  There
+were ways and means offered me to have quitted him of the country if I
+had so liked.  This new monstrous villany which is now found out I do
+hate and detest, as I would look for the right judgment of God to fall
+upon myself, if I had but once imagined it.  All this makes good proof of
+Wilkes's good dealing with me, that hath heard of so vile and villainous
+a reproach of me, and never gave me knowledge.  But I trust your Lordship
+shall receive her Majesty's order for this, as for a matter that toucheth
+herself in honour, and me her poor servant and minister, as dearly as any
+matter can do; and I will so take it and use it to the uttermost."
+
+We have seen how anxiously Buckhurst had striven to do his duty upon a
+most difficult mission.  Was it unnatural that so fine a nature as his
+should be disheartened, at reaping nothing but sneers and contumely from
+the haughty sovereign he served, and from the insolent favourite who
+controlled her councils?  "I beseech your Lordship," he said to Burghley,
+"keep one ear for me, and do not hastily condemn me before you hear mine
+answer.  For if I ever did or shall do any acceptable service to her
+Majesty, it was in, the stay and appeasing of these countries, ever ready
+at my coming to have cast off all good respect towards us, and to have
+entered even into some desperate cause.  In the meantime I am hardly
+thought of by her Majesty, and in her opinion condemned before mine
+answer be understood.  Therefore I beseech you to help me to return, and
+not thus to lose her Majesty's favour for my good desert, wasting here my
+mind, body, my wits, wealth, and all; with continual toils, taxes, and
+troubles, more than I am able to endure."
+
+But besides his instructions to smooth and expostulate, in which he had
+succeeded so well, and had been requited so ill; Buckhurst had received a
+still more difficult commission.  He had been ordered to broach the
+subject of peace, as delicately as possible, but without delay; first
+sounding the leading politicians, inducing them to listen to the Queen's
+suggestions on the subject, persuading them that they ought to be
+satisfied with the principles of the pacification of Ghent, and that it
+was hopeless for the Provinces to continue the war with their mighty
+adversary any longer.
+
+Most reluctantly had Buckhurst fulfilled his sovereign's commands in this
+disastrous course.  To talk to the Hollanders of the Ghent pacification
+seemed puerile.  That memorable treaty, ten years before, had been one of
+the great landmarks of progress, one of the great achievements of William
+the Silent.  By its provisions, public exercise of the reformed religion
+had been secured for the two Provinces of Holland and Zeeland, and it had
+been agreed that the secret practice of those rites should be elsewhere
+winked at, until such time as the States-General, under the auspices of
+Philip II., should otherwise ordain.  But was it conceivable that now,
+after Philip's authority had been solemnly abjured, and the reformed
+worship had become the, public, dominant religion, throughout all the
+Provinces,--the whole republic should return to the Spanish dominion,
+and to such toleration as might be sanctioned by an assembly professing
+loyalty to the most Catholic King?
+
+Buckhurst had repeatedly warned the Queen, in fervid and eloquent
+language, as to the intentions of Spain.  "There was never peace well
+made," he observed, "without a mighty war preceding, and always, the
+sword in hand is the best pen to write the conditions of peace."
+
+"If ever prince had cause," he continued, "to think himself beset with
+doubt and danger, you, sacred Queen, have most just cause not only to
+think it, but even certainly to believe it.  The Pope doth daily plot
+nothing else but how he may bring to pass your utter overthrow; the
+French King hath already sent you threatenings of revenge, and though for
+that pretended cause I think little will ensue, yet he is blind that
+seeth not the mortal dislike that boileth deep in his heart for other
+respects against you.  The Scottish King, not only in regard of his
+future hope, but also by reason of some over conceit in his heart, may
+be thought a dangerous neighbour to you.  The King of Spain armeth and
+extendeth all his power to ruin both you and your estate.  And if the
+Indian gold have corrupted also the King of Denmark, and made him
+likewise Spanish, as I marvellously fear; why will not your Majesty,
+beholding the flames of your enemies on every side kindling around,
+unlock all your coffers and convert your treasure for the advancing of
+worthy men, and for the arming of ships and men-of-war that may defend
+you, since princes' treasures serve only to that end, and, lie they never
+so fast or so full in their chests, can no ways so defend them?
+
+"The eternal God, in whose hands the hearts of kings do rest, dispose and
+guide your sacred Majesty to do that which may be most according to His
+blessed will, and best for you, as I trust He will, even for His mercy's
+sake, both toward your Majesty and the whole realm of England, whose
+desolation is thus sought and compassed."
+
+Was this the language of a mischievous intriguer, who was sacrificing the
+true interest of his country, and whose proceedings were justly earning
+for him rebuke and disgrace at the hands of his sovereign?  Or was it
+rather the noble advice of an upright statesman, a lover of his country,
+a faithful servant of his Queen, who had looked through the atmosphere of
+falsehood in which he was doing his work, and who had detected, with rare
+sagacity, the secret purposes of those who were then misruling the world?
+
+Buckhurst had no choice, however, but to obey.  His private efforts were
+of course fruitless, but he announced to her Majesty that it was his
+intention very shortly to bring the matter--according to her wish--before
+the assembly.
+
+But Elizabeth, seeing that her counsel had been unwise and her action
+premature, turned upon her envoy, as she was apt to do, and rebuked him
+for his obedience, so soon as obedience had proved inconvenient to
+herself.
+
+"Having perused your letters," she said, "by which you at large debate
+unto us what you have done in the matter of peace .  .  .  .  .  we find
+it strange that you should proceed further.  And although we had given
+you full and ample direction to proceed to a public dealing in that
+cause, yet our own discretion, seeing the difficulties and dangers that
+you yourself saw in the propounding of the matter, ought to have led you
+to delay till further command from us."
+
+Her Majesty then instructed her envoy, in case he had not yet "propounded
+the matter in the state-house to the general assembly," to pause entirely
+until he heard her further pleasure.  She concluded, as usual, with a
+characteristic postcript in her own hand.
+
+"Oh weigh deeplier this matter," she said, "than, with so shallow a
+judgment, to spill the cause, impair my honour, and shame yourself, with
+all your wit, that once was supposed better than to lose a bargain for
+the handling."
+
+Certainly the sphinx could have propounded no more puzzling riddles than
+those which Elizabeth thus suggested to Buckhurst.  To make war without
+an army, to support an army without pay, to frame the hearts of a whole
+people to peace who were unanimous for war, and this without saying a
+word either in private or public; to dispose the Netherlanders favourably
+to herself and to Leicester, by refusing them men and money, brow-beating
+them for asking for it, and subjecting them to a course of perpetual
+insults, which she called "corrosives," to do all this and more seemed
+difficult.  If not to do it, were to spill the cause and to lose the
+bargain, it was more than probable that they would be spilt and lost.
+
+But the ambassador was no OEdipus--although a man of delicate perceptions
+and brilliant intellect--and he turned imploringly to a wise counsellor
+for aid against the tormentor who chose to be so stony-faced and
+enigmatical.
+
+"Touching the matter of peace," said he to Walsingham, "I have written
+somewhat to her Majesty in cipher, so as I am sure you will be called for
+to decipher it.  If you did know how infinitely her Majesty did at my
+departure and before--for in this matter of peace she hath specially used
+me this good while--command me, pray me, and persuade me to further and
+hasten the same with all the speed possible that might be, and how, on
+the other side, I have continually been the man and the mean that have
+most plainly dehorted her from such post-haste, and that she should never
+make good peace without a puissant army in the field, you would then say
+that I had now cause to fear her displeasure for being too slow, and not
+too forward.  And as for all the reasons which in my last letters are set
+down, her Majesty hath debated them with me many times."
+
+And thus midsummer was fast approaching, the commonwealth was without a
+regular government, Leicester remained in England nursing his wrath and
+preparing his schemes, the Queen was at Greenwich, corresponding with
+Alexander Farnese, and sending riddles to Buckhurst, when the enemy--who,
+according to her Majesty, was "quite unable to attempt the, siege of any
+town" suddenly appeared in force in Flanders, and invested Sluy's.  This
+most important seaport, both for the destiny of the republic and of
+England at that critical moment, was insufficiently defended.  It was
+quite time to put an army in the field, with a governor-general to
+command it.
+
+On the 5th June there was a meeting of the state-council at the Hague.
+Count Maurice, Hohenlo, and Moeurs were present, besides several members
+of the States-General.  Two propositions were before the council.  The
+first was that it was absolutely necessary to the safety of the republic,
+now that the enemy had taken the field, and the important city of Sluy's
+was besieged, for Prince Maurice to be appointed captain-general, until
+such time as the Earl of Leicester or some other should be sent by her
+Majesty.  The second was to confer upon the state-council the supreme
+government in civil affairs, for the same period, and to repeal all
+limitations and restrictions upon the powers of the council made secretly
+by the Earl.
+
+Chancellor Leoninus, "that grave, wise old man," moved the propositions.
+The deputies of the States were requested to withdraw.  The vote of each
+councillor was demanded.  Buckhurst, who, as the Queen's representative--
+together with Wilkes and John Norris--had a seat in the council, refused
+to vote.  "It was a matter," he discreetly observed with which "he had not
+been instructed by her Majesty to intermeddle."  Norris and Wilkes also
+begged to be excused from voting, and, although earnestly urged to do so
+by the whole council, persisted in their refusal.  Both measures were
+then carried.
+
+No sooner was the vote taken, than an English courier entered the
+council-chamber, with pressing despatches from Lord Leicester.  The
+letters were at once read.  The Earl announced his speedy arrival, and
+summoned both the States-General and the council to meet him at Dort,
+where his lodgings were already taken.  All were surprised, but none more
+than Buckhurst, Wilkes, and Norris; for no intimation of this sudden
+resolution had been received by them, nor any answer given to various
+propositions, considered by her Majesty as indispensable preliminaries to
+the governor's visit.
+
+The council adjourned till after dinner, and Buckhurst held conference
+meantime with various counsellors and deputies.  On the reassembling of
+the board, it was urged by Barneveld, in the name of the States, that the
+election of Prince Maurice should still hold good.  "Although by these
+letters," said he, "it would seem that her Majesty had resolved upon the
+speedy return of his Excellency, yet, inasmuch as the counsels and
+resolutions of princes are often subject to change upon new occasion, it
+does not seem fit that our late purpose concerning Prince Maurice should
+receive any interruption."
+
+Accordingly, after brief debate, both resolutions, voted in the morning,
+were confirmed in the afternoon.
+
+"So now," said Wilkes, "Maurice is general of all the forces, 'et quid
+sequetur nescimus.'"
+
+But whatever else was to follow, it was very certain that Wilkes would
+not stay.  His great enemy had sworn his destruction, and would now take
+his choice, whether to do him to death himself, or to throw him into the
+clutch of the ferocious Hohenlo.  "As for my own particular," said the
+counsellor, "the word is go, whosoever cometh or cometh not," and he
+announced to Walsingham his intention of departing without permission,
+should he not immediately receive it from England.  "I shall stay to be
+dandled with no love-days nor leave-takings," he observed.
+
+But Leicester had delayed his coming too long.  The country felt that it-
+had been trifled with by his: absence--at so critical a period--of seven
+months.  It was known too that the Queen was secretly treating with the
+enemy, and that Buckhurst had been privately sounding leading personages
+upon that subject, by her orders.  This had caused a deep, suppressed
+indignation.  Over and over again had the English government been warned
+as to the danger of delay.  "Your length in resolving;" Wilkes had said,
+"whatsoever your secret purposes may be--will put us to new plunges
+before long."  The mission of Buckhurst was believed to be "but a stale,
+having some other intent than was expressed."  And at last, the new
+plunge had been fairly taken.  It seemed now impossible for Leicester to
+regain the absolute authority, which he coveted; and which he had for a
+brief season possessed. The States-General, under able leaders, had
+become used to a government which had been forced upon them, and which
+they had wielded with success.  Holland and Zeeland, paying the whole
+expense of the war, were not likely to endure again the absolute
+sovereignty of a foreigner, guided by a back stairs council of reckless
+politicians--most of whom were unprincipled, and some of whom had been
+proved to be  felons--and established, at Utrecht, which contributed
+nothing to the general purse.  If Leicester were really-coming, it seemed
+certain that he would be held to acknowledge the ancient constitution,
+and to respect the sovereignty of the States-General.  It was resolved
+that he should be well bridled.  The sensations of Barneveld and his
+party may therefore be imagined, when a private letter of Leicester, to
+his secretary "the fellow named Junius," as Hohenlo called him--having
+been intercepted at this moment, gave them an opportunity of studying
+the Earl's secret thoughts.
+
+The Earl informed his correspondent that he was on the point of starting
+for the Netherlands.  He ordered him therefore to proceed at once to
+reassure those whom he knew well disposed as to the good intentions of
+her Majesty and of the governor-general.  And if, on the part of Lord
+Buckhurst or others, it should be intimated that the Queen was resolved
+to treat for peace with the King of Spain; and wished to have the opinion
+of the Netherlanders on that subject, he was to say boldly that Lord
+Buckhurst never had any such charge, and that her Majesty had not been
+treating at all.  She had only been attempting to sound the King's
+intentions towards the Netherlands, in case of any accord.  Having
+received no satisfactory assurance on the subject, her Majesty was
+determined to proceed with the defence of these countries.  This appeared
+by the expedition of Drake against Spain, and by the return of the Earl,
+with a good cumber of soldiers paid by her Majesty, over and above her
+ordinary subsidy.
+
+"You are also;" said the Earl, "to tell those who have the care of the
+people" (the ministers of the reformed church and others), "that I am
+returning, in the confidence that they will, in future, cause all past
+difficulties to cease, and that they will yield to me a legitimate
+authority, such as befits for administering the sovereignty of the
+Provinces, without my being obliged to endure all the oppositions and
+counterminmgs of the States, as in times past.  The States must content
+themselves with retaining the power which they claim to have exercised
+under the governors of the Emperor and the King--without attempting
+anything farther during my government--since I desire to do nothing of
+importance without the advice of the council, which will be composed
+legitimately of persons of the country.  You will also tell them that her
+Majesty commands me to return unless I can obtain from the States the
+authority which is necessary, in order not to be governor in appearance
+only and on paper.  And I wish that those who are good may be apprized of
+all this, in order that nothing may happen to their prejudice and ruin,
+and contrary to their wishes."
+
+There were two very obvious comments to be made upon this document.
+Firstly, the States--de jure, as they claimed, and de facto most
+unquestionably--were in the position of the Emperor and King.  They were
+the sovereigns.  The Earl wished them to content themselves with the
+power which they exercised under the Emperor's governors.  This was like
+requesting the Emperor, when in the Netherlands, to consider himself
+subject to his own governor.  The second obvious reflection was that the
+Earl, in limiting his authority by a state-council, expected, no doubt,
+to appoint that body himself--as he had done before--and to allow the
+members only the right of talking, and of voting,--without the power of
+enforcing their decisions.  In short, it was very plain that Leicester
+meant to be more absolute than ever.
+
+As to the flat contradiction given to Buckhurst's proceedings in the
+matter of peace, that statement could scarcely deceive any one who had
+seen her Majesty's letters and instructions to her envoy.
+
+It was also a singularly deceitful course to be adopted by Leicester
+towards Buckhurst and towards the Netherlands, because his own private
+instructions, drawn up at the same moment, expressly enjoined him to do
+exactly what Buckhurst had been doing.  He was most strictly and
+earnestly commanded to deal privately with all such persons as bad
+influence with the "common sort of people," in order that they should use
+their influence with those common people in favour of peace, bringing
+vividly before them the excessive burthens of the war, their inability to
+cope with so potent a prince as Philip, and the necessity the Queen was
+under of discontinuing her contributions to their support.  He was to
+make the same representations to the States, and he was further most
+explicitly to inform all concerned, that, in case they were unmoved by
+these suggestions, her Majesty had quite made up her mind to accept the
+handsome offers of peace held out by the King of Spain, and to leave them
+to their fate.
+
+It seemed scarcely possible that the letter to Junius and the
+instructions for the Earl should have been dated the same week, and
+should have emanated from the same mind; but such was the fact.
+
+He was likewise privately to assure Maurice and Hohenlo--in order to
+remove their anticipated opposition to the peace--that such care should
+be taken in providing for them, as that "they should have no just cause
+to dislike thereof, but to rest satisfied withal."
+
+With regard to the nature of his authority, he was instructed to claim a
+kind of dictatorship in everything regarding the command of the forces,
+and the distribution of the public treasure.  All offices were to be at
+his disposal.  Every florin contributed by the States was to be placed in
+his hands, and spent according to his single will.  He was also to have
+plenary power to prevent the trade in victuals with the enemy by death
+and confiscation.
+
+If opposition to any of these proposals were made by the States-General,
+he was to appeal to the States of each Province; to the towns and
+communities, and in case it should prove impossible for him "to be
+furnished with the desired authority," he was then instructed to say that
+it was "her Majesty's meaning to leave them to their own counsel and
+defence, and to withdraw the support that she had yielded to them: seeing
+plainly that the continuance of the confused government now reigning
+among them could not but work their ruin."
+
+Both these papers came into Barneveld's hands, through the agency of
+Ortel, the States' envoy in England, before the arrival of the Earl in
+the Netherlands.
+
+Of course they soon became the topics of excited conversation and of
+alarm in every part of the country.  Buckhurst, touched to the quick by
+the reflection upon those--proceedings of his which had been so
+explicitly enjoined upon him, and so reluctantly undertaken--appealed
+earnestly to her Majesty.  He reminded her, as delicately as possible,
+that her honour, as well as his own, was at stake by Leicester's insolent
+disavowals of her authorized ambassador.  He besought her to remember
+"what even her own royal hand had written to the Duke of Parma;" and how
+much his honour was interested "by the disavowing of his dealings about
+the peace begun by her Majesty's commandment."  He adjured her with much
+eloquence to think upon the consequences of stirring up the common and
+unstable multitude against their rulers; upon the pernicious effects of
+allowing the clergy to inflame the passions of the people against the
+government.  "Under the name of such as have charge over the people,"
+said Buckhurst, "are understood the ministers and chaplains of the
+churches in every town, by the means of whom it, seems that his Lordship
+tendeth his whole purpose to attain to his desire of the administration
+of the sovereignty."  He assured the Queen that this scheme of Leicester
+to seize virtually upon that sovereignty, would be a disastrous one.
+"The States are resolved," said he, "since your Majesty doth refuse the
+sovereignty, to lay it upon no creature else, as a thing contrary to
+their oath and allegiance to their country."  He reminded her also that
+the States had been dissatisfied with the Earl's former administration,
+believing that he had exceeded his commission, and that they were
+determined therefore to limit his authority at his return.  "Your sacred
+Majesty may consider," he said, "what effect all this may work among the
+common and ignorant people, by intimating that, unless they shall procure
+him the administration of such a sovereignty as he requireth, their ruin
+may ensue."  Buckhurst also informed her that he had despatched
+Councillor Wilkes to England, in order that he might give more ample
+information on all these affairs by word of mouth than could well be
+written.
+
+It need hardly be stated that Barneveld came down to the states'-house
+with these papers in his hand, and thundered against the delinquent and
+intriguing governor till the general indignation rose to an alarming
+height.  False statements of course were made to Leicester as to the
+substance of the Advocate's discourse.  He was said to have charged upon
+the English government an intention to seize forcibly upon their cities,
+and to transfer them to Spain on payment of the sums due to the Queen
+from the States, and to have declared that he had found all this treason
+in the secret instructions of the Earl.  But Barneveld had read the
+instructions, to which the attention of the reader has just been called,
+and had strictly stated the truth which was damaging enough, without need
+of exaggeration.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+All business has been transacted with open doors
+Beacons in the upward path of mankind
+Been already crimination and recrimination more than enough
+Casting up the matter "as pinchingly as possibly might be"
+Disposed to throat-cutting by the ministers of the Gospel
+During this, whole war, we have never seen the like
+Even to grant it slowly is to deny it utterly
+Evil is coming, the sooner it arrives the better
+Fool who useth not wit because he hath it not
+Guilty of no other crime than adhesion to the Catholic faith
+Individuals walking in advance of their age
+Never peace well made, he observed, without a mighty war
+Rebuked him for his obedience
+Respect for differences in religious opinions
+Sacrificed by the Queen for faithfully obeying her orders
+Succeeded so well, and had been requited so ill
+Sword in hand is the best pen to write the conditions of peace
+Their existence depended on war
+They chose to compel no man's conscience
+Torturing, hanging, embowelling of men, women, and children
+Universal suffrage was not dreamed of at that day
+Waiting the pleasure of a capricious and despotic woman
+Who the "people" exactly were
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v52
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 53, 1587
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+     Situation of Sluys--Its Dutch and English Garrison--Williams writes
+     from Sluys to the Queen--Jealousy between the Earl and States--
+     Schemes to relieve Sluys--Which are feeble and unsuccessful--The
+     Town Capitulates--Parma enters--Leicester enraged--The Queen angry
+     with the Anti-Leicestrians--Norris, Wilkes, and Buckhurst punished--
+     Drake sails for Spain--His Exploits at Cadiz and Lisbon--He is
+     rebuked by Elizabeth.
+
+When Dante had passed through the third circle of the Inferno--a desert
+of red-hot sand, in which lay a multitude of victims of divine wrath,
+additionally tortured by an ever-descending storm of fiery flakes--he was
+led by Virgil out of this burning wilderness along a narrow causeway.
+This path was protected, he said, against the showers of flame, by the
+lines of vapour which rose eternally from a boiling brook.  Even by such
+shadowy bulwarks, added the poet, do the Flemings between Kadzand and
+Bruges protect their land against the ever-threatening sea.
+
+It was precisely among these slender dykes between Kadzand and Bruges
+that Alexander Farnese had now planted all the troops that he could
+muster in the field.  It was his determination to conquer the city of
+Sluys; for the possession of that important sea-port was necessary for
+him as a basis for the invasion of England, which now occupied all the
+thoughts of his sovereign and himself.
+
+Exactly opposite the city was the island of Kadzand, once a fair and
+fertile territory, with a city and many flourishing villages upon its
+surface, but at that epoch diminished to a small dreary sand-bank by the
+encroachments of the ocean.
+
+A stream of inland water, rising a few leagues to the south of Sluys,
+divided itself into many branches just before reaching the city,
+converted the surrounding territory into a miniature archipelago--the
+islands of which were shifting treacherous sand-banks at low water, and
+submerged ones at flood--and then widening and deepening into a
+considerable estuary, opened for the city a capacious harbour, and an
+excellent although intricate passage to the sea.  The city, which was
+well built and thriving, was so hidden in its labyrinth of canals and
+streamlets, that it seemed almost as difficult a matter to find Sluys as
+to conquer it.  It afforded safe harbour for five hundred large vessels;
+and its possession, therefore, was extremely important for Parma.
+Besides these natural defences, the place was also protected by
+fortifications; which were as well constructed as the best of that
+period.  There was a strong rampire and many towers.  There was also a
+detached citadel of great strength, looking towards the sea, and there
+was a ravelin, called St. Anne's, looking in the direction of Bruges.
+A mere riband of dry land in that quarter was all of solid earth to be
+found in the environs of Sluys.
+
+The city itself stood upon firm soil, but that soil had been hollowed
+into a vast system of subterranean magazines, not for warlike purposes,
+but for cellars, as Sluys had been from a remote period the great
+entrepot of foreign wines in the Netherlands.
+
+While the eternal disputes between Leicester and the States were going on
+both in Holland and in England, while the secret negotiations between
+Alexander Farnese and Queen slowly proceeding at Brussels and Greenwich,
+the Duke, notwithstanding the destitute condition of his troops, and the
+famine which prevailed throughout the obedient Provinces, had succeeded
+in bringing a little army of five thousand foot,  and something less than
+one thousand horse, into the field.  A portion of this force he placed
+under the command of the veteran La Motte.  That distinguished campaigner
+had assured the commander-in-chief that the reduction of the city would
+be an easy achievement.  Alexander soon declared that the enterprise was
+the most difficult one that he had ever undertaken.  Yet, two years
+before, he had carried to its triumphant conclusion the famous siege of
+Antwerp.  He stationed his own division upon the isle of Kadzand, and
+strengthened his camp by additionally fortifying those shadowy bulwarks,
+by which the island, since the age of Dante, had entrenched itself
+against the assaults of ocean.
+
+On the other hand, La Motte, by the orders of his chief, had succeeded,
+after a sharp struggle, in carrying the fort of St. Anne.  A still more
+important step was the surprising of Blankenburg, a small fortified place
+on the coast, about midway between Ostend and Sluys, by which the sea-
+communications with the former city for the relief of the beleaguered
+town were interrupted.
+
+Parma's demonstrations against Sluys had commenced in the early days of
+June.  The commandant of the place was Arnold de Groenevelt, a Dutch
+noble of ancient lineage and approved valour.  His force was, however,
+very meagre, hardly numbering more than eight hundred, all Netherlanders,
+but counting among its officers several most distinguished personages-
+Nicholas de Maulde, Adolphus de Meetkerke and his younger brother,
+Captain Heraugiere, and other well-known partisans.
+
+On the threatening of danger the commandant had made application to
+Sir William Russell, the worthy successor of Sir Philip Sidney in the
+government of Flushing.  He had received from him, in consequence, a
+reinforcement of eight hundred English soldiers, under several eminent
+chieftains, foremost among whom were the famous Welshman Roger Williams,
+Captain Huntley, Baskerville, Sir Francis Vere, Ferdinando Gorges, and
+Captain Hart.  This combined force, however, was but a slender one; there
+being but sixteen hundred men to protect two miles and a half of rampart,
+besides the forts and ravelins.
+
+But, such as it was, no time was lost in vain regrets.  The sorties
+against the besiegers were incessant and brilliant.  On one occasion Sir
+Francis Vere--conspicuous in the throng, in his red mantilla, and
+supported only by one hundred Englishmen and Dutchmen, under Captain
+Baskerville--held at bay eight companies of the famous Spanish legion
+called the Terzo Veijo, at push of pike, took many prisoners, and forced
+the Spaniards from the position in which they were entrenching
+themselves.  On the other hand, Farnese declared that he had never in his
+life witnessed anything so unflinching as the courage of his troops;
+employed as they were in digging trenches where the soil was neither land
+nor water, exposed to inundation by the suddenly-opened sluices, to a
+plunging fire from the forts, and to perpetual hand-to-hand combats with
+an active and fearless foe, and yet pumping away in the coffer-dams-which
+they had invented by way of obtaining a standing-ground for their
+operations--as steadily and sedately as if engaged in purely pacific
+employments.  The besieged here inspired by a courage equally remarkable.
+The regular garrison was small enough, but the burghers were courageous,
+and even the women organized themselves into a band of pioneers.  This
+corps of Amazons, led by two female captains, rejoicing in the names of
+'May in the Heart' and 'Catherine the Rose,' actually constructed an
+important redoubt between the citadel and the rampart, which received, in
+compliment to its builders, the appellation of 'Fort Venus.'
+
+The demands of the beleaguered garrison, however, upon the States and
+upon Leicester were most pressing.  Captain Hart swam thrice out of the
+city with letters to the States, to the governor-general, and to Queen
+Elizabeth; and the same perilous feat was performed several times by a
+Netherland officer.  The besieged meant to sell their lives dearly, but
+it was obviously impossible for them, with so slender a force, to resist
+a very long time.
+
+"Our ground is great and our men not so many," wrote Roger Williams to
+his sovereign, "but we trust in God and our valour to defend it .  .  .
+.  .  .  .  We mean, with God's help, to make their downs red and black,
+and to let out every acre of our ground for a thousand of their lives,
+besides our own."
+
+The Welshman was no braggart, and had proved often enough that he was
+more given to performances than promises.  "We doubt not your Majesty
+will succour us," he said, "for our honest mind and plain dealing toward
+your royal person and dear country;" adding, as a bit of timely advice,
+"Royal Majesty, believe not over much your peacemakers.  Had they their
+mind, they will not only undo your friend's abroad, but, in the end, your
+royal estate."
+
+Certainly it was from no want of wholesome warning from wise statesmen
+and blunt soldiers that the Queen was venturing into that labyrinth of
+negotiation which might prove so treacherous.  Never had been so
+inopportune a moment for that princess to listen to the voice of him who
+was charming her so wisely, while he was at the same moment battering
+the place, which was to be the basis of his operations against her
+realm.  Her delay in sending forth Leicester, with at least a moderate
+contingent, to the rescue, was most pernicious.  The States--ignorant
+of the Queen's exact relations with Spain, and exaggerating her
+disingenuousness into absolute perfidy became on their own part
+exceedingly to blame.  There is no doubt whatever that both Hollanders
+and English men were playing into the hands of Parma as adroitly as if
+he had actually directed their movements.  Deep were the denunciations
+of Leicester and his partisans by the States' party, and incessant the
+complaints of the English and Dutch troops shut up in Sluys against the
+inactivity or treachery of Maurice and Hohenlo.
+
+"If Count Maurice and his base brother, the Admiral (Justinus de Nassau),
+be too young to govern, must Holland and Zeeland lose their countries and
+towns to make them expert men of war?" asked Roger Williams.'  A pregnant
+question certainly, but the answer was, that by suspicion and jealousy,
+rather than by youth and inexperience, the arms were paralyzed which
+should have saved the garrison.  "If these base fellows (the States) will
+make Count Hollock their instrument," continued the Welshman; "to cover
+and maintain their folly and lewd dealing, is it necessary for her royal
+Majesty to suffer it?  These are too great matters to be rehearsed by me;
+but because I am in the town, and do resolve to, sign with my blood my
+duty in serving my sovereign and country, I trust her Majesty will pardon
+me."  Certainly the gallant adventurer on whom devolved at least half the
+work of directing the defence of the city, had a right to express his
+opinions.  Had he known the whole truth, however, those opinions would
+have been modified.  And he wrote amid the smoke and turmoil of daily and
+nightly battle.
+
+"Yesterday was the fifth sally we made," he observed: "Since I followed
+the wars I never saw valianter captains, nor willinger soldiers.  At
+eleven o'clock the enemy entered the ditch of our fort, with trenches
+upon wheels, artillery-proof.  We sallied out, recovered their trenches,
+slew the governor of Dam, two Spanish captains, with a number of others,
+repulsed them into their artillery, kept the ditch until yesternight, and
+will recover it, with God's help, this night, or else pay dearly for it .
+.  .  .  .  I care not what may become of me in this world, so that her
+Majesty's honour,--with the rest of honourable good friends, will think
+me an honest man."
+
+No one ever doubted the simple-hearted Welshman's honesty, any more than
+his valour; but he confided in the candour of others who were somewhat
+more sophisticated than himself.  When he warned her, royal Majesty
+against the peace-makers, it was impossible for him to know that the
+great peace-maker was Elizabeth herself.
+
+After the expiration of a month the work had become most fatiguing.  The
+enemy's trenches had been advanced close to the ramparts, and desperate
+conflicts were of daily occurrence.  The Spanish mines, too, had been
+pushed forward towards the extensive wine-caverns below the city, and the
+danger of a vast explosion or of a general assault from beneath their
+very feet, seemed to the inhabitants imminent.  Eight days long, with
+scarcely an intermission, amid those sepulchral vaults, dimly-lighted
+with torches, Dutchmen, Englishmen, Spaniards, Italians, fought hand to
+hand, with pike, pistol, and dagger, within the bowels of the earth.
+
+Meantime the operations of the States were not commendable.  The
+ineradicable jealousy between the Leicestrians and the Barneveldians had
+done its work.  There was no hearty effort for the relief of Sluys.
+There were suspicions that, if saved, the town would only be taken
+possession of by the Earl of Leicester, as an additional vantage-point
+for coercing the country into subjection to his arbitrary authority.
+Perhaps it would be transferred to Philip by Elizabeth as part of the
+price for peace.  There was a growing feeling in Holland and Zeeland that
+as those Provinces bore all the expense of the war, it was an imperative
+necessity that they should limit their operations to the defence of their
+own soil.  The suspicions as to the policy of the English government were
+sapping the very foundations of the alliance, and there was small
+disposition on the part of the Hollanders, therefore, to protect what
+remained of Flanders, and thus to strengthen the hands of her whom they
+were beginning to look upon as an enemy.
+
+Maurice and Hohenlo made, however, a foray into Brabant, by way of
+diversion to the siege of Sluys, and thus compelled Farnese to detach a
+considerable force under Haultepenne into that country, and thereby to
+weaken himself.  The expedition of Maurice was not unsuccessful.  There
+was some sharp skirmishing between Hohenlo and Haultepenne, in which the
+latter, one of the most valuable and distinguished generals on the royal
+side, was defeated and slain; the fort of Engel, near Bois-le-Duc, was
+taken, and that important city itself endangered; but, on the other hand,
+the contingent on which Leicester relied from the States to assist in
+relieving Sluys was not forthcoming.
+
+For, meantime, the governor-general had at last been sent back by his
+sovereign to the post which he had so long abandoned.  Leaving Leicester
+House on the 4th July (N. S.), he had come on board the fleet two days
+afterwards at Margate.  He was bringing with him to the Netherlands three
+thousand fresh infantry, and thirty thousand pounds, of which sum fifteen
+thousand pounds had been at last wrung from Elizabeth as an extra loan,
+in place of the sixty thousand pounds which the States had requested.  As
+he sailed past Ostend and towards Flushing, the Earl was witness to the
+constant cannonading between the besieged city and the camp of Farnese,
+and saw that the work could hardly be more serious; for in one short day
+more shots were fired than had ever been known before in a single day in
+all Parma's experience.
+
+Arriving at Flushing, the governor-general was well received by the
+inhabitants; but the mischief, which had been set a-foot six months
+before, had done its work.  The political intrigues, disputes, and the
+conflicting party-organizations, have already been set in great detail
+before the reader, in order that their effect might now be thoroughly
+understood without--explanation.  The governor-general came to Flushing
+at a most critical moment.  The fate of all the Spanish Netherlands, of
+Sluys, and with it the whole of Philip and Parma's great project, were,
+in Farnese's own language, hanging by a thread.
+
+It would have been possible--had the transactions of the past six months,
+so far as regarded Holland and England, been the reverse of what they had
+been--to save the city; and, by a cordial and united effort, for the two
+countries to deal the Spanish power such a blow, that summer, as would
+have paralyzed it for a long time to come, and have placed both
+commonwealths in comparative security.
+
+Instead of all this, general distrust and mutual jealousy prevailed.
+Leicester had, previously to his departure from England, summoned the
+States to meet him at Dort upon his arrival.  Not a soul appeared.  Such
+of the state-councillors as were his creatures came to him, and Count
+Maurice made a visit of ceremony.  Discussions about a plan for relieving
+the siege became mere scenes of bickering and confusion.  The officers
+within Sluys were desirous that a fleet should force its way into the
+harbour, while, at the same time, the English army, strengthened by the
+contingent which Leicester had demanded from the States, should advance
+against the Duke of Parma by land.  It was, in truth, the only way to
+succour the place.  The scheme was quite practicable.  Leicester
+recommended it, the Hollanders seemed to favour it, Commandant Groenevelt
+and Roger Williams urged it.
+
+"I do assure you," wrote the honest Welshman to Leicester, "if you will
+come afore this town, with as many galliots and as many flat-bottomed
+boats as can cause two men-of-war to enter, they cannot stop their
+passage, if, your mariners will do a quarter of their duty, as I saw them
+do divers times.  Before, they make their entrance, we will come with our
+boats, and fight with the greatest part, and show them there is no such
+great danger.  Were it not for my wounded arm, I would be, in your first
+boat to enter.  Notwithstanding, I and other Englishmen will approach
+their boats in such sort, that we will force them to give their saker of
+artillery upon us.  If, your Excellency will give ear unto those false
+lewd fellows (the Captain meant the States-General), you shall lose great
+opportunity.  Within ten or twelve days the enemy will make his bridge
+from Kadzand unto St. Anne, and force you to hazard battle before you
+succour this town.  Let my Lord Willoughby and Sir William Russell land
+at Terhoven, right against Kadzand, with 4000, and entrench hard by the
+waterside, where their boats can carry them victual and munition.  They
+may approach by trenches without engaging any dangerous fight .  .  .  .
+We dare not show the estate of this town more than we have done by
+Captain Herte.  We must fight this night within our rampart in the fort.
+You may sure the world here are no Hamerts, but valiant captains and
+valiant soldiers, such as, with God's help, had rather be buried in the
+place than be disgraced in any point that belongs to such a number of
+men-of-war."
+
+But in vain did the governor of the place, stout Arnold Froenevelt,
+assisted by the rough and direct eloquence of Roger Williams, urge upon
+the Earl of Leicester and the States-General the necessity and the
+practicability of the plan proposed.  The fleet never entered the
+harbour.  There was no William of Orange to save Antwerp and Sluys,
+as Leyden had once been saved, and his son was not old enough to unravel
+the web of intrigue by which he was surrounded, or to direct the whole
+energies of the commonwealth towards an all-important end.  Leicester had
+lost all influence, all authority, nor were his military abilities equal
+to the occasion, even if he had been cordially obeyed.
+
+Ten days longer the perpetual battles on the ramparts and within the
+mines continued, the plans conveyed by the bold swimmer, Captain Hart,
+for saving the place were still unattempted, and the city was tottering
+to its fall.  "Had Captain Hart's words taken place," wrote Williams,
+bitterly," we had been succoured, or, if my letters had prevailed, our
+pain had been, no peril: All wars are best executed in sight of the enemy
+.  .  .  .  The last night of June (10th July, N. S.) the enemy entered
+the ditches of our fort in three several places, continuing in fight in
+mine and on rampart for the space of eight nights.  The ninth; he
+battered us furiously,  made a breach of five score paces suitable for
+horse and man.  That day be attempted us in all, places with a general,
+assault for the space of almost five hours."
+
+The citadel was now lost.  It had been gallantly defended; and it was
+thenceforth necessary to hold the town itself, in the very teeth of an
+overwhelming force.  "We were forced to quit the fort," said-Sir Roger,
+"leaving nothing behind us but bare earth.  But here we do remain
+resolutely to be buried, rather than to be dishonoured in the least
+point."
+
+It was still possible for the fleet to succour the city.  "I do assure
+you," said-Williams, "that your captains and mariners do not their duty
+unless they enter with no great loss; but you must consider that no wars
+may be made without danger.  What you mean to do, we beseech you to do
+with expedition, and persuade yourself that we will die valiant, honest-
+men.  Your Excellency will do well to thank the old President de Meetkerk
+far the honesty and valour of his son."
+
+Count Maurice and his natural brother, the Admiral, now undertook the
+succour by sea; but, according to the Leicestrians, they continued
+dilatory and incompetent.  At any rate, it is certain that they did
+nothing.  At last, Parma had completed the bridge; whose construction,
+was so much dreaded: The haven was now enclosed by a strong wooden
+structure, resting an boats, on a plan similar to that of the famous
+bridge with which he had two years before bridled the Scheldt, and Sluys
+was thus completely shut in from the sea.  Fire-ships were now
+constructed, by order of Leicester--feeble imitations: of the floating
+volcanoes of Gianihelli--and it was agreed that they should be sent
+against the bridge with the first flood-tide.  The propitious moment
+never seemed to arrive, however, and, meantime, the citizens of Flushing,
+of their own accord, declared that they would themselves equip and
+conduct a fleet into the harbour of Sluys.  But the Nassaus are said to
+have expressed great disgust that low-born burghers should presume to
+meddle with so important an enterprise, which of right belonged to their
+family.  Thus, in the midst of these altercations and contradictory
+schemes; the month of July wore away, and the city was reduced to its
+last gasp.
+
+For the cannonading had thoroughly done its work.  Eighteen days long the
+burghers and what remained of the garrison had lived upon the ramparts,
+never leaving their posts, but eating, sleeping, and fighting day and
+night.  Of the sixteen hundred Dutch and English but seven hundred
+remained.  At last a swimming messenger was sent out by the besieged with
+despatches for the States, to the purport that the city could hold out no
+longer.  A breach in the wall had been effected wide enough to admit a
+hundred men abreast.  Sluys had, in truth, already fallen, and it was
+hopeless any longer to conceal the fact.  If not relieved within a day or
+two, the garrison would be obliged to surrender; but they distinctly
+stated, that they had all pledged themselves, soldiers and burghers, men,
+women, and all, unless the most honourable terms were granted, to set
+fire to the city in a hundred places, and then sally, in mass, from the
+gates, determined to fight their way through, or be slain in the attempt.
+The messenger who carried these despatches was drowned, but the letters
+were saved, and fell into Parma's hands.
+
+At the same moment, Leicester was making, at last, an effort to raise the
+siege.  He brought three or four thousand men from Flushing, and landed
+them at Ostend; thence he marched to Blanckenburg.  He supposed that if
+he could secure that little port, and thus cut the Duke completely off
+from the sea, he should force the Spanish commander to raise (or at least
+suspend) the siege in order to give him battle.  Meantime, an opportunity
+would be afforded for Maurice and Hohenlo to force an entrance into the
+harbour of Sluys, In this conjecture he was quite correct; but
+unfortunately he did not thoroughly carry out his own scheme.  If the
+Earl had established himself at Blanckenburg, it would have been
+necessary for Parma--as he himself subsequently declared-to raise the
+siege.  Leicester carried the outposts of the place successfully; but, so
+soon as Farnese was aware of this demonstration, he detached a few
+companies with orders to skirmish with the enemy until the commander-in-
+chief, with as large a force as he could spare, should come in person to
+his support.  To the unexpected gratification of Farnese, however, no
+sooner did the advancing Spaniards come in sight, than the Earl,
+supposing himself invaded by the whole of the Duke's army, under their
+famous general, and not feeling himself strong enough for such an
+encounter, retired, with great precipitation, to his boats, re-embarked
+his troops with the utmost celerity, and set sail for Ostend.
+
+The next night had been fixed for sending forth the fireships against the
+bridge, and for the entrance of the fleet into the harbour.  One fire-
+ship floated a little way towards the bridge and exploded ingloriously.
+Leicester rowed in his barge about the fleet, superintending the
+soundings and markings of the channel, and hastening the preparations;
+but, as the decisive moment approached, the pilots who had promised to
+conduct the expedition came aboard his pinnace and positively refused to
+have aught to do with the enterprise, which they now declared an
+impossibility.  The Earl was furious with the pilots, with Maurice, with
+Hohenlo, with Admiral de Nassau, with the States, with all the world.  He
+stormed and raged and beat his breast, but all in vain.  His ferocity
+would have been more useful the day before, in face of the Spaniards,
+than now, against the Zeeland mariners: but the invasion by the fleet
+alone, unsupported by a successful land-operation, was pronounced
+impracticable, and very soon tie relieving fleet was seen by the
+distressed garrison sailing away from the neighbourhood, and it soon
+disappeared beneath the horizon.  Their fate was sealed.  They entered
+into treaty with Parma, who, secretly instructed, as has been seen, of
+their desperate intentions, in case any but the most honourable
+conditions were offered, granted those conditions.  The garrison were
+allowed to go out with colours displayed, lighted matches, bullet in
+mouth, and with bag and baggage.  Such burghers as chose to conform to
+the government of Spain and the church of Rome; were permitted to remain.
+Those who preferred to depart were allowed reasonable time to make their
+necessary arrangements.
+
+"We have hurt and slain very near eight hundred," said Sir Roger
+Williams."  We had not powder to fight two hours.  There was a breach of
+almost four hundred paces, another of three score, another of fifty,
+saltable for horse and men.  We had lain continually eighteen nights all
+on the breaches.  He gave us honourable composition.  Had the state of
+England lain on it, our lives could not defend the place, three hours,
+for half the rampires were his, neither had we any pioneers but
+ourselves.  We were sold by their negligence who are now angry with us."
+
+On the 5th August Parma entered the city.  Roger Williams with his gilt
+morion rather battered, and his great plume of feathers much bedraggled-
+was a witness to the victor's entrance.  Alexander saluted respectfully
+an officer so well known to him by reputation, and with some
+complimentary remarks urged him to enter the Spanish service,
+and to take the field against the Turks.
+
+"My sword," replied the doughty Welshman, "belongs to her royal Majesty,
+Queen Elizabeth, above and before all the world.  When her Highness has
+no farther use for it, it is at the service of the King of Navarre."
+Considering himself sufficiently answered, the Duke then requested Sir
+Roger to point out Captain Baskerville--very conspicuous by a greater
+plume of feathers than even that of the Welshman himself--and embraced
+that officer; when presented to him, before all his staff.  "There serves
+no prince in Europe a braver man than this Englishman," cried Alexander,
+who well knew how to appreciate high military qualities, whether in his
+own army or in that of his foes.
+
+The garrison then retired, Sluy's became Spanish, and a capacious
+harbour, just opposite the English coast, was in Parma's hands.  Sir
+Roger Williams was despatched by Leicester to bear the melancholy tidings
+to his government, and the Queen was requested to cherish the honest
+Welshman, and at least to set him on horseback; for he was of himself not
+rich enough to buy even a saddle.  It is painful to say that the captain
+did not succeed in getting the horse.
+
+The Earl was furious in his invectives against Hohenlo, against Maurice,
+against the States, uniformly ascribing the loss of Sluy's to negligence
+and faction.  As for Sir John Norris, he protested that his misdeeds in
+regard to this business would, in King Henry VIII.'s time, have "cost him
+his pate."
+
+The loss of Sluys was the beginning and foreshadowed the inevitable end
+of Leicester's second administration.  The inaction of the States was one
+of the causes of its loss.  Distrust of Leicester was the cause of the
+inaction.  Sir William Russell, Lord Willoughby, Sir William Pelham, and
+other English officers, united in statements exonerating the Earl from
+all blame for the great failure to relieve the place.  At the same time,
+it could hardly be maintained that his expedition to Blanckenburg and his
+precipitate retreat on the first appearance of the enemy were proofs of
+consummate generalship.  He took no blame to himself for the disaster;
+but he and his partisans were very liberal in their denunciations of the
+Hollanders, and Leicester was even ungrateful enough to censure Roger
+Williams, whose life had been passed, as it were, at push of pike with
+the Spaniards, and who was one of his own most devoted adherents.
+
+The Queen was much exasperated when informed of the fall of the city.
+She severely denounced the Netherlanders, and even went so far as to
+express dissatisfaction with the great Leicester himself.  Meantime,
+Farnese was well satisfied with his triumph, for he had been informed
+that "all England was about to charge upon him," in order to relieve the
+place.  All England, however, had been but feebly represented by three
+thousand raw recruits with a paltry sum of L15,000 to help pay a long
+bill of arrears.
+
+Wilkes and Norris had taken their departure from the Netherlands before
+the termination of the siege, and immediately after the return of
+Leicester.  They did not think it expedient to wait upon the governor
+before leaving the country, for they had very good reason to believe that
+such an opportunity of personal vengeance would be turned to account by
+the Earl.  Wilkes had already avowed his intention of making his escape
+without being dandled with leave-takings, and no doubt he was right.  The
+Earl was indignant when he found that they had given him the slip, and
+denounced them with fresh acrimony to the Queen, imploring her to wreak
+full measure of wrath upon their heads; and he well knew that his
+entreaties would meet with the royal attention.
+
+Buckhurst had a parting interview with the governor-general, at which
+Killigrew and Beale, the new English counsellors who had replaced Wilkes
+and Clerk, were present.  The conversation was marked by insolence on the
+part of Leicester, and by much bitterness on that of Buckhurst.  The
+parting envoy refused to lay before the Earl a full statement of the
+grievances between the States-General and the governor, on the ground
+that Leicester had no right to be judge in his own cause.  The matter,
+he said, should be laid before the Queen in council, and by her august
+decision he was willing to abide.  On every other subject he was ready to
+give any information in his power.  The interview lasted a whole forenoon
+and afternoon.  Buckhurst, according to his own statement, answered,
+freely all questions put to him by Leicester and his counsellors; while,
+if the report of those personages is to be trusted, he passionately
+refused to make any satisfactory communication.  Under the circumstances,
+however, it may well be believed that no satisfactory communication was
+possible.
+
+On arriving in England, Sir John Norris was forbidden to come into her
+Majesty's presence, Wilkes was thrown into the Fleet Prison, and
+Buckhurst was confined in his own country house.
+
+Norris had done absolutely nothing, which, even by implication, could be
+construed into a dereliction of duty; but it was sufficient that he was
+hated by Leicester, who had not scrupled, over and over again, to
+denounce this first general of England as a fool, a coward, a knave, and
+a liar.
+
+As for Wilkes, his only crime was a most conscientious discharge of his
+duty, in the course of which he had found cause to modify his abstract
+opinions in regard to the origin of sovereignty, and had come reluctantly
+to the conviction that Leicester's unpopularity had made perhaps another
+governor-general desirable.  But this admission had only been made
+privately and with extreme caution; while, on the other hand, he had
+constantly defended the absent Earl, with all the eloquence at his
+command.  But the hatred cf Leicester was sufficient to consign this able
+and painstaking public servant to a prison; and thus was a man of worth,
+honour, and talent, who had been placed in a position of grave
+responsibility and immense fatigue, and who had done his duty like an
+upright, straight-forward Englishman, sacrificed to the wrath of a
+favourite.  "Surely, Mr. Secretary," said the Earl, "there was never a
+falser creature, a more seditious wretch, than Wilkes.  He is a villain,
+a devil, without faith or religion."
+
+As for Buckhurst himself, it is unnecessary to say a word in his defence.
+The story of his mission has been completely detailed from the most
+authentic and secret documents, and there is not a single line written to
+the Queen, to her ministers, to the States, to any public body or to any
+private friend, in England or elsewhere, that does not reflect honour on
+his name.  With sagacity, without passion, with unaffected sincerity,
+he had unravelled the complicated web of Netherland politics, and, with
+clear vision, had penetrated the designs of the mighty enemy whom England
+and Holland had to encounter in mortal combat.  He had pointed out the
+errors of the Earl's administration--he had fearlessly, earnestly, but
+respectfully deplored the misplaced parsimony of the Queen--he had warned
+her against the delusions which had taken possession of her keen
+intellect--he had done--his best to place the governor-general upon good
+terms with the States and with his sovereign; but it had been impossible
+for him to further his schemes for the acquisition of a virtual
+sovereignty over the Netherlands, or to extinguish the suspicions of the
+States that the Queen was secretly negotiating with the Spaniard, when he
+knew those suspicions to be just.
+
+For deeds, such as these, the able and high-minded ambassador,
+the accomplished statesman and poet, was forbidden to approach his
+sovereign's presence, and was ignominiously imprisoned in his own house
+until the death of Leicester.  After that event, Buckhurst emerged from
+confinement, received the order of the garter and the Earldom of Dorset,
+and on the death of Burghley succeeded that statesman in the office of
+Lord-Treasurer.  Such was the substantial recognition of the merits of a
+man who was now disgraced for the conscientious discharge of the most
+important functions that had yet been confided to him.
+
+It would be a thankless and superfluous task to give the details of the
+renewed attempt, during a few months, made by Leicester to govern the
+Provinces.  His second administration consisted mainly of the same
+altercations with the States, on the subject of sovereignty, the same
+mutual recriminations and wranglings, that had characterized the period
+of his former rule.  He rarely met the States in person, and almost never
+resided at the Hague, holding his court at Middleburg, Dort, or Utrecht,
+as his humour led him.
+
+The one great feature of the autumn of 1587 was the private negotiation
+between Elizabeth and the Duke of Parma.
+
+Before taking a glance at the nature of those secrets, however, it is
+necessary to make a passing allusion to an event which might have seemed
+likely to render all pacific communications with Spain, whether secret or
+open, superfluous.
+
+For while so much time had been lost in England and Holland, by
+misunderstandings and jealousies, there was one Englishman who had not
+been losing time.  In the winter and early spring of 1587, the Devonshire
+skipper had organized that expedition which he had come to the
+Netherlands, the preceding autumn, to discuss.  He meant to aim a blow
+at the very heart of that project which Philip was shrouding with so much
+mystery, and which Elizabeth was attempting to counteract by so much
+diplomacy.
+
+On the 2nd April, Francis Drake sailed from Plymouth with four ships
+belonging to the Queen, and with twenty-four furnished by the merchants
+of London, and other private individuals.  It was a bold buccaneering
+expedition--combining chivalrous enterprise with the chance of enormous
+profit--which was most suited to the character of English adventurers at
+that expanding epoch.  For it was by England, not by Elizabeth, that the
+quarrel with Spain was felt to be a mortal one.  It was England, not its
+sovereign, that was instinctively arming, at all points, to grapple with
+the great enemy of European liberty.  It was the spirit of self-help, of
+self-reliance, which was prompting the English nation to take the great
+work of the age into its own hands.  The mercantile instinct of the
+nation was flattered with the prospect of gain, the martial quality of
+its patrician and of its plebeian blood was eager to confront danger, the
+great Protestant mutiny.  Against a decrepit superstition in combination
+with an aggressive tyranny, all impelled the best energies of the English
+people against Spain, as the embodiment of all which was odious and
+menacing to them, and with which they felt that the life and death
+struggle could not long be deferred.
+
+And of these various tendencies, there were no more fitting
+representatives than Drake and Frobisher, Hawkins and Essex, Cavendish
+and Grenfell, and the other privateersmen of the sixteenth century.  The
+same greed for danger, for gold, and for power, which, seven centuries
+before, had sent the Norman race forth to conquer all Christendom, was
+now sending its Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman kindred to take possession
+of the old world and the new.
+
+"The wind commands me away," said Drake on the 2nd April, 1587; "our ship
+is under sail.  God grant that we may so live in His fear, that the enemy
+may have cause to say that God doth fight for her Majesty abroad as well
+as at home."
+
+But he felt that he was not without enemies behind him, for the strong
+influence brought to bear against the bold policy which Walsingham
+favoured, was no secret to Drake.  "If we deserve ill," said he, "let us
+be punished.  If we discharge our duty, in doing our best, it is a hard
+measure to be reported ill by those who will either keep their fingers
+out of the fire; or who too well affect that alteration in our government
+which I hope in God they shall never live to see."  In latitude 40 deg.
+he spoke two Zeeland ships, homeward bound, and obtained information of
+great warlike stores accumulating in Cadiz and Lisbon.  His mind was
+instantly made up.  Fortunately, the pinnace which the Queen despatched
+with orders to stay his hand in the very act of smiting her great
+adversary, did not sail fast enough to overtake the swift corsair and his
+fleet.  Sir Francis had too promptly obeyed the wind, when it "commanded
+him away," to receive the royal countermand.  On the 19th April, the
+English ships entered the harbour of Cadiz, and destroyed ten thousand
+tons of shipping, with their contents, in the very face of a dozen great
+galleys, which the nimble English vessels soon drove under their forts
+for shelter.  Two nights and a day, Sir Francis, that "hater of
+idleness," was steadily doing his work; unloading, rifling, scuttling,
+sinking, and burning those transportships which contained a portion of
+the preparations painfully made by Philip for his great enterprise.
+Pipe-staves and spikes, horse-shoes and saddles, timber and cutlasses,
+wine, oil, figs, raisins, biscuits, and flour, a miscellaneous mass of
+ingredients long brewing for the trouble of England, were emptied into
+the harbour, and before the second night, the blaze of a hundred and
+fifty burning vessels played merrily upon the grim walls of Philip's
+fortresses.  Some of these ships were of the largest size then known.
+There was one belonging to Marquis Santa Cruz of 1500 tons, there was a
+Biscayan of 1200, there were several others of 1000, 800, and of nearly
+equal dimensions.
+
+Thence sailing for Lisbon, Sir Francis, captured and destroyed a hundred
+vessels more, appropriating what was portable of the cargoes, and
+annihilating the rest.  At Lisbon, Marquis Santa Cruz, lord high admiral
+of Spain and generalissimo of the invasion, looked on, mortified and
+amazed, but offering no combat, while the Plymouth privateersman swept
+the harbour of the great monarch of the world.  After thoroughly
+accomplishing his work, Drake sent a message to Santa Cruz, proposing to
+exchange his prisoners for such Englishmen as might then be confined in
+Spain.  But the marquis denied all prisoners.  Thereupon Sir Francis
+decided to sell his captives to the Moors, and to appropriate the
+proceeds of the sale towards the purchase of English slaves put of the
+same bondage.  Such was the fortune of war in the sixteenth century.
+
+Having dealt these great blows, Drake set sail again from Lisbon, and,
+twenty leagues from St. Michaels, fell in with one of those famous
+Spanish East Indiamen, called carracks, then the great wonder of the
+seas.  This vessel, San Felipe by name, with a cargo of extraordinary
+value, was easily captured, and Sir Francis now determined to return.  He
+had done a good piece of work in a few weeks, but he was by no means of
+opinion that he had materially crippled the enemy.  On the contrary, he
+gave the government warning as to the enormous power and vast
+preparations of Spain.  "There would be forty thousand men under way ere
+long," he said, "well equipped and provisioned; "and he stated, as the
+result of personal observation, that England could not be too energetic
+in, its measures of resistance.  He had done something with his little
+fleet, but he was no braggart, and had no disposition to underrate the
+enemy's power.  "God make us all thankful again and again," he observed,
+"that we have, although it be little, made a beginning upon the coast of
+Spain."  And modestly as he spoke of what he had accomplished, so with
+quiet self-reliance did he allude to the probable consequences.  It was
+certain, he intimated, that the enemy would soon seek revenge with all
+his strength, and "with all the devices and traps he could devise."  This
+was a matter which could not be doubted.  "But," said Sir Francis, "I
+thank them much that they have staid so long, and when they come they
+shall be but the sons of mortal men."
+
+Perhaps the most precious result of the expedition, was the lesson which
+the Englishmen had thus learned in handling the great galleys of Spain.
+It might soon stand them in stead.  The little war-vessels which had come
+from Plymouth, had sailed round and round these vast unwieldy hulks, and
+had fairly driven them off the field, with very slight damage to
+themselves.  Sir Francis had already taught the mariners of England,
+even if he had done nothing else by this famous Cadiz expedition,
+that an armada, of Spain might not be so invincible as men imagined.
+
+Yet when the conqueror returned from his great foray, he received no
+laurels.  His sovereign met him, not with smiles, but with frowns and
+cold rebukes.  He had done his duty, and helped to save her endangered
+throne, but Elizabeth was now the dear friend of Alexander Farnese, and
+in amicable correspondence with his royal master.  This "little"
+beginning on the coast of Spain might not seem to his Catholic Majesty
+a matter to be thankful for, nor be likely to further a pacification,
+and so Elizabeth hastened to disavow her Plymouth captain.'
+
+     ["True it is, and I avow it on my faith, her Majesty did send a ship
+     expressly before he went to Cadiz with a message by letters charging
+     Sir Francis Drake not to show any act of hostility, which messenger
+     by contrary winds could never come to the place where he was, but
+     was constrained to come home, and hearing of Sir F. Drake's actions,
+     her Majesty commanded the party that returned to have been punished,
+     but that he acquitted himself by the oaths of himself and all his
+     company.  And so unwitting yea unwilling to her Majesty those
+     actions were committed by Sir F. Drake, for the which her Majesty is
+     as yet greatly offended with him."  Burghley to Andreas de Loo, 18
+     July, 1587.  Flanders Correspondence.' (S. P. Office MS.)]
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+The blaze of a hundred and fifty burning vessels
+We were sold by their negligence who are now angry with us
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v53
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 54, 1587
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+     Secret Treaty between Queen and Parma--Excitement and Alarm in the
+     States--Religious Persecution in England--Queen's Sincerity toward
+     Spain--Language and Letters of Parma--Negotiations of De Loo--
+     English Commissioners appointed--Parma's affectionate Letter to the
+     Queen--Philip at his Writing-Table--His Plots with Parma against
+     England--Parma's secret Letters to the King--Philip's Letters to
+     Parma Wonderful Duplicity of Philip--His sanguine Views as to
+     England--He is reluctant to hear of the Obstacles--and imagines
+     Parma in England--But Alexander's Difficulties are great--He
+     denounces Philip's wild Schemes--Walsingham aware of the Spanish
+     Plot--which the States well understand--Leicester's great
+     Unpopularity--The Queen warned against Treating--Leicester's Schemes
+     against Barneveld--Leicestrian Conspiracy at Leyden--The Plot to
+     seize the City discovered--Three Ringleaders sentenced to Death--
+     Civil War in France--Victory gained by Navarre, and one by Guise--
+     Queen recalls Leicester--Who retires on ill Terms with the States--
+     Queen warned as to Spanish Designs--Result's of Leicester's
+     Administration.
+
+The course of Elizabeth towards the Provinces, in the matter of the
+peace, was certainly not ingenuous, but it was not absolutely deceitful.
+She concealed and denied the negotiations, when the Netherland statesmen
+were perfectly aware of their existence, if not of their tenour; but she
+was not prepared, as they suspected, to sacrifice their liberties and
+their religion, as the price of her own reconciliation with Spain.
+Her attitude towards the States was imperious, over-bearing, and abusive.
+She had allowed the Earl of Leicester to return, she said, because of her
+love for the poor and oppressed people, but in many of her official and
+in all her private communications, she denounced the men who governed
+that people as ungrateful wretches and impudent liars!
+
+These were the corrosives and vinegar which she thought suitable for the
+case; and the Earl was never weary in depicting the same statesmen as
+seditious, pestilent, self-seeking, mischief-making traitors.  These
+secret, informal negotiations, had been carried on during most of the
+year 1587.  It was the "comptroller's peace;", as Walsingham
+contemptuously designated the attempted treaty; for it will be
+recollected that Sir James Croft, a personage of very mediocre abilities,
+had always been more busy than any other English politician in these
+transactions.  He acted; however, on the inspiration of Burghley, who
+drew his own from the fountainhead.
+
+But it was in vain for the Queen to affect concealment.  The States knew
+everything which was passing, before Leicester knew.  His own secret
+instructions reached the Netherlands before he did.  His secretary,
+Junius, was thrown into prison, and his master's letter taken from him,
+before there had been any time to act upon its treacherous suggestions.
+When the Earl wrote letters with, his own hand to his sovereign, of so
+secret a nature that he did not even retain a single copy for himself,
+for fear of discovery, he found, to his infinite disgust, that the States
+were at once provided with an authentic transcript of every line that he
+had written.  It was therefore useless, almost puerile, to deny facts
+which were quite as much within the knowledge of the Netherlanders as of
+himself.  The worst consequence of the concealment was, that a deeper
+treachery was thought possible than actually existed.  "The fellow they
+call Barneveld," as Leicester was in the habit of designating one of the
+first statesmen in Europe, was perhaps justified, knowing what he did, in
+suspecting more.  Being furnished with a list of commissioners, already
+secretly agreed upon between the English and Spanish governments, to
+treat for peace, while at the same time the Earl was beating his breast,
+and flatly denying that there was any intention of treating with Parma at
+all, it was not unnatural that he should imagine a still wider and deeper
+scheme than really existed, against the best interests of his country.
+He may have expressed, in private conversation, some suspicions of this
+nature, but there is direct evidence that he never stated in public
+anything which was not afterwards proved to be matter of fact, or of
+legitimate inference from the secret document which had come into his
+hands.  The Queen exhausted herself in opprobious language against those
+who dared to impute to her a design to obtain possession of the cities
+and strong places of the Netherlands, in order to secure a position in
+which to compel the Provinces into obedience to her policy.  She urged,
+with much logic, that as she had refused the sovereignty of the whole
+country when offered to her, she was not likely to form surreptitious
+schemes to make herself mistress of a portion of it.  On the other hand,
+it was very obvious, that to accept the sovereignty of Philip's
+rebellious Provinces, was to declare war upon Philip; whereas, had she
+been pacifically inclined towards that sovereign, and treacherously
+disposed towards the Netherlands, it would be a decided advantage to her
+to have those strong places in her power.  But the suspicions as to her
+good faith were exaggerated.  As to the intentions of Leicester, the
+States were justified in their almost unlimited distrust.  It is very
+certain that both in 1586, and again, at this very moment, when Elizabeth
+was most vehement in denouncing such aspersions on her government, he had
+unequivocally declared to her his intention of getting possession, if
+possible, of several cities, and of the whole Island of Walcheren, which,
+together with the cautionary towns already in his power, would enable the
+Queen to make good terms for herself with Spain, "if the worst came to
+the, worst."  It will also soon be shown that he did his best to carry
+these schemes into execution.  There is no evidence, however, and no
+probability, that he had received the royal commands to perpetrate such a
+crime.
+
+The States believed also, that in those secret negotiations with Parma
+the Queen was disposed to sacrifice the religious interests of the
+Netherlands.  In this they were mistaken.  But they had reason for their
+mistake, because the negotiator De Loo, had expressly said, that, in her
+overtures to Farnese, she had abandoned that point altogether.  If this
+had been so, it would have simply been a consent on the part of
+Elizabeth, that the Catholic religion and the inquisition should be
+re-established in the Provinces, to the exclusion of every other form of
+worship or polity.  In truth, however, the position taken by her Majesty
+on the subject was as fair as could be reasonably expected.  Certainly
+she was no advocate for religious liberty.  She chose that her own
+subjects should be Protestants, because she had chosen to be a Protestant
+herself, and because it was an incident of her supremacy, to dictate
+uniformity of creed to all beneath her sceptre.  No more than her father,
+who sent to the stake or gallows heretics to transubstantiation as well
+as believers in the Pope, had Elizabeth the faintest idea of religious
+freedom.  Heretics to the English Church were persecuted, fined,
+imprisoned, mutilated, and murdered, by sword, rope, and fire.  In some
+respects, the practice towards those who dissented from Elizabeth was
+more immoral and illogical, even if less cruel, than that to which those
+were subjected who rebelled against Sixtus.  The Act of Uniformity
+required Papists to assist at the Protestant worship, but wealthy Papists
+could obtain immunity by an enormous fine.  The Roman excuse to destroy
+bodies in order to save souls, could scarcely be alleged by a Church
+which might be bribed into connivance at heresy, and which derived a
+revenue from the very nonconformity for which humbler victims were sent
+to the gallows.  It would, however, be unjust in the extreme to overlook
+the enormous difference in the amount of persecution, exercised
+respectively by the Protestant and the Roman Church.  It is probable that
+not many more than two hundred Catholics were executed as such, in
+Elizabeth's reign, and this was ten score too many.  But what was this
+against eight hundred heretics burned, hanged, and drowned, in one Easter
+week by Alva, against the eighteen thousand two hundred went to stake and
+scaffold, as he boasted during his administration, against the vast
+numbers of Protestants, whether they be counted by tens or by hundreds of
+thousands, who perished by the edicts of Charles V., in the Netherlands,
+or in the single Saint Bartholomew Massacre in France?  Moreover, it
+should never be forgotten--from undue anxiety for impartiality--that most
+of the Catholics who were executed in England, suffered as conspirators
+rather than as heretics.  No foreign potentate, claiming to be vicegerent
+of Christ, had denounced Philip as a bastard and, usurper, or had, by
+means of a blasphemous fiction, which then was a terrible reality,
+severed the bonds of allegiance by which his subjects were held, cut him
+off from all communion with his fellow-creatures, and promised temporal
+rewards and a crown of glory in heaven to those who should succeed in
+depriving him of throne and life.  Yet this was the position of
+Elizabeth.  It was war to the knife between her and Rome, declared by
+Rome itself; nor was there any doubt whatever that the Seminary Priests
+--seedlings transplanted from foreign nurseries, which were as watered
+gardens for the growth of treason--were a perpetually organized band of
+conspirators and assassins, with whom it was hardly an act of excessive
+barbarity to deal in somewhat summary fashion.  Doubtless it would have
+been a more lofty policy, and a far more intelligent one, to extend
+towards the Catholics of England, who as a body were loyal to their
+country, an ample toleration.  But it could scarcely be expected that
+Elizabeth Tudor, as imperious and absolute by temperament as her father
+had ever been, would be capable of embodying that great principle.
+
+When, in the preliminaries to the negotiations of 1587, therefore, it was
+urged on the part of Spain, that the Queen was demanding a concession of
+religious liberty from Philip to the Netherlanders which she refused to
+English heretics, and that he only claimed the same right of dictating a
+creed to his subjects which she exercised in regard to her own, Lord
+Burghley replied that the statement was correct.  The Queen permitted--
+it was true--no man to profess any religion but the one which she
+professed.  At the same time it was declared to be unjust, that those
+persons in the Netherlands who had been for years in the habit of
+practising Protestant rites, should be suddenly compelled, without
+instruction, to abandon that form of worship.  It was well known that
+many would rather die than submit to such oppression, and it was affirmed
+that the exercise of this cruelty would be resisted by her to the
+uttermost.  There was no hint of the propriety--on any logical basis--
+of leaving the question of creed as a matter between man and his Maker,
+with which any dictation on the part of crown or state was an act of
+odious tyranny.  There was not even a suggestion that the Protestant
+doctrines were true, and the Catholic doctrines false.  The matter was
+merely taken up on the 'uti possidetis' principle, that they who had
+acquired the fact of Protestant worship had a right to retain it, and
+could not justly be deprived of it, except by instruction and persuasion.
+It was also affirmed that it was not the English practice to inquire into
+men's consciences.  It would have been difficult, however, to make that
+very clear to Philip's comprehension, because, if men, women, and
+children, were scourged with rods, imprisoned and hanged, if they refused
+to conform publicly to a ceremony at which their consciences revolted-
+unless they had money enough to purchase non-conformity--it seemed to be
+the practice to inquire very effectively into their consciences.
+
+But if there was a certain degree of disingenuousness on the part of
+Elizabeth towards the States, her attitude towards Parma was one of
+perfect sincerity.  A perusal of the secret correspondence leaves no
+doubt whatever on that point.  She was seriously and fervently desirous
+of peace with Spain.  On the part of Farnese and his master, there was
+the most unscrupulous mendacity, while the confiding simplicity and
+truthfulness of the Queen in these negotiations was almost pathetic.
+Especially she declared her trust in the loyal and upright character of
+Parma, in which she was sure of never being disappointed.  It is only
+doing justice to Alexander to say that he was as much deceived by her
+frankness as she by his falsehood.  It never entered his head that a
+royal personage and the trusted counsellors of a great kingdom could be
+telling the truth in a secret international transaction, and he justified
+the industry with which his master and himself piled fiction upon
+fiction, by their utter disbelief in every word which came to them from
+England.
+
+The private negotiations had been commenced, or rather had been renewed,
+very early in February of this year.  During the whole critical period
+which preceded and followed the execution of Mary, in the course of which
+the language of Elizabeth towards the States had been so shrewish, there
+had been the gentlest diplomatic cooing between Farnese and herself.  It
+was--Dear Cousin, you know how truly I confide in your sincerity, how
+anxious I am that this most desirable peace should be arranged; and it
+was--Sacred Majesty, you know how much joy I feel in your desire for the
+repose of the world, and for a solid peace between your Highness and the
+King my master; how much I delight in concord--how incapable I am by
+ambiguous words of spinning out these transactions, or of deceiving your
+Majesty, and what a hatred I feel for steel, fire, and blood.'
+
+Four or five months rolled on, during which Leicester had been wasting
+time in England, Farnese wasting none before Sluys, and the States doing
+their best to counteract the schemes both of their enemy and of their
+ally.  De Loo made a visit, in July, to the camp of the Duke of Parma,
+and received the warmest assurances of his pacific dispositions.  "I am
+much pained," said Alexander, "with this procrastination.  I am so full
+of sincerity myself, that it seems to me a very strange matter, this
+hostile descent by Drake upon the coasts of Spain.  The result of such
+courses will be, that the King will end by being exasperated, and I shall
+be touched in my honour--so great is the hopes I have held out of being
+able to secure a peace.  I have ever been and I still am most anxious for
+concord, from the affection I bear to her sacred Majesty.  I have been
+obliged, much against my will, to take the field again.  I could wish now
+that our negotiations might terminate before the arrival of my fresh
+troops, namely, 9000 Spaniards and 9000 Italians, which, with Walloons,
+Germans, and Lorrainers, will give me an effective total of 30,000
+soldiers.  Of this I give you my word as a gentleman.  Go, then, Andrew
+de Loo," continued the Duke, "write to her sacred Majesty, that I desire
+to make peace; and to serve her faithfully; and that I shall not change
+my mind, even in case of any great success, for I like to proceed rather
+by the ways of love than of rigour and effusion of bleed."
+
+"I can assure you, oh, most serene Duke," replied Andrew, "that the most
+serene Queen is in the very same dispositions with yourself."
+
+"Excellent well then," said the Duke, "we shall come to an agreement
+at once, and the sooner the deputies on both sides are appointed the
+better."
+
+A feeble proposition was then made, on the part of the peace-loving
+Andrew, that the hostile operations against Sluy's should be at once
+terminated.  But this did not seem so clear to the most serene Duke.  He
+had gone to great expense in that business; and he had not built bridges,
+erected forts, and dug mines, only to abandon them for a few fine words,
+Fine words were plenty, but they raised no sieges.  Meantime these
+pacific and gentle murmurings from Farnese's camp had lulled the Queen
+into forgetfulness of Roger Williams and Arnold Groenevelt and their men,
+fighting day and night in trench and mine during that critical midsummer.
+The wily tongue of the Duke had been more effective than his batteries in
+obtaining the much-coveted city.  The Queen obstinately held back her men
+and money, confident of effecting a treaty, whether Sluys fell or not.
+Was it strange that the States should be distrustful of her intentions,
+and, in their turn, become neglectful of their duty?
+
+And thus summer wore into autumn, Sluys fell, the States and their
+governor-general were at daggers-drawn, the Netherlanders were full of
+distrust with regard to England, Alexander hinted doubts as to the
+Queen's sincerity; the secret negotiations, though fertile in suspicions,
+jealousies, delays, and such foul weeds, had produced no wholesome fruit,
+and the excellent De Loo became very much depressed.  At last a letter
+from Burghley relieved his drooping spirits.  From the most disturbed and
+melancholy man in the world, he protested, he had now become merry and
+quiet.  He straightway went off to the Duke of Parma, with the letter in
+his pocket, and translated it to him by candlelight, as he was careful to
+state, as an important point in his narrative.  And Farnese was fuller of
+fine phrases than ever.
+
+"There is no cause whatever," said he, in a most loving manner, "to doubt
+my sincerity.  Yet the Lord-Treasurer intimates that the most serene
+Queen is disposed so to do.  But if I had not the very best intentions,
+and desires for peace, I should never have made the first overtures.  If
+I did not wish a pacific solution, what in the world forced me to do what
+I have done?  On the contrary, it is I that have reason to suspect the
+other parties with their long delays, by which they have made me lose the
+best part of the summer."
+
+He then commented on the strong expressions in the English letters, as to
+the continuance of her Majesty in her pious resolutions; observed that he
+was thoroughly advised of the disputes between the Earl of Leicester and
+the States; and added that it was very important for the time indicated
+by the Queen.
+
+"Whatever is to be done," said he, in conclusion, "let it be done
+quickly;" and with that he said he would go and eat a bit of supper.
+
+"And may I communicate Lord Burghley's letter to any one else?" asked De
+Loo.
+
+"Yes, yes, to the Seigneur de Champagny, and to my secretary Cosimo,"
+answered his Highness.
+
+So the merchant negotiator proceeded at once to the mansion of Champagny,
+in company with the secretary Cosimo.  There was a long conference, in
+which De Loo was informed of many things which he thoroughly believed,
+and faithfully transmitted to the court of Elizabeth.  Alexander had done
+his best, they said, to delay the arrival of his fresh troops.  He had
+withdrawn from the field, on various pretexts, hoping, day after day,
+that the English commissioners would arrive, and that a firm and
+perpetual peace would succeed to the miseries of war.  But as time wore
+away, and there came no commissioners, the Duke had come to the painful
+conclusion that he had been trifled with.  His forces would now be sent
+into Holland to find something to eat; and this would ensure the total
+destruction of all that territory.  He had also written to command all
+the officers of the coming troops to hasten their march, in order that
+he might avoid incurring still deeper censure.  He was much ashamed,
+in truth, to have been wheedled into passing the whole fine season in
+idleness.  He had been sacrificing himself for her sacred Majesty, and
+to, serve her best interests; and now he found himself the object of her
+mirth.  Those who ought to be well informed had assured him that the
+Queen was only waiting to see how the King of Navarre was getting on with
+the auxiliary force just, going to him from Germany, that she had no
+intention whatever to make peace, and that, before long, he might expect
+all these German mercenaries upon his shoulders in the Netherlands.
+Nevertheless he was prepared to receive them with 40,000 good infantry,
+a splendid cavalry force, and plenty of money.'
+
+All this and more did the credulous Andrew greedily devour; and he lost
+no time in communicating the important intelligence to her Majesty and
+the Lord-Treasurer.  He implored her, he said, upon his bare knees,
+prostrate on the ground, and from the most profound and veritable centre
+of his heart and with all his soul and all his strength, to believe in
+the truth of the matters thus confided to him.  He would pledge his
+immortal soul, which was of more value to him--as he correctly observed
+--than even the crown of Spain, that the King, the Duke, and his
+counsellors, were most sincerely desirous of peace, and actuated by the
+most loving and benevolent motives.  Alexander Farnese was "the antidote
+to the Duke of Alva," kindly sent by heaven, 'ut contraria contrariis
+curenter,' and if the entire security of the sacred Queen were not now
+obtained, together with a perfect reintegration of love between her
+Majesty and the King of Spain, and with the assured tranquillity and
+perpetual prosperity of the Netherlands, it would be the fault of
+England; not of Spain.
+
+And no doubt the merchant believed all that was told him, and--what was
+worse--that he fully impressed his own convictions upon her Majesty and
+Lord Burghley, to say nothing of the comptroller, who, poor man, had
+great facility in believing anything that came from the court of the
+most Catholic King: yet it is painful to reflect, that in all these
+communications of Alexander and his agents, there was not one single
+word of truth.--It was all false from beginning to end, as to the
+countermanding of the troops,--as to the pacific intentions of the King
+and Duke, and as to the proposed campaign in Friesland, in case of
+rupture; and all the rest.  But this will be conclusively proved a little
+later.
+
+Meantime the conference had been most amicable and satisfactory.  And
+when business was over, Champagny--not a whit the worse for the severe
+jilting which he had so recently sustained from the widow De Bours, now
+Mrs. Aristotle Patton--invited De Loo and Secretary Cosimo to supper.
+And the three made a night of it, sitting up late, and draining such huge
+bumpers to the health of the Queen of England, that--as the excellent
+Andrew subsequently informed Lord Burghley--his head ached most bravely
+next morning.
+
+And so, amid the din of hostile preparation not only in Cadiz and Lisbon,
+but in Ghent and Sluys and Antwerp, the import of which it seemed
+difficult to mistake, the comedy of, negotiation was still rehearsing,
+and the principal actors were already familiar with their respective
+parts.  There were the Earl of Derby, knight of the garter, and my Lord
+Cobham; and puzzling James Croft, and other Englishmen, actually
+believing that the farce was a solemn reality.  There was Alexander of
+Parma thoroughly aware of the contrary.  There was Andrew de Loo, more
+talkative, more credulous, more busy than ever, and more fully impressed
+with the importance of his mission, and there was the white-bearded
+Lord-Treasurer turning complicated paragraphs; shaking his head and
+waving his wand across the water, as if, by such expedients, the storm
+about to burst over England could, be dispersed.
+
+The commissioners should come, if only the Duke of Parma would declare
+on his word of honour, that these hostile preparations with which all
+Christendom was ringing; were not intended against England; or if that
+really were the case--if he would request his master to abandon all such
+schemes, and if Philip in consequence would promise on the honour of a
+prince, to make no hostile attempts against that country.
+
+There would really seem an almost Arcadian simplicity in such demands,
+coming from so practised a statesman as the Lord-Treasurer, and from a
+woman of such brilliant intellect as Elizabeth unquestionably possessed.
+But we read the history of 1587, not only by the light of subsequent
+events, but by the almost microscopic revelations of sentiments and
+motives, which a full perusal of the secret documents in those ancient
+cabinets afford.  At that moment it was not ignorance nor dulness which
+was leading England towards the pitfall so artfully dug by Spain.  There
+was trust in the plighted word of a chivalrous soldier like Alexander
+Farnese, of a most religious and anointed monarch like Philip II.
+English frankness, playing cards upon the table, was no match for Italian
+and Spanish legerdemain, a system according to which, to defraud the
+antagonist by every kind of falsehood and trickery was the legitimate end
+of diplomacy and statesmanship.  It was well known that there were great
+preparations in Spain, Portugal, and the obedient Netherlands, by land
+and sea.  But Sir Robert Sidney was persuaded that the expedition was
+intended for Africa; even the Pope was completely mystified--to the
+intense delight of Philip--and Burghley, enlightened by the sagacious
+De Loo, was convinced, that even in case of a rupture, the whole strength
+of the Spanish arms was to be exerted in reducing Friesland and
+Overyssel.  But Walsingham was never deceived; for he had learned from
+Demosthenes a lesson with which William the Silent, in his famous
+Apology, had made the world familiar, that the only citadel against a
+tyrant and a conqueror was distrust.
+
+Alexander, much grieved that doubts should still be felt as to his
+sincerity, renewed the most exuberant expressions of that sentiment,
+together with gentle complaints against the dilatoriness which had
+proceeded from the doubt.  Her Majesty had long been aware, he said,
+of his anxiety to bring about a perfect reconciliation; but he had
+waited, month after month, for her commissioners, and had waited in vain.
+His hopes had been dashed to the ground.  The affair had been
+indefinitely spun out, and he could not resist the conviction that her
+Majesty had changed her mind.  Nevertheless, as Andrew de Loo was again
+proceeding to England, the Duke seized the opportunity once more to kiss
+her hand, and--although he had well nigh resolved to think no more on the
+subject--to renew his declarations, that, if the much-coveted peace were
+not concluded, the blame could not be imputed to him, and that he should
+stand guiltless before God and the world.  He had done, and was still
+ready to do, all which became a Christian and a man desirous of the
+public welfare and tranquillity.
+
+When Burghley read these fine phrases, he was much impressed;
+and they were pronounced at the English court to be "very princely and
+Christianly."  An elaborate comment too was drawn up by the comptroller
+on every line of the letter.  "These be very good words," said the
+comptroller.
+
+But the Queen was even more pleased with the last proof of the Duke's
+sincerity, than even Burghley and Croft had been.  Disregarding all the
+warnings of Walsingham, she renewed her expressions of boundless
+confidence in the wily Italian.  "We do assure you," wrote the Lords,
+"and so you shall do well to avow it to the Duke upon our honours,
+that her Majesty saith she thinketh both their minds to accord upon one
+good and Christian meaning, though their ministers may perchance sound
+upon a discord."  And she repeated her resolution to send over her
+commissioners, so soon as the Duke had satisfied her as to the hostile
+preparations.
+
+We have now seen the good faith of the English Queen towards the Spanish
+government.  We have seen her boundless trust in the sincerity of Farnese
+and his master.  We have heard the exuberant professions of an honest
+intention to bring about a firm and lasting peace, which fell from the
+lips of Farnese and of his confidential agents.  It is now necessary to
+glide for a moment into the secret cabinet of Philip, in order to satisfy
+ourselves as to the value of all those professions.  The attention of the
+reader is solicited to these investigations, because the year 1587 was a
+most critical period in the history of English, Dutch, and European
+liberty.  The coming year 1588 had been long spoken of in prophecy, as
+the year of doom, perhaps of the destruction of the world, but it was in
+1587, the year of expectation and preparation, that the materials were
+slowly combining out of which that year's history was to be formed.
+
+And there sat the patient letter-writer in his cabinet, busy with his
+schemes.  His grey head was whitening fast.  He was sixty years of age.
+His frame was slight, his figure stooping, his digestion very weak, his
+manner more glacial and sepulchral than ever; but if there were a hard-
+working man in Europe, that man was Philip II.  And there he sat at his
+table, scrawling his apostilles.  The fine innumerable threads which
+stretched across the surface of Christendom, and covered it as with a
+net, all converged in that silent cheerless cell.  France was kept in a
+state of perpetual civil war; the Netherlands had been converted into a
+shambles; Ireland was maintained in a state of chronic rebellion;
+Scotland was torn with internal feuds, regularly organized and paid for
+by Philip; and its young monarch--"that lying King of Scots," as
+Leicester called him--was kept in a leash ready to be slipped upon
+England, when his master should give the word; and England herself was
+palpitating with the daily expectation of seeing a disciplined horde of
+brigands let loose upon her shores; and all this misery, past, present,
+and future, was almost wholly due to the exertions of that grey-haired
+letter-writer at his peaceful library-table.
+
+At the very beginning of the year the King of Denmark had made an offer
+to Philip of mediation.  The letter, entrusted to a young Count de
+Rantzan, had been intercepted by the States--the envoy not having availed
+himself, in time, of his diplomatic capacity, and having in consequence
+been treated, for a moment, like a prisoner of war.  The States had
+immediately addressed earnest letters of protest to Queen Elizabeth,
+declaring that nothing which the enemy could do in war was half so
+horrible to them as the mere mention of peace.  Life, honour, religion,
+liberty, their all, were at stake, they said, and would go down in one
+universal shipwreck, if peace should be concluded; and they implored her
+Majesty to avert the proposed intercession of the Danish King.  Wilkes
+wrote to Walsingham denouncing that monarch and his ministers as
+stipendiaries of Spain, while, on the other hand, the Duke of Parma,
+after courteously thanking the King for his offer of mediation, described
+him to Philip as such a dogged heretic, that no good was to be derived
+from him, except by meeting his fraudulent offers with an equally
+fraudulent response.  There will be nothing lost, said Alexander, by
+affecting to listen to his proposals, and meantime your Majesty must
+proceed with the preparations against England.  This was in the first
+week of the year 1587.
+
+In February, and almost on the very day when Parma was writing those
+affectionate letters to Elizabeth, breathing nothing but peace, he was
+carefully conning Philip's directions in regard to the all-important
+business of the invasion.  He was informed by his master, that one
+hundred vessels, forty of them of largest size, were quite ready,
+together with 12,000 Spanish infantry, including 3000 of the old legion,
+and that there were volunteers more than enough.  Philip had also taken
+note, he said, of Alexander's advice as to choosing the season when the
+crops in England had just been got in, as the harvest of so fertile a
+country would easily support an invading force; but he advised
+nevertheless that the army should be thoroughly victualled at starting.
+Finding that Alexander did not quite approve of the Irish part of the
+plan, he would reconsider the point, and think more of the Isle of Wight;
+but perhaps still some other place might be discovered, a descent upon
+which might inspire that enemy with still greater terror and confusion.
+It would be difficult for him, he said, to grant the 6000 men asked for
+by the Scotch malcontents, without seriously weakening his armada; but
+there must be no positive refusal, for a concerted action with the Scotch
+lords and their adherents was indispensable.  The secret, said the King,
+had been profoundly kept, and neither in Spain nor in Rome had anything
+been allowed to transpire.  Alexander was warned therefore to do his best
+to maintain the mystery, for the enemy was trying very hard to penetrate
+their actions and their thoughts.
+
+And certainly Alexander did his best.  He replied to his master, by
+transmitting copies of the letters he had been writing with his own hand
+to the Queen, and of the, pacific messages he had sent her through
+Champagny.  and De Loo.  She is just now somewhat confused, said he, and
+those of her counsellors who desire peace, are more eager, than ever for
+negotiation.  She is very much afflicted with the loss of Deventer, and
+is quarrelling with the French ambassador about the new conspiracy for
+her assassination.  The opportunity is a good one, and if she writes an
+answer to my letter, said Alexander, we can keep the negotiation, alive,
+while, if she does not, 'twill be a proof that she has contracted leagues
+with other parties.  But, in any event, the Duke fervently implored
+Philip not to pause in his preparations for the great enterprise which he
+had conceived in his royal breast.  So urgent for the invasion was the
+peace-loving general.
+
+He alluded also to the supposition that the quarrel between her Majesty
+and the French envoy was a mere fetch, and only one of the results of
+Bellievre's mission.  Whether that diplomatist had been sent to censure,
+or in reality to approve, in the name of his master, of the Scottish
+Queen's execution, Alexander would leave to be discussed by Don
+Bernardino de Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in Paris; but he was of
+opinion that the anger of the Queen with France was a fiction, and her
+supposed league with France and Germany against Spain a fact.  Upon this
+point, as it appears from Secretary Walsingham's lamentations, the astute
+Farnese was mistaken.
+
+In truth he was frequently, led into error to the English policy the same
+serpentine movement and venomous purpose which characterized his own; and
+we have already seen; that Elizabeth was ready, on the contrary, to
+quarrel with the States, with France, with all the world, if she could
+only secure the good-will of Philip.
+
+The French-matter, indissolubly connected in that monarch's schemes, with
+his designs upon England and Holland, was causing Alexander much anxiety.
+He foresaw great difficulty in maintaining that, indispensable civil war
+in France, and thought that a peace might, some fine day, be declared
+between Henry III. and the Huguenots, when least expected.  In
+consequence, the Duke of Guise was becoming very importunate for Philip's
+subsidies.  "Mucio comes begging to me," said Parma, "with the very
+greatest earnestness, and utters nothing but lamentations and cries of
+misery.  He asked for 25,000 of the 150,000 ducats promised him.  I gave
+them.  Soon afterwards he writes, with just as much anxiety, for 25,000
+more.  These I did not give; firstly, because I had them not," (which
+would seem a sufficient reason) "and secondly, because I wished to
+protract matters as much as possible.  He is constantly reminding me of
+your Majesty's promise of 300,000 ducats, in case he comes to a rupture
+with the King of France, and I always assure him that your Majesty will
+keep all promises."
+
+Philip, on his part, through the months of spring, continued to assure
+his generalissimo of his steady preparations--by sea and land.  He had
+ordered Mendoza to pay the Scotch lords the sum demanded by them, but not
+till after they had done the deed as agreed upon; and as to the 6000 men,
+he felt obliged, he said, to defer that matter for the moment; and to
+leave the decision upon it to the Duke.  Farnese kept his sovereign
+minutely informed of the negociations carried on through Champagny and De
+Loo, and expressed his constant opinion that the Queen was influenced by
+motives as hypocritical as his own.  She was only seeking, he said, to
+deceive, to defraud, to put him to sleep, by those feigned negotiations,
+while, she was making her combinations with France and Germany, for the
+ruin of Spain.  There was no virtue to be expected from her, except she
+was compelled thereto by pure necessity.  The English, he said, were
+hated and abhorred by the natives of Holland and Zeeland, and it behoved
+Philip to seize so favourable an opportunity for urging on his great plan
+with all the speed in the world.  It might be that the Queen, seeing
+these mighty preparations, even although not suspecting that she herself
+was to be invaded, would tremble for her safety, if the Netherlands
+should be crushed.  But if she succeeded in deceiving Spain, and putting
+Philip and Parma to sleep, she might well boast of having made fools of
+them all.  The negotiations for peace and the preparations for the
+invasion should go simultaneously forward therefore, and the money would,
+in consequence, come more sparingly to the Provinces from the English
+coffers, and the disputes between England and the States would be
+multiplied.  The Duke also begged to be informed whether any terms could
+be laid down, upon which the King really would conclude peace; in order
+that he might make no mistake for want of instructions or requisite
+powers.  The condition of France was becoming more alarming every day, he
+said.  In other words, there was an ever-growing chance of peace for that
+distracted country.  The Queen of England was cementing a strong league
+between herself, the French King, and the Huguenots; and matters were
+looking very serious.  The impending peace in France would never do, and
+Philip should prevent it in time, by giving Mucio his money.  Unless the
+French are entangled and at war among themselves, it is quite clear, said
+Alexander, that we can never think of carrying out our great scheme of
+invading England.
+
+The King thoroughly concurred in all that was said and done by his
+faithful governor and general.  He had no intention of concluding a peace
+on any terms whatever, and therefore could name no conditions; but he
+quite approved of a continuance of the negotiations.  The English,
+he was convinced, were utterly false on their part, and the King of
+Denmark's proposition to-mediate was part and parcel of the same general
+fiction.  He was quite sensible of the necessity of giving Mucio the
+money to prevent a pacification in France, and would send letters of
+exchange on Agostino Spinola for the 300,000 ducats.  Meantime Farnese
+was to go on steadily with his preparations for the invasion.
+
+The secretary-of-state, Don Juan de Idiaquez, also wrote most earnestly
+on the great subject to the Duke.  "It is not to be exaggerated", he
+said, "how set his Majesty is in the all-important business.  If you wish
+to manifest towards him the most flattering obedience on earth, and to
+oblige him as much as you could wish, give him this great satisfaction
+this year.  Since you have money, prepare everything out there, conquer
+all difficulties, and do the deed so soon as the forces of Spain and
+Italy arrive, according to the plan laid down by your Excellency last
+year.  Make use of the negotiations for peace for this one purpose, and
+no more, and do the business like the man you are.  Attribute the liberty
+of this advice to my desire to serve you more than any other, to my
+knowledge of how much you will thereby gratify his Majesty, and to my
+fear of his resentment towards you, in the contrary case."
+
+And, on the same day, in order that there might be no doubt of the royal
+sentiments, Philip expressed himself at length on the whole subject.  The
+dealings of Farnese with the English, and his feeding them with hopes of
+peace, would have given him more satisfaction, he observed, if it had
+caused their preparations to slacken; but, on the contrary, their
+boldness had increased.  They had perpetrated the inhuman murder of the
+Queen of Scots, and moreover, not content with their piracies at sea and
+in the Indies, they had dared to invade the ports of Spain, as would
+appear in the narrative transmitted to Farnese of the late events at
+Cadiz.  And although that damage was small, said Philip; there resulted a
+very great obligation to take them 'seriously in hand.'  He declined
+sending fill powers for treating; but in order to make use of the same
+arts employed by the English, he preferred that Alexander should not
+undeceive them, but desired him to express, as out of his own head; to
+the negotiators, his astonishment that while they were holding such
+language they should commit such actions.  Even their want of prudence in
+thus provoking the King; when their strength was compared to his, should
+be spoken of by Farnese as--wonderful, and he was to express the opinion
+that his Majesty would think him much wanting in circumspection, should
+he go on negotiating while they were playing such tricks.  "You must show
+yourself very sensitive, about this event," continued Philip, "and you
+must give them to understand that I am quite as angry as you.  You must
+try to draw from them some offer of satisfaction--however false it will
+be in reality--such as a proposal to recall the fleet, or an, assertion
+that the deeds of Drake in Cadiz were without the knowledge and contrary
+to the will of the Queen, and that she very much regrets them, or
+something of that sort."
+
+It has already been shown that Farnese was very successful in eliciting
+from the Queen, through the mouth of Lord' Burghley, as ample a disavowal
+and repudiation of Sir Francis Drake as the King could possibly desire.
+Whether it would have the desired effect--of allaying the wrath of
+Philip; might have been better foretold, could the letter, with which we
+are now occupied, have been laid upon the Greenwich council-board.
+
+"When you have got, such a disavowal," continued his Majesty, "you are to
+act as if entirely taken in and imposed upon by them, and, pretending to
+believe everything they tell you, you must renew the negotiations,
+proceed to name commissioners, and propose a meeting upon neutral
+territory.  As for powers; say that you, as my governor-general, will
+entrust them to your deputies, in regard to the Netherlands.  For all
+other matters, say that you have had full powers for many months, but
+that you cannot exhibit them until conditions worthy of my acceptance
+have been offered.--Say this only for the sake of appearance.  This is
+the true way to take them in, and so the peace-commissioners may meet.
+But to you only do I declare that my intention is that this shall never
+lead to any result, whatever conditions maybe offered by them.  On the
+contrary, all this is done--just as they do--to deceive them, and to cool
+them in their preparations for defence, by inducing them to believe that
+such preparations will be unnecessary.  You are well aware that the
+reverse of all this is the truth, and that on our part there is to be no
+slackness, but the greatest diligence in our efforts for the invasion of
+England, for which we have already made the most abundant provision in
+men, ships, and money, of which you are well aware."
+
+Is it strange that the Queen of England was deceived?  Is it matter of
+surprise, censure, or shame, that no English statesman was astute enough
+or base enough to contend with such diplomacy, which seemed inspired only
+by the very father of lies?
+
+"Although we thus enter into negotiations," continued the King--unveiling
+himself, with a solemn indecency, not agreeable to contemplate--"without
+any intention of concluding them, you can always get out of them with
+great honour, by taking umbrage about the point of religion and about
+some other of the outrageous propositions which they are like to propose,
+and of which there are plenty, in the letters of Andrew de Loo.  Your
+commissioners must be instructed; to refer all important matters to your
+personal decision.  The English will be asking for damages for money,
+spent in assisting my rebels; your commissioners will contend that
+damages are rather due to me.  Thus, and in other ways, time will be
+agent.  Your own envoys are not to know the secret any more than the
+English themselves.  I tell it to you only.  Thus you will proceed with
+the negotiations, now, yielding on one point, and now insisting on
+another, but directing all to the same object--to gain time while
+proceeding with the preparation for the invasion, according to the plan
+already agreed upon."
+
+Certainly the most Catholic King seemed, in this remarkable letter to
+have outdone himself; and Farnese--that sincere Farnese, in whose loyal,
+truth-telling, chivalrous character, the Queen and her counsellors placed
+such implicit reliance--could thenceforward no longer be embarrassed as
+to the course he was to adopt.  To lie daily, through, thick, and thin,
+and with every variety of circumstance and detail which; a genius fertile
+in fiction could suggest, such was the simple rule prescribed by his
+sovereign.  And the rule was implicitly obeyed, and the English sovereign
+thoroughly deceived.  The secret confided only, to the faithful breast of
+Alexander was religiously kept.  Even the Pope was outwitted.  His
+Holiness proposed to, Philip the invasion of England, and offered a
+million to further the plan.  He was most desirous to be informed if the
+project was, resolved upon, and, if so, when it was to be accomplished.
+The King took the Pope's million, but refused the desired information.
+He answered evasively.  He had a very good will to invade the country, he
+said, but there were great difficulties in the way.  After a time, the
+Pope again tried to pry into the matter, and again offered the million
+which Philip had only accepted for the time when it might be wanted;
+giving him at the same time, to understand that it was not necessary at
+that time, because there were then great impediments.  "Thus he is
+pledged to give me the subsidy, and I am not pledged for the time," said
+Philip, "and I keep my secret, which is the most important of all."
+
+Yet after all, Farnese did not see his way clear towards the consummation
+of the plan.  His army had wofully dwindled, and before he could
+seriously set about ulterior matters, it would be necessary to take
+the city of Sluys.  This was to prove--as already seen--a most arduous
+enterprise.  He complained to Philip' of his inadequate supplies both in
+men and money.  The project conceived in the royal breast was worth
+spending millions for, he said, and although by zeal and devotion he
+could accomplish something, yet after all he was no more than a man,
+and without the necessary means the scheme could not succeed.  But
+Philip, on the contrary, was in the highest possible spirits.  He had
+collected more money, he declared than had ever been seen before in the
+world.  He had two million ducats in reserve, besides the Pope's million;
+the French were in a most excellent state of division, and the invasion
+should be made this year without fail.  The fleet would arrive in the
+English channel by the end of the summer; which would be exactly in
+conformity with Alexander's ideas.  The invasion was to be threefold:
+from Scotland, under the Scotch earls and their followers, with the money
+and troops furnished by Philip; from the Netherlands, under Parma; and by
+the great Spanish armada itself, upon the Isle of Wight.  Alexander must
+recommend himself to God, in whose cause he was acting, and then do his
+duty; which lay very plain before him.  If he ever wished to give his
+sovereign satisfaction in his life; he was to do the deed that year,
+whatever might betide.  Never could there be so fortunate a conjunction
+of circumstances again.  France was in a state of revolution, the German
+levies were weak, the Turk was fully occupied in Persia, an enormous mass
+of money, over and above the Pope's million, had been got together, and
+although the season was somewhat advanced, it was certain that the Duke
+would conquer all impediments, and be the instrument by which his royal
+master might render to God that service which he was so anxious to
+perform.  Enthusiastic, though gouty, Philip grasped the pen in order to
+scrawl a few words with his own royal hand.  "This business is of such
+importance," he said, "and it is so necessary that it should not be
+delayed, that I cannot refrain from urging it upon you as much as I can.
+I should do it even more amply; if this hand would allow me, which has
+been crippled with gout these several days, and my feet as well, and
+although it is unattended with pain, yet it is an impediment to writing."
+
+Struggling thus against his own difficulties, and triumphantly,
+accomplishing a whole paragraph with disabled hand, it was natural that
+the King should expect Alexander, then deep in the siege of Sluy's, to
+vanquish all his obstacles as successfully; and to effect the conquest of
+England so soon as the harvests of that kingdom should be garnered.
+
+Sluy's was surrendered at last, and the great enterprise seemed opening
+from hour to hour.  During the months of autumn; upon the very days when
+those loving messages, mixed with gentle reproaches, were sent by
+Alexander to Elizabeth, and almost at the self-same hours in which honest
+Andrew de Loo was getting such head-aches by drinking the Queen's health
+with Cosimo, and Champagny, the Duke and Philip were interchanging
+detailed information as to the progress of the invasion.  The King
+calculated that by the middle of September Alexander would have 30,000
+men in the Netherlands ready for embarcation.--Marquis Santa Cruz was
+announced as nearly ready to, sail for the English channel with 22,000
+more, among whom were to be 16,000 seasoned Spanish infantry.  The
+Marquis was then to extend the hand to Parma, and protect that passage to
+England which the Duke was at once to effect.  The danger might be great
+for so large a fleet to navigate the seas at so late a season of the
+year; but Philip was sure that God, whose cause it was, would be pleased
+to give good weather.  The Duke was to send, with infinite precautions of
+secrecy, information which the Marquis would expect off Ushant, and be
+quite ready to act so soon as Santa Cruz should arrive.  Most earnestly
+and anxiously did the King deprecate any, thought of deferring the
+expedition to another year.  If delayed, the obstacles of the following
+summer--a peace in France, a peace between the Turk and Persia, and other
+contingencies--would cause the whole project to fail, and Philip
+declared, with much iteration, that money; reputation, honour, his
+own character and that of Farnese, and God's service, were all at stake.
+He was impatient at suggestions of difficulties occasionally, ventured by
+the Duke, who was reminded that he had been appointed chief of the great
+enterprise by the spontaneous choice of his master, and that all his
+plans had been minutely followed.  "You are the author of the whole
+scheme," said Philip, "and if it, is all to vanish into space, what kind
+of a figure shall we cut the coming year?"  Again and again he referred
+to the immense sum collected--such as never before had been seen since
+the world was made--4,800,000 ducats with 2,000,000 in reserve, of which
+he was authorized to draw for 500,000 in advance, to say nothing of the
+Pope's million.
+
+But Alexander,  while straining every nerve to obey his master's
+wishes about the invasion, and to blind the English by the fictitious
+negotiations, was not so sanguine as his sovereign.  In truth, there was
+something puerile in the eagerness which Philip manifested.  He had made
+up his mind that England was to be conquered that autumn, and had
+endeavoured--as well as he could--to comprehend, the plans which his
+illustrious general had laid down for accomplishing that purpose.  Of,
+course; to any man of average intellect, or, in truth, to any man outside
+a madhouse; it would seem an essential part of the conquest that the
+Armada should arrive.  Yet--wonderful to relate-Philip, in his
+impatience, absolutely suggested that the Duke might take possession of
+England without waiting for Santa Cruz and his Armada.  As the autumn had
+been wearing away, and there had been unavoidable delays about the
+shipping in Spanish ports, the King thought it best not to defer matters
+till, the winter.  "You are, doubtless, ready," he said to Farnese.
+"If you think you can make the passage to England before the fleet from
+Spain arrives, go at once.  You maybe sure that it will come ere long to
+support, you.  But if, you prefer, to wait, wait.  The dangers of winter,
+to the fleet and to your own person are to be regretted; but God, whose
+cause it is; will protect you."
+
+It was, easy to sit quite out of harm's way, and to make such excellent,
+arrangements for smooth weather in the wintry channel, and for the.
+conquest of a maritime and martial kingdom by a few flat bottoms.  Philip
+had little difficulty on that score, but the affairs of France were not
+quite to his mind.  The battle of Coutras, and the entrance of the German
+and Swiss mercenaries into that country, were somewhat perplexing.
+Either those auxiliaries of the Huguenots would be defeated, or they
+would be victorious, or both parties would come to an agreement.  In the
+first event, the Duke, after sending a little assistance to Mucio, was to
+effect his passage to England at once.  In the second case, those troops,
+even though successful, would doubtless be so much disorganized that it
+might be still safe for Farnese to go on.  In the third contingency--that
+of an accord--it would be necessary for him to wait till the foreign
+troops had disbanded and left France.  He was to maintain all his forces
+in perfect readiness, on pretext of the threatening aspect of French
+matters and, so soon as the Swiss and Germane were dispersed, he was to
+proceed to business without delay.  The fleet would be ready in Spain in
+all November, but as sea-affairs were so doubtful, particularly in
+winter, and as the Armada could not reach the channel till mid-winter;
+the Duke was not to wait for its arrival.  "Whenever you see a favourable
+opportunity," said Philip, "you must take care not to lose it, even if
+the fleet has not made its appearance.  For you may be sure that it will
+soon come to give you assistance, in one way or another."
+
+Farnese had also been strictly enjoined to deal gently with the English,
+after the conquest, so that they would have cause to love their new
+master.  His troops were not to forget discipline after victory.  There
+was to be no pillage or rapine.  The Catholics were to be handsomely
+rewarded and all the inhabitants were to be treated with so much
+indulgence that, instead of abhorring Parma and his soldiers, they would
+conceive a strong affection for them all, as the source of so many
+benefits.  Again the Duke was warmly commended for the skill with which
+he had handled the peace negotiation.  It was quite right to appoint
+commissioners, but it was never for an instant to be forgotten that the
+sole object of treating was to take the English unawares.  "And therefore
+do you guide them to this end," said the King with pious unction, "which
+is what you owe to God, in whose service I  have engaged in this
+enterprise, and to whom I have dedicated the whole."  The King of France,
+too--that unfortunate Henry III., against whose throne and life Philip
+maintained in constant pay an organized band of conspirators--was
+affectionately adjured, through the Spanish envoy in Paris, Mendoza,--to
+reflect upon the advantages to France of a Catholic king and kingdom of
+England, in place of the heretics now in power.
+
+But Philip, growing more and more sanguine, as those visions of fresh
+crowns and conquered kingdoms rose before him in his solitary cell, had
+even persuaded himself that the deed was already done.  In the early days
+of December, he expressed a doubt whether his 14th November letter had
+reached the Duke, who by that time was probably in England.  One would
+have thought the King addressing a tourist just starting on a little
+pleasure-excursion.  And this was precisely the moment when Alexander had
+been writing those affectionate phrases to the Queen which had been
+considered by the counsellors at Greenwich so "princely and Christianly,"
+and which Croft had pronounced such "very good words."
+
+If there had been no hostile, fleet to prevent, it was to be hoped, said
+Philip, that, in the name of God, the passage had been made.  "Once
+landed there," continued the King, "I am persuaded that you will give me
+a good account of yourself, and, with the help of our Lord, that you will
+do that service which I desire to render to Him, and that He will guide
+our cause, which is His own, and of such great importance to His Church."
+A part of the fleet would soon after arrive and bring six thousand
+Spaniards, the Pope's million, and other good things, which might prove
+useful to Parma, presupposing that they would find him established on the
+enemy's territory.
+
+This conviction that the enterprise had been already accomplished grew
+stronger in the King's breast every day.  He was only a little disturbed
+lest Farnese should have misunderstood that 14th November letter.
+Philip--as his wont was--had gone into so many petty and puzzling
+details, and had laid down rules of action suitable for various
+contingencies, so easy to put comfortably upon paper, but which might
+become perplexing in action, that it was no wonder he should be a little
+anxious.  The third contingency suggested by him had really occurred.
+There had been a composition between the foreign mercenaries and the
+French King.  Nevertheless they had also been once or twice defeated, and
+this was contingency number two.  Now which of the events would the Duke
+consider as having really occurred.  It was to be hoped that he would
+have not seen cause for delay, for in truth number three was not exactly
+the contingency which existed.  France was still in a very satisfactory
+state of discord and rebellion.  The civil war was by no means over.
+There was small fear of peace that winter.  Give Mucio his pittance with
+frugal hand, and that dangerous personage would ensure tranquillity for
+Philip's project, and misery for Henry III. and his subjects for an
+indefinite period longer.  The King thought it improbable that Farnese
+could have made any mistake.  He expressed therefore a little anxiety at
+having received no intelligence from him, but had great confidence that,
+with the aid of the Lord and of with his own courage he had accomplished
+the great exploit.  Philip had only, recommended delay in event of a
+general peace in France--Huguenots, Royalists, Leaguers, and all.
+This had not happened.  "Therefore, I trust," said the King; "that you--
+perceiving that this is not contingency number three which was to justify
+a pause--will have already executed the enterprise, and fulfilled my
+desire.  I am confident that the deed is done, and that God has blessed
+it, and I am now expecting the news from hour to hour."
+
+But Alexander had not yet arrived in England.  The preliminaries for the
+conquest caused him more perplexity than the whole enterprise occasioned
+to Philip.  He was very short of funds.  The five millions were not to be
+touched, except for the expenses of the invasion.  But as England was to
+be subjugated, in order that rebellious Holland might be recovered, it
+was hardly reasonable to go away leaving such inadequate forces in the
+Netherlands as to ensure not only independence to the new republic, but
+to hold out temptation for revolt to the obedient Provinces.  Yet this
+was the dilemma in which the Duke was placed.  So much money had been set
+aside for the grand project that there was scarcely anything for the
+regular military business.  The customary supplies had not been sent.
+Parma had leave to draw for six hundred thousand ducats, and he was able
+to get that draft discounted on the Antwerp Exchange by consenting to
+receive five hundred thousand, or sacrificing sixteen per cent. of the
+sum.  A good number of transports, and scows had been collected, but
+there had been a deficiency of money for their proper equipment, as the
+five millions had been very slow in coming, and were still upon the road.
+The whole enterprise was on the point of being sacrificed, according to
+Farnese, for want of funds.  The time for doing the deed had arrived, and
+he declared himself incapacitated by poverty.  He expressed his disgust
+and resentment in language more energetic than courtly; and protested
+that he was not to blame.  "I always thought," said he bitterly, "that
+your Majesty would provide all that was necessary even in superfluity,
+and not limit me beneath the ordinary.  I did not suppose, when it was
+most important to have ready money, that I should be kept short, and not
+allowed to draw certain sums by anticipation, which I should have done
+had you not forbidden."
+
+This was, through life, a striking characteristic of Philip.  Enormous
+schemes were laid out with utterly inadequate provision for their
+accomplishment, and a confident expectation entertained that wild,
+visions were; in some indefinite way, to be converted into substantial
+realities, without fatigue or personal exertion on his part, and with a
+very trifling outlay of ready money.
+
+Meantime the faithful Farnese did his best.  He was indefatigable night
+and day in getting his boats together and providing his munitions of war.
+He dug a canal from Sas de Gand--which was one of his principal depots--
+all the way to Sluys, because the water-communication between those two
+points was entirely in the hands of the Hollanders and Zeelanders.  The
+rebel cruisers swarmed in the Scheldt, from, Flushing almost to Antwerp,
+so that it was quite impossible for Parma's forces to venture forth at
+all; and it also seemed hopeless to hazard putting to sea from Sluys.
+At the same, time he had appointed his, commissioners to treat with the
+English envoys already named by the Queen.  There had been much delay in
+the arrival of those deputies, on account of the noise raised by
+Barneveld and his followers; but Burghley was now sanguine that the
+exposure of what he called the Advocate's seditious, false, and perverse
+proceedings, would enable Leicester to procure the consent of the States
+to a universal peace.
+
+And thus, with these parallel schemes of invasion and negotiation,
+spring; summer, and autumn, had worn away.  Santa Cruz was still with his
+fleet in Lisbon, Cadiz, and the Azores; and Parma was in Brussels, when
+Philip fondly imagined him established in Greenwich Palace.  When made
+aware of his master's preposterous expectations, Alexander would have
+been perhaps amused, had he not been half beside himself with
+indignation.  Such folly seemed incredible.  There was not the slightest
+appearance of a possibility of making a passage without the protection of
+the Spanish fleet, he observed.  His vessels were mere transport-boats,
+without the least power of resisting an enemy.  The Hollanders and
+Zeelanders, with one hundred and forty cruisers, had shut him up in all
+directions.  He could neither get out from Antwerp nor from Sluys.  There
+were large English ships, too, cruising in the channel, and they were
+getting ready in the Netherlands and in England "most furiously."  The
+delays had been so great, that their secret had been poorly kept, and the
+enemy was on his guard.  If Santa Cruz had come, Alexander declared that
+he should have already been in England.  When he did come he should still
+be prepared to make the passage; but to talk of such an attempt without
+the Armada was senseless, and he denounced the madness of that
+proposition to his Majesty in vehement and unmeasured terms.  His army,
+by sickness and other causes, had been reduced to one-half the number
+considered necessary for the invasion, and the rebels had established
+regular squadrons in the Scheldt, in the very teeth of the forts, at
+Lillo, Liefkenshoek, Saftingen, and other points close to Antwerp.  There
+were so many of these war-vessels, and all in such excellent order, that
+they were a most notable embarrassment to him, he observed, and his own
+flotilla would run great risk of being utterly destroyed.  Alexander had
+been personally superintending matters at Sluys, Ghent, and Antwerp, and
+had strengthened with artillery the canal which he had constructed
+between Sas and Sluys.  Meantime his fresh troops had been slowly
+arriving, but much sickness prevailed among them.  The Italians were
+dying fast, almost all the Spaniards were in hospital, and the others
+were so crippled and worn out that it was most pitiable to behold them;
+yet it was absolutely necessary that those who were in health should
+accompany him to England, since otherwise his Spanish force would be
+altogether too weak to do the service expected.  He had got together a
+good number of transports.  Not counting his Antwerp fleet--which could
+not stir from port, as he bitterly complained, nor be of any use, on
+account of the rebel blockade--he had between Dunkerk and Newport
+seventy-four vessels of various kinds fit for sea-service, one hundred
+and fifty flat-bottoms (pleytas), and seventy riverhoys, all which were
+to be assembled at Sluys, whence they would--so soon as Santa Cruz should
+make his appearance--set forth for England.  This force of transports he
+pronounced sufficient, when properly protected by the Spanish Armada, to
+carry himself and his troops across the channel.  If, therefore, the
+matter did not become publicly known, and if the weather proved
+favourable, it was probable that his Majesty's desire would soon be
+fulfilled according to the plan proposed.  The companies of light horse
+and of arquebusmen, with which he meant to make his entrance into London,
+had been clothed, armed, and mounted, he said, in a manner delightful to
+contemplate, and those soldiers at least might be trusted--if they could
+only effect their passage--to do good service, and make matters quite
+secure.
+
+But craftily as the King and Duke had been dealing, it had been found
+impossible to keep such vast preparations entirely secret.  Walsingham
+was in full possession of their plans down to the most minute details.
+The misfortune was that he was unable to persuade his sovereign, Lord
+Burghley, and others of the peace-party, as to the accuracy of his
+information.  Not only was he thoroughly instructed in regard to the
+number of men, vessels, horses, mules, saddles, spurs, lances, barrels of
+beer and tons of biscuit, and other particulars of the contemplated
+invasion, but he had even received curious intelligence as to the
+gorgeous equipment of those very troops, with which the Duke was just
+secretly announcing to the King his intention of making his triumphal
+entrance into the English capital.  Sir Francis knew how many thousand
+yards of cramoisy velvet, how many hundredweight of gold and silver
+embroidery, how much satin and feathers, and what quantity of pearls and
+diamonds; Farnese had been providing himself withal.  He knew the
+tailors, jewellers, silversmiths, and haberdashers, with whom the great
+Alexander--as he now began to be called--had been dealing;
+
+     ["There is provided for lights a great number of torches, and so
+     tempered that no water can put them out.  A great number of little
+     mills for grinding corn, great store of biscuit baked and oxen
+     salted, great number of saddles and boots also there is made 500
+     pair of velvet shoes-red, crimson velvet, and in every cloister
+     throughout the country great quantity of roses made of silk, white
+     and red, which are to be badges for divers of his gentlemen.  By
+     reason of these roses it is expected he is going for England.  There
+     is sold to the Prince by John Angel, pergaman, ten hundred-weight of
+     velvet, gold and silver to embroider his apparel withal.  The
+     covering to his mules is most gorgeously embroidered with gold and
+     silver, which carry his baggage.  There is also sold to him by the
+     Italian merchants at least 670 pieces of velvet to apparel him and
+     his train.  Every captain has received a gift from the Prince to
+     make himself brave, and for Captain Corralini, an Italian, who hath
+     one cornet of horse, I have seen with my eyes a saddle with the
+     trappings of his horse, his coat and rapier and dagger, which cost
+     3,500 French crowns.  (!!) All their lances are painted of divers
+     colours, blue and white, green and White, and most part blood-red--
+     so there is as great preparation for a triumph as for war.  A great
+     number of English priests come to Antwerp from all places.  The
+     commandment is given to all the churches to read the Litany daily
+     for the prosperity of the Prince in his enterprise." John Giles to
+     Walsingham, 4 Dec. 1587.(S. P. Office MS.)
+
+     The same letter conveyed also very detailed information concerning
+     the naval preparations by the Duke, besides accurate intelligence in
+     regard to the progress of the armada in Cadiz and Lisbon.
+
+     Sir William Russet wrote also from Flushing concerning these
+     preparations in much the same strain; but it is worthy of note that
+     he considered Farnese to be rather intending a movement against
+     France.
+
+     "The Prince of Parma," he said, "is making great preparations for
+     war, and with all expedition means to march a great army, and for a
+     triumph, the coats and costly, apparel for his own body doth exceed
+     for embroidery, and beset with jewels; for all the embroiderers and
+     diamond-cutters work both night and day, such haste is made.  Five
+     hundred velvet coats of one sort for lances, and a great number of
+     brave new coats made for horsemen; 30,000 men are ready, and gather
+     in Brabant and Flanders.  It is said that there shall be in two days
+     10,000 to do some great exploit in these parts, and 20,000 to march
+     with the Prince into France, and for certain it is not known what
+     way or how they shall march, but all are ready at an hour's warning
+     --4,000 saddles, 4000 lances.  6,000 pairs of boots, 2,000 barrels of
+     beer, biscuit sufficient for a camp of 20,000 men, &c.  The Prince
+     hath received a marvellous costly garland or crown from the Pope,
+     and is chosen chief of the holy league..."]
+
+but when he spoke at the council-board, it was to ears wilfully deaf.
+Nor was much concealed from the Argus-eyed politicians in the republic.
+The States were more and more intractable.  They knew nearly all the
+truth with regard to the intercourse between the Queen's government and
+Farnese, and they suspected more than the truth.  The list of English
+commissioners privately agreed upon between Burghley and De Loo was known
+to Barneveld, Maurice, and Hohenlo, before it came to the ears of
+Leicester.  In June, Buckhurst had been censured by Elizabeth for opening
+the peace matter to members of the States, according to her bidding, and
+in July Leicester was rebuked for exactly the opposite delinquency.  She
+was very angry that he had delayed the communication of her policy so
+long, but she expressed her anger only when that policy had proved so
+transparent as to make concealment hopeless.  Leicester, as well as
+Buckhurst, knew that it was idle to talk to the Netherlanders of peace,
+because of their profound distrust in every word that came from Spanish
+or Italian lips; but Leicester, less frank than Buckhurst, preferred to
+flatter his sovereign, rather than to tell her unwelcome truths.  More
+fortunate than Buckhurst, he was rewarded for his flattery by boundless
+affection, and promotion to the very highest post in England when the
+hour of England's greatest peril had arrived, while the truth-telling
+counsellor was consigned to imprisonment and disgrace.  When the Queen
+complained sharply that the States were mocking her, and that she was
+touched in honour at the prospect of not keeping her plighted word to
+Farnese, the Earl assured her that the Netherlanders were fast changing
+their views; that although the very name of peace had till then been
+odious and loathsome, yet now, as coming from her Majesty, they would
+accept it with thankful hearts.
+
+The States, or the leading members of that assembly, factious fellows,
+pestilent and seditious knaves, were doing their utmost, and were singing
+sirens' songs' to enchant and delude the people, but they were fast
+losing their influence--so warmly did the country desire to conform to
+her Majesty's pleasure.  He expatiated, however, upon the difficulties in
+his path.  The knowledge possessed by the pestilent fellows as to the
+actual position of affairs, was very mischievous.  It was honey to
+Maurice and Hohenlo, he said, that the Queen's secret practices with
+Farnese had thus been discovered.  Nothing could be more marked than the
+jollity with which the ringleaders hailed these preparations for peace-
+making, for they now felt certain that the government of their country
+had been fixed securely in their own hands.  They were canonized, said
+the Earl, for their hostility to peace.
+
+Should not this conviction, on the part of men who had so many means of
+feeling the popular pulse, have given the Queen's government pause?  To
+serve his sovereign in truth, Leicester might have admitted a possibility
+at least of honesty on the part of men who were so ready to offer up
+their lives for their country.  For in a very few weeks ho was obliged to
+confess that the people were no longer so well disposed to acquiesce in
+her Majesty's policy.  The great majority, both of the States and the
+people, were in favour, he agreed, of continuing the war.  The
+inhabitants of the little Province of Holland alone, he said, had avowed
+their determination to maintain their rights--even if obliged to fight
+single-handed--and to shed the last drop in their veins, rather than to
+submit again to Spanish tyranny.  This seemed a heroic resolution, worthy
+the sympathy of a brave Englishman, but the Earl's only comment upon it
+was, that it proved the ringleaders "either to be traitors or else the
+most blindest asses in the world."  He never scrupled, on repeated
+occasions, to insinuate that Barneveld, Hohenlo, Buys, Roorda, Sainte
+Aldegonde, and the Nassaus, had organized a plot to sell their country to
+Spain.  Of this there was not the faintest evidence, but it was the only
+way in which he chose to account for their persistent opposition to the
+peace-negotiations, and to their reluctance to confer absolute power on
+himself.  "'Tis a crabbed, sullen, proud kind of people," said he, "and
+bent on establishing a popular government,"--a purpose which seemed
+somewhat inconsistent with the plot for selling their country to Spain,
+which he charged in the same breath on the same persons.
+
+Early in August, by the Queen's command, he had sent a formal
+communication respecting the private negotiations to the States, but he
+could tell them no secret.  The names of the commissioners, and even the
+supposed articles of a treaty already concluded, were flying from town to
+town, from mouth to mouth, so that the Earl pronounced it impossible for
+one, not on the spot, to imagine the excitement which existed.
+
+He had sent a state-counsellor, one Bardesius, to the Hague, to open the
+matter; but that personage had only ventured to whisper a word to one or
+two members of the States, and was assured that the proposition, if made,
+would raise such a tumult of fury, that he might fear for his life.  So
+poor Bardesius came back to Leicester, fell on his knees, and implored
+him; at least to pause in these fatal proceedings.  After an interval, he
+sent two eminent statesmen, Valk and Menin, to lay the subject before the
+assembly.  They did so, and it was met by fierce denunciation.  On their
+return, the Earl, finding that so much violence had been excited,
+pretended that they had misunderstood his meaning, and that he had never
+meant to propose peace-negotiations.  But Valk and Menin were too old
+politicians to be caught in such a trap, and they produced a brief, drawn
+up in Italian--the foreign language best understood by the Earl--with his
+own corrections and interlineations, so that he was forced to admit that
+there had been no misconception.
+
+Leicester at last could no longer doubt that he was universally odious in
+the Provinces.  Hohenlo, Barneveld, and the rest, who had "championed the
+country against the peace," were carrying all before them.  They had
+persuaded the people, that the "Queen was but a tickle stay for them,"
+and had inflated young Maurice with vast ideas of his importance, telling
+him that he was "a natural patriot, the image of his noble father, whose
+memory was yet great among them, as good reason, dying in their cause, as
+be had done."  The country was bent on a popular government, and on
+maintaining the war.  There was no possibility, he confessed, that they
+would ever confer the authority on him which they had formerly bestowed.
+The Queen had promised, when he left England the second time, that his
+absence should be for but three months, and he now most anxiously claimed
+permission to depart.  Above all things, he deprecated being employed as
+a peace-commissioner.  He was, of all men, the most unfit for such a
+post.  At the same time he implored the statesmen at home to be wary in
+selecting the wisest persons for that arduous duty, in order that the
+peace might be made for Queen Elizabeth, as well as for King Philip.
+He strongly recommended, for that duty, Beale, the councillor, who with
+Killigrew had replaced the hated Wilkes and the pacific Bartholomew
+Clerk.  "Mr. Beale, brother-in-law to Walsingham, is in my books a
+prince," said the Earl.  "He was drowned in England, but most useful in
+the Netherlands.  Without him I am naked."
+
+And at last the governor told the Queen what Buckhurst and Walsingham had
+been perpetually telling her, that the Duke of Parma meant mischief; and
+he sent the same information as to hundreds of boats preparing, with six
+thousand shirts for camisados, 7000 pairs of wading boots, and saddles,
+stirrups, and spurs, enough for a choice band of 3000 men.  A shrewd
+troop, said the Earl, of the first soldiers in Christendom, to be landed
+some fine morning in England.  And he too had heard of the jewelled suits
+of cramoisy velvet, and all the rest of the finery with which the
+triumphant Alexander was intending to astonish London.  "Get horses
+enough, and muskets enough in England," exclaimed Leicester, "and then
+our people will not be beaten, I warrant you, if well led."
+
+And now, the governor--who, in order to soothe his sovereign and comply
+with her vehement wishes, had so long misrepresented the state of public
+feeling--not only confessed that Papists and Protestants, gentle and
+simple, the States and the people, throughout the republic, were all
+opposed to any negotiation with the enemy, but lifted up his own voice,
+and in earnest language expressed his opinion of the Queen's infatuation.
+
+"Oh, my Lord, what a treaty is this for peace," said he to Burghley,
+"that we must treat, altogether disarmed and weakened, and the King
+having made his forces stronger than ever he had known in these parts,
+besides what is coming out, of Spain, and yet we will presume of good
+conditions.  It grieveth me to the heart.  But I fear you will all smart
+for it, and I pray God her Majesty feel it not, if it be His blessed
+will.  She meaneth well and sincerely to have peace, but God knows that
+this is not the way.  Well, God Almighty defend us and the realm, and
+especially her Majesty.  But look for a sharp war, or a miserable peace,
+to undo others and ourselves after."
+
+Walsingham, too, was determined not to act as a commissioner.  If his
+failing health did not serve as an excuse, he should be obliged to
+refuse, he said, and so forfeit her Majesty's favour, rather than be
+instrumental in bringing about her ruin, and that of his country.  Never
+for an instant had the Secretary of State faltered in his opposition to
+the timid policy of Burghley.  Again and again he had detected the
+intrigues of the Lord-Treasurer and Sir James Croft, and ridiculed the
+"comptroller's peace."
+
+And especially did Walsingham bewail the implicit confidence which the
+Queen placed in the sugary words of Alexander, and the fatal parsimony
+which caused her to neglect defending herself against Scotland; for he
+was as well informed as was Farnese himself of Philip's arrangements with
+the Scotch lords, and of the subsidies in men and money by which their
+invasion of England was to be made part of the great scheme.  "No one
+thing," sighed Walsingham, "doth more prognosticate an alteration of this
+estate, than that a prince of her Majesty's judgment should neglect, in
+respect of a little charges, the stopping of so dangerous a gap .  .  .
+.  .  The manner of our cold and careless proceeding here, in this time
+of peril, maketh me to take no comfort of my recovery of health, for that
+I see, unless it shall please God in mercy and miraculously to preserve
+us, we cannot long stand."
+
+Leicester, finding himself unable to counteract the policy of Barneveld
+and his party, by expostulation or argument, conceived a very dangerous
+and criminal project before he left the country.  The facts are somewhat
+veiled in mystery; but he was suspected, on weighty evidence, of a design
+to kidnap both Maurice and Barneveld, and carry them off to England.  Of
+this intention, which was foiled at any rate, before it could be carried
+into execution, there is perhaps not conclusive proof, but it has already
+been shown, from a deciphered letter, that the Queen had once given
+Buckhurst and Wilkes peremptory orders to seize the person of Hohenlo,
+and it is quite possible that similar orders may have been received at a
+later moment with regard to the young Count and the Advocate.  At any
+rate, it is certain that late in the autumn, some friends of Barneveld
+entered his bedroom, at the Hague, in the dead of night, and informed him
+that a plot was on foot to lay violent hands upon him, and that an armed
+force was already on its way to execute this purpose of Leicester, before
+the dawn of day.  The Advocate, without loss of time, took his departure
+for Delft, a step which was followed, shortly afterwards, by Maurice.
+
+Nor was this the only daring--stroke which the Earl had meditated.
+During the progress of the secret negotiations with Parma, he had not
+neglected those still more secret schemes to which he had occasionally
+made allusion.  He had determined, if possible, to obtain possession of
+the most important cities in Holland and Zeeland.  It was very plain to
+him, that he could no longer hope, by fair means, for the great authority
+once conferred upon him by the free will of the States.  It was his
+purpose, therefore, by force and stratagem to recover his lost power.
+We have heard the violent terms in which both the Queen and the Earl
+denounced the men who accused the English government of any such
+intention.  It had been formally denied by the States-General that
+Barneveld had ever used the language in that assembly with which he had
+been charged.  He had only revealed to them the exact purport of the
+letter to Junius, and of the Queen's secret instructions to Leicester.
+Whatever he may have said in private conversation, and whatever
+deductions he may have made among his intimate friends, from the admitted
+facts in the case, could hardly be made matters of record.  It does not
+appear that he, or the statesmen who acted with him, considered the Earl
+capable of a deliberate design to sell the cities, thus to be acquired,
+to Spain, as the price of peace for England.  Certainly Elizabeth would
+have scorned such a crime, and was justly indignant at rumours prevalent
+to that effect; but the wrath of the Queen and of her favourite were,
+perhaps, somewhat simulated, in order to cover their real mortification
+at the discovery of designs on the part of the Earl which could not be
+denied.  Not only had they been at last compelled to confess these
+negotiations, which for several months had been concealed and stubbornly
+denied, but the still graver plots of the Earl to regain his much-coveted
+authority had been, in a startling manner, revealed.  The leaders of the
+States-General had a right to suspect the English Earl of a design to
+reenact the part of the Duke of Anjou, and were justified in taking
+stringent measures to prevent a calamity, which, as they believed, was
+impending over their little commonwealth.  The high-handed dealings of
+Leicester in the city of Utrecht have been already described.  The most
+respectable and influential burghers of the place had been imprisoned and
+banished, the municipal government wrested from the hands to which it
+legitimately belonged, and confided to adventurers, who wore the cloak of
+Calvinism to conceal their designs, and a successful effort had been
+made, in the name of democracy, to eradicate from one ancient province
+the liberty on which it prided itself.
+
+In the course of the autumn, an attempt was made to play the same game at
+Amsterdam.  A plot was discovered, before it was fairly matured, to seize
+the magistrates of that important city, to gain possession of the
+arsenals, and to place the government in the hands of well-known
+Leicestrians.  A list of fourteen influential citizens, drawn up in the
+writing of Burgrave, the Earl's confidential secretary, was found, all of
+whom, it was asserted, had been doomed to the scaffold.
+
+The plot to secure Amsterdam had failed, but, in North Holland, Medenblik
+was held firmly for Leicester, by Diedrich Sonoy, in the very teeth of
+the States.  The important city of Enkhuyzen, too, was very near being
+secured for the Earl, but a still more significant movement was made at
+Leyden.  That heroic city, ever since the famous siege of 1574, in which
+the Spaniard had been so signally foiled, had distinguished itself by
+great liberality of sentiment in religious matters.  The burghers were
+inspired by a love of country, and a hatred of oppression, both civil
+and, ecclesiastical; and Papists and Protestants, who had fought side by
+side against the common foe, were not disposed to tear each other to
+pieces, now that he had been excluded from their gates.  Meanwhile,
+however, refugee Flemings and Brabantines had sought an asylum in the
+city, and being, as usual, of the strictest sect of the Calvinists were
+shocked at the latitudinarianism which prevailed.  To the honour of the
+city--as it seems to us now--but, to their horror, it was even found that
+one or two Papists had seats in the magistracy.  More than all this,
+there was a school in the town kept by a Catholic, and Adrian van der
+Werff himself--the renowned burgomaster, who had sustained the city
+during the dreadful leaguer of 1574, and who had told the famishing
+burghers that they might eat him if they liked, but that they should
+never surrender to the Spaniards while he remained alive--even Adrian van
+der Werff had sent his son to this very school?  To the clamour made by
+the refugees against this spirit of toleration, one of the favourite
+preachers in the town, of Arminian tendencies, had declared in the
+pulpit, that he would as lieve see the Spanish as the Calvinistic
+inquisition established over his country; using an expression, in regard
+to the church of Geneva, more energetic than decorous.
+
+It was from Leyden that the chief opposition came to a synod, by which a
+great attempt was to be made towards subjecting the new commonwealth to a
+masked theocracy; a scheme which the States of Holland had resisted with
+might and main.  The Calvinistic party, waxing stronger in Leyden,
+although still in a minority, at last resolved upon a strong effort to
+place the city in the hands of that great representative of Calvinism,
+the Earl of Leicester.  Jacques Volmar, a deacon of the church, Cosmo de
+Pescarengis, a Genoese captain of much experience in the service of the
+republic, Adolphus de Meetkerke, former president of Flanders, who had
+been, by the States, deprived of the seat in the great council to which
+the Earl had appointed him; Doctor Saravia, professor of theology in the
+university, with other deacons, preachers, and captains, went at
+different times from Leyden to Utrecht, and had secret interviews with
+Leicester.
+
+A plan was at last agreed upon, according to which, about the middle of
+October, a revolution should be effected in Leyden.  Captain Nicholas de
+Maulde, who had recently so much distinguished himself in the defence of
+Sluys, was stationed with two companies of States' troops in the city.
+He had been much disgusted--not without reason--at the culpable
+negligence through which the courageous efforts of the Sluys garrison
+had been set at nought, and the place sacrificed, when it might so easily
+have been relieved; and he ascribed the whole of the guilt to Maurice,
+Hohenlo, and the States, although it could hardly be denied that at least
+an equal portion belonged to Leicester and his party.  The young captain
+listened, therefore, to a scheme propounded to him by Colonel Cosine, and
+Deacon Volmar, in the name of Leicester.  He agreed, on a certain day, to
+muster his company, to leave the city by the Delft gate--as if by command
+of superior authority--to effect a junction with Captain Heraugiere,
+another of the distinguished malcontent defenders of Sluys, who was
+stationed, with his command, at Delft, and then to re-enter Leyden, take
+possession of the town-hall, arrest all the magistrates, together with
+Adrian van der Werff, ex-burgomaster, and proclaim Lord Leicester, in the
+name of Queen Elizabeth, legitimate master of the city.  A list of
+burghers, who were to be executed, was likewise agreed upon, at a final
+meeting of the conspirators in a hostelry, which bore the ominous name of
+'The Thunderbolt.'  A desire had been signified by Leicester, in the
+preliminary interviews at Utrecht, that all bloodshed, if possible,
+should be spared, but it was certainly an extravagant expectation,
+considering the, temper, the political convictions, and the known courage
+of the Leyden burghers, that the city would submit, without a struggle,
+to this invasion of all their rights.  It could hardly be doubted that
+the streets would run red with blood, as those of Antwerp had done, when
+a similar attempt, on the part of Anjou, had been foiled.
+
+Unfortunately for the scheme, a day or two before the great stroke was to
+be hazarded, Cosmo de Pescarengis had been accidentally arrested for
+debt.  A subordinate accomplice, taking alarm, had then gone before the
+magistrate and revealed the plot.  Volmar and de Maulde fled at once, but
+were soon arrested in the neighbourhood.  President de Meetkerke,
+Professor Saravia, the preacher Van der Wauw, and others most
+compromised, effected their escape.  The matter was instantly laid before
+the States of Holland by the magistracy of Leyden, and seemed of the
+gravest moment.  In the beginning of the year, the fatal treason of York
+and Stanley had implanted a deep suspicion of Leicester in the hearts of
+almost all the Netherlanders, which could not be eradicated.  The painful
+rumours concerning the secret negotiations with Spain, and the design
+falsely attributed to the English Queen, of selling the chief cities of
+the republic to Philip as the price of peace, and of reimbursement for
+expenses incurred by her, increased the general excitement to fever.  It
+was felt by the leaders of the States that as mortal a combat lay before
+them with the Earl of Leicester, as with the King of Spain, and that it
+was necessary to strike a severe blow, in order to vindicate their
+imperilled authority.
+
+A commission was appointed by the high court of Holland, acting in
+conjunction with the States of the Provinces, to try the offenders.
+Among the commissioners were Adrian van der Werff, John van der Does, who
+had been military commandant of Leyden during the siege, Barneveld, and
+other distinguished personages, over whom Count Maurice presided.  The
+accused were subjected to an impartial trial.  Without torture, they
+confessed their guilt.  It is true, however, that Cosmo was placed within
+sight of the rack.  He avowed that his object had been to place the city
+under the authority of Leicester, and to effect this purpose, if
+possible, without bloodshed.  He declared that the attempt was to be made
+with the full knowledge and approbation of the Earl, who had promised him
+the command of a regiment of twelve companies, as a recompense for his
+services, if they proved successful.  Leicester, said Cosmo, had also
+pledged himself, in case the men, thus executing his plans, should be
+discovered and endangered, to protect and rescue them, even at the
+sacrifice of all his fortune, and of the office he held.  When asked if
+he had any written statement from his Excellency to that effect, Cosmo
+replied, no, nothing but his princely word which he had voluntarily
+given.
+
+Volmar made a similar confession.  He, too, declared that he had acted
+throughout the affair by express command of the Earl of Leicester.  Being
+asked if he had any written evidence of the fact, he, likewise, replied
+in the negative.  "Then his Excellency will unquestionably deny your
+assertion," said the judges.  "Alas, then am I a dead man," replied
+Volmar, and the unfortunate deacon never spoke truer words.  Captain de
+Maulde also confessed his crime.  He did not pretend, however, to have
+had any personal communication with Leicester, but said that the affair
+had been confided to him by Colonel Cosmo, on the express authority of
+the Earl, and that he had believed himself to be acting in obedience to
+his Excellency's commands.
+
+On the 26th October, after a thorough investigation, followed by a full
+confession on the part of the culprits, the three were sentenced to
+death.  The decree was surely a most severe one.  They had been guilty of
+no actual crime, and only in case of high treason could an intention to
+commit a crime be considered, by the laws of the state, an offence
+punishable with death.  But it was exactly because it was important to
+make the crime high treason that the prisoners were condemned.  The
+offence was considered as a crime not against Leyden, but as an attempt
+to levy war upon a city which was a member of the States of Holland and
+of the United States.  If the States were sovereign, then this was a
+lesion of their sovereignty.  Moreover, the offence had been aggravated
+by the employment of United States' troops against the commonwealth of
+the United States itself.  To cut off the heads of these prisoners was a
+sharp practical answer to the claims of sovereignty by Leicester, as
+representing the people, and a terrible warning to all who might, in
+future; be disposed to revive the theories of Deventer and Burgrave.
+
+In the case of De Maulde the punishment seemed especially severe.  His
+fate excited universal sympathy, and great efforts were made to obtain
+his pardon.  He was a universal favourite; he was young; he was very
+handsome; his manners were attractive; he belonged to an ancient and
+honourable race.  His father, the Seigneur de Mansart, had done great
+services in the war of independence, had been an intimate friend of the
+great Prince of Orange, and had even advanced large sums of money to
+assist his noble efforts to liberate the country.  Two brothers of the
+young captain had fallen in the service of the republic.  He, too, had
+distinguished himself at Ostend, and his gallantry during the recent
+siege of Sluys had been in every mouth, and had excited the warm applause
+of so good a judge of soldiership as the veteran Roger Williams.  The
+scars of the wounds received in the desperate conflicts of that siege
+were fresh upon his breast.  He had not intended to commit treason, but,
+convinced by the sophistry of older soldiers than himself, as well as by
+learned deacons and theologians, he had imagined himself doing his duty,
+while obeying the Earl of Leicester.  If there were ever a time for
+mercy, this seemed one, and young Maurice of Nassau might have
+remembered, that even in the case of the assassins who had attempted the
+life of his father, that great-hearted man had lifted up his voice--which
+seemed his dying one--in favour of those who had sought his life.
+
+But they authorities were inexorable.  There was no hope of a mitigation
+of punishment, but a last effort was made, under favour of a singular
+ancient custom, to save the life of De Maulde.  A young lady of noble
+family in Leyden--Uytenbroek by name--claimed the right of rescuing the
+condemned malefactor, from the axe, by appearing upon the scaffold, and
+offering to take him for her husband.
+
+Intelligence was brought to the prisoner in his dungeon, that the young,
+lady had made the proposition, and he was told to be of good cheer: But
+he refused to be comforted. He was slightly acquainted with the gentle-
+woman, he observed; and doubted much whether her request would be
+granted.  Moreover if contemporary chronicle can be trusted he even
+expressed a preference for the scaffold, as the milder fate of the two.
+The lady, however, not being aware of those uncomplimentary sentiments,
+made her proposal to the magistrates, but was dismissed with harsh
+rebukes.  She had need be ashamed, they said; of her willingness to take
+a condemned traitor for her husband.  It was urged, in her behalf, that
+even in the cruel Alva's time, the ancient custom had been respected,
+and that victims had been saved from the executioners, on a demand in
+marriage made even by women of abandoned character.  But all was of no
+avail.  The prisoners were executed on the 26th October, the same day
+on which the sentence had been pronounced.  The heads of Volmar and Cosmo
+were exposed on one of the turrets of the city.  That of Maulde was
+interred with his body.
+
+The Earl was indignant when he heard of the event.  As there had been no
+written proof of his complicity in the conspiracy, the judges had thought
+it improper to mention his name in the sentences.  He, of course, denied
+any knowledge of the plot, and its proof rested therefore only on the
+assertion of the prisoners themselves, which, however, was
+circumstantial, voluntary, and generally believed!
+
+France, during the whole of this year of expectation, was ploughed
+throughout its whole surface by perpetual civil war.  The fatal edict of
+June, 1585, had drowned the unhappy land in blood.  Foreign armies,
+called in by the various contending factions, ravaged its-fair territory,
+butchered its peasantry, and changed its fertile plains to a wilderness.
+The unhappy creature who wore the crown of Charlemagne and of Hugh Capet,
+was but the tool in the hands of the most profligate and designing of his
+own subjects, and of foreigners.  Slowly and surely the net, spread by
+the hands of his own mother, of his own prime minister, of the Duke of
+Guise, all obeying the command and receiving the stipend of Philip,
+seemed closing over him.  He was without friends, without power to know
+his friends, if he had them.  In his hatred to the Reformation, he had
+allowed himself to be made the enemy of the only man who could be his
+friend, or the friend of France.  Allied with his mortal foe, whose
+armies were strengthened by contingents from Parma's forces, and paid for
+by Spanish gold, he was forced to a mock triumph over the foreign
+mercenaries who came to save his crown, and to submit to the defeat of
+the flower of his chivalry, by the only man who could rescue France from
+ruin, and whom France could look up to with respect.
+
+For, on the 20th October, Henry of Navarre had at last gained a victory.
+After twenty-seven years of perpetual defeat, during which they had been
+growing stronger and stronger, the Protestants had met the picked troops
+of Henry III., under the Due de Joyeuse, near the burgh of Contras.  His
+cousins Conde and Soissons each commanded a wing in the army of the
+Warnese.  "You are both of my family," said Henry, before the engagement,
+"and the Lord so help me, but I will show you that I am the eldest born."
+And during that bloody day the white plume was ever tossing where the
+battle, was fiercest.  "I choose to show myself.  They shall see the
+Bearnese," was his reply to those who implored him to have a care for his
+personal safety.  And at last, when the day was done, the victory gained,
+and more French nobles lay dead on the field, as Catharine de' Medici
+bitterly declared, than had fallen in a battle for twenty years; when two
+thousand of the King's best troops had been slain, and when the bodies of
+Joyeuse and his brother had been laid out in the very room where the
+conqueror's supper, after the battle, was served, but where he refused,
+with a shudder, to eat, he was still as eager as before--had the wretched
+Valois been possessed of a spark of manhood, or of intelligence--to
+shield him and his kingdom from the common enemy.'
+
+For it could hardly be doubtful, even to Henry III., at that moment, that
+Philip II. and his jackal, the Duke of Guise, were pursuing him to the
+death, and that, in his breathless doublings to escape, he had been
+forced to turn upon his natural protector.  And now Joyeuse was defeated
+and slain.  Had it been my brother's son," exclaimed Cardinal de Bourbon,
+weeping and wailing, "how much better it would have been."  It was not
+easy to slay the champion of French Protestantism; yet, to one less
+buoyant, the game, even after the brilliant but fruitless victory of
+Contras, might have seemed desperate.  Beggared and outcast, with
+literally scarce a shirt to his back, without money to pay a corporal's
+guard, how was he to maintain an army?
+
+But 'Mucio' was more successful than Joyeuse had been, and the German and
+Swiss mercenaries who had come across the border to assist the Bearnese,
+were adroitly handled by Philip's great stipendiary.  Henry of Valois,
+whose troops had just been defeated at Contras, was now compelled to
+participate in a more fatal series of triumphs.  For alas, the victim had
+tied himself to the apron-string of "Madam League," and was paraded by
+her, in triumph, before the eyes of his own subjects and of the world.
+The passage of the Loire by the auxiliaries was resisted; a series of
+petty victories was gained by Guise, and, at last, after it was obvious
+that the leaders of the legions had been corrupted with Spanish ducats,
+Henry allowed them to depart, rather than give the Balafre opportunity
+for still farther successes.
+
+Then came the triumph in Paris--hosannahs in the churches, huzzas in the
+public places--not for the King, but for Guise.  Paris, more madly in
+love with her champion than ever, prostrated herself at his feet.  For
+him paeans as to a deliverer.  Without him the ark would have fallen into
+the hands of the Philistines.  For the Valois, shouts of scorn from the
+populace, thunders from the pulpit, anathemas from monk and priest,
+elaborate invectives from all the pedants of the Sorbonne, distant
+mutterings of excommunication from Rome--not the toothless beldame of
+modern days, but the avenging divinity of priest-rid monarchs.  Such were
+the results of the edicts of June.  Spain and the Pope had trampled upon
+France, and the populace in her capital clapped their hands and jumped
+for joy.  "Miserable country miserable King," sighed an illustrious
+patriot, "whom his own countrymen wish rather to survive, than to die to
+defend him!  Let the name of Huguenot and of Papist be never heard of
+more.  Let us think only of the counter-league.  Is France to be saved by
+opening all its gates to Spain?  Is France to be turned out of France, to
+make a lodging for the Lorrainer and the Spaniard?"  Pregnant questions,
+which could not yet be answered, for the end was not yet.  France was to
+become still more and more a wilderness.  And well did that same brave
+and thoughtful lover, of his: country declare, that he who should
+suddenly awake from a sleep of twenty-five years, and revisit that once
+beautiful land, would deem himself transplanted to a barbarous island of
+cannibals.--[Duplessis Mornay, 'Mem.' iv. 1-34.]
+
+It had now become quite obvious that the game of Leicester was played
+out.  His career--as it has now been fully exhibited--could have but one
+termination.  He had made himself thoroughly odious to the nation whom he
+came to govern.  He had lost for ever the authority once spontaneously
+bestowed; and he had attempted in vain, both by fair means and foul, to
+recover that power.  There was nothing left him but retreat.  Of this he
+was thoroughly convinced.  He was anxious to be gone, the republic most
+desirous to be rid of him, her Majesty impatient to have her favourite
+back again.  The indulgent Queen, seeing nothing to blame in his conduct,
+while her indignation, at the attitude maintained by the Provinces was
+boundless, permitted him, accordingly, to return; and in her letter to
+the States, announcing this decision, she took a fresh opportunity of
+emptying her wrath upon their heads.
+
+She told them, that, notwithstanding her frequent messages to them,
+signifying her evil contentment with their unthankfulness for her
+exceeding great benefits, and with their gross violations of their
+contract with herself and with Leicester, whom they had, of their own
+accord, made absolute governor without her instigation; she had never
+received any good answer to move, her to commit their sins to oblivion,
+nor had she remarked, any amendment in their conduct.  On the contrary,
+she complained: that they daily increased their offences, most
+notoriously in the sight of--the world and in so many points that she
+lacked words to express them in one letter.  She however thought it worth
+while to allude to some of their transgressions.  She, declared that
+their sinister, or rather barbarous interpretation of her conduct had
+been notorious in perverting and falsifying her princely and Christian
+intentions; when she imparted to them the overtures that had been made to
+her for a treaty of peace for herself and for them with the King of
+Spain.  Yet although she had required their allowance, before she would
+give her assent, she had been grieved that the world should see what
+impudent untruths had been forged upon her, not only by their.
+sufferance; but by their special permission for her Christian good
+meaning towards them.  She denounced the statements as to her having
+concluded a treaty, not only without their knowledge; but with the
+sacrifice of their liberty and religion, as utterly false, either for
+anything done in act, or intended in thought, by her.  She complained
+that upon this most false ground had been heaped a number of like
+untruths and malicious slanders against her cousin Leicester, who had
+hazarded his life, spend his substance, left his native country, absented
+himself from her, and lost his time, only for their service.  It had been
+falsely stated among them, she said, that the Earl had come over the last
+time, knowing that peace had been secretly concluded.  It was false that
+he had intended to surprise divers of their towns, and deliver them to
+the King of Spain.  All such untruths contained matter so improbable,
+that it was most, strange that any person; having any sense, could
+imagine them correct.  Having thus slightly animadverted upon their
+wilfulness, unthankfulness, and bad government, and having, in very
+plain English, given them the lie, eight distinct and separate times
+upon a single page, she proceeded to inform them that she had recalled
+her cousin Leicester, having great cause to use his services in England,
+and not seeing how, by his tarrying there, he could either profit them or
+herself.  Nevertheless she protested herself not void of compassion for
+their estate, and for the pitiful condition of the great multitude of
+kind and godly people, subject to the miseries which, by the States
+government, were like to fall upon them, unless God should specially
+interpose; and she had therefore determined, for the time, to continue
+her subsidies, according to the covenant between them.  If, meantime, she
+should conclude a peace with Spain, she promised to them the same care
+for their country as for her own.
+
+Accordingly the Earl, after despatching an equally ill-tempered letter to
+the States, in which he alluded, at unmerciful length, to all the old
+grievances, blamed them for the loss of Sluys, for which place he
+protested that they had manifested no more interest than if it had been
+San Domingo in Hispaniola, took his departure for Flushing.  After
+remaining there, in a very moody frame of mind, for several days,
+expecting that the States would, at least, send a committee to wait upon
+him and receive his farewells, he took leave of them by letter.  "God
+send me shortly a wind to blow me from them all," he exclaimed--a prayer
+which was soon granted--and before the end of the year he was safely
+landed in England.  "These legs of mine," said he, clapping his hands
+upon them as he sat in his chamber at Margate, "shall never go again into
+Holland.  Let the States get others to serve their mercenary turn, for me
+they shall not have."  Upon giving up the government, he caused a medal
+to be struck in his own honour.  The device was a flock of sheep watched
+by an English mastiff.  Two mottoes--"non gregem aed ingratos," and
+"invitus desero"--expressed his opinion of Dutch ingratitude and his own
+fidelity.  The Hollanders, on their part, struck several medals to
+commemorate the same event, some of which were not destitute of
+invention.  Upon one of them, for instance, was represented an ape
+smothering her young ones to death in her embrace, with the device,
+"Libertas ne its chara ut simiae catuli;" while upon the reverse was a
+man avoiding smoke and falling into the fire, with the inscription,
+"Fugiens fumum, incidit in ignem."
+
+Leicester found the usual sunshine at Greenwich.  All the efforts of
+Norris, Wilkes, and Buckhurst, had been insufficient to raise even a
+doubt in Elizabeth's mind as to the wisdom and integrity by which his
+administration of the Provinces had been characterised from beginning to
+end.  Those who had appealed from his hatred to the justice of their
+sovereign, had met with disgrace and chastisement.  But for the great
+Earl; the Queen's favour was a rock of adamant.  At a private interview
+he threw himself at her feet, and with tears and sobs implored her not to
+receive him in disgrace whom she had sent forth in honour.  His
+blandishments prevailed, as they had always done.  Instead, therefore,
+of appearing before the council, kneeling, to answer such inquiries as
+ought surely to have been instituted, he took his seat boldly among his
+colleagues, replying haughtily to all murmurs by a reference to her
+Majesty's secret instructions.
+
+The unhappy English soldiers, who had gone forth under his banner in
+midsummer, had been returning, as they best might, in winter, starving,
+half-naked wretches, to beg a morsel of bread at the gates of Greenwich
+palace, and to be driven away as vagabonds, with threats of the stock.
+This was not the fault of the Earl, for he had fed them with his own
+generous hand in the Netherlands, week after week, when no money for
+their necessities could be obtained from the paymasters.  Two thousand
+pounds had been sent by Elizabeth to her soldiers when sixty-four
+thousand pounds arrearage were due, and no language could exaggerate the
+misery to which these outcasts, according to eye-witnesses of their own
+nation, were reduced.
+
+Lord Willoughby was appointed to the command, of what remained of these
+unfortunate troops, upon--the Earl's departure.  The sovereignty of the
+Netherlands remained undisputed with the States.  Leicester resigned his,
+commission by an instrument dated 17/27 December, which, however, never
+reached the Netherlands till April of the following year.  From that time
+forth the government of the republic maintained the same forms which the
+assembly had claimed for it in the long controversy with the governor-
+general, and which have been sufficiently described.
+
+Meantime the negotiations for a treaty, no longer secret, continued.
+The Queen; infatuated as ever, still believed in the sincerity of
+Farnese, while that astute personage and his master were steadily
+maturing their schemes.  A matrimonial alliance was secretly projected
+between the King of Scots and Philip's daughter, the Infants Isabella,
+with the consent of the Pope and the whole college of cardinals; and
+James, by the whole force of the Holy League, was to be placed upon the
+throne of Elizabeth.  In the case of his death, without issue, Philip
+was to succeed quietly to the crowns of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
+Nothing could be simpler or more rational, and accordingly these
+arrangements were the table-talk at Rome, and met with general
+approbation.
+
+Communications to this effect; coming straight from the Colonna palace,
+were thought sufficiently circumstantial to be transmitted to the English
+government.  Maurice of Nassau wrote with his own hand to Walsingham,
+professing a warm attachment to the cause in which Holland and England
+were united, and perfect personal devotion to the English Queen.
+
+His language, was not that of a youth, who, according to Leicester's
+repeated insinuations, was leagued with the most distinguished soldiers
+and statesmen of the Netherlands to sell their country to Spain.
+
+But Elizabeth was not to be convinced.  She thought it extremely probable
+that the Provinces would be invaded, and doubtless felt some anxiety for
+England.  It was unfortunate that the possession of Sluys had given
+Alexander such a point of vantage; and there was moreover, a fear that he
+might take possession of Ostend.  She had, therefore, already recommended
+that her own troops should be removed from that city, that its walls
+should be razed; its marine bulwarks destroyed, and that the ocean.
+should be let in to swallow the devoted city forever--the inhabitants
+having been previously allowed to take their departure.  For it was
+assumed by her Majesty that to attempt resistance would be idle, and that
+Ostend could never stand a siege.
+
+The advice was not taken; and before the end of her reign Elizabeth was
+destined to see this indefensible city--only fit, in her judgment, to be
+abandoned to the waves--become memorable; throughout all time, for the
+longest; and, in many respects, the most remarkable siege which modern
+history has recorded, the famous leaguer, in which the first European
+captains of the coming age were to take their lessons, year after year,
+in the school of the great Dutch soldier, who was now but a "solemn, sly
+youth," just turned of twenty.
+
+The only military achievement which characterized the close of the year,
+to the great satisfaction of the Provinces and the annoyance of Parma,
+was the surprise of the city of Bonn.  The indefatigable Martin Schenk--
+in fulfilment of his great contract with the States-General, by which the
+war on the Rhine had been farmed out to him on such profitable terms:--
+had led his mercenaries against this important town.  He had found one of
+its gates somewhat insecurely guarded, placed a mortar under it at night,
+and occupied a neighbouring pig-stye with a number of his men, who by
+chasing, maltreating, and slaughtering the swine, had raised an unearthly
+din, sufficient to drown the martial operations at the gate.  In brief,
+the place was easily mastered, and taken possession of by Martin, in the
+name of the deposed elector, Gebhard Truchsess--the first stroke of good
+fortune which had for a long time befallen that melancholy prelate.
+
+The administration of Leicester has been so minutely pictured, that it
+would be superfluous to indulge in many concluding reflections.  His acts
+and words have been made to speak for themselves.  His career in the
+country has been described with much detail, because the period was a
+great epoch of transition.  The republic of the Netherlands, during those
+years, acquired consistency and permanent form.  It seemed possible, on
+the Earl's first advent, that the Provinces might become part and parcel
+of the English realm.  Whether such a consummation would have been
+desirable or not, is a fruitless enquiry.  But it is certain that the
+selection of such a man as Leicester made that result impossible.
+Doubtless there were many errors committed by all parties.  The Queen
+was supposed by the Netherlands to be secretly desirous of accepting the
+sovereignty of the Provinces, provided she were made sure, by the Earl's
+experience, that they were competent to protect themselves.  But this
+suspicion was unfounded.  The result of every investigation showed the
+country so full of resources, of wealth, and of military and naval
+capabilities, that, united with England, it would have been a source of
+great revenue and power, not a burthen and an expense.  Yet, when
+convinced of such facts, by the statistics which were liberally laid
+before her by her confidential agents, she never manifested, either in
+public or private, any intention of accepting the sovereignty.  This
+being her avowed determination, it was an error on the part of the
+States, before becoming thoroughly acquainted with the man's character,
+to confer upon Leicester the almost boundless authority which they
+granted on, his first arrival.  It was a still graver mistake, on the
+part of Elizabeth, to give way to such explosions of fury, both against
+the governor and the States, when informed of the offer and acceptance of
+that authority.  The Earl, elevated by the adulation of others, and by
+his own vanity, into an almost sovereign attitude, saw himself chastised
+before the world, like an aspiring lackey, by her in whose favour he
+had felt most secure.  He found, himself, in an instant, humbled and
+ridiculous.  Between himself and the Queen it was, something of a lovers'
+quarrel, and he soon found balsam in the hand that smote him.  But though
+reinstated in authority, he was never again the object of reverence in
+the land he was attempting to rule.  As he came to know the Netherlanders
+better, he recognized the great capacity which their statesmen concealed
+under a plain and sometimes a plebeian exterior, and the splendid grandee
+hated, where at first he had only despised.  The Netherlanders, too, who
+had been used to look up almost with worship to a plain man of kindly
+manners, in felt hat and bargeman's woollen jacket, whom they called
+"Father William," did not appreciate, as they ought, the magnificence of
+the stranger who had been sent to govern them.  The Earl was handsome,
+quick-witted, brave; but he was, neither wise in council nor capable in
+the field.  He was intolerably arrogant, passionate, and revengeful.
+He hated easily, and he hated for life.  It was soon obvious that no
+cordiality of feeling or of action could exist between him and the plain,
+stubborn Hollanders.  He had the fatal characteristic of loving only the
+persons who flattered him.  With much perception of character, sense of
+humour, and appreciation of intellect, he recognized the power of the
+leading men in the nation, and sought to gain them.  So long as he hoped
+success, he was loud in their praises.  They were all wise, substantial,
+well-languaged, big fellows, such as were not to be found in England or
+anywhere else.  When they refused to be made his tools, they became
+tinkers, boors, devils, and atheists.  He covered them with curses and
+devoted them to the gibbet.  He began by warmly commending Buys and
+Barneveld, Hohenlo and Maurice, and endowing them with every virtue.
+Before he left the country he had accused them of every crime, and would
+cheerfully, if he could, have taken the life of every one of them.  And
+it was quite the same with nearly every Englishman who served with or
+under him.  Wilkes and Buckhurst, however much the objects of his
+previous esteem; so soon as they ventured to censure or even to criticise
+his proceedings, were at once devoted to perdition.  Yet, after minute
+examination of the record, public and private, neither Wilkes nor
+Buckhurst can be found guilty of treachery or animosity towards him, but
+are proved to have been governed, in all their conduct, by a strong sense
+of duty to their sovereign, the Netherlands, and Leicester himself.
+
+To Sir John Norris, it must be allowed, that he was never fickle,
+for he had always entertained for that distinguished general an honest,
+unswerving, and infinite hatred, which was not susceptible of increase
+or diminution by any act or word.  Pelham, too, whose days were numbered,
+and who was dying bankrupt and broken-hearted, at the close of the,
+Earl's administration, had always been regarded by him with tenderness
+and affection.  But Pelham had never thwarted him, had exposed his life
+for him, and was always proud of being his faithful, unquestioning,
+humble adherent.  With perhaps this single exception, Leicester found
+himself at the end of his second term in the Provinces, without a single
+friend and with few respectable partisans.  Subordinate mischievous
+intriguers like Deventer, Junius, and Otheman, were his chief advisers
+and the instruments of his schemes.
+
+With such qualifications it was hardly possible--even if the current of
+affairs had been flowing smoothly--that he should prove a successful
+governor of the new republic.  But when the numerous errors and
+adventitious circumstances are considered--for some of which he was
+responsible, while of others he was the victim--it must be esteemed
+fortunate that no great catastrophe occurred.  His immoderate elevation;
+his sudden degradation, his controversy in regard to the sovereignty, his
+abrupt departure for England, his protracted absence, his mistimed
+return, the secret instructions for his second administration, the
+obstinate parsimony and persistent ill-temper of the Queen--who, from the
+beginning to the end of the Earl's government, never addressed a kindly
+word to the Netherlanders, but was ever censuring and brow beating them
+in public state-papers and private epistles--the treason of York and
+Stanley, above all, the disastrous and concealed negotiations with Parma,
+and the desperate attempts upon Amsterdam and Leyden--all placed him in a
+most unfortunate position from first to last.  But he was not competent
+for his post under any circumstances.  He was not the statesman to deal
+in policy with Buys, Barneveld, Ortel, Sainte Aldegonde; nor the soldier
+to measure himself against Alexander Farnese.  His administration was a
+failure; and although he repeatedly hazarded his life, and poured out his
+wealth in their behalf with an almost unequalled liberality, he could
+never gain the hearts of the Netherlanders.  English valour, English
+intelligence, English truthfulness, English generosity, were endearing
+England more and more to Holland.  The statesmen of both countries were
+brought into closest union, and learned to appreciate and to respect
+each other, while they recognized that the fate of their respective
+commonwealths was indissolubly united.  But it was to the efforts of
+Walsingham, Drake, Raleigh, Wilkes, Buckburst, Norris, Willoughby,
+Williams, Vere, Russell, and the brave men who fought under their banners
+or their counsels, on every battle-field, and in every beleaguered town
+in the Netherlands, and to the universal spirit and sagacity of the
+English nation, in this grand crisis of its fate, that these fortunate
+results were owing; not to the Earl of Leicester, nor--during the term of
+his administration--to Queen Elizabeth herself.
+
+In brief, the proper sphere of this remarkable personage, and the one
+in which he passed the greater portion of his existence, was that of a
+magnificent court favourite, the spoiled darling, from youth to his
+death-bed, of the great English Queen; whether to the advantage or not of
+his country and the true interests of his sovereign, there can hardly be
+at this day any difference of opinion.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Act of Uniformity required Papists to assist
+As lieve see the Spanish as the Calvinistic inquisition
+Elizabeth (had not) the faintest idea of religious freedom
+God, whose cause it was, would be pleased to give good weather
+Heretics to the English Church were persecuted
+Look for a sharp war, or a miserable peace
+Loving only the persons who flattered him
+Not many more than two hundred Catholics were executed
+Only citadel against a tyrant and a conqueror was distrust
+Stake or gallows (for) heretics to transubstantiation
+States were justified in their almost unlimited distrust
+Undue anxiety for impartiality
+Wealthy Papists could obtain immunity by an enormous fine
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v54
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 55, 1588
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.  Part 1.
+
+     Prophecies as to the Year 1588--Distracted Condition of the Dutch
+     Republic--Willoughby reluctantly takes Command--English
+     Commissioners come to Ostend--Secretary Gamier and Robert Cecil--
+     Cecil accompanies Dale to Ghent--And finds the Desolation complete--
+     Interview of Dale and Cecil with Parma--His fervent Expressions in
+     favour of Peace--Cecil makes a Tour in Flanders--And sees much that
+     is remarkable--Interviews of Dr. Rogers with Parma--Wonderful
+     Harangues of the Envoy--Extraordinary Amenity of Alexander--With
+     which Rogers is much touched--The Queen not pleased with her Envoy--
+     Credulity of the English Commissioners--Ceremonious Meeting of all
+     the Envoys--Consummate Art in wasting Time--Long Disputes about
+     Commissions--The Spanish Commissions meant to deceive--Disputes
+     about Cessation of Arms--Spanish Duplicity and Procrastination--
+     Pedantry and Credulity of Dr. Dale--The Papal Bull and Dr. Allen's
+     Pamphlet--Dale sent to ask Explanations--Parma denies all Knowledge
+     of either--Croft believes to the last in Alexander.
+
+The year 1588 had at last arrived--that fatal year concerning which the
+German astrologers--more than a century before had prognosticated such
+dire events.  As the epoch approached it was firmly believed by many that
+the end of the world was at hand, while the least superstitious could not
+doubt that great calamities were impending over the nations.  Portents
+observed during the winter and in various parts of Europe came to
+increase the prevailing panic.  It rained blood in Sweden, monstrous
+births occurred in France, and at Weimar it was gravely reported by
+eminent chroniclers that the sun had appeared at mid-day holding a drawn
+sword in his mouth--a warlike portent whose meaning could not be
+mistaken.
+
+But, in truth, it needed no miracles nor prophecies to enforce the
+conviction that a long procession of disasters was steadily advancing.
+With France rent asunder by internal convulsions, with its imbecile king
+not even capable of commanding a petty faction among his own subjects,
+with Spain the dark cause of unnumbered evils, holding Italy in its
+grasp, firmly allied with the Pope, already having reduced and nearly
+absorbed France, and now, after long and patient preparation, about to
+hurl the concentrated vengeance and hatred of long years upon the little
+kingdom of England, and its only ally--the just organized commonwealth of
+the Netherlands--it would have been strange indeed if the dullest
+intellect had not dreamed of tragical events.  It was not encouraging
+that there should be distraction in the counsels of the two States so
+immediately threatened; that the Queen of England should be at variance
+with her wisest and most faithful statesmen as to their course of action,
+and that deadly quarrels should exist between the leading men of the
+Dutch republic and the English governor, who had assumed the
+responsibility of directing its energies against the common enemy.
+
+The blackest night that ever descended upon the Netherlands--more
+disappointing because succeeding a period of comparative prosperity and
+triumph--was the winter of 1587-8, when Leicester had terminated his
+career by his abrupt departure for England, after his second brief
+attempt at administration.  For it was exactly at this moment of anxious
+expectation, when dangers were rolling up from the south till not a ray
+of light or hope could pierce the universal darkness, that the little
+commonwealth was left without a chief.  The English Earl departed,
+shaking the dust from his feet; but he did not resign.  The supreme
+authority--so far as he could claim it--was again transferred,--with his
+person, to England.
+
+The consequences were immediate and disastrous.  All the Leicestrians
+refused to obey the States-General.  Utrecht, the stronghold of that
+party, announced its unequivocal intention to annex itself, without any
+conditions whatever, to the English crown, while, in Holland, young
+Maurice was solemnly installed stadholder, and captain-general of the
+Provinces, under the guidance of Hohenlo and Barneveld.  But his
+authority was openly defied in many important cities within his
+jurisdiction by military chieftains who had taken the oaths of allegiance
+to Leicester as governor, and who refused to renounce fidelity to the man
+who had deserted their country, but who had not resigned his authority.
+Of these mutineers the most eminent was Diedrich Sonoy, governor of North
+Holland, a soldier of much experience, sagacity, and courage, who had
+rendered great services to the cause of liberty and Protestantism, and
+had defaced it by acts of barbarity which had made his name infamous.
+Against this refractory chieftain it was necessary for Hohenlo and
+Maurice to lead an armed force, and to besiege him in his stronghold--
+the important city of Medenblik--which he resolutely held for Leicester,
+although Leicester had definitely departed, and which he closed against
+Maurice, although Maurice was the only representative of order and
+authority within the distracted commonwealth.  And thus civil war had
+broken out in the little scarcely-organized republic, as if there were
+not dangers and bloodshed enough impending over it from abroad.  And the
+civil war was the necessary consequence of the Earl's departure.
+
+The English forces--reduced as they were by sickness, famine, and abject
+poverty--were but a remnant of the brave and well-seasoned bands which
+had faced the Spaniards with success on so many battle-fields.
+
+The general who now assumed chief command over them--by direction of
+Leicester, subsequently confirmed by the Queen--was Lord Willoughby.
+A daring, splendid dragoon, an honest, chivalrous, and devoted servant of
+his Queen, a conscientious adherent of Leicester, and a firm believer in
+his capacity and character, he was, however, not a man of sufficient
+experience or subtlety to perform the various tasks imposed upon him by
+the necessities of such a situation.  Quick-witted, even brilliant in
+intellect, and the bravest of the brave on the battle-field, he was
+neither a sagacious administrator nor a successful commander.  And he
+honestly confessed his deficiencies, and disliked the post to which he
+had been elevated.  He scorned baseness, intrigue, and petty quarrels,
+and he was impatient of control.  Testy, choleric, and quarrelsome, with
+a high sense of honour, and a keen perception of insult, very modest and
+very proud, he was not likely to feed with wholesome appetite upon the
+unsavoury annoyances which were the daily bread of a chief commander in
+the Netherlands.  "I ambitiously affect not high titles, but round
+dealing," he said; "desiring rather to be a private lance with
+indifferent reputation, than a colonel-general spotted or defamed with
+wants."  He was not the politician to be matched against the unscrupulous
+and all-accomplished Farnese; and indeed no man better than Willoughby
+could illustrate the enormous disadvantage under which Englishmen
+laboured at that epoch in their dealings with Italians and Spaniards.
+The profuse indulgence in falsehood which characterized southern
+statesmanship, was more than a match for English love of truth.  English
+soldiers and negotiators went naked into a contest with enemies armed in
+a panoply of lies.  It was an unequal match, as we have already seen,
+and as we are soon more clearly to see.  How was an English soldier who
+valued his knightly word--how were English diplomatists--among whom one
+of the most famous--then a lad of twenty, secretary to Lord Essex in the
+Netherlands--had poetically avowed that "simple truth was highest skill,"
+--to deal with the thronging Spanish deceits sent northward by the great
+father of lies who sat in the Escorial?
+
+"It were an ill lesson," said Willoughby, "to teach soldiers the,
+dissimulations of such as follow princes' courts, in Italy.  For my own
+part, it is my only end to be loyal and dutiful to my sovereign, and
+plain to all others that I honour.  I see the finest reynard loses his
+best coat as well as the poorest sheep."  He was also a strong
+Leicestrian, and had imbibed much of the Earl's resentment against the
+leading politicians of the States.  Willoughby was sorely in need of
+council.  That shrewd and honest Welshman--Roger Williams--was, for the
+moment, absent.  Another of the same race and character commanded in
+Bergen-op-Zoom, but was not more gifted with administrative talent than
+the general himself.
+
+"Sir Thomas Morgan is a very sufficient, gallant gentleman," said
+Willoughby, "and in truth a very old soldier; but we both have need of
+one that can both give and keep counsel better than ourselves.  For
+action he is undoubtedly very able, if there were no other means to
+conquer but only to give blows."
+
+In brief, the new commander of the English forces in the Netherlands was
+little satisfied with the States, with the enemy, or with himself; and
+was inclined to take but a dismal view of the disjointed commonwealth,
+which required so incompetent a person as he professed himself to be to
+set it right.
+
+"'Tis a shame to show my wants," he said, "but too great a fault of duty
+that the Queen's reputation be frustrate.  What is my slender experience!
+What an honourable person do I succeed!  What an encumbered popular state
+is left!  What withered sinews, which it passes my cunning to restore!
+What an enemy in head greater than heretofore!  And wherewithal should I
+sustain this burthen?  For the wars I am fitter to obey than to command.
+For the state, I am a man prejudicated in their opinion, and not the
+better liked of them that have earnestly followed the general, and, being
+one that wants both opinion and experience with them I have to deal, and
+means to win more or to maintain that which is left, what good may be
+looked for?"
+
+The supreme authority--by the retirement of Leicester--was once more the
+subject of dispute.  As on his first departure, so also on this his
+second and final one, he had left a commission to the state-council to
+act as an executive body during his absence.  But, although he--nominally
+still retained his office, in reality no man believed in his return; and
+the States-General were ill inclined to brook a species of guardianship
+over them, with which they believed themselves mature enough to dispense.
+Moreover the state-council, composed mainly of Leicestrians, would
+expire, by limitation of its commission, early in February of that year.
+The dispute for power would necessarily terminate, therefore, in favour
+of the States-General.
+
+Meantime--while this internal revolution was taking place in the polity
+of the commonwealth-the gravest disturbances were its natural
+consequence.  There were mutinies in the garrisons of Heusden, of
+Gertruydenberg, of Medenblik, as alarming, and threatening to become as
+chronic in their character, as those extensive military rebellions which
+often rendered the Spanish troops powerless at the most critical epochs.
+The cause of these mutinies was uniformly, want of pay, the pretext, the
+oath to the Earl of Leicester, which was declared incompatible with the
+allegiance claimed by Maurice in the name of the States-General.  The
+mutiny of Gertruydenberg was destined to be protracted; that of
+Medenblik, dividing, as it did, the little territory of Holland in its
+very heart, it was most important at once to suppress.  Sonoy, however--
+who was so stanch a Leicestrian, that his Spanish contemporaries
+uniformly believed him to be an Englishman--held out for a long time,
+as will be seen, against the threats and even the armed demonstrations of
+Maurice and the States.
+
+Meantime the English sovereign, persisting in her delusion, and despite
+the solemn warnings of her own wisest counsellors; and the passionate
+remonstrances of the States-General of the Netherlands, sent her peace-
+commissioners to the Duke of Parma.
+
+The Earl of Derby, Lord Cobham, Sir James Croft, Valentine Dale, doctor
+of laws, and former ambassador at Vienna, and Dr. Rogers, envoys on the
+part of the Queen, arrived in the Netherlands in February.  The
+commissioners appointed on the part of Farnese were Count Aremberg,
+Champagny, Richardot, Jacob Maas, and Secretary Garnier.
+
+If history has ever furnished a lesson, how an unscrupulous tyrant, who
+has determined upon enlarging his own territories at the expense of his
+neighbours, upon oppressing human freedom wherever it dared to manifest
+itself, with fine phrases of religion and order for ever in his mouth,
+on deceiving his friends and enemies alike, as to his nefarious and
+almost incredible designs, by means of perpetual and colossal falsehoods;
+and if such lessons deserve to be pondered, as a source of instruction
+and guidance for every age, then certainly the secret story of the
+negotiations by which the wise Queen of England was beguiled, and her
+kingdom brought to the verge of ruin, in the spring of 1588, is worthy of
+serious attention.
+
+The English commissioners arrived at Ostend.  With them came Robert
+Cecil, youngest son of Lord-Treasurer Burghley, then twenty-five years of
+age.--He had no official capacity, but was sent by his father, that he
+might improve his diplomatic talents, and obtain some information as to
+the condition of the Netherlands.  A slight, crooked, hump-backed young
+gentleman, dwarfish in stature, but with a face not irregular in feature,
+and thoughtful and subtle in expression, with reddish hair, a thin tawny
+beard, and large, pathetic, greenish-coloured eyes, with a mind and
+manners already trained to courts and cabinets, and with a disposition
+almost ingenuous, as compared to the massive dissimulation with which it
+was to be contrasted, and with what was, in aftertimes, to constitute a
+portion of his own character, Cecil, young as he was, could not be
+considered the least important of the envoys.  The Queen, who loved
+proper men, called him "her pigmy;" and "although," he observed with
+whimsical courtliness, "I may not find fault with the sporting name she
+gives me, yet seem I only not to mislike it, because she gives it."  The
+strongest man among them was Valentine Dale, who had much shrewdness,
+experience, and legal learning, but who valued himself, above all things,
+upon his Latinity.  It was a consolation to him, while his adversaries
+were breaking Priscian's head as fast as the Duke, their master, was
+breaking his oaths, that his own syntax was as clear as his conscience.
+The feeblest commissioner was James-a-Croft, who had already exhibited
+himself with very anile characteristics, and whose subsequent
+manifestations were to seem like dotage.  Doctor Rogers, learned in the
+law, as he unquestionably was, had less skill in reading human character,
+or in deciphering the physiognomy of a Farnese, while Lord Derby, every
+inch a grandee, with Lord Cobham to assist him, was not the man to cope
+with the astute Richardot, the profound and experienced Champagny, or
+that most voluble and most rhetorical of doctors of law, Jacob Maas of
+Antwerp.
+
+The commissioners, on their arrival, were welcomed by Secretary Garnier,
+who had been sent to Ostend to greet them.  An adroit, pleasing,
+courteous gentleman, thirty-six years of age, small, handsome, and
+attired not quite as a soldier, nor exactly as one of the long robe,
+wearing a cloak furred to the knee, a cassock of black velvet, with plain
+gold buttons, and a gold chain about his neck, the secretary delivered
+handsomely the Duke of Parma's congratulations, recommended great
+expedition in the negotiations, and was then invited by the Earl of Derby
+to dine with the commissioners.  He was accompanied by a servant in plain
+livery, who--so soon as his master had made his bow to the English
+envoys--had set forth for a stroll through the town.  The modest-looking
+valet, however, was a distinguished engineer in disguise, who had
+been sent by Alexander for the especial purpose of examining the
+fortifications of Ostend--that town being a point much coveted,
+and liable to immediate attack by the Spanish commander.
+
+Meanwhile Secretary Gamier made himself very agreeable, showing wit,
+experience, and good education; and, after dinner, was accompanied to
+his lodgings by Dr. Rogers and other gentlemen, with whom--especially
+with Cecil--he held much conversation.
+
+Knowing that this young gentleman "wanted not an honourable father," the
+Secretary was very desirous that he should take this opportunity to make
+a tour through the Provinces, examine the cities, and especially "note
+the miserable ruins of the poor country and people."  He would then
+feelingly perceive how much they had to answer for, whose mad rebellion
+against their sovereign lord and master had caused so great an effusion
+of blood, and the wide desolation of such goodly towns and territories.
+
+Cecil probably entertained a suspicion that the sovereign lord and
+master, who had been employed, twenty years long, in butchering his
+subjects and in ravaging their territory to feed his executioners and
+soldiers, might almost be justified in treating human beings as beasts
+and reptiles, if they had not at last rebelled.  He simply and
+diplomatically answered, however, that he could not but concur with the
+Secretary in lamenting the misery of the Provinces and people so utterly
+despoiled and ruined, but, as it might be matter of dispute; "from what
+head this fountain of calamity was both fed and derived, he would not
+enter further therein, it being a matter much too high for his capacity."
+He expressed also the hope that the King's heart might sympathize with
+that of her Majesty, in earnest compassion for all this suffering, and in
+determination to compound their differences.
+
+On the following day there was some conversation with Gamier, on
+preliminary and formal matters, followed in the evening by a dinner at
+Lord Cobham's lodgings--a banquet which the forlorn condition of the
+country scarcely permitted to be luxurious.  "We rather pray here for
+satiety," said Cecil, "than ever think of variety."
+
+It was hoped by the Englishmen that the Secretary would take his
+departure after dinner; for the governor of Ostend, Sir John Conway, had
+an uneasy sensation, during his visit, that the unsatisfactory condition
+of the defences would attract his attention, and that a sudden attack by
+Farnese might be the result.  Sir John was not aware however, of the
+minute and scientific observations then making at the very moment when
+Mr. Garnier was entertaining the commissioners with his witty and
+instructive conversation--by the unobtrusive menial who had accompanied
+the Secretary to Ostend.  In order that those observations might be as
+thorough as possible, rather than with any view to ostensible business,
+the envoy of Parma now declared that--on account of the unfavourable
+state of the tide--he had resolved to pass another night at Ostend.
+"We could have spared his company," said Cecil, "but their Lordships
+considered it convenient that he should be used well."  So Mr.
+Comptroller Croft gave the affable Secretary a dinner-invitation
+for the following day.
+
+Here certainly was a masterly commencement on the part of the Spanish
+diplomatists.  There was not one stroke of business during the visit of
+the Secretary.  He had been sent simply to convey a formal greeting, and
+to take the names of the English commissioners--a matter which could have
+been done in an hour as well as in a week.  But it must be remembered,
+that, at that very moment, the Duke was daily expecting intelligence of
+the sailing of the Armada, and that Philip, on his part, supposed the
+Duke already in England, at the head of his army.  Under these
+circumstances, therefore--when the whole object of the negotiation, so
+far as Parma and his master were, concerned, was to amuse and to gain
+time--it was already ingenious in Garnier to have consumed several days
+in doing nothing; and to have obtained plans and descriptions of Ostend
+into the bargain.
+
+Garnier--when his departure could no longer, on any pretext, be deferred
+--took his leave, once more warmly urging Robert Cecil to make a little
+tour in the obedient Netherlands, and to satisfy himself, by personal
+observation, of their miserable condition.  As Dr. Dale purposed making a
+preliminary visit to the Duke of Parma at Ghent, it was determined
+accordingly that he should be accompanied by Cecil.
+
+That young gentleman had already been much impressed by the forlorn
+aspect of the country about Ostend--for, although the town was itself in
+possession of the English, it was in the midst of the enemy's territory.
+Since the fall of Sluys the Spaniards were masters of all Flanders, save
+this one much-coveted point.  And although the Queen had been disposed to
+abandon that city, and to suffer the ocean to overwhelm it, rather than
+that she should be at charges to defend it, yet its possession was of
+vital consequence to the English-Dutch cause, as time was ultimately to
+show.  Meanwhile the position was already a very important one, for--
+according to the predatory system of warfare of the day--it was an
+excellent starting-point for those marauding expeditions against persons
+and property, in which neither the Dutch nor English were less skilled
+than the Flemings or Spaniards.  "The land all about here," said Cecil,
+"is so devastated, that where the open country was wont to be covered
+with kine and sheep, it is now fuller of wild boars and wolves; whereof
+many come so nigh the town that the sentinels--three of whom watch every
+night upon a sand-hill outside the gates--have had them in a dark night
+upon them ere they were aware."
+
+But the garrison of Ostend was quite as dangerous to the peasants and the
+country squires of Flanders, as were the wolves or wild boars; and many a
+pacific individual of retired habits, and with a remnant of property
+worth a ransom, was doomed to see himself whisked from his seclusion by
+Conway's troopers, and made a compulsory guest at the city.  Prisoners
+were brought in from a distance of sixty miles; and there was one old
+gentlemen, "well-languaged," who "confessed merrily to Cecil, that when
+the soldiers fetched him out of his own mansion-house, sitting safe in
+his study, he was as little in fear of the garrison of Ostend as he was
+of the Turk or the devil."
+
+     [And Doctor Rogers held very similar language: "The most dolorous
+     and heavy sights in this voyage to Ghent, by me weighed," he said;
+     "seeing the countries which, heretofore; by traffic of merchants, as
+     much as any other I have seen flourish, now partly drowned, and,
+     except certain great cities, wholly burned, ruined, and desolate,
+     possessed I say, with wolves, wild boars, and foxes--a great,
+     testimony of the wrath of God," &c. &c.  Dr. Rogers to the Queen,-
+     April, 1588.  (S. P.  Office MS.)]
+
+Three days after the departure of Garnier, Dr. Dale and his attendants
+started upon their expedition from Ostend to Ghent--an hour's journey or
+so in these modern times.--The English envoys, in the sixteenth century,
+found it a more formidable undertaking.  They were many hours traversing
+the four miles to Oudenburg, their first halting-place; for the waters
+were out, there having been a great breach of the sea-dyke of Ostend, a
+disaster threatening destruction to town and country.  At Oudenburg, a
+"small and wretched hole," as Garnier had described it to be, there was,
+however, a garrison of three thousand Spanish soldiers, under the Marquis
+de Renti.  From these a convoy of fifty troopers was appointed to protect
+the English travellers to Bruges.  Here they arrived at three o'clock,
+were met outside the gates by the famous General La Motte, and by him
+escorted to their lodgings in the "English house," and afterwards
+handsomely entertained at supper in his own quarters.
+
+The General's wife; Madame de la Motte, was, according to Cecil, "a fair
+gentlewoman of discreet and modest behaviour, and yet not unwilling
+sometimes to hear herself speak;" so that in her society, and in that of
+her sister--"a nun of the order of the Mounts, but who, like the rest of
+the sisterhood, wore an ordinary dress in the evening, and might leave
+the convent if asked in marriage"--the supper passed off very agreeably.
+
+In the evening Cecil found that his father had formerly occupied the same
+bedroom of the English hotel in which he was then lodged; for he found
+that Lord Burghley had scrawled his name in the chimney-corner--a fact
+which was highly gratifying to the son.
+
+The next morning, at seven o'clock, the travellers set forth for Ghent.
+The journey was a miserable one.  It was as cold and gloomy weather as
+even a Flemish month of March could furnish.  A drizzling rain was
+falling all day long, the lanes were foul and miry, the frequent thickets
+which overhung their path were swarming with the freebooters of Zeeland,
+who were "ever at hand," says Cecil, "to have picked our purses, but that
+they descried our convoy, and so saved themselves in the woods."  Sitting
+on horseback ten hours without alighting, under such circumstances as
+these, was not luxurious for a fragile little gentleman like Queen
+Elizabeth's "pigmy;" especially as Dr. Dale and himself had only half a
+red herring between them for luncheon, and supped afterwards upon an
+orange.  The envoy protested that when they could get a couple of eggs a
+piece, while travelling in Flanders, "they thought they fared like
+princes."
+
+Nevertheless Cecil and himself fought it out manfully, and when they
+reached Ghent, at five in the evening, they were met by their
+acquaintance Garnier, and escorted to their lodgings.  Here they were
+waited upon by President Richardot, "a tall gentleman," on behalf of the
+Duke of Parma, and then left to their much-needed repose.
+
+Nothing could be more forlorn than the country of the obedient
+Netherlands, through which their day's journey had led them.  Desolation
+had been the reward of obedience.  "The misery of the inhabitants," said
+Cecil, "is incredible, both without the town, where all things are
+wasted, houses spoiled, and grounds unlaboured, and also, even in these
+great cities, where they are for the most part poor beggars even in the
+fairest houses."
+
+And all this human wretchedness was the elaborate work of one man--one
+dull, heartless bigot, living, far away, a life of laborious ease and
+solemn sensuality; and, in reality, almost as much removed from these
+fellow-creatures of his, whom he called his subjects, as if he had been
+the inhabitant of another planet.  Has history many more instructive
+warnings against the horrors of arbitrary government--against the folly
+of mankind in ever tolerating the rule of a single irresponsible
+individual, than the lesson furnished by the life-work of that crowned
+criminal, Philip the Second?
+
+The longing for peace on the part of these unfortunate obedient Flemings
+was intense.  Incessant cries for peace reached the ears of the envoys on
+every side.  Alas, it would have been better for these peace-wishers, had
+they stood side by side with their brethren, the noble Hollanders and
+Zeelanders, when they had been wresting, if not peace, yet independence
+and liberty, from Philip, with their own right hands.  Now the obedient
+Flemings were but fuel for the vast flame which the monarch was kindling
+for the destruction of Christendom--if all Christendom were not willing
+to accept his absolute dominion.
+
+The burgomasters of Ghent--of Ghent, once the powerful, the industrious,
+the opulent, the free, of all cities in the world now the most abject and
+forlorn--came in the morning to wait upon Elizabeth's envoy, and to
+present him, according to ancient custom, with some flasks of wine.  They
+came with tears streaming down their cheeks, earnestly expressing the
+desire of their hearts for peace, and their joy that at least it had now
+"begun to be thought on."
+
+"It is quite true," replied Dr. Dale, "that her excellent Majesty the
+Queen--filled with compassion for your condition, and having been
+informed that the Duke of Parma is desirous of peace--has vouchsafed to
+make this overture.  If it take not the desired effect, let not the blame
+rest upon her, but upon her adversaries."  To these words the magistrates
+all said Amen, and invoked blessings on her Majesty.  And most certainly,
+Elizabeth was sincerely desirous of peace; even at greater sacrifices
+than the Duke could well have imagined; but there was something almost
+diabolic in the cold dissimulation by which her honest compassion was
+mocked, and the tears of a whole people in its agony made the
+laughingstock of a despot and his tools.
+
+On Saturday morning, Richardot and Garnier waited upon the envoy to
+escort him to the presence of the Duke.  Cecil, who accompanied him, was
+not much impressed with the grandeur of Alexander's lodgings; and made
+unfavourable and rather unreasonable comparisons between them and the
+splendour of Elizabeth's court.  They passed through an ante-chamber into
+a dining-room, thence into an inner chamber, and next into the Duke's
+room.  In the ante-chamber stood Sir William Stanley, the Deventer
+traitor, conversing with one Mockett, an Englishman, long resident in
+Flanders.  Stanley was meanly dressed, in the Spanish fashion, and as
+young Cecil, passing through the chamber, looked him in the face, he
+abruptly turned from him, and pulled his hat over his eyes.  "'Twas well
+he did so," said that young gentleman, "for his taking it off would
+hardly have cost me mine."  Cecil was informed that Stanley was to have
+a commandery of Malta, and was in good favour with the Duke, who was,
+however, quite weary of his mutinous and disorderly Irish regiment.
+
+In the bed-chamber, Farnese--accompanied by the Marquis del Guasto, the
+Marquis of Renty, the Prince of Aremberg, President Richardot, and
+Secretary Cosimo--received the envoy and his companion.  "Small and mean
+was the furniture of the chamber," said Cecil; "and although they
+attribute this to his love of privacy, yet it is a sign that peace is the
+mother of all honour and state, as may best be perceived by the court of
+England, which her Majesty's royal presence doth so adorn, as that it
+exceedeth this as far as the sun surpasseth in light the other stars of
+the firmament."
+
+Here was a compliment to the Queen and her upholsterers drawn in by the
+ears.  Certainly, if the first and best fruit of the much-longed-for
+peace were only to improve the furniture of royal and ducal apartments,
+it might be as well perhaps for the war to go on, while the Queen
+continued to outshine all the stars in the firmament.  But the budding
+courtier and statesman knew that a personal compliment to Elizabeth could
+never be amiss or ill-timed.
+
+The envoy delivered the greetings of her Majesty to the Duke, and was
+heard with great attention.  Alexander attempted a reply in French, which
+was very imperfect, and, apologizing, exchanged that tongue for Italian.
+He alluded with great fervour to the "honourable opinion concerning his
+sincerity and word," expressed to him by her Majesty, through the mouth
+of her envoy.  "And indeed," said he, "I have always had especial care of
+keeping my word.  My body and service are at the commandment of the King,
+my lord and master, but my honour is my own, and her Majesty may be
+assured that I shall always have especial regard of my word to so great
+and famous a Queen as her Majesty."
+
+The visit was one of preliminaries and of ceremony.  Nevertheless Farnese
+found opportunity to impress the envoy and his companions with his
+sincerity of heart.  He conversed much with Cecil, making particular and
+personal inquiries, and with appearance of deep interest, in regard to
+Queen Elizabeth.
+
+"There is not a prince in the world--" he said, "reserving all question
+between her Majesty and my royal master--to whom I desire more to do
+service.  So much have I heard of her perfections, that I wish earnestly
+that things might so fall out, as that it might be my fortune to look
+upon her face before my return to my own country.  Yet I desire to behold
+her, not as a servant to him who is not able still to maintain war, or as
+one that feared any harm that might befall him; for in such matters my
+account was made long ago, to endure all which God may send.  But, in
+truth, I am weary to behold the miserable estate of this people, fallen
+upon them through their own folly, and methinks that he who should do the
+best offices of peace would perform a 'pium et sanctissimum opus.'  Right
+glad am I that the Queen is not behind me in zeal for peace."  He then
+complimented Cecil in regard to his father, whom he understood to be the
+principal mover in these negotiations.
+
+The young man expressed his thanks, and especially for the good affection
+which the Duke had manifested to the Queen and in the blessed cause of
+peace.  He was well aware that her Majesty esteemed him a prince of great
+honour and virtue, and that for this good work, thus auspiciously begun,
+no man could possibly doubt that her Majesty, like himself, was most
+zealously affected to bring all things to a perfect peace.
+
+The matters discussed in this first interview were only in regard to the
+place to be appointed for the coming conferences, and the exchange of
+powers.  The Queen's commissioners had expected to treat at Ostend.
+Alexander, on the contrary, was unable to listen to such a suggestion,
+as it would be utter dereliction of his master's dignity to send envoys
+to a city of his own, now in hostile occupation by her Majesty's forces.
+The place of conference, therefore, would be matter of future
+consideration.  In respect to the exchange of powers, Alexander expressed
+the hope that no man would doubt as to the production on his
+commissioners' part of ample authority both from himself and from the
+King.
+
+Yet it will be remembered, that, at this moment, the Duke had not only no
+powers from the King, but that Philip had most expressly refused to send
+a commission, and that he fully expected the negotiation to be superseded
+by the invasion, before the production of the powers should become
+indispensable.
+
+And when Farnese was speaking thus fervently in favour of peace, and
+parading his word and his honour, the letters lay in his cabinet in that
+very room, in which Philip expressed his conviction that his general was
+already in London, that the whole realm of England was already at the
+mercy of a Spanish soldiery, and that the Queen, upon whose perfection
+Alexander had so long yearned to gaze, was a discrowned captive, entirely
+in her great enemy's power.
+
+Thus ended the preliminary interview.  On the following Monday, 11th
+March, Dr. Dale and his attendants made the best of their way back to
+Ostend, while young Cecil, with a safe conduct from Champagny, set forth
+on a little tour in Flanders.
+
+The journey from Ghent to Antwerp was easy, and he was agreeably
+surprised by the apparent prosperity of the country.  At intervals of
+every few miles; he was refreshed with the spectacle of a gibbet well
+garnished with dangling freebooters; and rejoiced, therefore, in
+comparative security.  For it seemed that the energetic bailiff of
+Waasland had levied a contribution upon the proprietors of the country,
+to be expended mainly in hanging brigands; and so well had the funds been
+applied, that no predatory bands could make their appearance but they
+were instantly pursued by soldiers, and hanged forthwith, without judge
+or trial.  Cecil counted twelve such places of execution on his road
+between Ghent and Antwerp.
+
+On his journey he fell in with an Italian merchant,--Lanfranchi by name,
+of a great commercial house in Antwerp, in the days when Antwerp had
+commerce, and by him, on his arrival the same evening in that town, he
+was made an honoured guest, both for his father's sake and his Queen's.
+"'Tis the pleasantest city that ever I saw," said Cecil, "for situation
+and building; but utterly left and abandoned now by those rich merchants
+that were wont to frequent the place."
+
+His host was much interested in the peace-negotiations, and indeed,
+through his relations with Champagny and Andreas de Loo, had been one of
+the instruments by which it had been commenced.  He inveighed bitterly
+against the Spanish captains and soldiers, to whose rapacity and ferocity
+he mainly ascribed the continuance of the war;--and he was especially
+incensed with Stanley and other--English renegades, who were thought
+fiercer haters of England than were the Spaniards themselves: Even in the
+desolate and abject condition of Antwerp and its neighbourhood, at that
+moment, the quick eye of Cecil detected the latent signs of a possible
+splendour.  Should peace be restored, the territory once more be tilled,
+and the foreign merchants attracted thither again, he believed that the
+governor of the obedient Netherlands might live there in more
+magnificence than the King of Spain himself, exhausted as were his
+revenues by the enormous expense of this protracted war: Eight hundred
+thousand dollars monthly; so Lanfranchi informed Cecil, were the costs
+of the forces on the footing then established.  This, however, was
+probably an exaggeration, for the royal account books showed a less
+formidable sum, although a sufficiently large one to appal a less
+obstinate bigot than Philip.  But what to him were the, ruin of the
+Netherlands; the impoverishment of Spain, and the downfall of her ancient
+grandeur compared to the glory of establishing the Inquisition in England
+and Holland?
+
+While at dinner in Lanfranchi's house; Cecil was witness to another
+characteristic of the times, and one which afforded proof of even more
+formidable freebooters abroad than those for whom the bailiff of Waasland
+had erected his gibbets.  A canal-boat had left Antwerp for Brussels that
+morning, and in the vicinity of the latter city had been set upon by a
+detachment from the English garrison of Bergen-op-Zoom, and captured,
+with twelve prisoners and a freight of 60,000 florins in money.  "This
+struck the company at the dinner-table all in a dump;" said Cecil.  And
+well it might; for the property mainly belonged to themselves, and they
+forthwith did their best to have the marauders waylaid on their return.
+But Cecil, notwithstanding his gratitude for the hospitality of
+Lanfranchi, sent word next day to the garrison of Bergen of the designs
+against them, and on his arrival at the place had the satisfaction of
+being informed by Lord Willoughby that the party had got safe home with
+their plunder.
+
+"And, well worthy they are of it," said young Robert, "considering how
+far they go for it."
+
+The traveller, on, leaving Antwerp, proceeded down the river to Bergen-
+op-Zoom, where he was hospitably entertained by that doughty old soldier
+Sir William Reade, and met Lord Willoughby, whom he accompanied to
+Brielle on a visit to the deposed elector Truchsess, then living in that
+neighbourhood.  Cecil--who was not passion's slave--had small sympathy
+with the man who could lose a sovereignty for the sake of Agnes Mansfeld.
+"'Tis a very goodly gentleman," said he, "well fashioned, and of good
+speech, for which I must rather praise him than for loving a wife better
+than so great a fortune as he lost by her occasion."  At Brielle he
+was handsomely entertained by the magistrates, who had agreeable
+recollections of his brother Thomas, late governor of that city.
+Thence he proceeded by way of Delft--which, like all English travellers,
+he described as "the finest built town that ever he saw"--to the Hague,
+and thence to Fushing, and so back by sea to Ostend.--He had made the
+most of his three weeks' tour, had seen many important towns both in the
+republic and in the obedient Netherlands, and had conversed with many
+"tall gentlemen," as he expressed himself, among the English commanders,
+having been especially impressed by the heroes of Sluys, Baskerville and
+that "proper gentleman Francis Vere."
+
+He was also presented by Lord Willoughby to Maurice of Nassau, and was
+perhaps not very benignantly received by the young prince.  At that
+particular moment, when Leicester's deferred resignation, the rebellion
+of Sonoy in North Holland, founded on a fictitious allegiance to the late
+governor-general, the perverse determination of the Queen to treat for
+peace against the advice of all the leading statesmen of the Netherlands,
+and the sharp rebukes perpetually administered by her, in consequence,
+to the young stadholder and all his supporters, had not tended to produce
+the most tender feelings upon their part towards the English government,
+it was not surprising that the handsome soldier should look askance at
+the crooked little courtier, whom even the great Queen smiled at while
+she petted him.  Cecil was very angry with Maurice.
+
+"In my life I never saw worse behaviour," he said, "except it were in one
+lately come from school.  There is neither outward appearance in him of
+any noble mind nor inward virtue."
+
+Although Cecil had consumed nearly the whole month of March in his tour,
+he had been more profitably employed than were the royal commissioners
+during the same period at Ostend.
+
+Never did statesmen know better how not to do that which they were
+ostensibly occupied in doing than Alexander Farnese and his agents,
+Champagny, Richardot, Jacob Maas, and Gamier.  The first pretext by which
+much time was cleverly consumed was the dispute as to the place of
+meeting.  Doctor Dale had already expressed his desire for Ostend as the
+place of colloquy.  "'Tis a very slow old gentleman, this Doctor Dale,"
+said Alexander; "he was here in the time of Madam my mother, and has also
+been ambassador at Vienna.  I have received him and his attendants with
+great courtesy, and held out great hopes of peace.  We had conversations
+about the place of meeting.  He wishes Ostend: I object.  The first
+conference will probably be at some point between that place and
+Newport."
+
+The next opportunity for discussion and delay was afforded by the
+question of powers.  And it must be ever borne in mind that Alexander was
+daily expecting the arrival of the invading fleets and armies of Spain,
+and was holding himself in readiness to place himself at their head for
+the conquest of England.  This was, of course, so strenuously denied by
+himself and those under his influence, that Queen Elizabeth implicitly.
+believed him, Burghley was lost in doubt, and even the astute Walsingham
+began to distrust his own senses.  So much strength does a falsehood
+acquire in determined and skilful hands.
+
+"As to the commissions, it will be absolutely necessary for, your Majesty
+to send them," wrote Alexander at the moment when he was receiving the
+English envoy at Ghent, "for unless the Armada arrive soon--it will be
+indispensable for me, to have them, in order to keep the negotiation
+alive.  Of course they will never broach the principal matters without
+exhibition of powers.  Richardot is aware of the secret which your
+Majesty confided to me, namely, that the negotiations are only intended
+to deceive the Queen and to gain time for the fleet; but the powers must
+be sent in order that we may be able to produce them; although your
+secret intentions will be obeyed."
+
+The Duke commented, however, on the extreme difficulty of carrying out
+the plan, as originally proposed.  "The conquest of England would have
+been difficult," he said, "even although the country had been taken by
+surprise.  Now they are strong and armed; we are comparatively weak.  The
+danger and the doubt are great; and the English deputies, I think, are
+really desirous of peace.  Nevertheless I am at your Majesty's
+disposition--life and all--and probably, before the answer arrives to
+this letter, the fleet will have arrived, and I shall have undertaken the
+passage to England."
+
+After three weeks had thus adroitly been frittered away, the English
+commissioners became somewhat impatient, and despatched Doctor Rogers to
+the Duke at Ghent.  This was extremely obliging upon their part, for if
+Valentine Dale were a "slow old gentleman," he was keen, caustic, and
+rapid, as compared to John Rogers.  A formalist and a pedant, a man of
+red tape and routine, full of precedents and declamatory commonplaces
+which he mistook for eloquence, honest as daylight and tedious as a king,
+he was just the time-consumer for Alexander's purpose.  The wily Italian
+listened with profound attention to the wise saws in which the excellent
+diplomatist revelled, and his fine eyes often filled with tears at the
+Doctor's rhetoric.
+
+Three interviews--each three mortal hours long--did the two indulge in at
+Ghent, and never, was high-commissioner better satisfied with himself
+than was John Rogers upon those occasions.  He carried every point; he
+convinced, he softened, he captivated the great Duke; he turned the great
+Duke round his finger.  The great Duke smiled, or wept, or fell into his
+arms, by turns.  Alexander's military exploits had rung through the
+world, his genius for diplomacy and statesmanship had never been
+disputed; but his talents as a light comedian were, in these interviews,
+for the first time fully revealed.
+
+On the 26th March the learned Doctor made his first bow and performed his
+first flourish of compliments at Ghent.  "I assure your Majesty," said
+he, "his Highness followed my compliments of entertainment with so much
+honour, as that--his Highness or I, speaking of the Queen of England--he
+never did less than uncover his head; not covering the same, unless I was
+covered also."  And after these salutations had at last been got through
+with, thus spake the Doctor of Laws to the Duke of Parma:--
+
+"Almighty God, the light of lights, be pleased to enlighten the
+understanding of your Alteza, and to direct the same to his glory, to the
+uniting of both their Majesties and the finishing of these most bloody
+wars, whereby these countries, being in the highest degree of misery
+desolate, lie as it were prostrate before the wrathful presence of the
+most mighty God, most lamentably beseeching his Divine Majesty to
+withdraw his scourge of war from them, and to move the hearts of princes
+to restore them unto peace, whereby they might attain unto their ancient
+flower and dignity.  Into the hands of your Alteza are now the lives of
+many thousands, the destruction of cities, towns, and countries, which to
+put to the fortune of war how perilous it were, I pray consider.  Think
+ye, ye see the mothers left alive tendering their offspring in your
+presence, 'nam matribus detestata bells,'"  continued the orator.  "Think
+also of others of all sexes, ages, and conditions, on their knees before
+your Alteza, most humbly praying and crying most dolorously to spare
+their lives, and save their property from the ensanguined scourge of the
+insane soldiers," and so on, and so on.
+
+Now Philip II.  was slow in resolving, slower in action. The ponderous
+three-deckers of Biscay were notoriously the dullest sailers ever known,
+nor were the fettered slaves who rowed the great galleys of Portugal or
+of Andalusia very brisk in their movements; and yet the King might have
+found time to marshal his ideas and his squadrons, and the Armada had
+leisure to circumnavigate the globe and invade England afterwards, if a
+succession of John Rogerses could have entertained his Highness with
+compliments while the preparations were making.
+
+But Alexander--at the very outset of the Doctor's eloquence--found it
+difficult to suppress his feelings.  "I can assure your Majesty," said
+Rogers, "that his eyes--he has a very large eye--were moistened.
+Sometimes they were thrown upward to heaven, sometimes they were fixed
+full upon me, sometimes they were cast downward, well declaring how his
+heart was affected."
+
+Honest John even thought it necessary to mitigate the effect of his
+rhetoric, and to assure his Highness that it was, after all, only he
+Doctor Rogers, and not the minister plenipotentiary of the Queen's most
+serene Majesty, who was exciting all this emotion.
+
+"At this part of my speech," said he, "I prayed his Highness not to be
+troubled, for that the same only proceeded from Doctor Rogers, who, it
+might please him to know, was so much moved with the pitiful case of
+these countries, as also that which of war was sure to ensue, that I
+wished, if my body were full of rivers of blood, the same to be poured
+forth to satisfy any that were blood-thirsty, so there might an assured
+peace follow."
+
+His Highness, at any rate, manifesting no wish to drink of such
+sanguinary streams--even had the Doctor's body contained them--Rogers
+became calmer.  He then descended from rhetoric to jurisprudence and
+casuistry, and argued at intolerable length the propriety of commencing
+the conferences at Ostend, and of exhibiting mutually the commissions.
+
+It is quite unnecessary to follow him as closely as did Farnese.  When he
+had finished the first part of his oration, however, and was "addressing
+himself to the second point," Alexander at last interrupted the torrent
+of his eloquence.
+
+"He said that my divisions and subdivisions," wrote the Doctor, "were
+perfectly in his remembrance, and that he would first answer the first
+point, and afterwards give audience to the second, and answer the same
+accordingly."
+
+Accordingly Alexander put on his hat, and begged the envoy also to be
+covered.  Then, "with great gravity, as one inwardly much moved," the
+Duke took up his part in the dialogue.
+
+"Signor Ruggieri," said he, "you have propounded unto me speeches of two
+sorts: the one proceeds from Doctor Ruggieri, the other from the lord
+ambassador of the most serene Queen of England.  Touching the first, I do
+give you my hearty thanks for your godly speeches, assuring you that
+though, by reason I have always followed the wars, I cannot be ignorant
+of the calamities by you alleged, yet you have so truly represented the
+same before mine eyes as to effectuate in me at this instant, not only
+the confirmation of mine own disposition to have peace, but also an
+assurance that this treaty shall take good and speedy end, seeing that it
+hath pleased God to raise up such a good instrument as you are."
+
+"Many are the causes," continued the Duke, "which, besides my
+disposition, move me to peace.  My father and mother are dead; my son
+is a young prince; my house has truly need of my presence.  I am not
+ignorant how ticklish a thing is the fortune of war, which--how
+victorious soever I have been--may in one moment not only deface the
+same, but also deprive me of my life.  The King, my master, is now,
+stricken in years, his children are young, his dominions in trouble.
+His desire is to live, and to leave his posterity in quietness.  The
+glory of God, the honor of both their Majesties, and the good of these
+countries, with the stay of the effusion of Christian blood, and divers
+other like reasons, force him to peace."
+
+Thus spoke Alexander, like an honest Christian gentleman, avowing the
+most equitable and pacific dispositions on the part of his master and
+himself.  Yet at that moment he knew that the Armada was about to sail,
+that his own nights and days were passed in active preparations for war,
+and that no earthly power could move Philip by one hair's-breadth from
+his purpose to conquer England that summer.
+
+It would be superfluous to follow the Duke or the Doctor through their
+long dialogue on the place of conference, and the commissions.  Alexander
+considered it "infamy" on his name if he should send envoys to a place of
+his master's held by the enemy.  He was also of opinion that it was
+unheard of to exhibit commissions previous to a preliminary colloquy.
+
+Both propositions were strenuously contested by Rogers.  In regard to the
+second point in particular, he showed triumphantly, by citations from the
+"Polonians, Prussians, and Lithuanians," that commissions ought to be
+previously exhibited.  But it was not probable that even the Doctor's
+learning and logic would persuade Alexander to produce his commission;
+because, unfortunately, he had no commission to produce.  A comfortable
+argument on the subject, however, would, none the less, consume time.
+
+Three hours of this work brought them, exhausted and hungry; to the hour
+of noon and of dinner Alexander, with profuse and smiling thanks for the
+envoy's plain dealing and eloquence, assured him that there would have
+been peace long ago "had Doctor Rogers always been the instrument," and
+regretted that he was himself not learned enough to deal creditably with
+him.  He would, however, send Richardot to bear him company at table,
+and chop logic with him afterwards.
+
+Next day, at the same, hour, the Duke and Doctor had another encounter.
+So soon as the envoy made his appearance, he found himself "embraced most
+cheerfully and familiarly by his Alteza," who, then entering at once into
+business, asked as to the Doctor's second point.
+
+The Doctor answered with great alacrity.
+
+"Certain expressions have been reported to her Majesty," said he, "as
+coming both from your Highness and from Richardot, hinting at a possible
+attempt by the King of Spain's forces against the Queen.  Her Majesty,
+gathering that you are going about belike to terrify her, commands me to
+inform you very clearly and very expressly that she does not deal so
+weakly in her government, nor so improvidently, but that she is provided
+for anything that might be attempted against her by the King, and as able
+to offend him as he her Majesty."
+
+Alexander--with a sad countenance, as much offended, his eyes declaring
+miscontentment--asked who had made such a report.
+
+"Upon the honour of a gentleman," said he, "whoever has said this has
+much abused me, and evil acquitted himself.  They who know me best are
+aware that it is not my manner to let any word pass my lips that might
+offend any prince."  Then, speaking most solemnly, he added, "I declare
+really and truly (which two words he said in Spanish), that I know not of
+any intention of the King of Spain against her Majesty or her realm."
+
+At that moment the earth did not open--year of portents though it was--
+and the Doctor, "singularly rejoicing" at this authentic information from
+the highest source, proceeded cheerfully with the conversation.
+
+"I hold myself," he exclaimed, "the man most satisfied in the world,
+because I may now write to her Majesty that I have heard your Highness
+upon your honour use these words."
+
+"Upon my honour, it is true," repeated the Duke; "for so honourably do I
+think of her Majesty, as that, after the King, my master, I would honour
+and serve her before any prince in Christendom."  He added many earnest
+asseverations of similar import.
+
+"I do not deny, however," continued Alexander, "that I have heard of
+certain ships having been armed by the King against that Draak"--he
+pronounced the "a" in Drake's name very broadly, or Doric" who has
+committed so many outrages; but I repeat that I have never heard of any
+design against her Majesty or against England."
+
+The Duke then manifested much anxiety to know by whom he had been so
+misrepresented.  "There has been no one with me but Dr. Dale," said, he,
+"and I marvel that he should thus wantonly have injured me."
+
+"Dr. Dale," replied Ropers, "is a man of honour, of good years, learned,
+and well experienced; but perhaps he unfortunately misapprehended some of
+your Alteza's words, and thought himself bound by his allegiance strictly
+to report them to her Majesty."
+
+"I grieve that I should be misrepresented and injured," answered Farnese,
+"in a manner so important to my honour.  Nevertheless, knowing the
+virtues with which her Majesty is endued, I assure myself that the
+protestations I am now making will entirely satisfy her."
+
+He then expressed the fervent hope that the holy work of negotiation now
+commencing would result in a renewal of the ancient friendship between
+the Houses of Burgundy and of England, asserting that "there had never
+been so favourable a time as the present."
+
+Under former governments of the Netherlands there had been many mistakes
+and misunderstandings.
+
+"The Duke of Alva," said he, "has learned by this time, before the
+judgment-seat of God, how he discharged his functions, succeeding as he
+did my mother, the Duchess of Parma who left the Provinces in so
+flourishing a condition.  Of this, however, I will say no more, because
+of a feud between the Houses of Farnese and of Alva.  As for Requesens,
+he was a good fellow, but didn't understand his business.  Don John of
+Austria again, whose soul I doubt not is in heaven, was young and poor,
+and disappointed in all his designs; but God has never offered so great a
+hope of assured peace as might now be accomplished by her Majesty."
+
+Finding the Duke in so fervent and favourable a state of mind, the envoy
+renewed his demand that at least the first meeting of the commissioners
+might be held at Ostend.
+
+"Her Majesty finds herself so touched in honour upon this point, that if
+it be not conceded--as I doubt not it will be, seeing the singular
+forwardness of your Highness"--said the artful Doctor with a smile,
+"we are no less than commanded to return to her Majesty's presence."
+
+"I sent Richardot to you yesterday," said Alexander; "did he not content
+you?"
+
+"Your Highness, no," replied Ropers.  "Moreover her Majesty sent me to
+your Alteza, and not to Richardot.  And the matter is of such importance
+that I pray you to add to all your graces and favours heaped upon me,
+this one of sending your commissioners to Ostend."
+
+His Highness could hold out no longer; but suddenly catching the Doctor
+in his arms, and hugging him "in most honourable and amiable manner," he
+cried--
+
+"Be contented, be cheerful; my lord ambassador.  You shall be satisfied
+upon this point also."
+
+"And never did envoy depart;" cried the lord ambassador, when he could
+get his breath, "more bound to you; and more resolute to speak honour of
+your Highness than I do."
+
+"To-morrow we will ride together towards Bruges;" said the Duke, in
+conclusion.  "Till then farewell."
+
+Upon, this he again heartily embraced the envoy, and the friends parted
+for the day.
+
+Next morning; 28th March, the Duke, who was on his way to Bruges and
+Sluys to look after his gun-boats, and, other naval, and military
+preparations, set forth on horseback, accompanied by the Marquis del
+Vasto, and, for part of the way, by Rogers.
+
+They conversed on the general topics of the approaching negotiations; the
+Duke, expressing the opinion that the treaty of peace would be made short
+work with; for it only needed to renew the old ones between the Houses of
+England and Burgundy.  As for the Hollanders and Zeelanders, and their
+accomplices, he thought there would be no cause of stay on their account;
+and in regard to the cautionary towns he felt sure that her Majesty had
+never had any intention of appropriating them to herself, and would
+willingly surrender them to the King.
+
+Rogers thought it a good opportunity to put in a word for the Dutchmen;
+who certainly, would not have thanked him for his assistance at that
+moment.
+
+"Not, to give offence to your Highness," he said, "if the Hollanders and
+Zeelanders, with their confederates, like to come into this treaty,
+surely your Highness would not object?"
+
+Alexander, who had been riding along quietly during this conversation;
+with his right, hand, on, his hip, now threw out his arm energetically:
+
+"Let them come into it; let them treat, let them conclude," he exclaimed,
+"in the name of Almighty God!  I have always been well disposed to peace,
+and am now more so than ever.  I could even, with the loss of my life, be
+content to have peace made at this time."
+
+Nothing more, worthy of commemoration, occurred during this concluding
+interview; and the envoy took his leave at Bruges, and returned to
+Ostend.
+
+I have furnished the reader with a minute account of these conversations,
+drawn entirely, from the original records; not so much because the
+interviews were in themselves of vital importance; but because they
+afford a living and breathing example--better than a thousand homilies--
+of the easy victory which diplomatic or royal mendacity may always obtain
+over innocence and credulity.
+
+Certainly never was envoy more thoroughly beguiled than the excellent
+John upon this occasion.  Wiser than a serpent, as he imagined himself
+to be, more harmless than a dove; as Alexander found him, he could not,
+sufficiently congratulate himself upon the triumphs of his eloquence and
+his adroitness; and despatched most glowing accounts of his proceedings
+to the Queen.
+
+His ardour was somewhat damped, however, at receiving a message from her
+Majesty in reply, which was anything but benignant.  His eloquence was
+not commended; and even his preamble, with its touching allusion to the
+live mothers tendering their offspring--the passage: which had brought
+the tears into the large eyes of Alexander--was coldly and cruelly
+censured.
+
+"Her Majesty can in no sort like such speeches"--so ran the return-
+despatch--" in which she is made to beg for peace.  The King of Spain
+standeth in as great need of peace as her self; and she doth greatly
+mislike the preamble of Dr. Rogers in his address to the Duke at Ghent,
+finding it, in very truth quite fond and vain.  I am commanded by a
+particular letter to let him understand how much her Majesty is offended
+with him."
+
+Alexander, on his part, informed his royal master of these interviews, in
+which there had been so much effusion of sentiment, in very brief
+fashion.
+
+"Dr. Rogers, one of the Queen's commissioners, has been here," he said,
+"urging me with all his might to let all your Majesty's deputies go, if
+only for one hour, to Ostend.  I refused, saying, I would rather they
+should go to England than into a city of your Majesty held by English
+troops.  I told him it ought to be satisfactory that I had offered the
+Queen, as a lady, her choice of any place in the Provinces, or on neutral
+ground.  Rogers expressed regret for all the, bloodshed and other
+consequences if the negotiations should fall through for so trifling a
+cause; the more so as in return for this little compliment to the Queen
+she would not only restore to your Majesty everything that she holds in
+the Netherlands, but would assist you to recover the part which remains
+obstinate.  To quiet him and to consume time, I have promised that
+President Richardot shall go and try to satisfy them.  Thus two or three
+weeks more will be wasted.  But at last the time will come for exhibiting
+the powers.  They are very anxious to see mine; and when at last they
+find I have none, I fear that they will break off the negotiations."
+
+Could the Queen have been informed of this voluntary offer on the part of
+her envoy to give up the cautionary towns, and to assist in reducing the
+rebellion, she might have used stronger language of rebuke.  It is quite
+possible, however, that Farnese--not so attentively following the
+Doctor's eloquence as he had appeared to do-had somewhat inaccurately
+reported the conversations, which, after all, he knew to be of no
+consequence whatever, except as time-consumers.  For Elizabeth, desirous
+of peace as she was, and trusting to Farnese's sincerity as she was
+disposed to do, was more sensitive than ever as to her dignity.
+
+"We charge you all," she wrote with her own hand to the commissioners,
+"that no word he overslipt by them, that may, touch our honour and
+greatness, that be not answered with good sharp words.  I am a king that
+will be ever known not to fear any but God."
+
+It would have been better, however, had the Queen more thoroughly
+understood that the day for scolding had quite gone by, and that
+something sharper than the sharpest words would soon be wanted to protect
+England and herself from impending doom.  For there was something almost
+gigantic in the frivolities with which weeks and months of such precious
+time were now squandered.  Plenary powers--"commission bastantissima"--
+from his sovereign had been announced by Alexander as in his possession;
+although the reader has seen that he had no such powers at all.  The
+mission of Rogers had quieted the envoys at Ostend for a time, and they
+waited quietly for the visit of Richardot to Ostend, into which the
+promised meeting of all the Spanish commissioners in that city had
+dwindled.  Meantime there was an exchange of the most friendly amenities
+between the English and their mortal enemies.  Hardly a day passed that
+La Motte, or Renty, or Aremberg, did not send Lord Derby, or Cobham, or
+Robert Cecil, a hare, or a pheasant, or a cast of hawks, and they in
+return sent barrel upon barrel of Ostend oysters, five or six hundred at
+a time.  The Englishmen, too; had it in their power to gratify Alexander
+himself with English greyhounds, for which he had a special liking.
+"You would wonder," wrote Cecil to his father, "how fond he is of English
+dogs."  There was also much good preaching among other occupations, at
+Ostend.  "My Lord of Derby's two chaplains," said Cecil, "have seasoned
+this town better with sermons than it had been before for a year's
+apace."  But all this did not expedite the negotiations, nor did the
+Duke manifest so much anxiety for colloquies as for greyhounds.  So, in
+an unlucky hour for himself, another "fond and vain" old gentleman--James
+Croft, the comptroller who had already figured, not much to his credit,
+in the secret negotiations between the Brussels and English courts--
+betook himself, unauthorized and alone; to the Duke at Bruges.  Here he
+had an interview very similar in character to that in which John Rogers
+had been indulged, declared to Farnese that the Queen was most anxious
+for peace, and invited him to send a secret envoy to England, who would
+instantly have ocular demonstration of the fact.  Croft returned as
+triumphantly as the excellent Doctor had done; averring that there was no
+doubt as to the immediate conclusion of a treaty.  His grounds of belief
+were very similar to those upon which Rogers had founded his faith.
+"Tis a weak old man of seventy," said Parma, "with very little sagacity.
+I am inclined to think that his colleagues are taking him in, that they
+may the better deceive us.  I will see that they do nothing of the kind."
+But the movement was purely one of the comptroller's own inspiration; for
+Sir James had a singular facility for getting himself into trouble, and
+for making confusion.  Already, when he had been scarcely a day in
+Ostend, he had insulted the governor of the place, Sir John Conway, had
+given him the lie in the hearing of many of his own soldiers, had gone
+about telling all the world that he had express authority from her
+Majesty to send him home in disgrace, and that the Queen had called him
+a fool, and quite unfit for his post.  And as if this had not been
+mischief-making enough, in addition to the absurd De Loo and Bodman
+negotiations of the previous year, in which he had been the principal
+actor, he had crowned his absurdities by this secret and officious visit
+to Ghent.  The Queen, naturally very indignant at this conduct,
+reprehended him severely, and ordered him back to England.  The
+comptroller was wretched.  He expressed his readiness to obey her
+commands, but nevertheless implored his dread sovereign to take merciful
+consideration of the manifold misfortunes, ruin, and utter undoing, which
+thereby should fall upon him and his unfortunate family.  All this he
+protested he would "nothing esteem if it tended to her Majesty's pleasure
+or service,"  but seeing it should effectuate nothing but to bring the
+aged carcase of her poor vassal to present decay, he implored compassion
+upon his hoary hairs, and promised to repair the error of his former
+proceedings.  He avowed that he would not have ventured to disobey for a
+moment her orders to return, but "that his aged and feeble limbs did not
+retain sufficient force, without present death, to comply with her
+commandment."  And with that he took to his bed, and remained there until
+the Queen was graciously pleased to grant him her pardon.
+
+At last, early in May--instead of the visit of Richardot--there was a
+preliminary meeting of all the commissioners in tents on the sands;
+within a cannon-shot of Ostend, and between that place and Newport.
+It was a showy and ceremonious interview, in which no business was
+transacted.  The commissioners of Philip were attended by a body of one
+hundred and fifty light horse, and by three hundred private gentlemen in
+magnificent costume.  La Motte also came from Newport with one thousand
+Walloon cavalry while the English Commissioners, on their part were
+escorted from Ostend by an imposing array of English and Dutch troops.'
+As the territory was Spanish; the dignity of the King was supposed to be
+preserved, and Alexander, who had promised Dr. Rogers that the first
+interview should take place within Ostend itself, thought it necessary to
+apologize to his sovereign for so nearly keeping his word as to send the
+envoys within cannon-shot of the town.  "The English commissioners," said
+he, "begged with so much submission for this concession, that I thought
+it as well to grant it."
+
+The Spanish envoys were despatched by the Duke of Parma, well provided
+with full powers for himself, which were not desired by the English
+government, but unfurnished with a commission from Philip, which had been
+pronounced indispensable.  There was, therefore, much prancing of
+cavalry, flourishing of trumpets, and eating of oysters; at the first
+conference, but not one stroke of business.  As the English envoys
+had now been three whole months in Ostend, and as this was the first
+occasion on which they had been brought face to face with the Spanish
+commissioners, it must be confessed that the tactics of Farnese had been
+masterly.  Had the haste in the dock-yards of Lisbon and Cadiz been at
+all equal to the magnificent procrastination in the council-chambers of
+Bruges and Ghent, Medina Sidonia might already have been in the Thames.
+
+But although little ostensible business was performed, there was one
+man who had always an eye to his work.  The same servant in plain livery,
+who had accompanied Secretary Garnier, on his first visit to the English
+commissioners at Ostend, had now come thither again, accompanied by a
+fellow-lackey.  While the complimentary dinner, offered in the name of
+the absent Farnese to the Queen's representatives, was going forward, the
+two menials strayed off together to the downs, for the purpose of rabbit-
+shooting.  The one of them was the same engineer who had already, on the
+former occasion, taken a complete survey of the fortifications of Ostend;
+the other was no less a personage than the Duke of Parma himself.  The
+pair now made a thorough examination of the town and its neighbourhood,
+and, having finished their reconnoitring, made the best of their way back
+to Bruges.  As it was then one of Alexander's favourite objects to reduce
+the city of Ostend, at the earliest possible moment, it must be allowed
+that this preliminary conference was not so barren to himself as it was
+to the commissioners.  Philip, when informed of this manoeuvre, was
+naturally gratified at such masterly duplicity, while he gently rebuked
+his nephew for exposing his valuable life; and certainly it would have
+been an inglorious termination to the Duke's splendid career; had he been
+hanged as a spy within the trenches of Ostend.  With the other details
+of this first diplomatic colloquy Philip was delighted.  "I see you
+understand me thoroughly," he said.  "Keep the negotiation alive till
+my Armada appears, and then carry out my determination, and replant
+the Catholic religion on the soil of England."
+
+The Queen was not in such high spirits.  She was losing her temper very
+fast, as she became more and more convinced that she had been trifled
+with.  No powers had been yet exhibited, no permanent place of conference
+fixed upon, and the cessation of arms demanded by her commissioners for
+England, Spain, and all the Netherlands, was absolutely refused.  She
+desired her commissioners to inform the Duke of Parma that it greatly
+touched his honour--as both before their coming and afterwards, he had
+assured her that he had 'comision bastantissima' from his sovereign--to
+clear himself at once from the imputation of insincerity.  "Let not the
+Duke think," she wrote with her own hand, "that we would so long time
+endure these many frivolous and unkindly dealings, but that we desire all
+the world to know our desire of a kingly peace, and that we will endure
+no more the like, nor any, but will return you from your charge."
+
+Accordingly--by her Majesty's special command--Dr. Dale made another
+visit to Bruges, to discover, once for all, whether there was a
+commission from Philip or not; and, if so, to see it with his own eyes.
+On the 7th May he had an interview with the Duke.  After thanking his
+Highness for the honourable and stately manner in which the conferences
+had been, inaugurated near Ostend, Dale laid very plainly before him her
+Majesty's complaints of the tergiversations and equivocations concerning
+the commission, which had now lasted three months long.
+
+In answer, Alexander made a complimentary harangue; confining himself
+entirely to the first part of the envoy's address, and assuring him in
+redundant phraseology, that he should hold himself very guilty before
+the world, if he had not surrounded the first colloquy between the
+plenipotentiaries of two such mighty princes, with as much pomp as the
+circumstances of time and place would allow.  After this superfluous
+rhetoric had been poured forth, he calmly dismissed the topic which Dr.
+Dale had come all the way from.  Ostend to discuss, by carelessly
+observing that President Richardot would confer with him on the subject
+of the commission.
+
+"But," said the envoy, "tis no matter of conference or dispute.  I desire
+simply to see the commission."
+
+"Richardot and Champagny shall deal with you in the afternoon," repeated
+Alexander; and with this reply, the Doctor was fair to be contented.
+
+Dale then alluded to the point of cessation of arms.
+
+"Although," said he, "the Queen might justly require that the cessation
+should be general for all the King's dominion, yet in order not to stand
+on precise points, she is content that it should extend no further than
+to the towns of Flushing; Brief, Ostend, and Bergen-op-Zoom."
+
+"To this he said nothing," wrote the envoy, "and so I went no further."
+
+In the afternoon Dale had conference with Champagny and Richardot.  As
+usual, Champagny was bound hand and foot by the gout, but was as quick-
+witted and disputatious as ever.  Again Dale made an earnest harangue,
+proving satisfactorily--as if any proof were necessary on such a point--
+that a commission from Philip ought to be produced, and that a commission
+had been promised, over and over again.
+
+After a pause, both the representatives of Parma began to wrangle with
+the envoy in very insolent fashion.  "Richardot is always their mouth-
+piece," said Dale, "only Champagny choppeth in at every word, and would
+do so likewise in ours if we would suffer it."
+
+"We shall never have done with these impertinent demands," said the
+President.  "You ought to be satisfied with the Duke's promise of
+ratification contained in his commission.  We confess what you say
+concerning the former requisitions and promises to be true, but when will
+you have done?  Have we not showed it to Mr. Croft, one of your own
+colleagues?  And if we show it you now, another may come to-morrow, and
+so we shall never have an end."
+
+"The delays come from yourselves," roundly replied the Englishman, "for
+you refuse to do what in reason and law you are bound to do.  And the
+more demands the more 'mora aut potius culpa' in you.  You, of all men,
+have least cause to hold such language, who so confidently and even
+disdainfully answered our demand for the commission, in Mr. Cecil's
+presence, and promised to show a perfect one at the very first meeting.
+As for Mr. Comptroller Croft, he came hither without the command of her
+Majesty and without the knowledge of his colleagues."
+
+Richardot then began to insinuate that, as Croft had come without
+authority, so--for aught they could tell--might Dale also.  But Champagny
+here interrupted, protested that the president was going too far, and
+begged him to show the commission without further argument.
+
+Upon this Richardot pulled out the commission from under his gown, and
+placed it in Dr. Dale's hands!
+
+It was dated 17th April, 1588, signed and sealed by the King,
+and written in French, and was to the effect, that as there had been
+differences between her Majesty and himself; as her Majesty had sent
+ambassadors into the Netherlands, as the Duke of Parma had entered into
+treaty with her Majesty, therefore the King authorised the Duke to
+appoint commissioners to treat, conclude, and determine all controversies
+and misunderstandings, confirmed any such appointments already made, and
+promised to ratify all that might be done by them in the premises.'
+
+Dr. Dale expressed his satisfaction with the tenor of this document,
+and begged to be furnished with a copy of it, but his was peremptorily
+refused.  There was then a long conversation--ending, as usual, in
+nothing--on the two other points, the place for the conferences, namely,
+and the cessation of arms.
+
+Nest morning Dale, in taking leave of the Duke of Parma, expressed the
+gratification which he felt, and which her Majesty was sure to feel at
+the production of the commission.  It was now proved, said the envoy,
+that the King was as earnestly in favour of peace as the Duke was
+himself.
+
+Dale then returned, well satisfied, to Ostend.
+
+In truth the commission had arrived just in time.  "Had I not received it
+soon enough to produce it then," said Alexander, "the Queen would have
+broken off the negotiations.  So I ordered Richardot, who is quite aware
+of your Majesty's secret intentions, from which we shall not swerve one
+jot, to show it privately to Croft, and afterwards to Dr. Dale, but
+without allowing a copy of it to be taken."
+
+"You have done very well," replied Philip, "but that commission is, on no
+account, to be used, except for show.  You know my mind thoroughly."
+
+Thus three months had been consumed, and at last one indispensable
+preliminary to any negotiation had, in appearance, been performed.  Full
+powers on both sides had been exhibited.  When the Queen of England gave
+the Earl of Derby and his colleagues commission to treat with the King's
+envoys, and pledged herself beforehand to, ratify all their proceedings,
+she meant to perform the promise to which she had affixed her royal name
+and seal.  She could not know that the Spanish monarch was deliberately
+putting his name to a lie, and chuckling in secret over the credulity of
+his English sister, who was willing to take his word and his bond.  Of a
+certainty the English were no match for southern diplomacy.
+
+But Elizabeth was now more impatient than ever that the other two
+preliminaries should be settled, the place of conferences, and the
+armistice.
+
+"Be plain with the Duke," she wrote to her envoys, "that we have
+tolerated so many weeks in tarrying a commission, that I will never
+endure more delays.  Let him know he deals with a prince who prizes her
+honour more than her life:  Make yourselves such as stand of your
+reputations."
+
+Sharp words, but not sharp enough to prevent a further delay of a month;
+for it was not till the 6th June that the commissioners at last came
+together at Bourbourg, that "miserable little hole," on the coast between
+Ostend and Newport, against which Gamier had warned them.  And now there
+was ample opportunity to wrangle at full length on the next preliminary,
+the cessation of arms.  It would be superfluous to follow the
+altercations step by step--for negotiations there were none--and it is
+only for the sake of exhibiting at full length the infamy of diplomacy,
+when diplomacy is unaccompanied by honesty, that we are hanging up this
+series of pictures at all.  Those bloodless encounters between credulity
+and vanity upon one side, and gigantic fraud on the other, near those
+very sands of Newport, and in sight of the Northern Ocean, where, before
+long, the most terrible battles, both by land and sea, which the age had
+yet witnessed, were to occur, are quite as full of instruction and moral
+as the most sanguinary combats ever waged.
+
+At last the commissioners exchanged copies of their respective powers.
+After four months of waiting and wrangling, so much had been achieved--
+a show of commissions and a selection of the place for conference.  And
+now began the long debate about the cessation of arms.  The English
+claimed an armistice for the whole dominion of Philip and Elizabeth
+respectively, during the term of negotiation, and for twenty days after.
+The Spanish would grant only a temporary truce, terminable at six days'
+notice, and that only for the four cautionary towns of Holland held by
+the Queen.  Thus Philip would be free to invade England at his leisure
+out of the obedient Netherlands or Spain.  This was inadmissible, of
+course, but a week was spent at the outset in reducing the terms to
+writing; and when the Duke's propositions were at last produced in the
+French tongue, they were refused by the Queen's commissioners, who
+required that the documents should be in Latin.  Great was the triumph of
+Dr. Dale, when, after another interval, he found their Latin full of
+barbarisms and blunders, at which a school-boy would have blushed.  The
+King's commissioners, however, while halting in their syntax, had kept
+steadily to their point.
+
+"You promised a general cessation of aims at our coming," said Dale, at a
+conference on the 2/12 June, "and now ye have lingered five times twenty
+days, and nothing done at all.  The world may see the delays come of you
+and not of us, and that ye are not so desirous of peace as ye pretend."
+
+"But as far your invasion of England," stoutly observed the Earl of
+Derby, "ye shall find it hot coming thither.  England was never so ready
+in any former age,--neither by sea nor by land; but we would show your
+unreasonableness in proposing a cessation of arms by which ye would bind
+her Majesty to forbear touching all the Low Countries, and yet leave
+yourselves at liberty to invade England."
+
+While they were thus disputing, Secretary Gamier rushed into the room,
+looking very much frightened, and announced that Lord Henry Seymour's
+fleet of thirty-two ships of war was riding off Gravelines, and that he
+had sent two men on shore who were now waiting in the ante-chamber.
+
+The men being accordingly admitted, handed letters to the English
+commissioners from Lord Henry, in which be begged to be informed in
+what terms they were standing, and whether they needed his assistance
+or countenance in the cause in which they were engaged.  The envoys found
+his presence very "comfortable," as it showed the Spanish commissioners
+that her Majesty was so well provided as to make a cessation of arms less
+necessary to her than it was to the King.  They therefore sent their
+thanks to the Lord Admiral, begging him to cruise for a time off Dunkirk
+and its neighbourhood, that both their enemies and their friends might
+have a sight of the English ships.
+
+Great was the panic all along the coast at this unexpected demonstration.
+The King's commissioners got into their coaches, and drove down to the
+coast to look at the fleet, and--so soon as they appeared--were received
+with such a thundering cannonade an hour long, by way of salute, as to
+convince them, in the opinion of the English envoys, that the Queen had
+no cause to be afraid of any enemies afloat or ashore.
+
+But these noisy arguments were not much more effective than the
+interchange of diplomatic broadsides which they had for a moment
+superseded.  The day had gone by for blank cartridges and empty
+protocols.  Nevertheless Lord Henry's harmless thunder was answered, the
+next day, by a "Quintuplication" in worse Latin than ever, presented to
+Dr. Dale and his colleagues by Richardot and Champagny, on the subject of
+the armistice.  And then there was a return quintuplication, in choice
+Latin, by the classic Dale, and then there was a colloquy on the
+quintuplication, and everything that had been charged, and truly
+charged, by the English; was now denied by the King's commissioners;
+and Champagny--more gouty and more irascible than ever--"chopped in" at
+every word spoken by King's envoys or Queen's, contradicted everybody,
+repudiated everything said or done by Andrew de Loo, or any of the other
+secret negotiators during the past year, declared that there never had
+been a general cessation of arms promised, and that, at any rate, times
+were now changed, and such an armistice was inadmissible!  Then the
+English answered with equal impatience, and reproached the King's
+representatives with duplicity and want of faith, and censured them for
+their unseemly language, and begged to inform Champagny and Richardot
+that they had not then to deal with such persons as they might formerly
+have been in the habit of treating withal, but with a "great prince who
+did justify the honour of her actions," and they confuted the positions
+now assumed by their opponents with official documents and former
+statements from those very opponents' lips.  And then, after all this
+diplomatic and rhetorical splutter, the high commissioners recovered
+their temper and grew more polite, and the King's "envoys excused
+themselves in a mild, merry manner," for the rudeness of their speeches,
+and the Queen's envoys accepted their apologies with majestic urbanity,
+and so they separated for the day in a more friendly manner than they
+had done the day before.'
+
+"You see to what a scholar's shift we have been driven for want of
+resolution," said Valentine Dale.  "If we should linger here until there
+should be broken heads, in what case we should be God knoweth.  For I can
+trust Champagny and Richardot no farther than I can see them."
+
+And so the whole month of June passed by; the English commissioners
+"leaving no stone unturned to get a quiet cessation of arms in general
+terms," and being constantly foiled; yet perpetually kept in hope that
+the point would soon be carried.  At the same time the signs of the
+approaching invasion seemed to thicken.  "In my opinion," said Dale,
+"as Phormio spake in matters of wars, it were very requisite that my Lord
+Harry should be always on this coast, for they will steal out from hence
+as closely as they can, either to join with the Spanish navy or to land,
+and they may be very easily scattered, by God's grace."  And, with the
+honest pride of a protocol-maker, he added, "our postulates do trouble
+the King's commissioners very much, and do bring them to despair."
+
+The excellent Doctor had not even yet discovered that the King's
+commissioners were delighted with his postulates; and that to have kept
+them postulating thus five months in succession, while naval and military
+preparations were slowly bringing forth a great event--which was soon to
+strike them with as much amazement as if the moon had fallen out of
+heaven--was one of the most decisive triumphs ever achieved by Spanish
+diplomacy.  But the Doctor thought that his logic had driven the King of
+Spain to despair.
+
+At the same time he was not insensible to the merits of another and more
+peremptory style of rhetoric,--"I pray you," said he to Walsingham, "let
+us hear some arguments from my Lord Harry out of her Majesty's navy now
+and then.  I think they will do more good than any bolt that we can shoot
+here.  If they be met with at their going out, there is no possibility
+for them to make any resistance, having so few men that can abide the
+sea; for the rest, as you know, must be sea-sick at first."
+
+But the envoys were completely puzzled.  Even at the beginning of July,
+Sir James Croft was quite convinced of the innocence of the King and the
+Duke; but Croft was in his dotage.  As for Dale, he occasionally opened
+his eyes, and his ears, but more commonly kept them well closed to the
+significance of passing events; and consoled himself with his protocols
+and his classics, and the purity of his own Latin.
+
+"'Tis a very wise saying of Terence," said he, "omnibus nobis ut res dant
+sese; ita magni aut humiles sumus.'  When the King's commissioners hear
+of the King's navy from Spain, they are in such jollity that they talk
+loud .  .  .  .  .  In the mean time--as the wife of Bath sath in Chaucer
+by her husband, we owe them not a word.  If we should die tomorrow;
+I hope her Majesty will find by our writings that the honour of the
+cause, in the opinion of the world, must be with her Majesty; and that
+her commissioners are, neither of such imperfection in their reasons,
+or so barbarous in language, as they who fail not, almost in every line,
+of some barbarism not to be borne in a grammar-school, although in
+subtleness and impudent affirming of untruths and denying of truths, her
+commissioners are not in any respect to match with Champagny and
+Richardot, who are doctors in that faculty."
+
+It might perhaps prove a matter of indifference to Elizabeth and to
+England, when the Queen should be a state-prisoner in Spain and the
+Inquisition quietly established in her kingdom, whether the world should
+admit or not, in case of his decease, the superiority of Dr. Dale's logic
+and latin to those of his antagonists.  And even if mankind conceded the
+best of the argument to the English diplomatists, that diplomacy might
+seem worthless which could be blind to the colossal falsehoods growing
+daily before its eyes.  Had the commissioners been able to read the
+secret correspondence between Parma and his master--as we have had the
+opportunity of doing--they would certainly not have left their homes in
+February, to be made fools of until July; but would, on their knees, have
+implored their royal mistress to awake from her fatal delusion before it
+should be too late.  Even without that advantage, it seems incredible
+that they should have been unable to pierce through the atmosphere of
+duplicity which surrounded them, and to obtain one clear glimpse of the
+destruction so, steadily advancing upon England.
+
+For the famous bull of Sixtus V. had now been fulminated.  Elizabeth had
+bean again denounced as a bastard and usurper, and her kingdom had been
+solemnly conferred upon Philip, with title of defender of the Christian,
+faith, to have and to hold as tributary and feudatory of Rome.  The so-
+called Queen had usurped the crown contrary to the ancient treaties
+between the apostolic stool and the kingdom of England, which country,
+on its reconciliation with the head of the church after the death of
+St. Thomas of Canterbury, had recognised the necessity of the Pope's.
+consent in the succession to its throne; she had deserved chastisement
+for the terrible tortures inflicted by her upon English Catholics and
+God's own saints; and it was declared an act of virtue, to be repaid with
+plenary indulgence and forgiveness of all sins, to lay violent hands on
+the usurper, and deliver her into the hands of the Catholic party.  And
+of the holy league against the usurper, Philip was appointed the head,
+and Alexander of Parma chief commander.  This document was published in
+large numbers in Antwerp in the English tongue.
+
+The pamphlet of Dr. Allen, just named Cardinal, was also translated in
+the same city, under the direction of the Duke of Parma, in-order to be
+distributed throughout England, on the arrival in that kingdom of the
+Catholic troops.  The well-known 'Admonition to the Nobility and People
+of England and Ireland' accused the Queen of every crime and vice which
+can pollute humanity; and was filled with foul details unfit for the
+public eye in these more decent days.
+
+So soon as the intelligence of these publications reached England, the
+Queen ordered her commissioners at Bourbourg to take instant cognizance
+of them, and to obtain a categorical explanation on the subject from
+Alexander himself: as if an explanation were possible, as if the designs
+of Sixtus, Philip, and Alexander, could any longer be doubted, and as if
+the Duke were more likely now than before to make a succinct statement
+of them for the benefit of her Majesty.
+
+"Having discovered," wrote Elizabeth on the 9th July (N.S.), "that this
+treaty of peace is entertained only to abuse us, and being many ways
+given to understand that the preparations which have so long been making,
+and which now are consummated, both in Spain and the Low Countries, are
+purposely to be employed against us and our country; finding that, for
+the furtherance of these exploits, there is ready to be published a vile,
+slanderous, and blasphemous book, containing as many lies as lines,
+entitled, 'An Admonition,' &c., and contrived by a lewd born-subject of
+ours, now become an arrant traitor, named Dr. Allen, lately made, a
+cardinal at Rome; as also a bull of the Pope, whereof we send you a copy,
+both very lately brought into those Low Countries, the one whereof is
+already printed at Antwerp, in a great multitude; in the English tongue,
+and the other ordered to be printed, only to stir up our subjects,
+contrary to the laws of God and their allegiance, to join with such
+foreign purposes as are prepared against us and our realm, to come out of
+those Low Countries and out of Spain; and as it appears by the said bull
+that the Duke of Parma is expressly named and chosen by the Pope and the
+King of Spain to be principal executioner of these intended enterprises,
+we cannot think it honourable for us to continue longer the treaty of
+peace with them that, under colour of treaty, arm themselves with all the
+power they can to a bloody war."
+
+Accordingly the Queen commanded Dr. Dale, as one of the commissioners,
+to proceed forthwith to the Duke, in order to obtain explanations as to
+his contemplated conquest of her realm, and as to his share in the
+publication of the bull and pamphlet, and to "require him, as he would be
+accounted a prince of honour, to let her plainly understand what she
+might think thereof."  The envoy was to assure him that the Queen would
+trust implicitly to his statement, to adjure him to declare the truth,
+and, in case he avowed the publications and the belligerent intentions
+suspected, to demand instant safe-conduct to England for her
+commissioners, who would, of course, instantly leave the Netherlands.
+On the other hand, if the Duke disavowed those infamous documents,
+he was to be requested to punish the printers, and have the books
+burned by the hangman?
+
+Dr. Dale, although suffering from cholic, was obliged to set forth,
+at once upon what he felt would be a bootless journey.  At his return--
+which was upon the 22nd of July (N.S.)the shrewd old gentleman had nearly
+arrived at the opinion that her Majesty might as well break off the
+negotiations.  He had a "comfortless voyage and a ticklish message;"
+found all along the road signs of an approaching enterprise, difficult to
+be mistaken; reported 10,000 veteran Spaniards, to which force Stanley's
+regiment was united; 6000 Italians, 3000 Germans, all with pikes,
+corselets, and slash swords complete; besides 10,000 Walloons.  The
+transports for the cavalry at Gravelingen he did not see, nor was he
+much impressed with what he heard as to the magnitude of the naval
+preparations at Newport.  He was informed that the Duke was about making
+a foot-pilgrimage from Brussels to Our Lady of Halle, to implore victory
+for his banners, and had daily evidence of the soldier's expectation to
+invade and to "devour England."  All this had not tended to cure him of
+the low spirits with which he began the journey.  Nevertheless, although
+he was unable--as will be seen--to report an entirely satisfactory answer
+from Farnese to the Queen upon the momentous questions entrusted to him,
+he, at least, thought of a choice passage in 'The AEneid,' so very apt to
+the circumstances, as almost to console him for the "pangs of his cholic"
+and the terrors of the approaching invasion.
+
+"I have written two or three verses out of Virgil for the Queen to read,"
+said he, "which I pray your Lordship to present unto her.  God grant her
+to weigh them.  If your Lordship do read the whole discourse of Virgil in
+that place, it will make your heart melt.  Observe the report of the
+ambassadors that were sent to Diomedes to make war against the Trojans,
+for the old hatred that he, being a Grecian, did bear unto them; and note
+the answer of Diomedes dissuading them from entering into war with the
+Trojans, the perplexity of the King, the miseries of the country, the
+reasons of Drances that spake against them which would have war, the
+violent persuasions of Turnus to war; and note, I pray you; one word,
+'nec te ullius violentia frangat.'  What a lecture could I make with Mr.
+Cecil upon that passage in Virgil!"
+
+The most important point for the reader to remark is the date of this
+letter.  It was received in the very last days of the month of July.
+Let him observe--as he will soon have occasion to do--the events which
+were occurring on land and sea, exactly at the moment when this classic
+despatch reached its destination, and judge whether the hearts of the
+Queen and Lord Burghley would be then quite at leisure to melt at the
+sorrows of the Trojan War.  Perhaps the doings of Drake and Howard,
+Medina Sidonia, and Ricalde, would be pressing as much on their attention
+as the eloquence of Diomede or the wrath of Turnus.  Yet it may be
+doubted whether the reports of these Grecian envoys might not in truth,
+be almost as much to the purpose as the despatches of the diplomatic
+pedant, with his Virgil and his cholic, into whose hands grave matters of
+peace and war were entrusted in what seemed the day of England's doom.
+
+"What a lecture I could make with Mr. Cecil on the subject!--"An English
+ambassador, at the court of Philip II.'s viceroy, could indulge himself
+in imaginary prelections on the AEneid, in the last days of July, of the
+year of our Lord 1588!
+
+The Doctor, however--to do him justice--had put the questions
+categorically, to his Highness as he had been instructed to do.  He went
+to Bruges so mysteriously; that no living man, that side the sea, save
+Lord Derby and Lord Cobham, knew the cause of his journey. Poor-puzzling
+James Croft, in particular, was moved almost to tears, by being kept out
+of the secret.  On the 8/18 July Dale had audience of the Duke at Bruges.
+After a few commonplaces, he was invited by the Duke to state what
+special purpose had brought him to Bruges.
+
+"There is a book printed at Antwerp," said Dale, "and set forth by a
+fugitive from England, who calleth himself a cardinal."
+
+Upon this the Duke began diligently to listen.
+
+"This book," resumed Dale, "is an admonition to the nobility and people
+of England and Ireland touching the execution of the sentence of the Pope
+against the Queen which the King Catholic hath entrusted to your Highness
+as chief of the enterprise.  There is also a bull of the Pope declaring
+my sovereign mistress illegitimate and an usurper, with other matters too
+odious for any prince or gentleman to name or hear.  In this bull the
+Pope saith that he hath dealt with the most Catholic King to employ all
+the means in his power to the deprivation and deposition of my sovereign,
+and doth charge her subjects to assist the army appointed by the King
+Catholic for that purpose, under the conduct of your Highness.  Therefore
+her Majesty would be satisfied from your Highness in that point, and will
+take satisfaction of none other; not doubting but that as you are a
+prince of word and credit; you will deal plainly with her Majesty.
+Whatsoever it may be, her Majesty will not take it amiss against your
+Highness, so she may only be informed by you of the truth.  Wherefore I
+do require you to satisfy the Queen."
+
+"I am glad," replied the Duke, "that her Majesty and her commissioners do
+take in good part my good-will towards them.  I am especially touched by
+the good opinion her Majesty hath of my sincerity, which I should be glad
+always to maintain.  As to the book to which you refer, I have never read
+it, nor seen it, nor do I take heed of it.  It may well be that her
+Majesty, whom it concerneth, should take notice of it; but, for my part,
+I have nought to do with it, nor can I prevent men from writing or
+printing at their pleasure.  I am at the commandment of my master only."
+
+As Alexander made no reference to the Pope's bull, Dr. Dale observed,
+that if a war had been, of purpose, undertaken at the instance of the
+Pope, all this negotiation had been in vain, and her Majesty would be
+obliged to withdraw her commissioners, not doubting that they would
+receive safe-conduct as occasion should require.
+
+"Yea, God forbid else," replied Alexander; "and further, I know nothing
+of any bull of the Pope, nor do I care for any, nor do I undertake
+anything for him.  But as for any misunderstanding (mal entendu) between
+my master and her Majesty, I must, as a soldier, act at the command of my
+sovereign.  For my part, I have always had such respect for her Majesty,
+being so noble a Queen, as that I would never hearken to anything that
+might be reproachful to her.  After my master, I would do most to serve
+your Queen, and I hope she will take my word for her satisfaction on that
+point.  And for avoiding of bloodshed and the burning of houses and such
+other calamities as do follow the wars, I have been a petitioner to my
+sovereign that all things might be ended quietly by a peace.  That is a
+thing, however," added the Duke; "which you have more cause to desire
+than we; for if the King my master, should lose a battle, he would be
+able to recover it well enough, without harm to himself, being far enough
+off in Spain, while, if the battle be lost on your side, you may lose
+kingdom and all."
+
+"By God's sufferance," rejoined the Doctor, "her Majesty is not without
+means to defend her crown, that hath descended to her from so long a
+succession of ancestors.  Moreover your Highness knows very well that
+one battle cannot conquer a kingdom in another country."
+
+"Well," said the Duke, "that is in God's hand."
+
+"So it is," said the Doctor.
+
+"But make an end of it," continued Alexander quietly, "and if you have
+anything to put into writing; you will do me a pleasure by sending it to
+me."
+
+Dr. Valentine Dale was not the man to resist the temptation to make a
+protocol, and promised one for the next day.
+
+"I am charged only to give your Highness satisfaction," he said, "as to
+her Majesty's sincere intentions, which have already been published to
+the world in English, French, and Italian, in the hope that you may
+also satisfy the Queen upon this other point.  I am but one of her
+commissioners, and could not deal without my colleagues.  I crave leave
+to depart to-morrow morning, and with safe-convoy, as I had in coming."
+
+After the envoy had taken leave, the Duke summoned Andrea de Loo, and
+related to him the conversation which had taken place.  He then, in the
+presence of that personage, again declared--upon his honour and with very
+constant affirmations, that he had never seen nor heard of the book--the
+'Admonition' by Cardinal Allen--and that he knew nothing of any bull, and
+had no regard to it.'
+
+The plausible Andrew accompanied the Doctor to his lodgings, protesting
+all the way of his own and his master's sincerity, and of their
+unequivocal intentions to conclude a peace.  The next day the Doctor,
+by agreement, brought a most able protocol of demands in the name of all
+the commissioners of her Majesty; which able protocol the Duke did not at
+that moment read, which he assuredly never read subsequently, and which
+no human soul ever read afterwards.  Let the dust lie upon it, and upon
+all the vast heaps of protocols raised mountains high during the spring
+and summer of 1588.
+
+"Dr. Dale has been with me two or three, times," said Parma, in giving
+his account of these interviews to Philip.  "I don't know why he came,
+but I think he wished to make it appear, by coming to Bruges, that the
+rupture, when it occurs, was caused by us, not by the English.  He has
+been complaining of Cardinal Allen's book, and I told him that I didn't
+understand a word of English, and knew nothing whatever of the matter."
+
+It has been already seen that the Duke had declared, on his word of
+honour, that he had never heard of the famous pamphlet.  Yet at that very
+moment letters were lying in his cabinet, received more than a fortnight
+before from Philip, in which that monarch thanked Alexander for having
+had the Cardinal's book translated at Antwerp!  Certainly few English
+diplomatists could be a match for a Highness so liberal of his word of
+honour.
+
+But even Dr. Dale had at last convinced himself--even although the Duke
+knew nothing of bull or pamphlet--that mischief was brewing against
+England.  The sagacious man, having seen large bodies of Spaniards and
+Walloons making such demonstrations of eagerness to be led against his
+country, and "professing it as openly as if they were going to a fair or
+market," while even Alexander himself could "no more hide it than did
+Henry VIII. when he went to Boulogne," could not help suspecting
+something amiss.
+
+His colleague, however, Comptroller Croft, was more judicious, for he
+valued himself on taking a sound, temperate, and conciliatory view of
+affairs.  He was not the man to offend a magnanimous neighbour--who
+meant nothing unfriendly by regarding his manoeuvres with superfluous
+suspicion.  So this envoy wrote to Lord Burghley on the 2nd August
+(N.S.)--let the reader mark the date--that, "although a great doubt
+had been conceived as to the King's sincerity, .  .  .  .  yet that
+discretion and experience induced him--the envoy--to think, that besides
+the reverent opinion to be had of princes' oaths, and the general
+incommodity which will come by the contrary, God had so balanced princes'
+powers in that age, as they rather desire to assure themselves at home,
+than with danger to invade their neighbours."
+
+Perhaps the mariners of England--at that very instant exchanging
+broadsides off the coast of Devon and Dorset with the Spanish Armada,
+and doing their best to protect their native land from the most horrible
+calamity which had ever impended over it--had arrived at a less reverent
+opinion of princes' oaths; and it was well for England in that supreme
+hour that there were such men as Howard and Drake, and Winter and
+Frobisher, and a whole people with hearts of oak to defend her, while
+bungling diplomatists and credulous dotards were doing their best to
+imperil her existence.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Bungling diplomatists and credulous dotards
+Fitter to obey than to command
+Full of precedents and declamatory commonplaces
+I am a king that will be ever known not to fear any but God
+Infamy of diplomacy, when diplomacy is unaccompanied by honesty
+Mendacity may always obtain over innocence and credulity
+Never did statesmen know better how not to do
+Pray here for satiety, (said Cecil) than ever think of variety
+Simple truth was highest skill
+Strength does a falsehood acquire in determined and skilful hand
+That crowned criminal, Philip the Second
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v55
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 56, 1588
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.  Part 2.
+
+     Dangerous Discord in North Holland--Leicester's Resignation arrives
+     --Enmity of Willoughby and Maurice--Willoughby's dark Picture of
+     Affairs--Hatred between States and Leicestrians--Maurice's Answer to
+     the Queen's Charges--End of Sonoy's Rebellion--Philip foments the
+     Civil War in France--League's Threats and Plots against Henry--Mucio
+     arrives in Paris--He is received with Enthusiasm--The King flies,
+     and Spain triumphs in Paris--States expostulate with the Queen--
+     English Statesmen still deceived--Deputies from Netherland Churches
+     --Hold Conference with the Queen--And present long Memorials--More
+     Conversations with the Queen--National Spirit of England and
+     Holland--Dissatisfaction with Queen's Course--Bitter Complaints of
+     Lord Howard--Want of Preparation in Army and Navy--Sanguine
+     Statements of Leicester--Activity of Parma--The painful Suspense
+     continues.
+
+
+But it is necessary-in order to obtain a complete picture of that famous
+year 1588, and to understand the cause from which such great events were
+springing--to cast a glance at the internal politics of the States most
+involved in Philip's meshes.
+
+Certainly, if there had ever been a time when the new commonwealth of the
+Netherlands should be both united in itself and on thoroughly friendly
+terms with England, it was exactly that epoch of which we are treating.
+There could be no reasonable doubt that the designs of Spain against
+England were hostile, and against Holland revengeful.  It was at least
+possible that Philip meant to undertake the conquest of England, and to
+undertake it as a stepping-stone to the conquest of Holland.  Both the
+kingdom and the republic should have been alert, armed, full of suspicion
+towards the common foe, full of confidence in each other.  What decisive
+blows might have been struck against Parma in the Netherlands, when his
+troops were starving, sickly, and mutinous, if the Hollanders and
+Englishmen had been united under one chieftain, and thoroughly convinced
+of the impossibility of peace!  Could the English and Dutch statesmen of
+that day have read all the secrets of their great enemy's heart, as it is
+our privilege at this hour to do, they would have known that in sudden
+and deadly strokes lay their best chance of salvation.  But, without that
+advantage, there were men whose sagacity told them that it was the hour
+for deeds and not for dreams.  For to Leicester and Walsingham, as well
+as to Paul Buys and Barneveld, peace with Spain seemed an idle vision.
+It was unfortunate that they were overruled by Queen Elizabeth and
+Burghley, who still clung to that delusion; it was still more disastrous
+that the intrigues of Leicester had done so much to paralyze the
+republic; it was almost fatal that his departure, without laying down his
+authority, had given the signal for civil war.
+
+During the winter, spring, and summer of 1588, while the Duke--in the
+face of mighty obstacles--was slowly proceeding with his preparations in
+Flanders, to co-operate with the armaments from Spain, it would have been
+possible by a combined movement to destroy his whole plan, to liberate
+all the Netherlands, and to avert, by one great effort, the ruin
+impending over England.  Instead of such vigorous action, it was thought
+wiser to send commissioners, to make protocols, to ask for armistices,
+to give profusely to the enemy that which he was most in need of--time.
+Meanwhile the Hollanders and English could quarrel comfortably among
+themselves, and the little republic, for want of a legal head, could come
+as near as possible to its dissolution.
+
+Young Maurice--deep thinker for his years and peremptory in action--was
+not the man to see his great father's life-work annihilated before his
+eyes, so long as he had an arm and brain of his own.  He accepted his
+position at the head of the government of Holland and Zeeland, and as
+chief of the war-party.  The council of state, mainly composed of
+Leicester's creatures, whose commissions would soon expire by their own
+limitation, could offer but a feeble resistance to such determined
+individuals as Maurice, Buys, and Barneveld.  The party made rapid
+progress.  On the other hand, the English Leicestrians did their best
+to foment discord in the Provinces.  Sonoy was sustained in his rebellion
+in North Holland, not only by the Earl's partizans, but by Elizabeth
+herself.  Her rebukes to Maurice, when Maurice was pursuing the only
+course which seemed to him consistent with honour and sound policy,
+were sharper than a sword.  Well might Duplessis Mornay observe, that
+the commonwealth had been rather strangled than embraced by the English
+Queen.  Sonoy, in the name of Leicester, took arms against Maurice and
+the States; Maurice marched against him; and Lord Willoughby, commander-
+in-chief of the English forces, was anxious to march against Maurice.
+It was a spectacle to make angels weep, that of Englishmen and Hollanders
+preparing to cut each other's throats, at the moment when Philip and
+Parma were bending all their energies to crush England and Holland at
+once.
+
+Indeed, the interregnum between the departure of Leicester and his
+abdication was diligently employed by his more reckless partizans to
+defeat and destroy the authority of the States.  By prolonging the
+interval, it was hoped that no government would be possible except the
+arbitrary rule of the Earl, or of a successor with similar views: for a
+republic--a free commonwealth--was thought an absurdity.  To entrust
+supreme power to advocates; merchants, and mechanics, seemed as hopeless
+as it was vulgar.  Willoughby; much devoted to Leicester and much
+detesting Barneveld, had small scruple in fanning the flames of discord.
+
+There was open mutiny against the States by the garrison of
+Gertruydenberg, and Willoughby's brother-in-law, Captain Wingfield,
+commanded in Gertruydenberg.  There were rebellious demonstrations in
+Naarden, and Willoughby went to Naarden.  The garrison was troublesome,
+but most of the magistrates were firm.  So Willoughby supped with the
+burgomasters, and found that Paul Buys had been setting the people
+against Queen Elizabeth, Leicester, and the whole English nation, making
+them all odious.  Colonel Dorp said openly that it was a shame for the
+country to refuse their own natural-born Count for strangers.  He swore
+that he would sing his song whose bread he had eaten.  A "fat militia
+captain" of the place, one Soyssons, on the other hand, privately
+informed Willoughby that Maurice and Barneveld were treating underhand
+with Spain.  Willoughby was inclined to believe the calumny, but feared
+that his corpulent friend would lose his head for reporting it.  Meantime
+the English commander did his best to strengthen the English party in
+their rebellion against the States.
+
+"But how if they make war upon us?"  asked the Leicestrians.
+
+"It is very likely," replied Willoughby, "that if they use violence you
+will have her Majesty's assistance, and then you who continue constant to
+the end will be rewarded accordingly.  Moreover, who would not rather be
+a horse-keeper to her Majesty, than a captain to Barneveld or Buys?"
+
+When at last the resignation of Leicester--presented to the States by
+Killegrew on the 31st March--seemed to promise comparative repose to the
+republic, the vexation of the Leicestrians was intense.  Their efforts.
+to effect a dissolution of the government had been rendered unsuccessful,
+when success seemed within their grasp.  "Albeit what is once executed
+cannot be prevented," said Captain Champernoun; "yet 'tis thought certain
+that if the resignation of Lord Leicester's commission had been deferred
+yet some little time; the whole country and towns would have so revolted
+and mutinied against the government and authority of the States, as that
+they should have had no more credit given them by the people than pleased
+her Majesty.  Most part of the people could see--in consequence of the
+troubles, discontent, mutiny of garrisons, and the like, that it was most
+necessary for the good success of their affairs that the power of the
+States should be abolished, and the whole government of his Excellency
+erected.  As these matters were busily working into the likelihood of
+some good effect, came the resignation of his Excellency's commission and
+authority, which so dashed the proceedings of it, as that all people and
+commanders well affected unto her Majesty and my Lord of Leicester are
+utterly discouraged.  The States, with their adherents, before they had
+any Lord's resignations were much perplexed what course to take, but now
+begin to hoist their heads."  The excellent Leicestrian entertained
+hopes, however; that mutiny and intrigue might still carry the day.
+He had seen the fat militiaman of Naarden and other captains, and,
+hoped much mischief from their schemes.  "The chief mutineers of
+Gertruydenberg," he said, "maybe wrought to send unto 'the States, that
+if they do not procure them some English governor, they will compound
+with the enemy, whereon the States shall be driven to request her Majesty
+to accept the place, themselves entertaining the garrison.  I know
+certain captains discontented with the States for arrears of pay, who
+will contrive to get into Naarden with their companies, with the States
+consent, who, once entered, will keep the place for their satisfaction,
+pay their soldiers out of the contributions of the country; and yet
+secretly hold the place at her Majesty's command."
+
+This is not an agreeable picture; yet it is but one out of many examples
+of the intrigues by which Leicester and his party were doing their best
+to destroy the commonwealth of the Netherlands at a moment when its
+existence was most important to that of England.
+
+To foment mutiny in order to subvert the authority of Maurice, was not
+a friendly or honourable course of action either towards Holland or
+England; and it was to play into the hands of Philip as adroitly as
+his own stipendiaries could have done.
+
+With mischief-makers like Champernoun in every city, and with such
+diplomatists at Ostend as Croft and Ropers and Valentine Dale, was it
+wonderful that the King and the Duke of Parma found time to mature their
+plans for the destruction of both countries?
+
+Lord Willoughby, too, was extremely dissatisfied with his own position.
+He received no commission from the Queen for several months.  When it at
+last reached him, it seemed inadequate, and he became more sullen than
+ever.  He declared that he would rather serve the Queen as a private
+soldier, at his own expense--"lean as his purse was"--than accept the
+limited authority conferred on him.  He preferred to show his devotion
+"in a beggarly state, than in a formal show."  He considered it beneath
+her Majesty's dignity that he should act in the field under the States,
+but his instructions forbade his acceptance of any office from that body
+but that of general in their service.  He was very discontented, and more
+anxious than ever to be rid of his functions.  Without being extremely
+ambitious, he was impatient of control.  He desired not "a larger-shaped
+coat," but one that fitted him better.  "I wish to shape my garment
+homely, after my cloth," he said, "that the better of my parish may not
+be misled by my sumptuousness.  I would live quietly, without great
+noise, my poor roof low and near the ground, not subject to be overblown
+with unlooked-for storms, while the sun seems most shining."
+
+Being the deadly enemy of the States and their leaders, it was a matter
+of course that he should be bitter against Maurice.  That young Prince,
+bold, enterprising, and determined, as he was, did not ostensibly meddle
+with political affairs more than became his years; but he accepted the
+counsels of the able statesmen in whom his father had trusted.  Riding,
+hunting, and hawking, seemed to be his chief delight at the Hague, in the
+intervals of military occupations.  He rarely made his appearance in the
+state-council during the winter, and referred public matters to the
+States-General, to the States of Holland, to Barneveld, Buys, and
+Hohenlo.  Superficial observers like George Gilpin regarded him as a
+cipher; others, like Robert Cecil, thought him an unmannerly schoolboy;
+but Willoughby, although considering him insolent and conceited, could
+not deny his ability.  The peace partisans among the burghers--a very
+small faction--were furious against him, for they knew that Maurice of
+Nassau represented war.  They accused of deep designs against the
+liberties of their country the youth who was ever ready to risk his life
+in their defence.  A burgomaster from Friesland, who had come across the
+Zuyder Zee to intrigue against the States' party, was full of spleen at
+being obliged to dance attendance for a long time at the Hague.  He
+complained that Count Maurice, green of years, and seconded by greener
+counsellors, was meditating the dissolution of the state-council, the
+appointment of a new board from his own creatures, the overthrow of all
+other authority, and the assumption of the, sovereignty of Holland and
+Zeeland, with absolute power.  "And when this is done;" said the rueful
+burgomaster, "he and his turbulent fellows may make what terms they like
+with Spain, to the disadvantage of the Queen and of us poor wretches."
+
+But there was nothing farther from the thoughts of the turbulent fellows
+than any negotiations with Spain.  Maurice was ambitious enough, perhaps,
+but his ambition ran in no such direction.  Willoughby knew better; and
+thought that by humouring the petulant young man it might be possible to
+manage him.
+
+"Maurice is young," he said, "hot-headed; coveting honour.  If we do but
+look at him through our fingers, without much words, but with providence
+enough, baiting his hook a little to his appetite, there is no doubt but
+he might be caught and kept in a fish-pool; while in his imagination he
+may judge it a sea.  If not, 'tis likely he will make us fish in troubled
+waters."
+
+Maurice was hardly the fish for a mill-pond even at that epoch, and it
+might one day be seen whether or not he could float in the great ocean
+of events.  Meanwhile, he swam his course without superfluous gambols or
+spoutings.
+
+The commander of her Majesty's forces was not satisfied with the States,
+nor their generals, nor their politicians.  "Affairs are going 'a malo in
+pejus,'" he said.  "They embrace their liberty as apes their young.  To
+this end are Counts Hollock and Maurice set upon the stage to entertain
+the popular sort.  Her Majesty and my Lord of Leicester are not
+forgotten.  The Counts are in Holland, especially Hollock, for the other
+is but the cipher.  And yet I can assure you Maurice hath wit and spirit
+too much for his time."
+
+As the troubles of the interregnum increased Willoughby was more
+dissatisfied than ever with the miserable condition of the Provinces,
+but chose to ascribe it to the machinations of the States' party,
+rather than to the ambiguous conduct of Leicester.  "These evils,"
+he said, "are especially, derived from the childish ambition of the
+young Count Maurice, from the covetous and furious counsels of the proud
+Hollanders, now chief of the States-General, and, if with pardon it may
+be said, from our slackness and coldness to entertain our friends.  The
+provident and wiser sort--weighing what a slender ground the appetite of
+a young man is, unfurnished with the sinews of war to manage so great a
+cause--for a good space after my Lord of Leicester's departure, gave him
+far looking on, to see him play has part on the stage."
+
+Willoughby's spleen caused him to mix his metaphors more recklessly than
+strict taste would warrant, but his violent expressions painted the
+relative situation of parties more vividly than could be done by a calm
+disquisition.  Maurice thus playing his part upon the stage--as the
+general proceeded to observe--"was a skittish horse, becoming by little
+and little assured of what he had feared, and perceiving the harmlessness
+thereof; while his companions, finding no safety of neutrality in so
+great practices, and no overturning nor barricado to stop his rash wilded
+chariot, followed without fear; and when some of the first had passed the
+bog; the rest, as the fashion is, never started after.  The variable
+democracy; embracing novelty, began to applaud their prosperity; the base
+and lewdest sorts of men, to whom there is nothing more agreeable than
+change of estates, is a better monture to degrees than their merit, took
+present hold thereof.  Hereby Paul Buys, Barneveld, and divers others,
+who were before mantled with a tolerable affection, though seasoned with
+a poisoned intention, caught the occasion, and made themselves the
+Beelzebubs of all these mischiefs, and, for want of better angels, spared
+not to let fly our golden-winged ones in the name of guilders, to prepare
+the hearts and hands that hold money more dearer than honesty, of which
+sort, the country troubles and the Spanish practices having suckled up
+many, they found enough to serve their purpose.  As the breach is safely
+saltable where no defence is made, so they, finding no head, but those
+scattered arms that were disavowed, drew the sword with Peter, and gave
+pardon with the Pope, as you shall plainly perceive by the proceedings
+at Horn.  Thus their force; fair words, or corruption, prevailing
+everywhere, it grew to this conclusion--that the worst were encouraged
+with their good success, and the best sort assured of no fortune or
+favour."
+
+Out of all this hubbub of stage-actors, skittish horses, rash wilded
+chariots, bogs, Beelzebubs, and golden-winged angels, one truth was
+distinctly audible; that Beelzebub, in the shape of Barneveld, had been
+getting the upper hand in the Netherlands, and that the Lecestrians were
+at a disadvantage.  In truth those partisans were becoming extremely
+impatient.  Finding themselves deserted by their great protector, they
+naturally turned their eyes towards Spain, and were now threatening to
+sell themselves to Philip.  The Earl, at his departure, had given them
+privately much encouragement.  But month after month had passed by while
+they were waiting in vain for comfort.  At last the "best"--that is to
+say, the unhappy Leicestrians--came to Willoughby, asking his advice in
+their "declining and desperate cause."
+
+"Well nigh a month longer," said that general, "I nourished them with
+compliments, and assured them that my Lord of Leicester would take care
+of them."  The diet was not fattening.  So they began to grumble more
+loudly than ever, and complained with great bitterness of the miserable
+condition in which they had been left by the Earl, and expressed their
+fears lest the Queen likewise meant to abandon them.  They protested that
+their poverty, their powerful foes, and their slow friends, would.
+compel them either to make their peace with the States' party, or
+"compound with the enemy."
+
+It would have seemed that real patriots, under such circumstances, would
+hardly hesitate in their choice, and would sooner accept the dominion of
+"Beelzebub," or even Paul Buys, than that of Philip II.  But the
+Leicestrians of Utrecht and Friesland--patriots as they were--hated
+Holland worse than they hated the Inquisition.  Willoughby encouraged
+them in that hatred.  He assured him of her Majesty's affection for them,
+complained of the factious proceedings of the States, and alluded to the
+unfavourable state of the weather, as a reason why--near four months
+long--they had not received the comfort out of England which they had a
+right to expect.  He assured them that neither the Queen nor Leicester
+would conclude this honourable action, wherein much had been hazarded,
+"so rawly and tragically" as they seemed to fear, and warned them, that
+"if they did join with Holland, it would neither ease nor help them, but
+draw them into a more dishonourable loss of their liberties; and that,
+after having wound them in, the Hollanders would make their own peace
+with the enemy."
+
+It seemed somewhat unfair-while the Queen's government was straining
+every nerve to obtain a peace from Philip, and while the Hollanders were
+obstinately deaf to any propositions for treating--that Willoughby should
+accuse them of secret intentions to negotiate.  But it must be confessed
+that faction has rarely worn a more mischievous aspect than was presented
+by the politics of Holland and England in the winter and spring of 1588.
+
+Young Maurice was placed in a very painful position.  He liked not to be
+"strangled in the great Queen's embrace;" but he felt most keenly the
+necessity of her friendship, and the importance to both countries of a
+close alliance.  It was impossible for him, however, to tolerate the
+rebellion of Sonoy, although Sonoy was encouraged by Elizabeth, or to fly
+in the face of Barneveld, although Barneveld was detested by Leicester.
+So with much firmness and courtesy, notwithstanding the extravagant
+pictures painted by Willoughby, he suppressed mutiny in Holland, while
+avowing the most chivalrous attachment to the sovereign of England.
+
+Her Majesty expressed her surprise and her discontent, that,
+notwithstanding his expressions of devotion to herself, he should
+thus deal with Sonoy, whose only crime was an equal devotion.  "If you
+do not behave with more moderation in future," she said, "you may believe
+that we are not a princess of so little courage as not to know how to
+lend a helping hand to those who are unjustly oppressed.  We should be
+sorry if we had cause to be disgusted with your actions, and if we were
+compelled to make you a stranger to the ancient good affection which we
+bore to your late father, and have continued towards yourself."
+
+But Maurice maintained a dignified attitude, worthy of his great father's
+name.  He was not the man to crouch like Leicester, when he could no
+longer refresh himself in the "shadow of the Queen's golden beams,"
+important as he knew her friendship to be to himself and his country.
+So he defended himself in a manly letter to the privy council against the
+censures of Elizabeth.  He avowed his displeasure, that, within his own
+jurisdiction, Sonoy should give a special oath of obedience to Leicester;
+a thing never done before in the country, and entirely illegal.  It would
+not even be tolerated in England, he said, if a private gentleman should
+receive a military appointment in Warwickshire or Norfolk without the
+knowledge of the lord-lieutenant of the shire.  He had treated the
+contumacious Sonoy with mildness during a long period, but without
+effect.  He had abstained from violence towards him, out of reverence to
+the Queen, under whose sacred name he sheltered himself.  Sonoy had not
+desisted, but had established himself in organized rebellion at
+Medenblik, declaring that he would drown the whole country, and levy
+black-mail upon its whole property, if he were not paid one hundred
+thousand crowns.  He had declared that he would crush Holland like a
+glass beneath his feet.  Having nothing but religion in his mouth, and
+protecting himself with the Queen's name, he had been exciting all the
+cities of North Holland to rebellion, and bringing the poor people to
+destruction.  He had been offered money enough to satisfy the most
+avaricious soldier in the world, but he stood out for six years' full
+pay for his soldiers, a demand with which it was impossible to comply.
+It was necessary to prevent him from inundating the land and destroying
+the estates of the country gentlemen and the peasants.  "This gentlemen,"
+said Maurice, "is the plain truth; nor do I believe that you will sustain
+against me a man who was under such vast obligations to my late father,
+and who requites his debt by daring to speak of myself as a rascal; or
+that you will countenance his rebellion against a country to which he
+brought only, his cloak and sword, and, whence he has filched one hundred
+thousand crowns.  You will not, I am sure, permit a simple captain, by
+his insubordination to cause such mischief, and to set on fire this and
+other Provinces.
+
+"If, by your advice," continued the Count; "the Queen should appoint
+fitting' personages to office here--men who know what honour is; born
+of illustrious and noble-race, or who by their great virtue have been
+elevated to the honours of the kingdom--to them I will render an account
+of my actions.  And it shall appear that I have more ability and more
+desire to do my duty, to her Majesty than those who render her lip-
+service only, and only make use of her sacred name to fill their purses,
+while I and, mine have been ever ready to employ our lives, and what
+remains of our fortunes, in the cause of God, her Majesty, and our
+country."
+
+Certainly no man had a better right: to speak with consciousness of the
+worth of race than the son of William the Silent, the nephew of Lewis,
+Adolphus, and Henry of Nassau,  who had all laid down their lives for
+the liberty of their country.  But Elizabeth continued to threaten the
+States-General, through the mouth of Willoughby, with the loss of her
+protection, if they should continue thus to requite her favours with
+ingratitude and insubordination: and Maurice once more respectfully but
+firmly replied that Sonoy's rebellion could not and would not be
+tolerated; appealing boldly to her sense of justice, which was the
+noblest attribute of kings.
+
+At last the Queen informed Willoughby, that--as the cause of Sonoy's
+course seemed to be his oath of obedience to Leicester, whose resignation
+of office had not yet been received in the Netherlands--she had now
+ordered Councillor Killigrew to communicate the fact of that resignation.
+She also wrote to Sonoy, requiring him to obey the States and Count
+Maurice, and to accept a fresh commission from them, or at least to
+surrender Medenblik, and to fulfil all their orders with zeal and
+docility.
+
+This act of abdication by Leicester, which had been received on the 22nd
+of January by the English envoy, Herbert, at the moment of his departure
+from the Netherlands, had been carried back by him to England, on the
+ground that its communication to the States at that moment would cause
+him inconveniently to postpone his journey.  It never officially reached
+the States-General until the 31st of March, so that this most dangerous
+crisis was protracted nearly five months long--certainly without
+necessity or excuse--and whether through design, malice, wantonness,
+or incomprehensible carelessness, it is difficult to say.
+
+So soon as the news reached Sonoy, that contumacious chieftain found his
+position untenable, and he allowed the States' troops to take possession
+of Medenblik, and with it the important territory of North Holland.
+
+Maurice now saw himself undisputed governor.  Sonoy was in the course of
+the summer deprived of all office, and betook himself to England.  Here
+he was kindly received by the Queen, who bestowed upon him a ruined
+tower, and a swamp among the fens of Lincolnshire.  He brought over some
+of his countrymen, well-skilled in such operations, set himself to
+draining and dyking, and hoped to find himself at home and comfortable in
+his ruined tower.  But unfortunately, as neither he nor his wife,
+notwithstanding their English proclivities, could speak a word of the
+language; they found their social enjoyments very limited.  Moreover,
+as his work-people were equally without the power of making their wants
+understood, the dyking operations made but little progress.  So the
+unlucky colonel soon abandoned his swamp, and retired to East Friesland,
+where he lived a morose and melancholy life on a pension of one thousand
+florins, granted him by the States of Holland, until the year 1597, when
+he lost his mind, fell into the fire, and thus perished.
+
+And thus; in the Netherlands, through hollow negotiations between enemies
+and ill-timed bickerings among friends, the path of Philip and Parma had
+been made comparatively smooth during the spring and early summer of
+1588.  What was the aspect of affairs in Germany and France?
+
+The adroit capture of Bonn by Martin Schenk had given much trouble.
+Parma was obliged to detach a strong force; under Prince Chimay, to
+attempt the recovery of that important place, which--so long as it
+remained in the power of the States--rendered the whole electorate
+insecure and a source of danger to the Spanish party.  Farnese
+endeavoured in vain to win back the famous partizan by most liberal
+offers, for he felt bitterly the mistake he had made in alienating so
+formidable a freebooter.  But the truculent Martin remained obdurate and
+irascible.  Philip, much offended that the news of his decease had proved
+false, ordered rather than requested the Emperor Rudolph to have a care
+that nothing was done in Germany to interfere with the great design upon
+England.  The King gave warning that he would suffer no disturbance from
+that quarter, but certainly the lethargic condition of Germany rendered
+such threats superfluous.  There were riders enough, and musketeers
+enough, to be sold to the highest bidder.  German food for powder was
+offered largely in the market to any foreign consumer, for the trade in
+their subjects', lives was ever a prolific source of revenue to the petty
+sovereigns--numerous as the days of the year--who owned Germany and the
+Germans.
+
+The mercenaries who had so recently been, making their inglorious
+campaign in France had been excluded from that country at the close of
+1587, and furious were the denunciations of the pulpits and the populace
+of Paris that the foreign brigands who had been devastating the soil of
+France, and attempting to oppose the decrees of the Holy Father of Rome,
+should; have made their escape so easily.  Rabid Lincestre and other
+priests and monks foamed with rage, as they execrated and anathematized
+the devil-worshipper Henry of Valois, in all the churches of that
+monarch's capital.  The Spanish ducats were flying about, more profusely
+than ever, among the butchers and porters, and fishwomen, of the great
+city; and Madam League paraded herself in the day-light with still
+increasing insolence.  There was scarcely a pretence at recognition of
+any authority, save that of Philip and Sixtus.  France had become a
+wilderness--an uncultivated, barbarous province of Spain.  Mucio--Guise
+had been secretly to Rome, had held interviews with the Pope and
+cardinals, and had come back with a sword presented by his Holiness,
+its hilt adorned with jewels, and its blade engraved with tongues of
+fire.  And with this flaming sword the avenging messenger of the holy
+father was to smite the wicked, and to drive them into outer darkness.
+
+And there had been fresh conferences among the chiefs of the sacred
+League within the Lorraine territory, and it was resolved to require of
+the Valois an immediate extermination of heresy and heretics throughout
+the kingdom, the publication of the Council of Trent, and the formal
+establishment of the Holy Inquisition in every province of France.  Thus,
+while doing his Spanish master's bidding, the great Lieutenant of the
+league might, if he was adroit enough, to outwit Philip, ultimately carve
+out a throne for himself.
+
+Yet Philip felt occasional pangs of uneasiness lest there should, after
+all, be peace in France, and lest his schemes against Holland and England
+might be interfered with from that quarter.  Even Farnese, nearer the
+scene, could, not feel completely secure that a sudden reconciliation
+among contending factions might not give rise to a dangerous inroad
+across the Flemish border.  So Guise was plied more vigourously than ever
+by the Duke with advice and encouragement, and assisted with such Walloon
+carabineers as could be spared, while large subsidies and larger promises
+came from Philip, whose prudent policy was never to pay excessive sums,
+until the work contracted for was done.  "Mucio must do the job long
+since agreed upon," said Philip to Farnese, "and you and Mendoza must see
+that he prevents the King of France from troubling me in my enterprize
+against England."  If the unlucky Henry III. had retained one spark of
+intelligence, he would have seen that his only chance of rescue lay in
+the arm of the Bearnese, and in an honest alliance with England.  Yet
+so strong was his love for the monks, who were daily raving against him,
+that he was willing to commit any baseness, in order to win back their
+affection.  He was ready to exterminate heresy and to establish the
+inquisition, but he was incapable of taking energetic measures of any
+kind, even when throne and life were in imminent peril.  Moreover, he
+clung to Epernon and the 'politiques,' in whose swords he alone found
+protection, and he knew that Epernon and the 'politiques' were the
+objects of horror to Paris and to the League.  At the same time he looked
+imploringly towards England and towards the great Huguenot chieftain,
+Elizabeth's knight-errant.  He had a secret interview with Sir Edward
+Stafford, in the garden of the Bernardino convent, and importuned that
+envoy to implore the Queen to break off her negotiations with Philip, and
+even dared to offer the English ambassador a large reward, if such a
+result could be obtained.  Stafford was also earnestly, requested to
+beseech the Queen's influence with Henry of Navarre, that he should
+convert himself to Catholicism, and thus destroy the League.
+
+On the other hand, the magniloquent Mendoza, who was fond of describing
+himself as "so violent and terrible to the French that they wished to be
+rid of him," had--as usual--been frightening the poor King, who, after a
+futile attempt at dignity, had shrunk before the blusterings of the
+ambassador.  "This King," said Don Bernardino, "thought that he could
+impose, upon me and silence me, by talking loud, but as I didn't talk
+softly to him, he has undeceived himself .  .  .  . I have had another
+interview with him, and found him softer than silk, and he made me many
+caresses, and after I went out, he said that I was a very skilful
+minister."
+
+It was the purpose of the League to obtain possession of the King's
+person, and, if necessary, to dispose of the 'politiques' by a general
+massacre, such as sixteen years before had been so successful in the case
+of Coligny and the Huguenots.  So the populace--more rabid than ever--
+were impatient that their adored Balafre should come to Paris and begin
+the holy work.
+
+He came as far as Gonesse to do the job he had promised to Philip, but
+having heard that Henry had reinforced himself with four thousand Swiss
+from the garrison of Lagny, he fell back to Soissons.  The King sent him
+a most abject message, imploring him not to expose his sovereign to so
+much danger, by setting his foot at that moment in the capital.  The
+Balafre hesitated, but the populace raved and roared for its darling.
+The Queen-Mother urged her unhappy son to yield his consent, and the
+Montpensier--fatal sister of Guise, with the famous scissors ever at her
+girdle--insisted that her brother had as good a right as any man to come
+to the city.  Meantime the great chief of the 'politiques,' the hated and
+insolent Epernon, had been appointed governor of Normandy, and Henry had
+accompanied his beloved minion a part of the way towards Rouen.  A plot
+contrived by the Montpensier to waylay the monarch on his return, and to
+take him into the safe-keeping of the League, miscarried, for the King
+reentered the city before the scheme was ripe.  On the other hand,
+Nicholas Poulain, bought for twenty thousand crowns by the 'politiques,'
+gave the King and his advisers-full information of all these intrigues,
+and, standing in Henry's cabinet, offered, at peril of his life, if he
+might be confronted with the conspirators--the leaders of the League
+within the city--to prove the truth of the charges which he had made.
+
+For the whole city was now thoroughly organized.  The number of its
+districts had been reduced from sixteen to five, the better to bring it
+under the control of the League; and, while it could not be denied that
+Mucio, had, been doing his master's work very thoroughly, yet it was
+still in the power of the King--through the treachery of Poulain--to
+strike a blow for life and freedom, before he was quite, taken in the
+trap.  But he stood helpless, paralyzed, gazing in dreamy stupor--like
+one fascinated at the destruction awaiting him.
+
+At last, one memorable May morning, a traveller alighted outside the gate
+of Saint Martin, and proceeded on foot through the streets of Paris.  He
+was wrapped in a large cloak, which he held carefully over his face.
+When he had got as far as the street of Saint Denis, a young gentleman
+among the passers by, a good Leaguer, accosted the stranger, and with
+coarse pleasantry, plucked the cloak from his face, and the hat from his
+head.  Looking at the handsome, swarthy features, marked with a deep
+scar, and the dark, dangerous eyes which were then revealed, the
+practical jester at once recognized in the simple traveller the terrible
+Balafre, and kissed the hem of his garments with submissive rapture.
+Shouts of "Vive Guise" rent the air from all the bystanders, as the Duke,
+no longer affecting concealment, proceeded with a slow and stately step
+toward the residence of Catharine de' Medici.'  That queen of compromises
+and of magic had been holding many a conference with the leaders of both
+parties; had been increasing her son's stupefaction by her enigmatical
+counsels; had been anxiously consulting her talisman of goat's and human
+blood, mixed with metals melted under the influence of the star of her
+nativity, and had been daily visiting the wizard Ruggieri, in whose magic
+circle--peopled with a thousand fantastic heads--she had held high
+converse with the world of spirits, and derived much sound advice as to
+the true course of action to be pursued between her son and Philip, and
+between the politicians and the League.  But, in spite of these various
+sources of instruction, Catharine--was somewhat perplexed, now that
+decisive action seemed necessary--a dethronement and a new massacre
+impending, and judicious compromise difficult.  So after a hurried
+conversation with Mucio, who insisted on an interview with the King, she
+set forth for the Louvre, the Duke lounging calmly by the aide of her,
+sedan chair, on foot, receiving the homage of the populace, as men,
+women, and children together, they swarmed around him as he walked,
+kissing his garments, and rending the air with their shouts.  For that
+wolfish mob of Paris, which had once lapped the blood of ten thousand
+Huguenots in a single night, and was again rabid with thirst, was most
+docile and fawning to the great Balafre.  It grovelled before him, it
+hung upon his look, it licked his hand, and, at the lifting of his
+finger, or the glance of his eye, would have sprung at the throat of King
+or Queen-Mother, minister, or minion, and devoured them all before his
+eyes.  It was longing for the sign, for, much as Paris adored and was
+besotted with Guise and the League, even more, if possible, did it hate
+those godless politicians, who had grown fat on extortions from the poor,
+and who had converted their substance into the daily bread of luxury.
+
+Nevertheless the city was full of armed men, Swiss and German
+mercenaries, and burgher guards, sworn to fidelity to the throne.  The
+place might have been swept clean, at that moment, of rebels who were not
+yet armed or fortified in their positions.  The Lord had delivered Guise
+into Henry's hands.  "Oh, the madman!"--cried Sixtus V., when he heard
+that the Duke had gone to Paris, "thus to put himself into the clutches
+of the King whom he had so deeply offended!"  And, "Oh, the wretched
+coward, the imbecile?"  he added, when he heard how the King had dealt
+with his great enemy.
+
+For the monarch was in his cabinet that May morning, irresolutely
+awaiting the announced visit of the Duke.  By his aide stood Alphonse
+Corse, attached as a mastiff to his master, and fearing not Guise nor
+Leaguer, man nor devil.
+
+"Sire, is the Duke of Guise your friend or enemy?"  said Alphonse.  The
+King answered by an expressive shrug.
+
+"Say the word, Sire," continued Alphonse, "and I pledge myself to bring
+his head this instant, and lay it at your feet."
+
+And he would have done it.  Even at the side of Catharine's sedan chair,
+and in the very teeth of the worshipping mob, the Corsican would have had
+the Balafre's life, even though he laid down his own.
+
+But Henry--irresolute and fascinated--said it was not yet time for such a
+blow.
+
+Soon afterward; the Duke was announced.  The chief of the League and the
+last of the Valois met, face to face; but not for the last time.  The
+interview--was coldly respectful on the part of Mucio, anxious and
+embarrassed on that of the King.  When the visit, which was merely one
+of ceremony, was over, the Duke departed as he came, receiving the
+renewed homage of the populace as he walked to his hotel.
+
+That night precautions were taken.  All the guards were doubled around
+the palace and through the streets.  The Hotel de Ville and the Place de
+la Greve were made secure, and the whole city was filled with troops.
+But the Place Maubert was left unguarded, and a rabble rout--all night
+long--was collecting in that distant spot.  Four companies of burgher-
+guards went over to the League at three o'clock in the morning.  The rest
+stood firm in the cemetery of the Innocents, awaiting the orders of the
+King.  At day-break on the 11th the town was still quiet.  There was an
+awful pause of expectation.  The shops remained closed all the morning,
+the royal troops were drawn up in battle-array, upon the Greve and around
+the Hotel de Ville, but they stood motionless as statues, until the
+populace began taunting them with cowardice, and then laughing them to
+scorn.  For their sovereign lord and master still sat paralyzed in his
+palace.
+
+The mob had been surging through all the streets and lanes, until,
+as by a single impulse, chains were stretched across the streets, and
+barricades thrown up in all the principal thoroughfares.  About noon the
+Duke of Guise, who had been sitting quietly in his hotel, with a very few
+armed followers, came out into the street of the Hotel Montmorency, and
+walked calmly up and down, arm-in-aim with the Archbishop of Lyons,
+between a double hedge-row of spectators and admirers, three or four
+ranks thick.  He was dressed in a white slashed doublet and hose, and
+wore a very large hat.  Shouts of triumph resounded from a thousand
+brazen throats, as he moved calmly about, receiving, at every instant,
+expresses from the great gathering in the Place Maubert.
+
+"Enough, too much, my good friends," he said, taking off the great hat--
+("I don't know whether he was laughing in it," observed one who was
+looking on that day)--"Enough of 'Long live Guise!' Cry 'Long live the
+King!'"
+
+There was no response, as might be expected, and the people shouted more
+hoarsely than ever for Madam League and the Balafre.  The Duke's face was
+full of gaiety; there was not a shadow of anxiety upon it in that
+perilous and eventful moment.  He saw that the day was his own.
+
+For now, the people, ripe, ready; mustered, armed, barricaded; awaited
+but a signal to assault the King's mercenaries, before rushing to the
+palace: On every house-top missiles were provided to hurl upon their
+heads.  There seemed no escape for Henry or his Germans from impending
+doom, when Guise, thoroughly triumphant, vouchsafed them their lives.
+
+"You must give me these soldiers as a present, my friends," said he to
+the populace.
+
+And so the armed Swiss, French, and German troopers and infantry,
+submitted to be led out of Paris, following with docility the aide-de-
+camp of Guise, Captain St. Paul, who walked quietly before them, with his
+sword in its scabbard, and directing their movements with a cane.  Sixty
+of them were slain by the mob, who could not, even at the command of
+their beloved chieftain, quite forego their expected banquet.  But this
+was all the blood shed on the memorable day of Barricades, when another
+Bartholomew massacre had been, expected.
+
+Meantime; while Guise was making his promenade through the city,
+exchanging embraces with the rabble; and listening to the coarse
+congratulations and obscene jests of the porters and fishwomen, the poor
+King sat crying all day long in the Louvre.  The Queen-Mother was with
+him, reproaching him bitterly with his irresolution and want of
+confidences in her, and scolding him for his tears.  But the unlucky
+Henry only wept the more as he cowered in a corner.
+
+"These are idle tears," said Catherine.  "This is no time for crying.
+And for myself, though women weep so easily; I feel my heart too deeply
+wrung for tears.  If they came to my eyes they would be tears of blood."
+
+Next day the last Valois walked-out, of the Louvre; as if for a promenade
+in, the Tuileries, and proceeded straightway to the stalls, where his
+horse stood saddled.  Du Halde, his equerry, buckled his master's spurs
+on upside down.  "No; matter;" said Henry; "I am not riding to see my
+mistress.  I have a longer journey before me."
+
+And so, followed by a rabble rout of courtiers, without boots or cloaks;
+and mounted on, sorry hacks--the King-of France rode forth from his
+capital post-haste, and turning as he left the gates, hurled back
+impotent imprecations upon Paris and its mob.  Thenceforth, for a long
+interval, there: was no king in that country.  Mucio had done his work,
+and earned his wages, and Philip II. reigned in Paris.  The commands
+of the League were now complied with.  Heretics were doomed to
+extermination.  The edict of 19th July, 1588, was published with the most
+exclusive and stringent provisions that the most bitter Romanist could
+imagine, and, as a fair beginning; two young girls, daughters of Jacques
+Forcade, once 'procureur au parlement,' were burned in Paris, for the
+crime, of Protestantism.  The Duke of Guise was named Generalissimo of
+the Kingdom (26th August, 1588).  Henry gave in his submission to
+the Council of Trent, the edicts, the Inquisition, and the rest of
+the League's infernal machinery, and was formally reconciled.
+to Guise, with how much sincerity time was soon to show.
+
+     [The King bound himself by oath to extirpate heresy, to remove all
+     persons suspected of that crime from office, and never to lay down
+     arms so long as a single, heretic remained.  By secret articles,'two
+     armies against the Huguenots were agreed upon, one under the Duke of
+     Mayenne, the other under some general to be appointed by the grog.
+     The Council of Trent was forthwith to be proclaimed, and by a
+     refinement of malice the League stipulated that all officers
+     appointed in Paris by the Duke of Guise on the day after the
+     barricades should resign their powers, and be immediately re-
+     appointed by the King himself (DeThou, x.1.  86, pp. 324-325.)]
+
+Meantime Philip, for whom and at whose expense all this work had been
+done by he hands of the faithful Mucio, was constantly assuring his royal
+brother of France, through envoy Longlee, at Madrid, of his most
+affectionate friendship, and utterly repudiating all knowledge of these
+troublesome and dangerous plots.  Yet they had been especially organized
+--as we have seen--by himself and the Balafre, in order that France might
+be kept a prey to civil war, and thus rendered incapable of offering any
+obstruction to his great enterprise against England.  Any complicity of
+Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in Paris, or, of the Duke of Parma, who
+were important agents in all these proceedings, with the Duke of Guise,
+was strenuously--and circumstantially--denied; and the Balafre, on the
+day of the barricades, sent Brissac to Elizabeth's envoy, Sir Edward
+Stafford, to assure him as to his personal safety; and as to the deep
+affection with which England and its Queen were regarded by himself and
+all his friends.  Stafford had also been advised to accept a guard for
+his house of embassy.  His reply was noble.
+
+"I represent the majesty of England," he said, "and can take no safeguard
+from a subject of the sovereign to whom I am accredited."
+
+To the threat of being invaded, and to the advice to close his gates, he
+answered, "Do you see these two doors? now, then, if I am attacked, I am
+determined to defend myself to the last drop of my blood, to serve as an
+example to the universe of the law of nations, violated in my person.  Do
+not imagine that I shall follow your advice.  The gates of an ambassador
+shall be open to all the world."
+
+Brissac returned with this answer to Guise, who saw that it was hopeless
+to attempt making a display in the eyes of Queen Elizabeth, but gave
+private orders that the ambassador should not be molested.
+
+Such were the consequences of the day of the barricades--and thus the
+path of Philip was cleared of all obstructions on, the part of France.
+His Mucio was now, generalissimo.  Henry was virtually deposed.  Henry of
+Navarre, poor and good-humoured as ever, was scarcely so formidable at
+that moment as he might one day become.  When the news of the day of
+barricades was brought at night to that cheerful monarch, he started from
+his couch.  "Ha," he exclaimed with a laugh, "but they havn't yet caught
+the Bearnese!"
+
+And it might be long before the League would catch the Bearnese; but,
+meantime, he could render slight assistance to Queen Elizabeth.
+
+In England there had been much fruitless negotiation between the
+government of that country and the commissioners from the States-General.
+There was perpetual altercation on the subject of Utrecht, Leyden, Sonoy,
+and the other causes of contention; the Queen--as usual--being imperious
+and choleric, and the envoys, in her opinion, very insolent.  But the
+principal topic of discussion was the peace-negotiations, which the
+States-General, both at home and through their delegation in England, had
+been doing their best to prevent; steadily refusing her Majesty's demand
+that commissioners, on their part, should be appointed to participate in
+the conferences at Ostend.  Elizabeth promised that there should be as
+strict regard paid to the interests of Holland as to those of England,
+in case of a pacification, and that she would never forget her duty to
+them, to herself, and to the world, as the protectress of the reformed
+religion.  The deputies, on the other hand, warned her that peace with
+Spain was impossible; that the intention of the Spanish court was to
+deceive her, while preparing her destruction and theirs; that it was
+hopeless to attempt the concession of any freedom of conscience from
+Philip II.; and that any stipulations which might be made upon that, or
+any other subject, by the Spanish commissioners, would be tossed to the
+wind.  In reply to the Queen's loud complaints that the States had been
+trifling with her, and undutiful to her, and that they had kept her
+waiting seven months long for an answer to her summons to participate in
+the negotiations, they replied, that up to the 15th October of the
+previous year, although there had been flying rumours of an intention on
+the part of her Majesty's government to open those communications with
+the enemy, it had, "nevertheless been earnestly and expressly, and with
+high words and oaths, denied that there was any truth in those rumours."
+Since that time the States had not once only, but many times, in private
+letters, in public documents, and in conversations with Lord Leicester
+and other eminent personages, deprecated any communications whatever with
+Spain, asserting uniformly their conviction that such proceedings would
+bring ruin on their country, and imploring her Majesty not to give ear to
+any propositions whatever.
+
+And not only were the envoys, regularly appointed by the States-General,
+most active in England, in their, attempts to prevent the negotiations,
+but delegates from the Netherland churches were also sent to the Queen,
+to reason with her on the subject, and to utter solemn warnings that the
+cause of the reformed religion would be lost for ever, in case of a
+treaty on her part with Spain.  When these clerical envoys reached
+England the Queen was already beginning to wake from her delusion;
+although her commissioners were still--as we have seen--hard at work,
+pouring sand through their sieves at Ostend, and although the steady
+protestations, of the Duke of Parma, and the industrious circulation of
+falsehoods by Spanish emissaries, had even caused her wisest statesmen,
+for a time, to participate in that delusion.
+
+For it is not so great an impeachment on the sagacity of the great Queen
+of England, as it would now appear to those who judge by the light of
+subsequent facts, that she still doubted whether the armaments,
+notoriously preparing in Spain and Flanders, were intended against
+herself; and that even if such were the case--she still believed in the
+possibility of averting the danger by negotiation.
+
+So late as the beginning of May, even the far-seeing and anxious
+Walsingham could say, that in England "they were doing nothing but
+honouring St. George, of whom the Spanish Armada seemed to be afraid.
+We hear," he added, "that they will not be ready to set forward before
+the midst of May, but I trust that it will be May come twelve months.
+The King of Spain is too old and too sickly to fall to conquer kingdoms.
+If he be well counselled, his best course will be to settle his own
+kingdoms in his own hands."
+
+And even much later, in the middle of July--when the mask was hardly,
+maintained--even then there was no certainty as to the movements of the
+Armada; and Walsingham believed, just ten days before the famous fleet
+was to appear off Plymouth, that it had dispersed and returned to Spain,
+never to re-appear.  As to Parma's intentions, they were thought to lie
+rather in the direction: of Ostend than of England; and Elizabeth; on the
+20th July, was more anxious for that city than for her own kingdom.
+"Mr. Ned, I am persuaded," she wrote to Morris, "that if a Spanish fleet
+break, the Prince of Parma's enterprise for England will fall to the
+ground, and then are you to look to Ostend.  Haste your works."
+
+All through the spring and early summer, Stafford, in Paris, was kept in
+a state of much perplexity as to the designs of Spain--so contradictory
+were the stories circulated--and so bewildering the actions of men known
+to be hostile to England.  In, the last days of April he intimated it as
+a common opinion in Paris, that these naval preparations of Philip were
+an elaborate farce; "that the great elephant would bring forth but a
+mouse--that the great processions, prayers, and pardons, at Rome, for the
+prosperous success of the Armada against England; would be of no effect;
+that the King of Spain was laughing in his sleeve at the Pope, that he
+could make such a fool of him; and that such an enterprise was a thing
+the King never durst think of in deed, but only in show to feed the
+world."
+
+Thus, although furnished with minute details as to these, armaments, and
+as to the exact designs of Spain against his country, by the ostentatious
+statements of the; Spanish ambassador in Paris himself, the English,
+envoy was still inclined to believe that these statements were a figment,
+expressly intended to deceive.  Yet he was aware that Lord Westmoreland,
+Lord Paget, Sir Charles Paget, Morgan, and other English refugees, were
+constantly meeting with Mendoza, that they were told to get themselves in
+readiness, and to go down--as well appointed as might be--to the Duke of
+Parma; that they had been "sending for their tailor to make them apparel,
+and to put themselves in equipage;" that, in particular, Westmoreland had
+been assured of being restored by Philip to his native country in better
+condition than before.  The Catholic and Spanish party in Paris were
+however much dissatisfied with the news from Scotland, and were getting
+more and more afraid that King James would object to the Spaniards
+getting a foot-hold in his country, and that "the Scots would soon be
+playing them a Scottish trick."
+
+Stafford was plunged still more inextricably into doubt by the accounts
+from Longlee in Madrid.  The diplomatist, who had been completely
+convinced by Philip as to his innocence of any participation in the
+criminal enterprise of Guise against Henry III., was now almost staggered
+by the unscrupulous mendacity of that monarch with regard to any supposed
+designs against England.  Although the Armada was to be ready by the 15th
+May, Longlee was of opinion--notwithstanding many bold announcements of
+an attack upon Elizabeth--that the real object of the expedition was
+America.  There had recently been discovered, it was said, "a new
+country, more rich in gold and silver than any yet found, but so full of
+stout people that they could not master them."  To reduce these stout
+people beyond the Atlantic, therefore, and to get possession of new gold
+mines, was the real object at which Philip was driving, and Longlee and
+Stafford were both very doubtful whether it were worth the Queen's while
+to exhaust her finances in order to protect herself against an imaginary
+invasion.  Even so late as the middle of July, six to one was offered on
+the Paris exchange that the Spanish fleet would never be seen in the
+English seas, and those that offered the bets were known to be well-
+wishers to the Spanish party.
+
+Thus sharp diplomatists and statesmen like Longlee, Stafford, and
+Walsingham, were beginning to lose their fear of the great bugbear by
+which England had so long been haunted.  It was, therefore no deep stain
+on the Queen's sagacity that she, too, was willing to place credence in
+the plighted honour of Alexander Farnese, the great prince who prided
+himself on his sincerity, and who, next to the King his master, adored
+the virgin Queen of England.
+
+The deputies of the Netherland churches had come, with the permission of
+Count Maurice and of the States General; but they represented more
+strongly than any other envoys could do, the English and the monarchical
+party.  They were instructed especially to implore the Queen to accept
+the sovereignty of their country; to assure her that the restoration of
+Philip--who had been a wolf instead of a shepherd to his flock--was an
+impossibility, that he had been solemnly and for ever deposed, that
+under her sceptre only could the Provinces ever recover their ancient
+prosperity; that ancient and modern history alike made it manifest
+that a free republic could never maintain itself, but that it must,
+of necessity, run its course through sedition, bloodshed, and anarchy,
+until liberty was at last crushed by an absolute despotism; that equality
+of condition, the basis of democratic institutions, could never be made
+firm; and that a fortunate exception, like that of Switzerland, whose
+historical and political circumstances were peculiar, could never serve
+as a model to the Netherlands, accustomed as those Provinces had ever
+been to a monarchical form of government; and that the antagonism of
+aristocratic and democratic elements in the States had already produced
+discord, and was threatening destruction to the whole country.  To avert
+such dangers the splendour of royal authority was necessary, according to
+the venerable commands of Holy Writ; and therefore the Netherland
+churches acknowledged themselves the foster-children of England, and
+begged that in political matters also the inhabitants of the Provinces
+might be accepted as the subjects of her Majesty.  They also implored the
+Queen to break off these accursed negotiations with Spain, and to provide
+that henceforth in the Netherlands the reformed religion might be freely
+exercised, to the exclusion of any other.
+
+Thus it was very evident that these clerical envoys, although they were
+sent by permission of the States, did not come as the representatives of
+the dominant party.  For that 'Beelzebub,' Barneveld, had different
+notions from theirs as to the possibility of a republic, and as to the
+propriety of tolerating other forms of worship than his own.  But it was
+for such pernicious doctrines, on religious matters in particular, that
+he was called Beelzebub, Pope John, a papist in disguise, and an atheist;
+and denounced, as leading young Maurice and the whole country to
+destruction.
+
+On the basis of these instructions, the deputies drew up a memorial of
+pitiless length, filled with astounding parallels between their own
+position and that of the Hebrews, Assyrians, and other distinguished
+nations of antiquity.  They brought it to Walsingham on the 12th July,
+1588, and the much enduring man heard it read from beginning to end.
+He expressed his approbation of its sentiments, but said it was too long.
+It must be put on one sheet of paper, he said, if her Majesty was
+expected to read it.
+
+"Moreover," said the Secretary of State, "although your arguments are
+full of piety, and your examples from Holy Writ very apt, I must tell you
+the plain truth.  Great princes are not always so zealous in religious
+matters as they might be.  Political transactions move them more deeply,
+and they depend too much on worldly things.  However there is no longer
+much danger, for our envoys will return from Flanders in a few days."
+
+"But," asked a deputy, "if the Spanish fleet does not succeed in its
+enterprise, will the peace-negotiations be renewed?"
+
+"By no means," said Walsingham; "the Queen can never do that,
+consistently with her honour.  They have scattered infamous libels
+against her--so scandalous, that you would be astounded should you read
+them.  Arguments drawn from honour are more valid with princes than any
+other."
+
+He alluded to the point in their memorial touching the free exercise of
+the reformed religion in the Provinces.
+
+"'Tis well and piously said," he observed; "but princes and great lords
+are not always very earnest in such matters.  I think that her Majesty's
+envoys will not press for the free exercise of the religion so very much;
+not more than for two or three years.  By that time--should our
+negotiations succeed--the foreign troops will have evacuated the
+Netherlands on condition that the States-General shall settle the
+religious question."
+
+"But," said Daniel de Dieu, one of the deputies, "the majority of the
+States is Popish."
+
+"Be it so," replied Sir Francis; "nevertheless they will sooner permit
+the exercise of the reformed religion than take up arms and begin the war
+anew."
+
+He then alluded to the proposition of the deputies to exclude all
+religious worship but that of the reformed church--all false religion--
+as they expressed themselves.
+
+"Her Majesty," said he, "is well disposed to permit some exercise of
+their religion to the Papists.  So far as regards my own feelings, if we
+were now in the beginning, of the reformation, and the papacy were still
+entire, I should willingly concede such exercise; but now that the Papacy
+has been overthrown, I think it would not be safe to give such
+permission.  When we were disputing, at the time of the pacification of
+Ghent, whether the Popish religion should be partially permitted, the
+Prince of Orange was of the affirmative opinion; but I, who was then at
+Antwerp, entertained the contrary conviction."
+
+"But," said one of the deputies--pleased to find that Walsingham was more
+of their way of thinking on religious toleration than the great Prince
+of Orange had been, or than Maurice and Barneveld then were--"but her
+Majesty will, we hope, follow the advice of her good and faithful
+counsellors."
+
+"To tell you the truth," answered Sir Francis, "great princes are not
+always inspired with a sincere and upright zeal;"--it was the third
+time he had made this observation"--although, so far as regards the
+maintenance of the religion in the Netherlands, that is a matter of
+necessity.  Of that there is no fear, since otherwise all the pious would
+depart, and none would remain but Papists, and, what is more, enemies of
+England.  Therefore the Queen is aware that the religion must be
+maintained."
+
+He then advised the deputies to hand in the memorial to her Majesty,
+without any long speeches, for which there was then no time or
+opportunity; and it was subsequently arranged that they should be
+presented to the Queen as she would be mounting her horse at St. James's
+to ride to Richmond.
+
+Accordingly on the 15th July, as her Majesty came forth at the gate, with
+a throng of nobles and ladies--some about to accompany her and some
+bidding her adieu--the deputies fell on their knees before her.
+Notwithstanding the advice of Walsingham, Daniel de Dieu was bent upon an
+oration.
+
+"Oh illustrious Queen!"  he began, "the churches of the United
+Netherlands----"
+
+He had got no further, when the Queen, interrupting, exclaimed, "Oh!  I
+beg you--at another time--I cannot now listen to a speech.  Let me see
+the memorial."
+
+Daniel de Dieu then humbly presented that document, which her Majesty
+graciously received, and then, getting on horseback, rode off to
+Richmond.'
+
+The memorial was in the nature of an exhortation to sustain the religion,
+and to keep clear of all negotiations with idolaters and unbelievers;
+and the memorialists supported themselves by copious references to
+Deuteronomy, Proverbs, Isaiah, Timothy, and Psalms, relying mainly on the
+case of Jehosaphat, who came to disgrace and disaster through his treaty
+with the idolatrous King Ahab.  With regard to any composition with
+Spain, they observed, in homely language, that a burnt cat fears the
+fire; and they assured the Queen that, by following their advice, she
+would gain a glorious and immortal name, like those of David, Ezekiel,
+Josiah, and others, whose fragrant memory, even as precious incense from
+the apothecary's, endureth to the end of the world.
+
+It was not surprising that Elizabeth, getting on horseback on the 15th
+July, 1588, with her head full of Tilbury Fort and Medina Sidonia, should
+have as little relish for the affairs of Ahab and Jehosophat, as for
+those melting speeches of Diomede and of Turnus, to which Dr. Valentine
+Dale on his part was at that moment invoking her attention.
+
+On the 20th July, the deputies were informed by Leicester that her
+Majesty would grant them an interview, July 20, and that they must
+come into his quarter of the palace and await her arrival.
+
+Between six and seven in the evening she came into the throne-room, and
+the deputies again fell on their knees before her.
+
+She then seated herself--the deputies remaining on their knees on her
+right side and the Earl of Leicester standing at her left--and proceeded
+to make many remarks touching her earnestness in the pending negotiations
+to provide for their religious freedom.  It seemed that she must have
+received a hint from Walsingham on the subject.
+
+"I shall provide," she said, "for the maintenance of the reformed
+worship."
+
+De Dieu--"The enemy will never concede it."
+
+The Queen.--"I think differently."
+
+De Dieu.--"There is no place within his dominions where he has permitted
+the exercise of the pure religion.  He has never done so."
+
+The Queen.--"He conceded it in the pacification of Ghent."
+
+De Dieu.--"But he did not keep his agreement.  Don John had concluded
+with the States, but said he was not held to his promise, in case he
+should repent; and the King wrote afterwards to our States, and said that
+he was no longer bound to his pledge."
+
+The Queen.--"That is quite another thing."
+
+De Dieu.--"He has very often broken his faith."
+
+The Queen.--"He shall no longer be allowed to do so.  If he does not keep
+his word, that is my affair, not yours.  It is my business to find the
+remedy.  Men would say, see in what a desolation the Queen of England has
+brought this poor people.  As to the freedom of worship, I should have
+proposed three or four years' interval--leaving it afterwards to the
+decision of the States."
+
+De Dieu.--"But the majority of the States is Popish."
+
+The Queen.--"I mean the States-General, not the States of any particular
+Province."
+
+De Dieu.--"The greater part of the States-General is Popish."
+
+The Queen.--"I mean the three estates--the clergy, the nobles, and the
+cities."  The Queen--as the deputies observed--here fell into an error.
+She thought that prelates of the reformed Church, as in England, had
+seats in the States-General.  Daniel de Dieu explained that they had no
+such position.
+
+The Queen.--"Then how were you sent hither?"
+
+De Dieu.--"We came with the consent of Count Maurice of Nassau."
+
+The Queen.--"And of the States?"
+
+De Dieu.--"We came with their knowledge."
+
+The Queen.--"Are you sent only from Holland and Zeeland?  Is there no
+envoy from Utrecht and the other Provinces?"
+
+Helmichius.--"We two," pointing to his colleague Sossingius, "are from
+Utrecht."
+
+The Queen.--"What?  Is this young man also a minister?"  She meant
+Helmichius, who had a very little beard, and looked young.
+
+Sossingius.--"He is not so young as he looks."
+
+The Queen.--"Youths are sometimes as able as old men."
+
+De Dieu.--"I have heard our brother preach in France more than fourteen
+years ago."
+
+The Queen.--"He must have begun young.  How old were you when you first
+became a preacher?"
+
+Helmichius.--"Twenty-three or twenty-four years of age."
+
+The Queen.--"It was with us, at first, considered a scandal that a man so
+young as that should be admitted to the pulpit.  Our antagonists
+reproached us with it in a book called 'Scandale de l'Angleterre,' saying
+that we had none but school-boys for ministers.  I understand that you
+pray for me as warmly as if I were your sovereign princess.  I think I
+have done as much for the religion as if I were your Queen."
+
+Helmichius.--"We are far from thinking otherwise.  We acknowledge
+willingly your Majesty's benefits to our churches."
+
+The Queen.--"It would else be ingratitude on your part."
+
+Helmichius.--"But the King of Spain will never keep any promise about the
+religion."
+
+The Queen.--"He will never come so far: he does nothing but make a noise
+on all sides.  Item, I don't think he has much confidence in himself."
+
+De Dieu.--"Your Majesty has many enemies.  The Lord hath hitherto
+supported you, and we pray that he may continue to uphold your Majesty."
+
+The Queen.--"I have indeed many enemies; but I make no great account of
+them.  Is there anything else you seek?"
+
+De Dieu.--"There is a special point: it concerns our, or rather your
+Majesty's, city of Flushing.  We hope that Russelius--(so he called Sir
+William Russell)--may be continued in its government, although he wishes
+his discharge."
+
+"Aha!" said the Queen, laughing and rising from her seat, "I shall not
+answer you; I shall call some one else to answer you."
+
+She then summoned Russell's sister, Lady Warwick.
+
+"If you could speak French," said the Queen to that gentlewoman,
+"I should bid you reply to these gentlemen, who beg that your brother
+may remain in Flushing, so very agreeable has he made himself to them."
+
+The Queen was pleased to hear this good opinion of Sir William, and this
+request that he might continue to be governor of Flushing, because he had
+uniformly supported the Leicester party, and was at that moment in high
+quarrel with Count Maurice and the leading members of the States.
+
+As the deputies took their leave, they requested an answer to their
+memorial, which was graciously promised.
+
+Three days afterwards, Walsingham gave them a written answer to their
+memorial--conceived in the same sense as had been the expressions of her
+Majesty and her counsellors.  Support to the Netherlands and stipulations
+for the free exercise of their religion were promised; but it was
+impossible for these deputies of the churches to obtain a guarantee from
+England that the Popish religion should be excluded from the Provinces,
+in case of a successful issue to the Queen's negotiation with Spain.
+
+And thus during all those eventful days-the last weeks of July and the
+first weeks of August--the clerical deputation remained in England,
+indulging in voluminous protocols and lengthened conversations with the
+Queen and the principal members of her government.  It is astonishing, in
+that breathless interval of history, that so much time could be found for
+quill-driving and oratory.
+
+Nevertheless, both in Holland and England, there had been other work than
+protocolling.  One throb of patriotism moved the breast of both nations.
+A longing to grapple, once for all, with the great enemy of civil and
+religious liberty inspired both.  In Holland, the States-General and all
+the men to whom the people looked for guidance, had been long deprecating
+the peace-negotiations.  Extraordinary supplies--more than had ever been
+granted before--were voted for the expenses of the campaign; and Maurice
+of Nassau, fitly embodying the warlike tendencies of his country and
+race, had been most importunate with Queen Elizabeth that she would
+accept his services and his advice.  Armed vessels of every size, from
+the gun-boat to the galleon of 1200 tons--then the most imposing ship
+in those waters--swarmed in all the estuaries and rivers, and along the
+Dutch and Flemish coast, bidding defiance to Parma and his armaments;
+and offers of a large contingent from the fleets of Jooat de Moor and
+Justinua de Nassau, to serve under Seymour and Howard, were freely made
+to the States-General.
+
+It was decided early in July, by the board of admiralty, presided over by
+Prince Maurice, that the largest square-rigged vessels of Holland and
+Zeeland should cruise between England and the Flemish coast, outside the
+banks; that a squadron of lesser ships should be stationed within the
+banks; and that a fleet of sloops and fly-boats should hover close in
+shore, about Flushing and Rammekens.  All the war-vessels of the little
+republic were thus fully employed.  But, besides this arrangement,
+Maurice was empowered to lay an embargo--under what penalty he chose and
+during his pleasure--on all square-rigged vessels over 300 tons, in order
+that there might be an additional supply in case of need.  Ninety ships
+of war under Warmond, admiral, and Van der Does, vice-admiral of Holland;
+and Justinus de Nassau, admiral, and Joost de Moor, vice-admiral of
+Zeeland; together with fifty merchant-vessels of the best and strongest,
+equipped and armed for active service, composed a formidable fleet.
+
+The States-General, a month before, had sent twenty-five or thirty good
+ships, under Admiral Rosendael, to join Lord Henry Seymour, then cruising
+between Dover and Calais.  A tempest, drove them back, and their absence
+from Lord Henry's fleet being misinterpreted by the English, the States
+were censured for ingratitude and want of good faith.  But the injustice
+of the accusation was soon made manifest, for these vessels, reinforcing
+the great Dutch fleet outside the banks, did better service than they
+could have done; in the straits.  A squadron of strong well-armed
+vessels, having on board, in addition to their regular equipment,
+a picked force of twelve hundred musketeers, long accustomed to this
+peculiar kind of naval warfare, with crews of, grim Zeelanders, who had
+faced Alva, and Valdez in their day, now kept close watch over Farnese,
+determined that he should never thrust his face out of any haven or nook
+on the coast so long as they should be in existence to prevent him.
+
+And in England the protracted diplomacy at Ostend, ill-timed though
+it was, had not paralyzed the arm or chilled the heart of the nation.
+When the great Queen, arousing herself from the delusion in which the
+falsehoods of Farnese and of Philip had lulled her, should once more.
+represent--as no man or woman better than Elizabeth Tudor could represent
+--the defiance of England to foreign insolence; the resolve of a whole
+people to die rather than yield; there was a thrill of joy through the
+national heart.  When the enforced restraint was at last taken off, there
+was one bound towards the enemy.  Few more magnificent spectacles have
+been seen in history than the enthusiasm which pervaded the country as
+the great danger, so long deferred, was felt at last to be closely
+approaching.  The little nation of four millions, the merry England of
+the sixteenth century, went forward to the death-grapple with its
+gigantic antagonist as cheerfully as to a long-expected holiday.
+Spain was a vast empire, overshadowing the world; England, in comparison,
+but a province; yet nothing could surpass the steadiness with which the
+conflict was awaited.
+
+For, during all the months of suspense; the soldiers and sailors, and
+many statesman of England, had deprecated, even as the Hollanders had
+been doing, the dangerous delays of Ostend.  Elizabeth was not embodying
+the national instinct, when she talked of peace; and shrank penuriously
+from the expenses of war.  There was much disappointment, even
+indignation, at the slothfulness with which the preparations for defence
+went on, during the period when there was yet time to make them.  It was
+feared with justice that England, utterly unfortified as were its cities,
+and defended only by its little navy without, and by untaught enthusiasm
+within, might; after all, prove an easier conquest than Holland and
+Zeeland, every town, in whose territory bristled with fortifications.
+If the English ships--well-trained and swift sailors as they were--were
+unprovided with spare and cordage, beef and biscuit, powder and shot,
+and the militia-men, however enthusiastic, were neither drilled nor
+armed, was it so very certain, after all, that successful resistance
+would be made to the great Armada, and to the veteran pikemen and
+musketeers of Farnese, seasoned on a hundred, battlefields, and equipped
+as for a tournament?  There was generous confidence and chivalrous
+loyalty on the part of Elizabeth's naval and military commanders; but
+there had been deep regret and disappointment at her course.
+
+Hawkins was anxious, all through the winter and spring, to cruise with a
+small squadron off the coast of Spain.  With a dozen vessels he undertook
+to "distress anything that went through the seas."  The cost of such a
+squadron, with eighteen hundred men, to be relieved every four months, he
+estimated at two thousand seven hundred pounds sterling the month, or a
+shilling a day for each man; and it would be a very unlucky month, he
+said, in which they did not make captures to three times that amount; for
+they would see nothing that would not be presently their own.  "We might
+have peace, but not with God," said the pious old slave-trader; "but
+rather than serve Baal, let us die a thousand deaths.  Let us have open
+war with these Jesuits, and every man will contribute, fight, devise, or
+do, for the liberty of our country."
+
+And it was open war with the Jesuits for which those stouthearted sailors
+longed.  All were afraid of secret mischief.  The diplomatists--who were
+known to be flitting about France, Flanders, Scotland, and England--were
+birds of ill omen.  King James was beset by a thousand bribes and
+expostulations to avenge his mother's death; and although that mother had
+murdered his father, and done her best to disinherit himself, yet it was
+feared that Spanish ducats might induce him to be true to his mother's
+revenge, and false to the reformed religion.  Nothing of good was hoped
+for from France.  "For my part," said Lord Admiral Howard, "I have made
+of the French King, the Scottish King, and the King of Spain, a trinity
+that I mean never to trust to be saved by, and I would that others were
+of my opinion."
+
+The noble sailor, on whom so much responsibility rested, yet who was so
+trammelled and thwarted by the timid and parsimonious policy of Elizabeth
+and of Burghley, chafed and shook his chains like a captive.  "Since
+England was England," he exclaimed, "there was never such a stratagem
+and mask to deceive her as this treaty of peace.  I pray God that we do
+not curse for this a long grey beard with a white head witless, that will
+make all the world think us heartless.  You know whom I mean."  And it
+certainly was not difficult to understand the allusion to the pondering
+Lord-Treasurer."  'Opus est aliquo Daedalo,' to direct us out of the
+maze," said that much puzzled statesman; but he hardly seemed to be
+making himself wings with which to lift England and himself out of the
+labyrinth.  The ships were good ships, but there was intolerable delay in
+getting a sufficient number of them as ready for action as was the spirit
+of their commanders.
+
+"Our ships do show like gallants here," said Winter; "it would do a man's
+heart good to behold them.  Would to God the Prince of Parma were on the
+seas with all his forces, and we in sight of them.  You should hear that
+we would make his enterprise very unpleasant to him."
+
+And Howard, too, was delighted not only with his own little flag-ship the
+Ark-Royal--"the odd ship of the world for all conditions,"--but with all
+of his fleet that could be mustered.  Although wonders were reported, by
+every arrival from the south, of the coming Armada, the Lord-Admiral was
+not appalled.  He was perhaps rather imprudent in the defiance he flung
+to the enemy.  "Let me have the four great ships and twenty hoys, with
+but twenty men a-piece, and each with but two iron pieces, and her
+Majesty shall have a good account of the Spanish forces; and I will make
+the King wish his galleys home again.  Few as we are, if his forces be
+not hundreds, we will make good sport with them."
+
+But those four great ships of her Majesty, so much longed for by Howard,
+were not forthcoming.  He complained that the Queen was "keeping them to
+protect Chatham Church withal, when they should be serving their turn
+abroad."  The Spanish fleet was already reported as numbering from 210
+sail, with 36,000 men,' to 400 or 500 ships, and 80,000 soldiers and
+mariners; and yet Drake was not ready with his squadron.  "The fault is
+not in him," said Howard, "but I pray God her Majesty do not repent her
+slack dealing.  We must all lie together, for we shall be stirred very
+shortly with heave ho!  I fear ere long her Majesty will be sorry she
+hath believed some so much as she hath done."
+
+Howard had got to sea, and was cruising all the stormy month of March in
+the Channel with his little unprepared squadron; expecting at any moment
+--such was the profound darkness which, enveloped the world at that day--
+that the sails of the Armada might appear in the offing.  He made a visit
+to the Dutch coast, and was delighted with the enthusiasm with which he
+was received.  Five thousand people a day came on board his ships, full
+of congratulation and delight; and he informed the Queen that she was not
+more assured of the Isle of Sheppey than of Walcheren.
+
+Nevertheless time wore on, and both the army and navy of England were
+quite unprepared, and the Queen was more reluctant than ever to incur the
+expense necessary to the defence of her kingdom.  At least one of those
+galleys, which, as Howard bitterly complained, seemed destined to defend
+Chatham Church, was importunately demanded; but it was already Easter-Day
+(17th April), and she was demanded in vain.  "Lord! when should she
+serve," said the Admiral, "if not at such a time as this?  Either she is
+fit now to serve, or fit for the fire.  I hope never in my time to see so
+great a cause for her to be used.  I dare say her Majesty will look that
+men should fight for her, and I know they will at this time.  The King of
+Spain doth not keep any ship at home, either of his own or any other,
+that he can get for money.  Well, well, I must pray heartily for peace,"
+said Howard with increasing spleen, "for I see the support of an
+honourable, war will never appear.  Sparing and war have no affinity
+together."
+
+In truth Elizabeth's most faithful subjects were appalled at the ruin
+which she seemed by her mistaken policy to be rendering inevitable.  "I
+am sorry," said the Admiral, "that her Majesty is so careless of this
+most dangerous time.  I fear me much, and with grief I think it, that she
+relieth on a hope that will deceive her, and greatly endanger her, and
+then it will not be her money nor her jewels that will help; for as they
+will do good in time, so they will help nothing for the redeeming of
+time."
+
+The preparations on shore were even more dilatory than those on the sea.
+We have seen that the Duke of Parma, once landed, expected to march
+directly upon London; and it was notorious that there were no fortresses
+to oppose a march of the first general in Europe and his veterans upon
+that unprotected and wealthy metropolis.  An army had been enrolled--a
+force of 86,016 foot, and 13,831 cavalry; but it was an army on paper
+merely.  Even of the 86,000, only 48,000 were set down as trained;
+and it is certain that the training had been of the most meagre and
+unsatisfactory description.  Leicester was to be commander-in-chief; but
+we have already seen that nobleman measuring himself, not much to his
+advantage, with Alexander Farnese, in the Isle of Bommel, on the sands of
+Blankenburg, and at the gates of Sluys.  His army was to consist of
+27,000 infantry, and 2000 horse; yet at midsummer it had not reached half
+that number.  Lord Chamberlain Hunsdon was to protect the Queen's person
+with another army of 36,000; but this force, was purely an imaginary one;
+and the lord-lieutenant of each county was to do his best with the
+militia.  But men were perpetually escaping out of the general service,
+in order to make themselves retainers for private noblemen, and be kept
+at their expense.  "You shall hardly believe," said Leicester, "how many
+new liveries be gotten within these six weeks, and no man fears the
+penalty.  It would be better that every nobleman did as Lord Dacres, than
+to take away from the principal service such as are set down to serve."
+
+Of enthusiasm and courage, then, there was enough, while of drill and
+discipline, of powder and shot, there was a deficiency.  No braver or
+more competent soldier could be found than Sir Edward Stanley--the man
+whom we have seen in his yellow jerkin, helping himself into Fort Zutphen
+with the Spanish soldier's pike--and yet Sir Edward Stanley gave but a
+sorry account of the choicest soldiers of Chester and Lancashire, whom he
+had been sent to inspect.  "I find them not," he said, "according to your
+expectation, nor mine own liking.  They were appointed two years past to
+have been trained six days by the year or more, at the discretion of the
+muster-master, but, as yet, they have not been trained one day, so that
+they have benefited nothing, nor yet know their leaders.  There is now
+promise of amendment, which, I doubt, will be very slow, in respect to my
+Lord Derby's absence."
+
+My Lord Derby was at that moment, and for many months afterwards,
+assisting Valentine Dale in his classical prolusions on the sands of
+Bourbourg.  He had better have been mustering the trainbands of
+Lancashire.  There was a general indisposition in the rural districts to
+expend money and time in military business, until the necessity should
+become imperative.  Professional soldiers complained bitterly of the
+canker of a long peace.  "For our long quietness, which it hath pleased
+God to send us," said Stanley, "they think their money very ill bestowed
+which they expend on armour or weapon, for that they be in hope they
+shall never have occasion to use it, so they may pass muster, as they
+have done heretofore.  I want greatly powder, for there is little or none
+at all."
+
+The day was fast approaching when all the power in England would be too
+little for the demand.  But matters had not very much mended even at
+midsummer.  It is true that Leicester, who was apt to be sanguine-
+particularly in matters under his immediate control--spoke of the handful
+of recruits assembled at his camp in Essex, as "soldiers of a year's
+experience, rather than a month's camping; "but in this opinion he
+differed from many competent authorities, and was somewhat in
+contradiction to himself.  Nevertheless he was glad that the Queen had
+determined to visit him, and encourage his soldiers.
+
+"I have received in secret," he said, "those news that please me, that
+your Majesty doth intend to behold the poor and bare company that lie
+here in the field, most willingly to serve you, yea, most ready to die
+for you.  You shall, dear Lady, behold as goodly, loyal, and as able men
+as any prince Christian can show you, and yet but a handful of your own,
+in comparison of the rest you have.  What comfort not only these shall
+receive who shall be the happiest to behold yourself I cannot express;
+but assuredly it will give no small comfort to the rest, that shall be
+overshined with the beams of so gracious and princely a party, for what
+your royal Majesty shall do to these will be accepted as done to all.
+Good sweet Queen, alter not your purpose, if God give you health.  It
+will be your pain for the time, but your pleasure to behold such people.
+And surely the place must content you, being as fair a soil and as goodly
+a prospect as may be seen or found, as this extreme weather hath made
+trial, which doth us little annoyance, it is so firm and dry a ground.
+Your usher also liketh your lodging--a proper, secret, cleanly house.
+Your camp is a little mile off, and your person will be as sure as at St.
+James's, for my life."
+
+But notwithstanding this cheerful view of the position expressed by the
+commander-in-chief, the month of July had passed, and the early days of
+August had already arrived; and yet the camp was not formed, nor anything
+more than that mere handful of troops mustered about Tilbury, to defend
+the road from Dover to London.  The army at Tilbury never, exceeded
+sixteen or seventeen thousand men.
+
+The whole royal navy-numbering about thirty-four vessels in all--of
+different sizes, ranging from 1100 and 1000 tons to 30, had at last been
+got ready for sea.  Its aggregate tonnage was 11,820; not half so much as
+at the present moment--in the case of one marvellous merchant-steamer--
+floats upon a single keel.
+
+These vessels carried.  837 guns and 6279 men.  But the navy was
+reinforced by the patriotism and liberality of English merchants and
+private gentlemen.  The city of London having been requested to furnish
+15 ships of war and 5000 men, asked two days for deliberation, and then
+gave 30 ships and 10,000 men of which number 2710 were seamen.  Other
+cities, particularly Plymouth, came forward with proportionate
+liberality, and private individuals, nobles, merchants, and men of
+humblest rank, were enthusiastic in volunteering into the naval service,
+to risk property and life in defence of the country.  By midsummer there
+had been a total force of 197 vessels manned, and partially equipped,
+with an aggregate of 29,744 tons, and 15,785 seamen.  Of this fleet a
+very large number were mere coasters of less than 100 tons each; scarcely
+ten ships were above 500, and but one above 1000 tons--the Triumph,
+Captain Frobisher, of 1100 tons, 42 guns, and 500 sailors.
+
+Lord Howard of Effingham, Lord High-Admiral of England, distinguished for
+his martial character, public spirit, and admirable temper, rather than
+for experience or skill as a seaman, took command of the whole fleet, in
+his "little odd ship for all conditions," the Ark-Royal, of 800 tons, 425
+sailors, and 55 guns.
+
+Next in rank was Vice-Admiral Drake, in the Revenge, of 500 tons, 250 men
+and 40 guns.  Lord Henry Seymour, in the Rainbow, of precisely the same
+size and strength, commanded the inner squadron, which cruised in the
+neighbourhood of the French and Flemish coast.
+
+The Hollanders and Zeelanders had undertaken to blockade the Duke of
+Parma still more closely, and pledged themselves that he should never
+venture to show himself upon the open sea at all.  The mouth of the
+Scheldt, and the dangerous shallows off the coast of Newport and Dunkirk,
+swarmed with their determined and well-seasoned craft, from the flybooter
+or filibuster of the rivers, to the larger armed vessels, built to
+confront every danger, and to deal with any adversary.
+
+Farnese, on his part, within that well-guarded territory, had, for months
+long, scarcely slackened in his preparations, day or night.  Whole
+forests had been felled in the land of Waas to furnish him with
+transports and gun-boats, and with such rapidity, that--according to his
+enthusiastic historiographer--each tree seemed by magic to metamorphose
+itself into a vessel at the word of command.  Shipbuilders, pilots, and
+seamen, were brought from the Baltic, from Hamburgh, from Genoa.  The
+whole surface of the obedient Netherlands, whence wholesome industry had
+long been banished, was now the scene of a prodigious baleful activity.
+Portable bridges for fording the rivers of England, stockades for
+entrenchments, rafts and oars, were provided in vast numbers, and
+Alexander dug canals and widened natural streams to facilitate his
+operations.  These wretched Provinces, crippled, impoverished,
+languishing for peace, were forced to contribute out of their poverty,
+and to find strength even in their exhaustion, to furnish the machinery
+for destroying their own countrymen, and for hurling to perdition their
+most healthful neighbour.
+
+And this approaching destruction of England--now generally believed in--
+was like the sound of a trumpet throughout Catholic Europe.  Scions of
+royal houses, grandees of azure blood, the bastard of Philip II., the
+bastard of Savoy, the bastard of Medici, the Margrave of Burghaut, the
+Archduke Charles, nephew of the Emperor, the Princes of Ascoli and of
+Melfi, the Prince of Morocco, and others of illustrious name, with many
+a noble English traitor, like Paget, and Westmoreland, and Stanley, all
+hurried to the camp of Farnese, as to some famous tournament, in which it
+was a disgrace to chivalry if their names were not enrolled.  The roads
+were trampled with levies of fresh troops from Spain, Naples, Corsica,
+the States of the Church, the Milanese, Germany, Burgundy.
+
+Blas Capizucca was sent in person to conduct reinforcements from the
+north of Italy.  The famous Terzio of Naples, under Carlos Pinelo,
+arrived 3500 strong--the most splendid regiment ever known in the history
+of war.  Every man had an engraved corslet and musket-barrel, and there
+were many who wore gilded armour, while their waving plumes and festive
+caparisons made them look like holiday-makers, rather than real
+campaigners, in the eyes of the inhabitants of the various cities through
+which their road led them to Flanders.  By the end of April the Duke of
+Parma saw himself at the head of 60,000 men, at a monthly expense of
+454,315 crowns or dollars.  Yet so rapid was the progress of disease--
+incident to northern climates--among those southern soldiers, that we
+shall find the number woefully diminished before they were likely to set
+foot upon the English shore.
+
+Thus great preparations, simultaneously with pompous negotiations, had
+been going forward month after month, in England, Holland, Flanders.
+Nevertheless, winter, spring, two-thirds of summer, had passed away, and
+on the 29th July, 1588, there remained the same sickening uncertainty,
+which was the atmosphere in which the nations had existed for a
+twelvemonth.
+
+Howard had cruised for a few weeks between England and Spain, without any
+results, and, on his return, had found it necessary to implore her
+Majesty, as late as July, to "trust no more to Judas' kisses, but to her
+sword, not her enemy's word."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+A burnt cat fears the fire
+A free commonwealth--was thought an absurdity
+Baiting his hook a little to his appetite
+Canker of a long peace
+Englishmen and Hollanders preparing to cut each other's throats
+Faction has rarely worn a more mischievous aspect
+Hard at work, pouring sand through their sieves
+She relieth on a hope that will deceive her
+Sparing and war have no affinity together
+The worst were encouraged with their good success
+Trust her sword, not her enemy's word
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v56
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 57, 1588
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.  Part 1.
+
+     Philip Second in his Cabinet--His System of Work and Deception--His
+     vast but vague Schemes of Conquest--The Armada sails--Description of
+     the Fleet--The Junction with Parma unprovided for--The Gale off
+     Finisterre--Exploits of David Gwynn--First Engagements in the
+     English Channel--Considerable Losses of the Spaniards--General
+     Engagement near Portland--Superior Seamanship of the English
+
+It is now time to look in upon the elderly letter-writer in the Escorial,
+and see how he was playing his part in the drama.
+
+His counsellors were very few.  His chief advisers were rather like
+private secretaries than cabinet ministers; for Philip had been
+withdrawing more and more into seclusion and mystery as the webwork of
+his schemes multiplied and widened.  He liked to do his work, assisted by
+a very few confidential servants.  The Prince of Eboli, the famous Ruy
+Gomez, was dead.  So was Cardinal Granvelle.  So were Erasso and Delgado.
+His midnight council--junta de noche--for thus, from its original hour of
+assembling, and the all of secrecy in which it was enwrapped, it was
+habitually called--was a triumvirate.  Don Juan de Idiaquez was chief
+secretary of state and of war; the Count de Chinchon was minister for the
+household, for Italian affairs, and for the kingdom of Aragon; Don
+Cristoval de Moura, the monarch's chief favourite, was at the head of the
+finance department, and administered the affairs of Portugal and Castile!
+
+The president of the council of Italy, after Granvelle's death, was
+Quiroga, cardinal of Toledo, and inquisitor-general.  Enormously long
+letters, in the King's: name, were prepared chiefly by the two
+secretaries, Idiaquez and Moura.  In their hands was the vast
+correspondence with Mendoza and Parma, and Olivarez at Rome, and with
+Mucio; in which all the stratagems for the subjugation of Protestant
+Europe were slowly and artistically contrived.  Of the great conspiracy
+against human liberty, of which the Pope and Philip were the double head,
+this midnight triumvirate was the chief executive committee.
+
+These innumerable despatches, signed by Philip, were not the emanations
+of his own mind.  The King had a fixed purpose to subdue Protestantism
+and to conquer the world; but the plans for carrying the purpose into
+effect were developed by subtler and more comprehensive minds than his
+own.  It was enough for him to ponder wearily over schemes which he was
+supposed to dictate, and to give himself the appearance of supervising
+what he scarcely comprehended.  And his work of supervision was often
+confined to pettiest details.  The handwriting of Spain and Italy at that
+day was beautiful, and in our modern eyes seems neither antiquated nor
+ungraceful.  But Philip's scrawl was like that of 'a' clown just admitted
+to a writing-school, and the whole margin of a fairly penned despatch
+perhaps fifty pages long; laid before him for comment and signature by
+Idiaquez or Moura, would be sometimes covered with a few awkward
+sentences, which it was almost impossible to read, and which, when
+deciphered, were apt to reveal suggestions of astounding triviality.
+
+Thus a most important despatch--in which the King, with his own hand, was
+supposed to be conveying secret intelligence to Mendoza concerning the
+Armada, together with minute directions for the regulation of Guise's
+conduct at the memorable epoch of the barricades--contained but a single
+comment from the monarch's own pen.  "The Armada has been in Lisbon about
+a month--quassi un mes"--wrote the secretary.  "There is but one s in
+quasi," said Philip.
+
+Again, a despatch of Mendoza to the King contained the intelligence that
+Queen Elizabeth was, at the date of the letter, residing at St. James's.
+Philip, who had no objection to display his knowledge of English affairs
+--as became the man who had already been almost sovereign of England, and
+meant to be entirely so--supplied a piece of information in an apostille
+to this despatch.  "St. James is a house of recreation," he said, "which
+was once a monastery.  There is a park between it, and the palace which
+is called Huytal; but why it is called Huytal, I am sure I don't know."
+His researches in the English language had not enabled him to recognize
+the adjective and substantive out of which the abstruse compound White-
+Hall (Huyt-al), was formed.
+
+On another occasion, a letter from England containing important
+intelligence concerning the number of soldiers enrolled in that country
+to resist the Spanish invasion, the quantity of gunpowder and various
+munitions collected, with other details of like nature, furnished besides
+a bit of information of less vital interest.  "In the windows of the
+Queen's presence-chamber they have discovered a great quantity of lice,
+all clustered together," said the writer.
+
+Such a minute piece of statistics could not escape the microscopic eye
+of Philip.  So, disregarding the soldiers and the gunpowder, he commented
+only on this last-mentioned clause of the letter; and he did it
+cautiously too, as a King surnamed the Prudent should:--
+
+"But perhaps they were fleas," wrote Philip.
+
+Such examples--and many more might be given--sufficiently indicate the
+nature of the man on whom such enormous responsibilities rested, and who
+had been, by the adulation of his fellow-creatures, elevated into a god.
+And we may cast a glance upon him as he sits in his cabinet-buried among
+those piles of despatches--and receiving methodically, at stated hours,
+Idiaquez, or Moura, or Chincon, to settle the affairs of so many millions
+of the human race; and we may watch exactly the progress of that scheme,
+concerning which so many contradictory rumours were circulating in
+Europe.  In the month of April a Walsingham could doubt, even in August
+an ingenuous comptroller could disbelieve, the reality of the great
+project, and the Pope himself, even while pledging himself to assistance,
+had been systematically deceived.  He had supposed the whole scheme
+rendered futile by the exploit of Drake at Cadiz, and had declared that
+"the Queen of England's distaff was worth more than Philip's sword, that
+the King was a poor creature, that he would never be able to come to a
+resolution, and that even if he should do so, it would be too late;" and
+he had subsequently been doing his best, through his nuncio in France, to
+persuade the Queen to embrace the Catholic religion, and thus save
+herself from the impending danger.  Henry III. had even been urged by the
+Pope to send a special ambassador to her for this purpose--as if the
+persuasions of the wretched Valois were likely to be effective with
+Elizabeth Tudor--and Burghley had, by means of spies in Rome, who
+pretended to be Catholics, given out intimations that the Queen was
+seriously contemplating such a step.  Thus the Pope, notwithstanding
+Cardinal Allan, the famous million, and the bull, was thought by Mendoza
+to be growing lukewarm in the Spanish cause, and to be urging upon the
+"Englishwoman" the propriety of converting herself, even at the late hour
+of May, 1588.
+
+But Philip, for years, had been maturing his scheme, while reposing
+entire confidence--beyond his own cabinet doors--upon none but Alexander
+Farnese; and the Duke--alone of all men--was perfectly certain that the
+invasion would, this year, be attempted.
+
+The captain-general of the expedition was the Marquis of Santa Cruz, a
+man of considerable naval experience, and of constant good fortune, who,
+in thirty years, had never sustained a defeat.  He had however shown no
+desire to risk one when Drake had offered him the memorable challenge in
+the year 1587, and perhaps his reputation of the invincible captain had
+been obtained by the same adroitness on previous occasions.  He was no
+friend to Alexander Farnese, and was much disgusted when informed of
+the share allotted to the Duke in the great undertaking.  A course of
+reproach and perpetual reprimand was the treatment to which he was, in
+consequence, subjected, which was not more conducive to the advancement
+of the expedition than it was to the health of the captain-general.
+Early in January the Cardinal Archduke was sent to Lisbon to lecture him,
+with instructions to turn a deaf ear to all his remonstrances, to deal
+with him peremptorily, to forbid his writing letters on the subject to
+his Majesty, and to order him to accept his post or to decline it without
+conditions, in which latter contingency he was to be informed that his
+successor was already decided upon.
+
+This was not the most eligible way perhaps for bringing the captain-
+general into a cheerful mood; particularly as he was expected to be
+ready in January to sail to the Flemish coast.  Nevertheless the Marquis
+expressed a hope to accomplish his sovereign's wishes; and great had
+been the bustle in all the dockyards of Naples, Sicily, and Spain;
+particularly in the provinces of Guipuzcoa, Biscay, and Andalusia,
+and in the four great cities of the coast.  War-ships of all dimensions,
+tenders, transports, soldiers, sailors, sutlers, munitions of war,
+provisions, were all rapidly concentrating in Lisbon as the great place
+of rendezvous; and Philip confidently believed, and as confidently
+informed the Duke of Parma, that he, might be expecting the Armada at any
+time after the end of January.
+
+Perhaps in the history of mankind there has never been a vast project of
+conquest conceived and matured in so protracted and yet so desultory a
+manner, as was this famous Spanish invasion.  There was something almost
+puerile in the whims rather than schemes of Philip for carrying out his
+purpose.  It was probable that some resistance would be offered, at least
+by the navy of England, to the subjugation of that country, and the King
+had enjoyed an opportunity, the preceding summer, of seeing the way in
+which English sailors did their work.  He had also appeared to understand
+the necessity of covering the passage of Farnese from the Flemish ports
+into the Thames, by means of the great Spanish fleet from Lisbon.
+Nevertheless he never seemed to be aware that Farnese could not invade
+England quite by himself, and was perpetually expecting to hear that he
+had done so.
+
+"Holland and Zeeland," wrote Alexander to Philip, "have been arming with
+their accustomed promptness; England has made great preparations.  I have
+done my best to make the impossible possible; but your letter told me to
+wait for Santa Cruz, and to expect him very shortly.  If, on the
+contrary, you had told me to make the passage without him, I would have
+made the attempt, although we had every one of us perished.  Four ships
+of war could sink every one of my boats.  Nevertheless I beg to be
+informed of your Majesty's final order.  If I am seriously expected to
+make the passage without Santa Cruz, I am ready to do it, although I
+should go all alone in a cock-boat."
+
+But Santa Cruz at least was not destined to assist in the conquest
+of England; for, worn out with fatigue and vexation, goaded by the
+reproaches and insults of Philip, Santa Cruz was dead.  He was replaced
+in the chief command of the fleet by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a
+grandee of vast wealth, but with little capacity and less experience.
+To the iron marquis it was said that a golden duke had succeeded;
+but the duke of gold did not find it easier to accomplish impossibilities
+than his predecessor had done.  Day after day, throughout the months of
+winter and spring, the King had been writing that the fleet was just on
+the point of sailing, and as frequently he had been renewing to Alexander
+Farnese the intimation that perhaps, after all, he might find an
+opportunity of crossing to England, without waiting for its arrival.
+And Alexander, with the same regularity, had been informing his master
+that the troops in the Netherlands had been daily dwindling from sickness
+and other causes, till at last, instead of the 30,000 effective infantry,
+with which it had been originally intended to make the enterprise, he had
+not more than 17,000 in the month of April.  The 6000 Spaniards, whom he
+was to receive from the fleet of Medina Sidonia, would therefore be the
+very mainspring of his army.  After leaving no more soldiers in the
+Netherlands than were absolutely necessary for the defence of the
+obedient Provinces against the rebels, he could only take with him to
+England 23,000 men, even after the reinforcements from Medina.  "When we
+talked of taking England by surprise," said Alexander, "we never thought
+of less than 30,000.  Now that she is alert and ready for us, and that it
+is certain we must fight by sea and by land, 50,000 would be few."  He
+almost ridiculed the King's suggestion that a feint might be made by way
+of besieging some few places in Holland or Zeeland.  The whole matter in
+hand, he said, had become as public as possible, and the only efficient
+blind was the peace-negotiation; for many believed, as the English
+deputies were now treating at Ostend, that peace would follow.
+
+At last, on the 28th, 29th, and 30th May, 1588, the fleet, which had been
+waiting at Lisbon more than a month for favourable weather, set sail from
+that port, after having been duly blessed by the Cardinal Archduke
+Albert, viceroy of Portugal.
+
+There were rather more than one hundred and thirty ships in all, divided
+into ten squadrons.  There was the squadron of Portugal, consisting of
+ten galleons, and commanded by the captain-general, Medina Sidonia.  In
+the squadron of Castile were fourteen ships of various sizes, under
+General Diego Flores de Valdez.  This officer was one of the most
+experienced naval officers in the Spanish service, and was subsequently
+ordered, in consequence, to sail with the generalissimo in his flag-ship.
+In the squadron of Andalusia were ten galleons and other vessels, under
+General Pedro de Valdez.  In the squadron of Biscay were ten galleons and
+lesser ships, under General Juan Martinet de Recalde, upper admiral of
+the fleet.  In the squadron of Guipuzcoa were ten galleons, under General
+Miguel de Oquendo.  In the squadron of Italy were ten ships, under
+General Martin de Bertendona.  In the squadron of Urcas, or store-ships,
+were twenty-three sail, under General Juan Gomez de Medina.  The squadron
+of tenders, caravels, and other vessels, numbered twenty-two sail, under
+General Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza.  The squadron of four galeasses was
+commanded by Don Hugo de Moncada.  The squadron of four galeras, or
+galleys, was in charge of Captain Diego de Medrado.
+
+Next in command to Medina Sidonia was Don Alonzo de Leyva, captain-
+general of the light horse of Milan.  Don Francisco de Bobadilla was
+marshal-general of the camp.  Don Diego de Pimentel was marshal of the
+camp to the famous Terzio or legion of Sicily.
+
+The total tonnage of the fleet was 59,120: the number of guns was 3165.
+Of Spanish troops there were 19,295 on board: there were 8252 sailors
+and 2088 galley-slaves.  Besides these, there was a force of noble
+volunteers, belonging to the most illustrious houses of Spain, with their
+attendants amounting to nearly 2000 in all.  There was also Don Martin
+Alaccon, administrator and vicar-general of the Holy Inquisition, at the
+head of some 290 monks of the mendicant orders, priests and familiars.
+The grand total of those embarked was about 30,000.  The daily expense of
+the fleet was estimated by Don Diego de Pimentel at 12,000 ducats a-day,
+and the daily cost of the combined naval and military force under Farnese
+and Medina Sidonia was stated at 30,000 ducats.
+
+The size of the ships ranged from 1200 tons to 300.  The galleons, of
+which there were about sixty, were huge round-stemmed clumsy vessels,
+with bulwarks three or four feet thick, and built up at stem and stern,
+like castles.  The galeasses of which there were four--were a third
+larger than the ordinary galley, and were rowed each by three hundred
+galley-slaves.  They consisted of an enormous towering fortress at the
+stern; a castellated structure almost equally massive in front, with
+seats for the rowers amidships.  At stem and stern and between each of
+the slaves' benches were heavy cannon.  These galeasses were floating
+edifices, very wonderful to contemplate.  They were gorgeously decorated.
+There were splendid state-apartments, cabins, chapels, and pulpits in
+each, and they were amply provided with awnings, cushions, streamers,
+standards, gilded saints, and bands of music.  To take part in an
+ostentatious pageant, nothing could be better devised.  To fulfil the
+great objects of a war-vessel--to sail and to fight--they were the worst
+machines ever launched upon the ocean.  The four galleys were similar to
+the galeasses in every respect except that of size, in which they were by
+one-third inferior.
+
+All the ships of the fleet--galeasses, galleys, galleons, and hulks--were
+so encumbered with top-hamper, so overweighted in proportion to their
+draught of water, that they could bear but little canvas, even with
+smooth seas and light and favourable winds.  In violent tempests,
+therefore, they seemed likely to suffer.  To the eyes of the 16th century
+these vessels seemed enormous.  A ship of 1300 tons was then a monster
+rarely seen, and a fleet, numbering from 130 to 150 sail, with an
+aggregate tonnage of 60,000, seemed sufficient to conquer the world, and
+to justify the arrogant title, by which it had baptized itself, of the
+Invincible.
+
+Such was the machinery which Philip had at last set afloat, for the
+purpose of dethroning Elizabeth and establishing the inquisition in
+England.  One hundred and forty ships, eleven thousand Spanish veterans,
+as many more recruits, partly Spanish, partly Portuguese, 2000 grandees,
+as many galley-slaves, and three hundred barefooted friars and
+inquisitors.
+
+The plan was simple.  Medina Sidonia was to proceed straight from Lisbon
+to Calais roads: there he was to wait: for the Duke of Parma, who was to
+come forth from Newport, Sluys, and Dunkerk, bringing with him his 17,000
+veterans, and to assume the chief command of the whole expedition.  They
+were then to cross the channel to Dover, land the army of Parma,
+reinforced with 6000 Spaniards from the fleet, and with these 23,000 men
+Alexander was to march at once upon London.  Medina Sidonia was to seize
+and fortify the Isle of Wight, guard the entrance of the harbours against
+any interference from the Dutch and English fleets, and--so soon as the
+conquest of England had been effected--he was to proceed to Ireland.
+It had been the wish of Sir William Stanley that Ireland should be
+subjugated first, as a basis of operations against England; but this had
+been overruled.  The intrigues of Mendoza and Farnese, too, with the
+Catholic nobles of Scotland, had proved, after all, unsuccessful.  King
+James had yielded to superior offers of money and advancement held out to
+him by Elizabeth, and was now, in Alexander's words, a confirmed heretic.
+
+There was no course left, therefore, but to conquer England at once.
+A strange omission had however been made in the plan from first to last.
+The commander of the whole expedition was the Duke of Parma: on his head
+was the whole responsibility.  Not a gun was to be fired--if it could be
+avoided--until be had come forth with his veterans to make his junction
+with the Invincible Armada off Calais.  Yet there was no arrangement
+whatever to enable him to come forth--not the slightest provision to
+effect that junction.  It would almost seem that the letter-writer of the
+Escorial had been quite ignorant of the existence of the Dutch fleets off
+Dunkerk, Newport, and Flushing, although he had certainly received
+information enough of this formidable obstacle to his plan.
+
+"Most joyful I shall be," said Farnese-writing on one of the days when
+he had seemed most convinced by Valentine Dale's arguments, and driven
+to despair by his postulates--"to see myself with these soldiers on
+English ground, where, with God's help, I hope to accomplish your
+Majesty's demands."  He was much troubled however to find doubts
+entertained at the last moment as to his 6000 Spaniards; and certainly
+it hardly needed an argument to prove that the invasion of England with
+but 17,000 soldiers was a somewhat hazardous scheme.  Yet the pilot
+Moresini had brought him letters from Medina Sidonia, in which the Duke
+expressed hesitation about parting with these 6000 veterans; unless the
+English fleet should have been previously destroyed, and had also again
+expressed his hope that Parma would be punctual to the rendezvous.
+Alexander immediately combated these views in letters to Medina and to
+the King.  He avowed that he would not depart one tittle from the plan
+originally laid down.  The 6000 men, and more if possible, were to be
+furnished him, and the Spanish Armada was to protect his own flotilla,
+and to keep the channel clear of enemies.  No other scheme was possible,
+he said, for it was clear that his collection of small flat-bottomed
+river-boats and hoys could not even make the passage, except in smooth
+weather.  They could not contend with a storm, much less with the enemy's
+ships, which would destroy them utterly in case of a meeting, without his
+being able to avail himself of his soldiers--who would be so closely
+packed as to be hardly moveable--or of any human help.  The preposterous
+notion that he should come out with his flotilla to make a junction with
+Medina off Calais, was over and over again denounced by Alexander with
+vehemence and bitterness, and most boding expressions were used by him as
+to the probable result, were such a delusion persisted in.
+
+Every possible precaution therefore but one had been taken.  The King of
+France--almost at the same instant in which Guise had been receiving his
+latest instructions from the Escorial for dethroning and destroying that
+monarch--had been assured by Philip of his inalienable affection; had
+been informed of the object of this great naval expedition--which was not
+by any means, as Mendoza had stated to Henry, an enterprise against
+France or England, but only a determined attempt to clear the sea, once
+for all, of these English pirates who had done so much damage for years
+past on the high seas--and had been requested, in case any Spanish ship
+should be driven by stress of weather into French ports, to afford them
+that comfort and protection to which the vessels of so close and friendly
+an ally were entitled.
+
+Thus there was bread, beef, and powder enough--there were monks and
+priests enough--standards, galley-slaves, and inquisitors enough; but
+there were no light vessels in the Armada, and no heavy vessels in
+Parma's fleet.  Medina could not go to Farnese, nor could Farnese come to
+Medina.  The junction was likely to be difficult, and yet it had never
+once entered the heads of Philip or his counsellors to provide for that
+difficulty.  The King never seemed to imagine that Farnese, with 40,000
+or 50,000 soldiers in the Netherlands, a fleet of 300 transports, and
+power to dispose of very large funds for one great purpose, could be kept
+in prison by a fleet of Dutch skippers and corsairs.
+
+With as much sluggishness as might have been expected from their clumsy
+architecture, the ships of the Armada consumed nearly three weeks in
+sailing from Lisbon to the neighbourhood of Cape Finisterre.  Here they
+were overtaken by a tempest, and were scattered hither and thither,
+almost at the mercy of the winds and waves; for those unwieldy hulks were
+ill adapted to a tempest in the Bay of Biscay.  There were those in the
+Armada, however, to whom the storm was a blessing.  David Gwynn, a Welsh
+mariner, had sat in the Spanish hulks a wretched galley-slave--as
+prisoner of war for more than eleven years, hoping, year after year,
+for a chance of escape from bondage.  He sat now among the rowers of the
+great galley, the Trasana, one of the humblest instruments by which the
+subjugation of his native land to Spain and Rome was to be effected.
+
+Very naturally, among the ships which suffered most in the gale were the
+four huge unwieldy galleys--a squadron of four under Don Diego de
+Medrado--with their enormous turrets at stem and stern, and their low and
+open waists.  The chapels, pulpits, and gilded Madonnas proved of little
+avail in a hurricane.  The Diana, largest of the four, went down with all
+hands; the Princess was labouring severely in the trough of the sea, and
+the Trasana was likewise in imminent danger.  So the master of this
+galley asked the Welsh slave, who had far more experience and seamanship
+than he possessed himself, if it were possible to save the vessel.  Gwynn
+saw an opportunity for which he had been waiting eleven years.  He was
+ready to improve it.  He pointed out to the captain the hopelessness of
+attempting to overtake the Armada.  They should go down, he said, as the
+Diana had already done, and as the Princess was like at any moment to do,
+unless they took in every rag of sail, and did their best with their oars
+to gain the nearest port.  But in order that the rowers might exert
+themselves to the utmost, it was necessary that the soldiers, who were a
+useless incumbrance on deck, should go below.  Thus only could the ship
+be properly handled.  The captain, anxious to save his ship and his life,
+consented.  Most of the soldiers were sent beneath the hatches: a few
+were ordered to sit on the benches among the slaves.  Now there had been
+a secret understanding for many days among these unfortunate men, nor
+were they wholly without weapons.  They had been accustomed to make
+toothpicks and other trifling articles for sale out of broken sword-
+blades and other refuse bits of steel.  There was not a man among them
+who had not thus provided himself with a secret stiletto.
+
+At first Gwynn occupied himself with arrangements for weathering the
+gale.  So soon however as the ship had been made comparatively easy, he
+looked around him, suddenly threw down his cap, and raised his hand to
+the rigging.  It was a preconcerted signal.  The next instant he stabbed
+the captain to the heart, while each one of the galley-slaves killed the
+soldier nearest him; then, rushing below, they surprised and overpowered
+the rest of the troops, and put them all to death.
+
+Coming again upon deck, David Gwynn descried the fourth galley of the
+squadron, called the Royal, commanded by Commodore Medrado in person,
+bearing down upon them, before the wind.  It was obvious that the Vasana
+was already an object of suspicion.
+
+"Comrades," said Gwynn, "God has given us liberty, and by our courage we
+must prove ourselves worthy of the boon."
+
+As he spoke there came a broadside from the galley Royal which killed
+nine of his crew.  David, nothing daunted; laid his ship close alongside
+of the Royal, with such a shock that the timbers quivered again.  Then at
+the head of his liberated slaves, now thoroughly armed, he dashed on
+board the galley, and, after a furious conflict, in which he was assisted
+by the slaves of the Royal, succeeded in mastering the vessel, and
+putting all the Spanish soldiers to death.  This done, the combined
+rowers, welcoming Gwynn as their deliverer from an abject slavery which
+seemed their lot for life, willingly accepted his orders.  The gale had
+meantime abated, and the two galleys, well conducted by the experienced
+and intrepid Welshman, made their way to the coast of France, and landed
+at Bayonne on the 31st, dividing among them the property found on board
+the two galleys.  Thence, by land, the fugitives, four hundred and sixty-
+six in number--Frenchmen, Spaniards, Englishmen, Turks, and Moors, made
+their way to Rochelle.  Gwynn had an interview with Henry of Navarre, and
+received from that chivalrous king a handsome present.  Afterwards he
+found his way to England, and was well commended by the Queen.  The rest
+of the liberated slaves dispersed in various directions.
+
+This was the first adventure of the invincible Armada.  Of the squadron
+of galleys, one was already sunk in the sea, and two of the others had
+been conquered by their own slaves.  The fourth rode out the gale with
+difficulty, and joined the rest of the fleet, which ultimately re-
+assembled at Coruna; the ships having, in distress, put in at first at
+Vivera, Ribadeo, Gijon, and other northern ports of Spain.  At the
+Groyne--as the English of that day were accustomed to call Coruna--they
+remained a month, repairing damages and recruiting; and on the 22nd of
+July 3 (N.S.) the Armada set sail: Six days later, the Spaniards took
+soundings, thirty leagues from the Scilly Islands, and on--Friday, the
+29th of July, off the Lizard, they had the first glimpse of the land of
+promise presented them by Sixtus V., of which they had at last come to
+take possession.
+
+     [The dates in the narrative will be always given according to the
+     New Style, then already adopted by Spain, Holland, and France,
+     although not by England.  The dates thus given are, of course, ten
+     days later than they appear in contemporary English records.]
+
+On the same day and night the blaze and smoke of ten thousand beacon-
+fires from the Land's End to Margate, and from the Isle of Wight to
+Cumberland, gave warning to every Englishman that the enemy was at last
+upon them.  Almost at that very instant intelligence had been brought
+from the court to the Lord-Admiral at Plymouth, that the Armada,
+dispersed and shattered by the gales of June, was not likely to make its
+appearance that year; and orders had consequently been given to disarm
+the four largest ships, and send them into dock.  Even Walsingham, as
+already stated, had participated in this strange delusion.
+
+Before Howard had time to act upon this ill-timed suggestion--even had he
+been disposed to do so--he received authentic intelligence that the great
+fleet was off the Lizard.  Neither he nor Francis Drake were the men to
+lose time in such an emergency, and before that Friday, night was spent,
+sixty of the best English ships had been warped out of Plymouth harbour.
+
+On Saturday, 30th July, the wind was very light at southwest, with a mist
+and drizzling rain, but by three in the afternoon the two fleets could
+descry and count each other through the haze.
+
+By nine o'clock, 31st July, about two miles from Looe, on the Cornish
+coast, the fleets had their first meeting.  There were 136 sail of the
+Spaniards, of which ninety were large ships, and sixty-seven of the
+English.  It was a solemn moment.  The long-expected Armada presented a
+pompous, almost a theatrical appearance.  The ships seemed arranged for a
+pageant, in honour of a victory already won.  Disposed in form of a
+crescent, the horns of which were seven miles asunder, those gilded,
+towered, floating castles, with their gaudy standards and their martial
+music, moved slowly along the channel, with an air of indolent pomp.
+Their captain-general, the golden Duke, stood in his private shot-proof
+fortress, on the--deck of his great galleon the Saint Martin, surrounded
+by generals of infantry, and colonels of cavalry, who knew as little as
+he did himself of naval matters.  The English vessels, on the other
+hand--with a few exceptions, light, swift, and easily handled--could sail
+round and round those unwieldy galleons, hulks, and galleys rowed by
+fettered slave-gangs.  The superior seamanship of free Englishmen,
+commanded by such experienced captains as Drake, Frobisher, and Hawkins--
+from infancy at home on blue water--was manifest in the very, first
+encounter.  They obtained the weather-gage at once, and cannonaded the
+enemy at intervals with considerable effect, easily escaping at will out
+of range of the sluggish Armada, which was incapable of bearing sail in
+pursuit, although provided with an armament which could sink all its
+enemies at close quarters.  "We had some small fight with them that
+Sunday afternoon," said Hawkins.
+
+Medina Sidonia hoisted the royal standard at the fore, and the whole
+fleet did its utmost, which was little, to offer general battle.  It was
+in vain.  The English, following at the heels of the enemy, refused all
+such invitations, and attacked only the rear-guard of the Armada, where
+Recalde commanded.  That admiral, steadily maintaining his post, faced
+his nimble antagonists, who continued to teaze, to maltreat, and to elude
+him, while the rest of the fleet proceeded slowly up the Channel closely,
+followed by the enemy.  And thus the running fight continued along the
+coast, in full view of Plymouth, whence boats with reinforcements and
+volunteers were perpetually arriving to the English ships, until the
+battle had drifted quite out of reach of the town.
+
+Already in this first "small fight" the Spaniards had learned a lesson,
+and might even entertain a doubt of their invincibility.  But before the
+sun set there were more serious disasters.  Much powder and shot had been
+expended by the Spaniards to very little purpose, and so a master-gunner
+on board Admiral Oquendo's flag-ship was reprimanded for careless ball-
+practice.  The gunner, who was a Fleming, enraged with his captain, laid
+a train to the powder-magazine, fired it, and threw himself into the sea.
+Two decks blew up.  The into the clouds, carrying with it the paymaster-
+general of the fleet, a large portion of treasure, and nearly two hundred
+men.'  The ship was a wreck, but it was possible to save the rest of the
+crew.  So Medina Sidonia sent light vessels to remove them, and wore with
+his flag-ship, to defend Oquendo, who had already been fastened upon by
+his English pursuers.  But the Spaniards, not being so light in hand as
+their enemies, involved themselves in much embarrassment by this
+manoeuvre; and there was much falling foul of each other, entanglement of
+rigging, and carrying away of yards.  Oquendo's men, however, were
+ultimately saved, and taken to other ships.
+
+Meantime Don Pedro de Valdez, commander of the Andalusian squadron,
+having got his galleon into collision with two or three Spanish ships
+successively, had at last carried away his fore-mast close to the deck,
+and the wreck had fallen against his main-mast.  He lay crippled and
+helpless, the Armada was slowly deserting him, night was coming on, the
+sea was running high, and the English, ever hovering near, were ready
+to grapple with him.  In vain did Don Pedro fire signals of distress.
+The captain-general, even as though the unlucky galleon had not been
+connected with the Catholic fleet--calmly fired a gun to collect his
+scattered ships, and abandoned Valdez to his fate.  "He left me
+comfortless in sight of the whole fleet," said poor Pedro, "and greater
+inhumanity and unthankfulness I think was never heard of among men."
+
+Yet the Spaniard comported himself most gallantly.  Frobisher, in the
+largest ship of the English fleet, the Triumph, of 1100 tons, and Hawkins
+in the Victory, of 800, cannonaded him at a distance, but, night coming
+on, he was able to resist; and it was not till the following morning that
+he surrendered to the Revenge.
+
+Drake then received the gallant prisoner on board his flagship--much to
+the disgust and indignation of Frobisher and Hawkins, thus disappointed
+of their prize and ransom-money--treated him with much courtesy, and gave
+his word of honour that he and his men should be treated fairly like good
+prisoners of war.  This pledge was redeemed, for it was not the English,
+as it was the Spanish custom, to convert captives into slaves, but only
+to hold them for ransom.  Valdez responded to Drake's politeness by
+kissing his hand, embracing him, and overpowering him with magnificent
+compliments.  He was then sent on board the Lord-Admiral, who received
+him with similar urbanity, and expressed his regret that so distinguished
+a personage should have been so coolly deserted by the Duke of Medina.
+Don Pedro then returned to the Revenge, where, as the guest of Drake, he
+was a witness to all subsequent events up to the 10th of August, on which
+day he was sent to London with some other officers, Sir Francis claiming
+his ransom as his lawful due.
+
+Here certainly was no very triumphant beginning for the Invincible
+Armada.  On the very first day of their being in presence of the English
+fleet--then but sixty-seven in number, and vastly their inferior in size
+and weight of metal--they had lost the flag ships of the Guipuzcoan and
+of the Andalusian squadrons, with a general-admiral, 450 officers and,
+men, and some 100,000 ducats of treasure.  They had been out-manoeuvred,
+out-sailed, and thoroughly maltreated by their antagonists, and they had
+been unable to inflict a single blow in return.  Thus the "small fight"
+had been a cheerful one for the opponents of the Inquisition, and the
+English were proportionably encouraged.
+
+On Monday, 1st of August, Medina Sidonia placed the rear-guard-consisting
+of the galeasses, the galleons St. Matthew, St. Luke, St. James, and the
+Florence and other ships, forty-three in all--under command of Don
+Antonio de Leyva.  He was instructed to entertain the enemy--
+so constantly hanging on the rear--to accept every chance of battle, and
+to come to close quarters whenever it should be possible.  The Spaniards
+felt confident of sinking every ship in the English navy, if they could
+but once come to grappling; but it was growing more obvious every hour
+that the giving or withholding battle was entirely in the hands of their
+foes.  Meantime--while the rear was thus protected by Leyva's division--
+the vanguard and main body of the Armada, led by the captain-general,
+would steadily pursue its way, according to the royal instructions, until
+it arrived at its appointed meeting-place with the Duke of Parma.
+Moreover, the Duke of Medina--dissatisfied with the want of discipline
+and of good seamanship hitherto displayed in his fleet--now took occasion
+to send a serjeant-major, with written sailing directions, on board each
+ship in the Armada, with express orders to hang every captain, without
+appeal or consultation, who should leave the position assigned him; and
+the hangmen were sent with the sergeant-majors to ensure immediate
+attention to these arrangements.  Juan Gil was at the name time sent off
+in a sloop to the Duke of Parma, to carry the news of the movements of
+the Armada, to request information as to the exact spot and moment of the
+junction, and to beg for pilots acquainted with the French and Flemish
+coasts.  "In case of the slightest gale in the world," said Medina, "I
+don't know how or where to shelter such large ships as ours."
+
+Disposed in this manner; the Spaniards sailed leisurely along the English
+coast with light westerly breezes, watched closely by the Queen's fleet,
+which hovered at a moderate distance to windward, without offering, that
+day, any obstruction to their course.
+
+By five o'clock on Tuesday morning, 2nd of August, the Armada lay between
+Portland Bill and St. Albans' Head, when the wind shifted to the north-
+east, and gave the Spaniards the weather-gage.  The English did their
+beat to get to windward, but the Duke, standing close into the land with
+the whole Armada, maintained his advantage.  The English then went about,
+making a tack seaward, and were soon afterwards assaulted by the
+Spaniards.  A long and spirited action ensued.  Howard in his little Ark-
+Royal--"the odd ship of the world for all conditions"--was engaged at
+different times with Bertendona, of the Italian squadron, with Alonzo de
+Leyva in the Batta, and with other large vessels.  He was hard pressed
+for a time, but was gallantly supported by the Nonpareil, Captain Tanner;
+and after a long and confused combat, in which the St. Mark, the St.
+Luke, the St. Matthew, the St. Philip, the St. John, the St. James, the
+St. John Baptist, the St. Martin, and many other great galleons, with
+saintly and apostolic names, fought pellmell with the Lion, the Bear, the
+Bull, the Tiger, the Dreadnought, the Revenge, the Victory, the Triumph,
+and other of the more profanely-baptized English ships, the Spaniards
+were again baffled in all their attempts to close with, and to board,
+their ever-attacking, ever-flying adversaries.  The cannonading was
+incessant.  "We had a sharp and a long fight," said Hawkins.  Boat-loads
+of men and munitions were perpetually arriving to the English, and many,
+high-born volunteers--like Cumberland, Oxford, Northumberland, Raleigh,
+Brooke, Dudley, Willoughby, Noel, William Hatton, Thomas Cecil, and
+others--could no longer restrain their impatience, as the roar of battle
+sounded along the coasts of Dorset, but flocked merrily on board the
+ships of Drake,--Hawkins, Howard, and Frobisher, or came in small vessels
+which they had chartered for themselves, in order to have their share in
+the delights of the long-expected struggle.
+
+The action, irregular, desultory, but lively, continued nearly all day,
+and until the English had fired away most of their powder and shot.  The
+Spaniards, too, notwithstanding their years of preparation, were already
+sort of light metal, and Medina Sidonia had been daily sending to Parma
+for a Supply of four, six, and ten pound balls.  So much lead and
+gunpowder had never before been wasted in a single day; for there was no
+great damage inflicted on either side.  The artillery-practice was
+certainly not much to the credit of either nation.
+
+"If her Majesty's ships had been manned with a full supply of good
+gunners," said honest William Thomas, an old artilleryman, "it would have
+been the woefullest time ever the Spaniard took in hand, and the most
+noble victory ever heard of would have been her Majesty's.  But our sins
+were the cause that so much powder and shot were spent, so long time in
+fight, and in comparison so little harm done.  It were greatly to be
+wished that her Majesty were no longer deceived in this way."
+
+Yet the English, at any rate, had succeeded in displaying their
+seamanship, if not their gunnery, to advantage.  In vain the unwieldly
+hulks and galleons had attempted to grapple with their light-winged foes,
+who pelted them, braved them, damaged their sails and gearing; and then
+danced lightly off into the distance; until at last, as night fell, the
+wind came out from the west again, and the English regained and kept the
+weather-gage.
+
+The Queen's fleet, now divided into four squadrons, under Howard, Drake,
+Hawkins, and Frobisher, amounted to near one hundred sail, exclusive of
+Lord Henry Seymour's division, which was cruising in the Straits of
+Dover.  But few of all this number were ships of war however, and the
+merchant vessels; although zealous and active enough, were not thought
+very effective.  "If you had seen the simple service done by the
+merchants and coast ships," said Winter, "you would have said we had been
+little holpen by them, otherwise than that they did make a show."
+
+All night the Spaniards, holding their course towards Calais, after the
+long but indecisive conflict had terminated, were closely pursued by
+their wary antagonists.  On Wednesday, 3rd of August, there was some
+slight cannonading, with but slender results; and on Thursday, the 4th,
+both fleets were off Dunnose, on the Isle of Wight.  The great hulk
+Santana and a galleon of Portugal having been somewhat damaged the
+previous day, were lagging behind the rest of the Armada, and were
+vigorously attacked by the Triumph, and a few other vessels.  Don Antonio
+de Leyva, with some of the galeasses and large galleons, came to the
+rescue, and Frobisher, although in much peril, maintained an unequal
+conflict, within close range, with great spirit.
+
+Seeing his danger, the Lord Admiral in the Ark-Royal, accompanied by
+the Golden Lion; the White Bear, the Elizabeth, the Victory, and the
+Leicester, bore boldly down into the very midst of the Spanish fleet,
+and laid himself within three or four hundred yards of Medina's flag
+ship, the St. Martin, while his comrades were at equally close quarters
+with Vice-Admiral Recalde and the galleons of Oquendo, Mexia, and
+Almanza.  It was the hottest conflict which had yet taken place.  Here at
+last was thorough English work.  The two, great fleets, which were there
+to subjugate and to defend the realm of Elizabeth, were nearly yard-arm
+and yard-arm together--all England on the lee.  Broadside after broadside
+of great guns, volley after volley of arquebusry from maintop and
+rigging, were warmly exchanged, and much damage was inflicted on the
+Spaniards, whose gigantic ships, were so easy a mark to aim at, while
+from their turreted heights they themselves fired for the most part
+harmlessly over the heads of their adversaries.  The leaders of the
+Armada, however, were encouraged, for they expected at last to come to
+even closer quarters, and there were some among the English who were mad
+enough to wish to board.
+
+But so soon as Frobisher, who was the hero of the day, had extricated
+himself from his difficulty, the Lord-Admiral--having no intention of
+risking the existence of his fleet, and with it perhaps of the English
+crown, upon the hazard of a single battle, and having been himself
+somewhat damaged in the fight--gave the signal for retreat, and caused
+the Ark-Royal to be towed out of action.  Thus the Spaniards were
+frustrated of their hopes, and the English; having inflicted much.
+punishment at comparatively small loss to themselves, again stood off to
+windward; and the Armada continued its indolent course along the cliffs
+of Freshwater and Blackgang.
+
+On Friday; 5th August, the English, having received men and munitions
+from shore, pursued their antagonists at a moderate distance; and the
+Lord-Admiral; profiting by the pause--for, it was almost a flat calm--
+sent for Martin Frobisher, John Hawkins, Roger Townsend, Lord Thomas
+Howard, son of the Duke of Norfolk, and Lord Edmund Sheffield; and on the
+deck of the Royal Ark conferred the honour of knighthood on each for his
+gallantry in the action of the previous day.  Medina Sidonia, on his
+part, was again despatching messenger after messenger to the Duke of
+Parma, asking for small shot, pilots, and forty fly-boats, with which to
+pursue the teasing English clippers.  The Catholic Armada, he said, being
+so large and heavy, was quite in the power of its adversaries, who could
+assault, retreat, fight, or leave off fighting, while he had nothing for
+it but to proceed, as expeditiously as might be; to his rendezvous in
+Calais roads.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Inquisitors enough; but there were no light vessels in The Armada
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v57
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 58, 1588
+
+
+     Both Fleets off Calais--A Night of Anxiety--Project of Howard and
+     Winter--Impatience of the Spaniards--Fire-Ships sent against the
+     Armada--A great Galeasse disabled--Attacked and captured by English
+     Boats--General Engagement of both Fleets--Loss of several Spanish
+     Ships--Armada flies, followed by the English--English insufficiently
+     provided--Are obliged to relinquish the Chase--A great Storm
+     disperses the Armada--Great Energy of Parma Made fruitless by
+     Philip's Dulness--England readier at Sea than on Shore--The
+     Lieutenant--General's Complaints--His Quarrels with Norris and
+     Williams--Harsh Statements as to the English Troops--Want of
+     Organization in England--Royal Parsimony and Delay--Quarrels of
+     English Admirals--England's narrow Escape from great Peril--Various
+     Rumours as to the Armada's Fate--Philip for a long Time in Doubt--He
+     believes himself victorious--Is tranquil when undeceived.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.  Part 2.
+
+
+And in Calais roads the great fleet--sailing slowly all next day in
+company with the English, without a shot being fired on either side--at
+last dropped anchor on Saturday afternoon, August 6th.
+
+Here then the Invincible Armada had arrived at its appointed resting-
+place.  Here the great junction--of Medina Sidonia with the Duke of Parma
+was to be effected; and now at last the curtain was to rise upon the last
+act of the great drama so slowly and elaborately prepared.
+
+That Saturday afternoon, Lord Henry Seymour and his squadron of sixteen
+lay between Dungeness and Folkestone; waiting the approach of the two
+fleets.  He spoke several-coasting vessels coming from the west; but they
+could give him no information--strange to say--either of the Spaniards
+or, of his own countrymen,--Seymour; having hardly three days' provision
+in his fleet, thought that there might be time to take in supplies; and
+so bore into the Downs.  Hardly had he been there half an hour; when a
+pinnace arrived from the Lord-Admiral; with orders for Lord Henry's
+squadron to hold itself in readiness.  There was no longer time for
+victualling, and very soon afterwards the order was given to make sail
+and bear for the French coast.  The wind was however so light; that the
+whole day was spent before Seymour with his ships could cross the
+channel.  At last, towards seven in the evening; he saw the great Spanish
+Armada, drawn up in a half-moon, and riding at anchor--the ships very
+near each other--a little to the eastward of Calais, and very near the
+shore.  The English, under Howard Drake, Frobisher, and Hawkins, were
+slowly following, and--so soon as Lord Henry, arriving from the opposite
+shore; had made his junction with them--the whole combined fleet dropped
+anchor likewise very near Calais, and within one mile and a half of the
+Spaniards.  That invincible force had at last almost reached its
+destination.  It was now to receive the cooperation of the great Farnese,
+at the head of an army of veterans, disciplined on a hundred battle-
+fields, confident from countless victories, and arrayed, as they had been
+with ostentatious splendour, to follow the most brilliant general in
+Christendom on his triumphal march into the capital of England.  The
+long-threatened invasion was no longer an idle figment of politicians,
+maliciously spread abroad to poison men's minds as to the intentions of
+a long-enduring but magnanimous, and on the whole friendly sovereign.
+The mask had been at last thrown down, and the mild accents of Philip's
+diplomatists and their English dupes, interchanging protocols so
+decorously month after month on the sands of Bourbourg, had been drowned
+by the peremptory voice of English and Spanish artillery, suddenly
+breaking in upon their placid conferences.  It had now become
+supererogatory to ask for Alexander's word of honour whether he had,
+ever heard of Cardinal Allan's pamphlet, or whether his master
+contemplated hostilities against Queen Elizabeth.
+
+Never, since England was England, had such a sight been seen as now
+revealed itself in those narrow straits between Dover and Calais.  Along
+that long, low, sandy shore, and quite within the range of the Calais
+fortifications, one hundred and thirty Spanish ships--the greater number
+of them the largest and most heavily armed in the world lay face to face,
+and scarcely out of cannon-shot, with one hundred and fifty English
+sloops and frigates, the strongest and swiftest that the island could
+furnish, and commanded by men whose exploits had rung through the world.
+
+Farther along the coast, invisible, but known to be performing a post
+perilous and vital service, was a squadron of Dutch vessels of all sizes,
+lining both the inner and outer edges of the sandbanks off the Flemish
+coasts, and swarming in all the estuaries and inlets of that intricate
+and dangerous cruising-ground between Dunkerk and Walcheren.  Those
+fleets of Holland and Zeeland, numbering some one hundred and fifty
+galleons, sloops, and fly-boats, under Warmond, Nassau, Van der Does, de
+Moor, and Rosendael, lay patiently blockading every possible egress from
+Newport, or Gravelines; or Sluys, or Flushing, or Dunkerk, and longing to
+grapple with the Duke of Parma, so soon as his fleet of gunboats and
+hoys, packed with his Spanish and Italian veterans, should venture to set
+forth upon the sea for their long-prepared exploit.
+
+It was a pompous spectacle, that midsummer night, upon those narrow seas.
+The moon, which was at the full, was rising calmly upon a scene of
+anxious expectation.  Would she not be looking, by the morrow's night,
+upon a subjugated England, a re-enslaved Holland--upon the downfall of
+civil and religious liberty?  Those ships of Spain, which lay there with
+their banners waving in the moonlight, discharging salvoes of anticipated
+triumph and filling the air with strains of insolent music; would they
+not, by daybreak, be moving straight to their purpose, bearing the
+conquerors of the world to the scene of their cherished hopes?
+
+That English fleet, too, which rode there at anchor, so anxiously on the
+watch--would that swarm of, nimble, lightly-handled, but slender
+vessels,--which had held their own hitherto in hurried and desultory
+skirmishes--be able to cope with their great antagonist now that the
+moment had arrived for the death grapple?  Would not Howard, Drake,
+Frobisher, Seymour, Winter, and Hawkins, be swept out of the straits at
+last, yielding an open passage to Medina, Oquendo, Recalde, and Farnese?
+Would those Hollanders and Zeelanders, cruising so vigilantly among their
+treacherous shallows, dare to maintain their post, now that the terrible
+'Holofernese,' with his invincible legions, was resolved to come forth?
+
+So soon as he had cast anchor, Howard despatched a pinnace to the
+Vanguard, with a message to Winter to come on board the flag-ship.  When
+Sir William reached the Ark, it was already nine in the evening.  He was
+anxiously consulted by the Lord-Admiral as to the course now to be taken.
+Hitherto the English had been teasing and perplexing an enemy, on the
+retreat, as it were, by the nature of his instructions.  Although anxious
+to give battle, the Spaniard was forbidden to descend upon the coast
+until after his junction with Parma.  So the English had played a
+comparatively easy game, hanging upon their enemy's skirts, maltreating
+him as they doubled about him, cannonading him from a distance, and
+slipping out of his reach at their pleasure.  But he was now to be met
+face to face, and the fate of the two free commonwealths of the world was
+upon the issue of the struggle, which could no longer be deferred.
+
+Winter, standing side by aide with the Lord-Admiral on the deck of the
+little Ark-Royal, gazed for the first time on those enormous galleons and
+galleys with which his companion, was already sufficiently familiar.
+
+"Considering their hugeness," said he, "twill not be possible to remove
+them but by a device."
+
+Then remembering, in a lucky moment, something that he had heard four
+years before of the fire ships sent by the Antwerpers against Parma's
+bridge--the inventor of which, the Italian Gianibelli, was at that very
+moment constructing fortifications on the Thames to assist the English
+against his old enemy Farnese--Winter suggested that some stratagem of
+the same kind should be attempted against the Invincible Armada.  There
+was no time nor opportunity to prepare such submarine volcanoes as had
+been employed on that memorable occasion; but burning ships at least
+might be sent among the fleet.  Some damage would doubtless be thus
+inflicted by the fire, and perhaps a panic, suggested by the memories of
+Antwerp and by the knowledge that the famous Mantuan wizard was then a
+resident of England, would be still more effective.  In Winter's opinion,
+the Armada might at least be compelled to slip its cables, and be thrown
+into some confusion if the project were fairly carried out.
+
+Howard approved of the device, and determined to hold, next morning, a
+council of war for arranging the details of its execution.
+
+While the two sat in the cabin, conversing thus earnestly, there had well
+nigh been a serious misfortune.  The ship, White Bear, of 1000 tons
+burthen, and three others of the English fleet, all tangled together,
+came drifting with the tide against the Ark.  There were many yards
+carried away; much tackle spoiled, and for a time there was great danger;
+in the opinion of Winter, that some of the very best ships in the fleet
+would be crippled and quite destroyed on the eve of a general engagement.
+By alacrity and good handling, however, the ships were separated, and the
+ill-consequences of an accident--such as had already proved fatal to
+several Spanish vessels--were fortunately averted.
+
+Next day, Sunday, 7th August, the two great fleets were still lying but a
+mile and a half apart, calmly gazing at each other, and rising and
+falling at their anchors as idly as if some vast summer regatta were the
+only purpose of that great assemblage of shipping.  Nothing as yet was
+heard of Farnese.  Thus far, at least, the Hollanders had held him at
+bay, and there was still breathing-time before the catastrophe.  So
+Howard hung out his signal for council early in the morning, and very
+soon after Drake and Hawkins, Seymour, Winter, and the rest, were gravely
+consulting in his cabin.
+
+It was decided that Winter's suggestion should be acted upon, and Sir
+Henry Palmer was immediately despatched in a pinnace to Dover, to bring
+off a number of old vessels fit to be fired, together with a supply of
+light wood, tar, rosin, sulphur, and other combustibles, most adapted to
+the purpose.'  But as time wore away, it became obviously impossible for
+Palmer to return that night, and it was determined to make the most of
+what could be collected in the fleet itself.  Otherwise it was to be
+feared that the opportunity might be for ever lost.  Parma, crushing all
+opposition, might suddenly appear at any moment upon the channel; and the
+whole Spanish Armada, placing itself between him and his enemies, would
+engage the English and Dutch fleets, and cover his passage to Dover.  It
+would then be too late to think of the burning ships.
+
+On the other hand, upon the decks of the Armada, there was an impatience
+that night which increased every hour.  The governor of Calais; M. de
+Gourdon, had sent his nephew on board the flag-ship of Medina Sidonia,
+with courteous salutations, professions of friendship, and bountiful
+refreshments.  There was no fear--now that Mucio was for the time in the
+ascendency--that the schemes of Philip would be interfered with by
+France.  The governor, had, however, sent serious warning of--the
+dangerous position in which the Armada had placed itself.  He was quite
+right.  Calais roads were no safe anchorage for huge vessels like those
+of Spain and Portugal; for the tides and cross-currents to which they
+were exposed were most treacherous.  It was calm enough at the moment,
+but a westerly gale might, in a few hours, drive the whole fleet
+hopelessly among the sand-banks of the dangerous Flemish coast.
+Moreover, the Duke, although tolerably well furnished with charts and
+pilots for the English coast, was comparatively unprovided against the
+dangers which might beset him off Dunkerk, Newport, and Flushing.  He had
+sent messengers, day after day, to Farnese, begging for assistance of
+various kinds, but, above all, imploring his instant presence on the
+field of action.  It was the time and, place for Alexander to assume the
+chief command.  The Armada was ready to make front against the English
+fleet on the left, while on the right, the Duke, thus protected, might
+proceed across the channel and take possession of England.
+
+And the impatience of the soldiers and sailors on board the fleet was
+equal to that of their commanders.  There was London almost before their
+eyes--a huge mass of treasure, richer and more accessible than those
+mines beyond the Atlantic which had so often rewarded Spanish chivalry
+with fabulous wealth.  And there were men in those galleons who
+remembered the sack of Antwerp, eleven years before--men who could tell,
+from personal experience, how helpless was a great commercial city, when
+once in the clutch of disciplined brigands--men who, in that dread 'fury
+of Antwerp,' had enriched themselves in an hour with the accumulations of
+a merchant's life-time, and who had slain fathers and mothers, sons and
+daughters, brides and bridegrooms, before each others' eyes, until the
+number of inhabitants butchered in the blazing streets rose to many
+thousands; and the plunder from palaces and warehouses was counted by
+millions; before the sun had set on the 'great fury.'  Those Spaniards,
+and Italians, and Walloons, were now thirsting for more gold, for more
+blood; and as the capital of England was even more wealthy and far more
+defenceless than the commercial metropolis of the Netherlands had been,
+so it was resolved that the London 'fury' should be more thorough and
+more productive than the 'fury' of Antwerp, at the memory--of which the
+world still shuddered.  And these professional soldiers had been taught
+to consider the English as a pacific, delicate, effeminate race,
+dependent on good living, without experience of war, quickly fatigued and
+discouraged, and even more easily to be plundered and butchered than were
+the excellent burghers of Antwerp.
+
+And so these southern conquerors looked down from their great galleons
+and galeasses upon the English vessels.  More than three quarters of them
+were merchantmen.  There was no comparison whatever between the relative
+strength of the fleets.  In number they were about equal being each from
+one hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty strong--but the Spaniards
+had twice the tonnage of the English, four times the artillery, and
+nearly three times the number of men.
+
+Where was Farnese?  Most impatiently the Golden Duke paced the deck of
+the Saint Martin.  Most eagerly were thousands of eyes strained towards
+the eastern horizon to catch the first glimpse of Parma's flotilla.  But
+the day wore on to its close, and still the same inexplicable and
+mysterious silence prevailed.  There was utter solitude on the waters in
+the direction of Gravelines and Dunkerk--not a sail upon the sea in the
+quarter where bustle and activity had been most expected.  The mystery
+was profound, for it had never entered the head of any man in the Armada
+that Alexander could not come out when he chose.
+
+And now to impatience succeeded suspicion and indignation; and there were
+curses upon sluggishness and upon treachery.  For in the horrible
+atmosphere of duplicity, in which all Spaniards and Italians of that
+epoch lived, every man: suspected his brother, and already Medina Sidonia
+suspected Farnese of playing him false.  There were whispers of collusion
+between the Duke and the English commissioners at Bourbourg.  There were
+hints that Alexander was playing his own game, that he meant to divide
+the sovereignty of the Netherlands with the heretic Elizabeth, to desert
+his great trust, and to effect, if possible, the destruction of his
+master's Armada, and the downfall of his master's sovereignty in the
+north.  Men told each other, too, of a vague rumour, concerning which
+Alexander might have received information, and in which many believed,
+that Medina Sidonia was the bearer of secret orders to throw Farnese into
+bondage, so soon as he should appear, to send him a disgraced captive
+back to Spain for punishment, and to place the baton of command in the
+hand of the Duke of Pastrana, Philip's bastard by the Eboli.  Thus, in
+the absence of Alexander, all was suspense and suspicion.  It seemed
+possible that disaster instead of triumph was in store for them through
+the treachery of the commander-in-chief.  Four and twenty hours and more,
+they had been lying in that dangerous roadstead, and although the weather
+had been calm and the sea tranquil, there seemed something brooding in
+the atmosphere.
+
+As the twilight deepened, the moon became totally obscured, dark cloud-
+masses spread over the heavens, the sea grew black, distant thunder
+rolled, and the sob of an approaching tempest became distinctly audible.
+Such indications of a westerly gale, were not encouraging to those
+cumbrous vessels, with the treacherous quicksands of Flanders under their
+lee.
+
+At an hour past midnight, it was so dark that it was difficult for the
+most practiced eye to pierce far into the gloom.  But a faint drip of
+oars now struck the ears of the Spaniards as they watched from the decks.
+A few moments afterwards the sea became, suddenly luminous, and six
+flaming vessels appeared at a slight distance, bearing steadily down upon
+them before the wind and tide.
+
+There were men in the Armada who had been at the siege of Antwerp only
+three years before.  They remembered with horror the devil-ships of
+Gianibelli, those floating volcanoes, which had seemed to rend earth and
+ocean, whose explosion had laid so many thousands of soldiers dead at a
+blow, and which had shattered the bridge and floating forts of Farnese,
+as though they had been toys of glass.  They knew, too, that the famous
+engineer was at that moment in England.
+
+In a moment one of those horrible panics, which spread with such
+contagious rapidity among large bodies of men, seized upon the Spaniards.
+There was a yell throughout the fleet--"the fire-ships of Antwerp, the
+fire-ships of Antwerp!" and in an instant every cable was cut, and
+frantic attempts were made by each galleon and galeasse to escape what
+seemed imminent destruction.  The confusion was beyond description.  Four
+or five of the largest ships became entangled with each other.  Two
+others were set on fire by the flaming--vessels, and were consumed.
+Medina Sidonia, who had been warned, even, before his departure from
+Spain, that some such artifice would probably be attempted, and who had
+even, early that morning, sent out a party of sailors in a pinnace to
+search for indications of the scheme, was not surprised or dismayed.
+He gave orders--as well as might be that every ship, after the danger
+should be passed, was to return to its post, and, await his further
+orders.  But it was useless, in that moment of unreasonable panic to
+issue commands.  The despised Mantuan, who had met with so many rebuffs
+at Philip's court, and who--owing to official incredulity had been but
+partially successful in his magnificent enterprise at Antwerp, had now;
+by the mere terror of his name, inflicted more damage on Philip's Armada
+than had hitherto been accomplished by Howard and Drake, Hawkins and
+Frobisher, combined.
+
+So long as night and darkness lasted, the confusion and uproar continued.
+When the Monday morning dawned, several of the Spanish vessels lay
+disabled, while the rest of the fleet was seen at a distance of two
+leagues from Calais, driving towards the Flemish coast.  The threatened
+gale had not yet begun to blow, but there were fresh squalls from the
+W.S.W., which, to such awkward sailers as the Spanish vessels; were
+difficult to contend with.  On the other hand, the English fleet were all
+astir; and ready to pursue the Spaniards, now rapidly drifting into the
+North Sea.  In the immediate neighbourhood of Calais, the flagship of the
+squadron of galeasses, commanded by Don Hugo de Moncada, was discovered
+using her foresail and oars, and endeavouring to enter the harbour.
+She had been damaged by collision with the St. John of Sicily and other
+ships, during the night's panic, and had her rudder quite torn away. She
+was the largest and most splendid vessel in the Armada--the show-ship of
+the fleet,--"the very glory and stay of the Spanish navy," and during the
+previous two days she had been visited and admired by great numbers of
+Frenchmen from the shore.
+
+Lord Admiral Howard bore dawn upon her at once, but as she was already in
+shallow water, and was rowing steadily towards the town, he saw that the
+Ark could not follow with safety.  So he sent his long-boat to cut her
+out, manned with fifty or sixty volunteers, most of them "as valiant in
+courage as gentle in birth"--as a partaker in the adventure declared.
+The Margaret and Joan of London, also following in pursuit, ran herself
+aground, but the master despatched his pinnace with a body of musketeers,
+to aid in the capture of the galeasse.
+
+That huge vessel failed to enter the harbour, and stuck fast upon the
+bar.  There was much dismay on board, but Don Hugo prepared resolutely to
+defend himself.  The quays of Calais and the line of the French shore
+were lined with thousands of eager spectators, as the two boats-rowing
+steadily toward a galeasse, which carried forty brass pieces of
+artillery, and was manned with three hundred soldiers and four hundred
+and fifty slaves--seemed rushing upon their own destruction.  Of these
+daring Englishmen, patricians and plebeians together, in two open
+pinnaces, there were not more than one hundred in number, all told.
+They soon laid themselves close to the Capitana, far below her lofty
+sides, and called on Don Hugo to surrender.  The answer was, a smile of
+derision from the haughty Spaniard, as he looked down upon them from what
+seemed an inaccessible height.  Then one Wilton, coxswain of the Delight;
+of Winter's squadron, clambered up to the enemy's deck and fell dead
+the same instant.  Then the English volunteers opened a volley upon the
+Spaniards; "They seemed safely ensconced in their ships," said bold Dick
+Tomson, of the Margaret and Joan, "while we in our open pinnaces, and far
+under them, had nothing to shroud and cover us."  Moreover the numbers
+were, seven hundred and fifty to one hundred.  But, the Spaniards, still
+quite disconcerted by the events of the preceding night, seemed under a
+spell.  Otherwise it would have been an easy matter for the great
+galeasse to annihilate such puny antagonists in a very short space of
+time.
+
+The English pelted the Spaniards quite cheerfully, however, with arquebus
+shot, whenever they showed themselves above the bulwarks, picked off a
+considerable number, and sustained a rather severe loss themselves,
+Lieutenant Preston of the Ark-Royal, among others, being dangerously
+wounded.   "We had a pretty skirmish for half-an-hour," said Tomson.
+At last Don Hugo de Moncada, furious at the inefficiency of his men, and
+leading them forward in person, fell back on his deck with a bullet
+through both eyes.  The panic was instantaneous, for, meantime, several
+other English boats--some with eight, ten; or twelve men on board--were
+seen pulling--towards the galeasse; while the dismayed soldiers at once
+leaped overboard on the land side, and attempted to escape by swimming
+and wading to the shore. Some of them succeeded, but the greater number
+were drowned.  The few who remained--not more, than twenty in all--
+hoisted two handkerchiefs upon two rapiers as a signal of truce.  The
+English, accepting it as a signal of defeat; scrambled with great
+difficulty up the lofty sides of the Capitana, and, for an hour and a
+half, occupied themselves most agreeably in plundering the ship and in
+liberating the slaves.
+
+It was their intention, with the flood-tide, to get the vessel off, as
+she was but slightly damaged, and of very great value.  But a serious
+obstacle arose to this arrangement.  For presently a boat came along-
+side, with young M. de Gourdon and another French captain, and hailed the
+galeasse.  There was nobody on board who could speak French but Richard
+Tomson.  So Richard returned the hail, and asked their business.  They
+said they came from the governor.
+
+"And what is the--governor's pleasure?"  asked Tomson, when they had come
+up the side.
+
+"The governor has stood and beheld your fight, and rejoiced in your
+victory," was the reply; "and he says that for your prowess and manhood
+you well deserve the pillage of the galeasse.  He requires and commands
+you, however, not to attempt carrying off either the ship or its
+ordnance; for she lies a-ground under the battery of his castle, and
+within his jurisdiction, and does of right appertain to him."
+
+This seemed hard upon the hundred volunteers, who, in their two open
+boats, had so manfully carried a ship of 1200 tons, 40 guns, and 750 men;
+but Richard answered diplomatically.
+
+"We thank M. de Gourdon," said he, "for granting the pillage to mariners
+and soldiers who had fought for it, and we acknowledge that without his
+good-will we cannot carry away anything we have got, for the ship lies on
+ground directly under his batteries and bulwarks.  Concerning the ship
+and ordnance, we pray that he would send a pinnace to my Lord Admiral
+Howard, who is here in person hard by, from whom he will have an
+honourable and friendly answer, which we shall all-obey."
+
+With this--the French officers, being apparently content, were about to
+depart, and it is not impossible that the soft answer might have obtained
+the galeasse and the ordnance, notwithstanding the arrangement which
+Philip II. had made with his excellent friend Henry III. for aid and
+comfort to Spanish vessels in French ports.  Unluckily, however, the
+inclination for plunder being rife that morning, some of the Englishmen
+hustled their French visitors, plundered them of their rings and jewels,
+as if they had been enemies, and then permitted them to depart.  They
+rowed off to the shore, vowing vengeance, and within a few minutes after
+their return the battery of the fort was opened upon the English, and
+they were compelled to make their escape as they could with the plunder
+already secured, leaving the galeasse in the possession of M. de Gourdon.
+
+This adventure being terminated, and the pinnaces having returned to the
+fleet, the Lord-Admiral, who had been lying off and on, now bore away
+with all his force in pursuit of the Spaniards.  The Invincible Armada,
+already sorely crippled, was standing N.N.E. directly before a fresh
+topsail-breeze from the S.S.W.   The English came up with them soon after
+nine o'clock A.M. off Gravelines, and found them sailing in a half-moon,
+the admiral and vice-admiral in the centre, and the flanks protected by
+the three remaining galeasses and by the great galleons of Portugal.
+
+Seeing the enemy approaching, Medina Sidonia ordered his whole fleet to
+luff to the wind, and prepare for action.  The wind shifting a few
+points, was now at W.N.W., so that the English had both the weather-gage
+and the tide in their favour.  A general combat began at about ten, and
+it was soon obvious to the Spaniards that their adversaries were
+intending warm work.  Sir Francis Drake in the Revenge, followed by,
+Frobisher in the Triumph, Hawkins in the Victory, and some smaller
+vessels, made the first attack upon the Spanish flagships.  Lord Henry in
+the Rainbow, Sir Henry Palmer in the Antelope, and others, engaged with
+three of the largest galleons of the Armada, while Sir William Winter in
+the Vanguard, supported by most of his squadron, charged the starboard
+wing.
+
+The portion of the fleet thus assaulted fell back into the main body.
+Four of the ships ran foul of each other, and Winter, driving into their
+centre, found himself within musket-shot of many of their most
+formidable' ships.
+
+"I tell you, on the credit of a poor gentleman," he said, "that there
+were five hundred discharges of demi-cannon, culverin, and demi-culverin,
+from the Vanguard; and when I was farthest off in firing my pieces, I was
+not out of shot of their harquebus, and most time within speech, one of
+another."
+
+The battle lasted six hours long, hot and furious; for now there was no
+excuse for retreat on the part of the Spaniards, but, on the contrary, it
+was the intention of the Captain-General to return to his station off
+Calais, if it were within his power.  Nevertheless the English still
+partially maintained the tactics which had proved so successful, and
+resolutely refused the fierce attempts of the Spaniards to lay themselves
+along-side.  Keeping within musket-range, the well-disciplined English
+mariners poured broadside after broadside against the towering ships of
+the Armada, which afforded so easy a mark; while the Spaniards, on their
+part, found it impossible, while wasting incredible quantities of powder
+and shot, to inflict any severe damage on their enemies.  Throughout the
+action, not an English ship was destroyed, and not a hundred men were
+killed.  On the other hand, all the best ships of the Spaniards were
+riddled through and through, and with masts and yards shattered, sails
+and rigging torn to shreds, and a north-went wind still drifting them
+towards the fatal sand-batiks of Holland, they, laboured heavily in a
+chopping sea, firing wildly, and receiving tremendous punishment at the
+hands of Howard Drake, Seymour, Winter, and their followers.  Not even
+master-gunner Thomas could complain that day of "blind exercise" on the
+part of the English, with "little harm done" to the enemy.  There was
+scarcely a ship in the Armada that did not suffer severely; for nearly
+all were engaged in that memorable action off the sands of Gravelines.
+The Captain-General himself, Admiral Recalde, Alonzo de Leyva, Oquendo,
+Diego Flores de Valdez, Bertendona, Don Francisco de Toledo, Don Diego de
+Pimentel, Telles Enriquez, Alonzo de Luzon, Garibay, with most of the
+great galleons and galeasses, were in the thickest of the fight, and one
+after the other each of those huge ships was disabled.  Three sank before
+the fight was over, many others were soon drifting helpless wrecks
+towards a hostile shore, and, before five o'clock, in the afternoon, at
+least sixteen of their best ships had been sacrificed, and from four to
+five thousand soldiers killed.
+
+     ["God hath mightily preserved her Majesty's forces with the least
+     losses that ever hath been heard of, being within the compass of so
+     great volleys of shot, both small and great.  I verily believe there
+     is not threescore men lost of her Majesty's forces."  Captain J.
+     Fenner to Walsingham, 4/14 Aug. 1588.  (S. P. Office MS.)]
+
+Nearly all the largest vessels of the Armada, therefore, having, been
+disabled or damaged--according to a Spanish eye-witness--and all their
+small shot exhausted,  Medina Sidonia reluctantly gave orders to retreat.
+The Captain-General was a bad sailor; but he was, a chivalrous Spaniard
+of ancient Gothic blood, and he felt deep mortification at the plight of
+his invincible fleet, together with undisguised: resentment against
+Alexander Farnese, through whose treachery and incapacity, he considered.
+the great Catholic cause to have been, so foully sacrificed.  Crippled,
+maltreated, and diminished in number, as were his ships; he would have
+still faced, the enemy, but the winds and currents were fast driving him
+on, a lee-shore, and the pilots, one and all, assured him that it would
+be inevitable destruction to remain.  After a slight and very ineffectual
+attempt to rescue Don Diego de Pimentel in the St. Matthew--who refused
+to leave his disabled ship--and Don Francisco de Toledo; whose great
+galleon, the St. Philip, was fast driving, a helpless wreck, towards
+Zeeland, the Armada bore away N.N.E. into the open sea, leaving those,
+who could not follow, to their fate.
+
+The St. Matthew, in a sinking condition, hailed a Dutch fisherman, who
+was offered a gold chain to pilot her into Newport.  But the fisherman,
+being a patriot; steered her close to the Holland fleet, where she was
+immediately assaulted by Admiral Van der Does, to whom, after a two
+hours' bloody fight, she struck her flag.  Don Diego, marshal of the camp
+to the famous legion of Sicily, brother, of the Marquis of Tavera, nephew
+of the Viceroy of Sicily, uncle to the Viceroy of Naples, and numbering
+as many titles, dignities; and high affinities as could be expected of a
+grandee of the first class, was taken, with his officers, to the Hague.
+"I was the means," said Captain Borlase, "that the best sort were saved,
+and the rest were cast overboard and slain at our entry.  He, fought with
+us two hours; and hurt divers of our men, but at, last yielded."
+
+John Van der Does, his captor; presented the banner; of the Saint Matthew
+to the great church of Leyden, where--such was its prodigious length--it
+hung; from floor to ceiling without being entirely unrolled; and there
+hung, from generation to generation; a worthy companion to the Spanish
+flags which had been left behind when Valdez abandoned the siege of that
+heroic city fifteen years before.
+
+The galleon St. Philip, one of the four largest ships in the Armada,
+dismasted and foundering; drifted towards Newport, where camp-marshal Don
+Francisco de Toledo hoped in, vain for succour.  La Motte made a feeble
+attempt at rescue, but some vessels from the Holland fleet, being much
+more active, seized the unfortunate galleon, and carried her into
+Flushing.  The captors found forty-eight brass cannon and other things of
+value on board, but there were some casks of Ribadavia wine which was
+more fatal to her enemies than those pieces of artillery had proved.  For
+while the rebels were refreshing themselves, after the fatigues of the
+capture, with large draughts of that famous vintage, the St. Philip,
+which had been bored through and through with English shot, and had been
+rapidly filling with water, gave a sudden lurch, and went down in a
+moment, carrying with her to the bottom three hundred of those convivial
+Hollanders.
+
+A large Biscay galleon, too, of Recalde's squadron, much disabled in
+action, and now, like many others, unable to follow the Armada, was
+summoned by Captain Cross of the Hope, 48 guns, to surrender.  Although
+foundering, she resisted, and refused to strike her flag.  One of her
+officers attempted to haul down her colours, and was run through the body
+by the captain, who, in his turn, was struck dead by a brother of the
+officer thus slain.  In the midst of this quarrel the ship went down with
+all her crew.
+
+Six hours and more, from ten till nearly five, the fight had lasted--
+a most cruel battle, as the Spaniard declared.  There were men in the
+Armada who had served in the action of Lepanto, and who declared that
+famous encounter to have been far surpassed in severity and spirit by
+this fight off Gravelines.  "Surely every man in our fleet did well,"
+said Winter, "and the slaughter the enemy received was great." Nor
+would the Spaniards have escaped even worse punishment, had not, most
+unfortunately, the penurious policy of the Queen's government rendered
+her ships useless at last, even in this supreme moment.  They never
+ceased cannonading the discomfited enemy until the ammunition was
+exhausted.  "When the cartridges were all spent," said Winter, "and the
+munitions in some vessels gone altogether, we ceased fighting, but
+followed the enemy, who still kept away."  And the enemy--although still
+numerous, and seeming strong enough, if properly handled, to destroy the
+whole English fleet--fled before them.  There remained more than fifty
+Spanish vessels, above six hundred tons in size, besides sixty hulks and
+other vessels of less account; while in the whole English navy were but
+thirteen ships of or above that burthen.  "Their force is wonderful great
+and strong," said Howard, "but we pluck their feathers by little and
+little."
+
+For Medina Sidonia had now satisfied himself that he should never succeed
+in boarding those hard-fighting and swift-sailing craft, while, meantime,
+the horrible panic of Sunday night and the succession of fights
+throughout the following day, had completely disorganized his followers.
+Crippled, riddled, shorn, but still numerous, and by no means entirely
+vanquished, the Armada was flying with a gentle breeze before an enemy
+who, to save his existence; could not have fired a broadside.
+
+"Though our powder and shot was well nigh spent," said the Lord-Admiral,
+"we put on a brag countenance and gave them chase, as though we had
+wanted nothing."  And the brag countenance was successful, for that "one
+day's service had much appalled the enemy" as Drake observed; and still
+the Spaniards fled with a freshening gale all through the Monday night.
+"A thing greatly to be regarded," said Fenner, of the Nonpariel, "is
+that that the Almighty had stricken them with a wonderful fear.  I have
+hardly, seen any of their companies succoured of the extremities which
+befell them after their fights, but they have been left, at utter ruin,
+while they bear as much sail as ever they possibly can."
+
+On Tuesday morning, 9th August, the English ships were off the isle of
+Walcheren, at a safe distance from the shore.  "The wind is hanging
+westerly," said Richard Tomson, of the Margaret and Joan, "and we drive
+our enemies apace, much marvelling in what port they will direct
+themselves.  Those that are left alive are so weak and heartless that
+they could be well content to lose all charges and to be at home, both
+rich and poor."
+
+"In my, conscience," said Sir William Winter, "I think the Duke would
+give his dukedom to be in Spain again."
+
+The English ships, one-hundred and four in number, being that morning
+half-a-league to windward, the Duke gave orders for the whole Armada to
+lay to and, await their approach.  But the English had no disposition to
+engage, for at, that moment the instantaneous destruction of their
+enemies seemed inevitable.  Ill-managed, panic-struck, staggering before
+their foes, the Spanish fleet was now close upon the fatal sands of
+Zeeland.  Already there were but six and a-half fathoms of water, rapidly
+shoaling under their keels, and the pilots told Medina that all were
+irretrievably lost, for the freshening north-welter was driving them
+steadily upon the banks.  The English, easily escaping the danger, hauled
+their wind, and paused to see the ruin of the proud Armada accomplished
+before their eyes.  Nothing but a change of wind at the instant could
+save them from perdition.  There was a breathless shudder of suspense,
+and then there came the change.  Just as the foremost ships were about to
+ground on the Ooster Zand, the wind suddenly veered to the south-west,
+and the Spanish ships quickly squaring their sails to the new impulse,
+stood out once more into the open sea.
+
+All that day the galleons and galeasses, under all the canvas which they
+dared to spread, continued their flight before the south-westerly breeze,
+and still the Lord-Admiral, maintaining the brag countenance, followed,
+at an easy distance, the retreating foe.  At 4 p. m., Howard fired a
+signal gun, and ran up a flag of council.  Winter could not go, for he
+had been wounded in action, but Seymour and Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher,
+and the rest were present, and it was decided that Lord Henry should
+return, accompanied by Winter and the rest of the inner, squadron, to
+guard the Thames mouth against any attempt of the Duke of Parma, while
+the Lord Admiral and the rest of the navy should continue the pursuit of
+the Armada.
+
+Very wroth was Lord Henry at being deprived of his share in the chase.
+"The Lord-Admiral was altogether desirous to have me strengthen him,"
+said he, "and having done so to the utmost of my good-will and the
+venture of my life, and to the distressing of the Spaniards, which was
+thoroughly done on the Monday last, I now find his Lordship jealous and
+loath to take part of the honour which is to come.  So he has used his
+authority to command me to look to our English coast, threatened by the
+Duke of Parma.  I pray God my Lord Admiral do not find the lack of the
+Rainbow and her companions, for I protest before God I vowed I would be
+as near or nearer with my little ship to encounter our enemies as any of
+the greatest ships in both armies."
+
+There was no insubordination, however, and Seymour's squadron; at
+twilight of Tuesday evening, August 9th--according to orders, so that
+the enemy might not see their departure--bore away for Margate.  But
+although Winter and Seymour were much disappointed at their enforced
+return, there was less enthusiasm among the sailors of the fleet.
+Pursuing the Spaniards without powder or fire, and without beef and
+bread to eat, was not thought amusing by the English crews.  Howard had
+not three days' supply of food in his lockers, and Seymour and his
+squadron had not food for one day.  Accordingly, when Seymour and Winter
+took their departure, "they had much ado," so Winter said; "with the
+staying of many ships that would have returned with them, besides their
+own company."  Had the Spaniards; instead of being panic-struck, but
+turned on their pursuers, what might have been the result of a conflict
+with starving and unarmed men?
+
+Howard, Drake, and Frobisher, with the rest of the fleet, followed the
+Armada through the North Sea from Tuesday night (9th August) till Friday
+(the 12th), and still, the strong southwester swept the Spaniards before
+them, uncertain whether to seek refuge, food, water, and room to repair
+damages, in the realms of the treacherous King of Scots, or on the iron-
+bound coasts of Norway.  Medina Sidonia had however quite abandoned his
+intention of returning to England, and was only anxious for a safe
+return: to Spain.  So much did he dread that northern passage; unpiloted,
+around the grim Hebrides, that he would probably have surrendered, had
+the English overtaken him and once more offered battle.  He was on the
+point of hanging out a white flag as they approached him for the last
+time--but yielded to the expostulations of the ecclesiastics on board
+the Saint Martin, who thought, no doubt, that they had more to fear
+from England than from the sea, should they be carried captive to that
+country, and who persuaded him that it would be a sin and a disgrace
+to surrender before they had been once more attacked.
+
+On the other hand, the Devonshire skipper, Vice-Admiral Drake, now
+thoroughly in his element, could not restrain his hilarity, as he saw the
+Invincible Armada of the man whose beard he had so often singed, rolling
+through the German Ocean, in full flight from the country which was to
+have been made, that week, a Spanish province.  Unprovided as were his
+ships, he was for risking another battle, and it is quite possible that
+the brag countenance might have proved even more successful than Howard
+thought.
+
+"We have the army of Spain before us," wrote Drake, from the Revenge,
+"and hope with the grace of God to wrestle a pull with him.  There never
+was any thing pleased me better than seeing the enemy flying with a
+southerly wind to the northward.  God grant you have a good eye to the
+Duke of Parma, for with the grace of God, if we live, I doubt not so to
+handle the matter with the Duke of Sidonia as he shall wish himself at
+St. Mary's Port among his orange trees."
+
+But Howard decided to wrestle no further pull.  Having followed the
+Spaniards till Friday, 12th of August, as far as the latitude of 56d. 17'
+the Lord Admiral called a council.  It was then decided, in order to save
+English lives and ships, to put into the Firth of Forth for water and
+provisions, leaving two "pinnaces to dog, the fleet until it should be
+past the Isles of Scotland."  But the next day, as the wind shifted to
+the north-west, another council decided to take advantage of the change,
+and bear away for the North Foreland, in order to obtain a supply of
+powder, shot, and provisions.
+
+Up to this period, the weather, though occasionally threatening, had been
+moderate.  During the week which succeeded the eventful night off.
+Calais, neither the 'Armada nor the English ships had been much impeded
+in their manoeuvres by storms of heavy seas.  But on the following
+Sunday, 14th of August, there was a change.  The wind shifted again to
+the south-west, and, during the whole of that day and the Monday, blew
+a tremendous gale.  "'Twas a more violent storm," said Howard, "than was
+ever seen before at this time of the year."  The retreating English fleet
+was, scattered, many ships were in peril, "among the ill-favoured sands
+off Norfolk," but within four or five days all arrived safely in Margate
+roads.
+
+Far different was the fate of the Spaniards.  Over their Invincible
+Armada, last seen by the departing English midway between the coasts of
+Scotland and Denmark, the blackness of night seemed suddenly to descend.
+A mystery hung for a long time over their fate.  Damaged, leaking,
+without pilots, without a competent commander, the great fleet entered
+that furious storm, and was whirled along the iron crags of Norway and
+between the savage rocks of Faroe and the Hebrides.  In those regions of
+tempest the insulted North wreaked its full vengeance on the insolent
+Spaniards.  Disaster after disaster marked their perilous track; gale
+after gale swept them hither and thither, tossing them on sandbanks or
+shattering them against granite cliffs.  The coasts of Norway, Scotland,
+Ireland, were strewn with the wrecks of that pompous fleet, which claimed
+the dominion of the seas with the bones of those invincible legions which
+were to have sacked London and made England a Spanish vice-royalty.
+
+Through the remainder of the month of August there, was a succession of
+storms.  On the 2nd September a fierce southwester drove Admiral Oquendo
+in his galleon, together with one of the great galeasses, two large
+Venetian ships, the Ratty and the Balauzara, and thirty-six other
+vessels, upon the Irish coast, where nearly every soul on board perished,
+while the few who escaped to the shore--notwithstanding their religious
+affinity with the inhabitants--were either butchered in cold blood, or
+sent coupled in halters from village to village, in order to be shipped
+to England.  A few ships were driven on the English coast; others went
+ashore near Rochelle.
+
+Of the four galeasses and four galleys, one of each returned to Spain.
+Of the ninety-one great galleons and hulks, fifty-eight were lost and
+thirty-three returned.  Of the tenders and zabras, seventeen were lost.
+and eighteen returned.  Of one hundred and, thirty-four vessels, which
+sailed from Corona in July, but fifty-three, great and small, made their
+escape to Spain, and these were so damaged as to be, utterly worthless.
+The invincible Armada had not only been vanquished but annihilated.
+
+Of the 30,000 men who sailed in the fleet; it is probable that not more
+than 10,000 ever saw their native land again.  Most of the leaders of the
+expedition lost their lives.  Medina Sidonia reached Santander in
+October, and, as Philip for a moment believed, "with the greater part of
+the Armada," although the King soon discovered his mistake.  Recalde,
+Diego Flores de Valdez, Oquendo, Maldonado, Bobadilla, Manriquez, either
+perished at sea, or died of exhaustion immediately after their return.
+Pedro de Valdez, Vasco de Silva, Alonzo de Sayas, Piemontel, Toledo, with
+many other nobles, were prisoners in England and Holland.  There was
+hardly a distinguished family in Spain not placed in mourning, so that,
+to relieve the universal gloom, an edict was published, forbidding the
+wearing of mourning at all.  On the other hand, a merchant of Lisbon, not
+yet reconciled to the Spanish conquest of his country, permitted himself
+some tokens of hilarity at the defeat of the Armada, and was immediately
+hanged by express command of Philip.  Thus--as men said--one could
+neither cry nor laugh within the Spanish dominions.
+
+This was the result of the invasion, so many years preparing, and at an
+expense almost incalculable.  In the year 1588 alone, the cost of
+Philip's armaments for the subjugation of England could not have been
+less than six millions of ducats, and there was at least as large a sum
+on board the Armada itself, although the Pope refused to pay his promised
+million.  And with all this outlay, and with the sacrifice of so many
+thousand lives, nothing had been accomplished, and Spain, in a moment,
+instead of seeming terrible to all the world, had become ridiculous.
+
+"Beaten and shuffled together from the Lizard to Calais, from Calais
+driven with squibs from their anchors, and chased out of sight of England
+about Scotland and Ireland," as the Devonshire skipper expressed himself,
+it must be confessed that the Spaniards presented a sorry sight.  "Their
+invincible and dreadful navy," said Drake, "with all its great and
+terrible ostentation, did not in all their sailing about England so much
+as sink or take one ship, bark, pinnace, or cock-boat of ours, or even
+burn so much as one sheep-tote on this land."
+
+Meanwhile Farnese sat chafing under the unjust reproaches heaped upon
+him, as if he, and not his master, had been responsible for the gigantic
+blunders of the invasion.
+
+"As for the Prince of Parma," said Drake, "I take him to be as a bear
+robbed of her whelps."  The Admiral was quite right.  Alexander was
+beside himself with rage.  Day after day, he had been repeating to Medina
+Sidonia and to Philip that his flotilla and transports could scarcely
+live in any but the smoothest sea, while the supposition that they could
+serve a warlike purpose he pronounced absolutely ludicrous.  He had
+always counselled the seizing of a place like Flushing, as a basis of
+operations against England, but had been overruled; and he had at least
+reckoned upon the Invincible Armada to clear the way for him, before he
+should be expected to take the sea.
+
+With prodigious energy and at great expense he had constructed or
+improved internal water-communications from Ghent to Sluy's, Newport, and
+Dunkerk.  He had, thus transported all his hoys, barges, and munitions
+for the invasion, from all points of the obedient Netherlands to the sea-
+coast, without coming within reach of the Hollanders and Zeelanders, who
+were keeping close watch on the outside.  But those Hollanders and
+Zeelanders, guarding every outlet to the ocean, occupying every hole and
+cranny of the coast, laughed the invaders of England to scorn, braving
+them, jeering them, daring them to come forth, while the Walloons and
+Spaniards shrank before such amphibious assailants, to whom a combat on
+the water was as natural as upon dry land.  Alexander, upon one occasion,
+transported with rage, selected a band of one thousand musketeers, partly
+Spanish, partly Irish, and ordered an assault upon those insolent
+boatmen.  With his own hand--so it was related--he struck dead more than
+one of his own officers who remonstrated against these commands; and then
+the attack was made by his thousand musketeers upon the Hollanders, and
+every man of the thousand was slain.
+
+He had been reproached for not being ready, for not having embarked his
+men; but he had been ready for a month, and his men could be embarked in
+a single day.  "But it was impossible," he said, "to keep them long
+packed up on board vessels, so small that there was no room to turn about
+in the people would sicken, would rot, would die."  So soon as he had
+received information of the arrival of the fleet before Calais--which was
+on the 8th August--he had proceeded the same night to Newport and
+embarked 16,000 men, and before dawn he was at Dunkerk, where the troops
+stationed in that port were as rapidly placed on board the transports.
+Sir William Stanley, with his 700 Irish kernes, were among the first
+shipped for the enterprise.  Two-days long these regiments lay heaped.
+together, like sacks of corn, in the boats--as one of their officers
+described it--and they lay cheerfully hoping that the Dutch fleet would
+be swept out of the sea by the Invincible Armada, and patiently expecting
+the signal for setting sail to England.  Then came the Prince of Ascoli,
+who had gone ashore from the Spanish fleet at Calais, accompanied by
+serjeant-major Gallinato and other messengers from Medina Sidonia,
+bringing the news of the fire-ships and the dispersion and flight of the
+Armada.
+
+"God knows," said Alexander, "the distress in which this event has
+plunged me, at the very moment when I expected to be sending your Majesty
+my congratulations on the success of the great undertaking.  But these
+are the works of the Lord, who can recompense your Majesty by giving you
+many victories, and the fulfilment of your Majesty's desires, when He
+thinks the proper time arrived.  Meantime let Him be praised for all, and
+let your Majesty take great care of your health, which is the most
+important thing of all."
+
+Evidently the Lord did not think the proper time yet arrived for
+fulfilling his Majesty's desires for the subjugation of England,
+and meanwhile the King might find what comfort he could in pious
+commonplaces and in attention to his health.
+
+But it is very certain that, of all the high parties concerned, Alexander
+Farnese was the least reprehensible for the over-throw of Philips hopes.
+No man could have been more judicious--as it has been sufficiently made
+evident in the course of this narrative--in arranging all the details of
+the great enterprise, in pointing out all the obstacles, in providing for
+all emergencies.  No man could have been more minutely faithful to his
+master, more treacherous to all the world beside.  Energetic, inventive,
+patient, courageous; and stupendously false, he had covered Flanders with
+canals and bridges, had constructed flotillas, and equipped a splendid
+army, as thoroughly as he had puzzled Comptroller Croft.  And not only
+had that diplomatist and his wiser colleagues been hoodwinked, but
+Elizabeth and Burghley, and, for a moment, even Walsingham, were in the,
+dark, while Henry III. had been his passive victim, and the magnificent
+Balafre a blind instrument in his hands.  Nothing could equal Alexander's
+fidelity, but his perfidy.  Nothing could surpass his ability to command
+but his obedience.  And it is very possible that had Philip followed his
+nephew's large designs, instead of imposing upon him his own most puerile
+schemes; the result far England, Holland, and, all Christendom might have
+been very different from the actual one.  The blunder against which
+Farnese had in vain warned his master, was the stolid ignorance in which
+the King and all his counsellors chose to remain of the Holland and
+Zeeland fleet.  For them Warmond and Nassau, and Van der Does and Joost
+de Moor; did not exist, and it was precisely these gallant sailors, with
+their intrepid crews, who held the key to the whole situation.
+
+To the Queen's glorious naval-commanders, to the dauntless mariners of
+England, with their well-handled vessels; their admirable seamanship,
+their tact and their courage, belonged the joys of the contest, the
+triumph, and the glorious pursuit; but to the patient Hollanders and
+Zeelanders, who, with their hundred vessels held Farneae, the chief of
+the great enterprise, at bay, a close prisoner with his whole army in
+his own ports, daring him to the issue, and ready--to the last plank of
+their fleet and to the last drop of their blood--to confront both him
+and the Duke of Medina Sidona, an equal share of honour is due.  The
+safety of the two free commonwealths of the world in that terrible
+contest was achieved by the people and the mariners of the two states
+combined.
+
+Great was the enthusiasm certainly of the English people as the
+volunteers marched through London to the place of rendezvous, and
+tremendous were the cheers when the brave Queen rode on horseback along
+the lines of Tilbury.  Glowing pictures are revealed to us of merry
+little England, arising in its strength, and dancing forth to encounter
+the Spaniards, as if to a great holiday.  "It was a pleasant sight," says
+that enthusiastic merchant-tailor John Stowe, "to behold the cheerful
+countenances, courageous words, and gestures, of the soldiers, as they
+marched to Tilbury, dancing, leaping wherever they came, as joyful at the
+news of the foe's approach as if lusty giants were to run a race.  And
+Bellona-like did the Queen infuse a second spirit of loyalty, love, and
+resolution, into every soldier of her army, who, ravished with their
+sovereign's sight, prayed heartily that the Spaniards might land quickly,
+and when they heard they were fled, began to lament."
+
+But if the Spaniards had not fled, if there had been no English navy in
+the Channel, no squibs at Calais, no Dutchmen off Dunkerk, there might
+have been a different picture to paint.  No man who has, studied the
+history of those times, can doubt the universal and enthusiastic
+determination of the English nation to repel the invaders.  Catholics
+and Protestants felt alike on the great subject.  Philip did not flatter,
+himself with assistance from any English Papists, save exiles and
+renegades like Westmoreland, Paget, Throgmorton, Morgan, Stanley,
+and the rest.  The bulk of the Catholics, who may have constituted half
+the population of England, although malcontent, were not rebellious; and
+notwithstanding the precautionary measures taken by government against
+them, Elizabeth proudly acknowledged their loyalty.
+
+But loyalty, courage, and enthusiasm, might not have sufficed to supply
+the want of numbers and discipline.  According to the generally accepted
+statement of contemporary chroniclers, there were some 75,000 men under
+arms: 20,000 along the southern coast, 23,000 under Leicester, and 33,000
+under Lord Chamberlain Hunsdon, for the special defence of the Queen's
+person.
+
+But it would have been very difficult, in the moment of danger, to bring
+anything like these numbers into the field.  A drilled and disciplined
+army--whether of regulars or of militia-men--had no existence whatever.
+If the merchant vessels, which had been joined to the royal fleet, were
+thought by old naval commanders to be only good to make a show, the
+volunteers on land were likely to be even less effective than the marine
+militia, so much more accustomed than they to hard work.  Magnificent was
+the spirit of the great feudal lords as they rallied round their Queen.
+The Earl of Pembroke offered to serve at the head of three hundred horse
+and five hundred footmen, armed at his own cost, and all ready to "hazard
+the blood of their hearts" in defence of her person.  "Accept hereof most
+excellent sovereign," said the Earl, "from a person desirous to live no
+longer than he may see your Highness enjoy your blessed estate, maugre
+the beards of all confederated leaguers."
+
+The Earl of Shrewsbury, too, was ready to serve at the head of his
+retainers, to the last drop of his blood.  "Though I be old," he said,
+"yet shall your quarrel make me young again.  Though lame in body, yet
+lusty in heart to lend your greatest enemy one blow, and to stand near
+your defence, every way wherein your Highness shall employ me."
+
+But there was perhaps too much of this feudal spirit.  The lieutenant-
+general complained bitterly that there was a most mischievous tendency
+among all the militia-men to escape from the Queen's colours, in order to
+enrol themselves as retainers to the great lords.  This spirit was not
+favourable to efficient organization of a national army.  Even, had the
+commander-in-chief been a man, of genius and experience it would have
+been difficult for him, under such circumstances, to resist a splendid
+army, once landed, and led by Alexander Farnese, but even Leicester's
+most determined flatterers hardly ventured to compare him in-military
+ability with that first general of his age.  The best soldier in England
+was un-questionably Sir John Norris, and Sir John was now marshal of the
+camp to Leicester.  The ancient quarrel between the two had been smoothed
+over, and--as might be expected--the Earl hated Norris more bitterly than
+before, and was perpetually vituperating him, as he had often done in the
+Netherlands.  Roger William, too, was entrusted with the important duties
+of master of the horse, under the lieutenant-general, and Leicester
+continued to bear the grudge towards that honest Welshman, which had
+begun in Holland.  These were not promising conditions in a camp, when
+an invading army was every day expected; nor was the completeness or
+readiness of the forces sufficient to render harmless the quarrels of
+the commanders.
+
+The Armada had arrived in Calais roads on Saturday afternoon; the 6th
+August.  If it had been joined on that day, or the next--as Philip and
+Medina Sidonia fully expected--by the Duke of Parma's flotilla, the
+invasion would have been made at once.  If a Spanish army had ever landed
+in England at all, that event would have occurred on the 7th August.  The
+weather was not unfavourable; the sea was smooth, and the circumstances
+under which the catastrophe of the great drama was that night
+accomplished, were a profound mystery to every soul in England.  For
+aught that Leicester, or Burghley, or Queen Elizabeth, knew at the time,
+the army of Farnese might, on Monday, have been marching upon London.
+Now, on that Monday morning, the army of Lord Hunsdon was not assembled
+at all, and Leicester with but four thousand men, under his command, was
+just commencing his camp at Tilbury.  The.  "Bellona-like" appearance of
+the Queen on her white palfrey,--with truncheon in hand, addressing her
+troops, in that magnificent burst of eloquence which has so often been
+repeated, was not till eleven days afterwards; not till the great Armada,
+shattered and tempest-tossed, had been, a week long, dashing itself
+against the cliffs of Norway and the Faroes, on, its forlorn retreat to
+Spain.
+
+Leicester, courageous, self-confident, and sanguine as ever; could not
+restrain his indignation at the parsimony with which his own impatient
+spirit had to contend.  "Be you assured," said he, on the 3rd August,
+when the Armada was off the Isle of Wight, "if the Spanish fleet arrive
+safely in the narrow seas, the Duke of Parma will join presently with all
+his forces, and lose no time in invading this realm.  Therefore I beseech
+you, my good Lords, let no man, by hope or other abuse; prevent your
+speedy providing defence against, this mighty enemy now knocking at our
+gate."
+
+For even at this supreme moment doubts were entertained at court as to
+the intentions of the Spaniards:
+
+Next day he informed Walsingham that his four thousand men had arrived.
+"They be as forward men and willing to meet the enemy as I ever saw,"
+said he.  He could not say as much in, praise of the commissariat: "Some
+want the captains showed," he observed, "for these men arrived without
+one meal of victuals so that on their-arrival, they had not one barrel
+of beer nor loaf of bread--enough after twenty miles' march to have
+discouraged them, and brought them to mutiny.  I see many causes to
+increase my former opinion of the dilatory wants you shall find upon all
+sudden hurley burleys.  In no former time was ever so great a cause, and
+albeit her Majesty hath appointed an army to resist her enemies if they
+land, yet how hard a matter it will be to gather men together, I find it
+now. If it will be five days to gather these countrymen, judge what it
+will be to look in short space for those that dwell forty, fifty, sixty
+miles off."
+
+He had immense difficulty in feeding even this slender force.
+"I made proclamation," said he, "two days ago, in all market towns,
+that victuallers should come to the camp and receive money for their
+provisions, but there is not one victualler come in to this hour.  I have
+sent to all the justices of peace about it from place to place.  I speak
+it that timely consideration be had of these things, and that they be not
+deferred till the worst come.  Let her Majesty not defer the time, upon
+any supposed hope, to assemble a convenient force of horse and foot about
+her.  Her Majesty cannot be strong enough too soon, and if her navy had
+not been strong and abroad as it is, what care had herself and her whole
+realm been in by this time!  And what care she will be in if her forces
+be not only assembled, but an army presently dressed to withstand the
+mighty enemy that is to approach her gates."
+
+"God doth know, I speak it not to bring her to charges.  I would she had
+less cause to spend than ever she had, and her coffers fuller than ever
+they were; but I will prefer her life and safety, and the defence of the
+realm, before all sparing of charges in the present danger."
+
+Thus, on the 5th August, no army had been assembled--not even the body-
+guard of the Queen--and Leicester, with four thousand men, unprovided
+with a barrel of beer or a loaf of bread, was about commencing his
+entrenched camp at Tilbury.  On the 6th August the Armada was in Calais
+roads, expecting Alexander Farnese to lead his troops upon London!
+
+Norris and Williams, on the news of Medina Sidonia's approach, had rushed
+to Dover, much to the indignation of Leicester, just as the Earl was
+beginning his entrenchments at Tilbury.  "I assure you I am angry with
+Sir John Norris and Sir Roger Williams," he said.  "I am here cook,
+caterer, and huntsman.  I am left with no one to supply Sir John's place
+as marshal, but, for a day or two, am willing to work the harder myself.
+I ordered them both to return this day early, which they faithfully
+promised.  Yet, on arriving this morning, I hear nothing of either, and
+have nobody to marshal the camp either for horse or foot.  This manner of
+dealing doth much mislike me in them both.  I am ill-used. 'Tis now four
+o'clock, but here's not one of them.  If they come not this night, I
+assure you I will not receive them into office, nor bear such loose
+careless dealing at their hands.  If you saw how weakly I am assisted you
+would be sorry to think that we here, should be the front against the
+enemy that is so mighty, if he should land here.  And seeing her Majesty
+hath appointed me her lieutenant-general, I look that respect be used
+towards me, such as is due to my place."
+
+Thus the ancient grudge--between Leicester and the Earl of Sussex's son
+was ever breaking forth, and was not likely to prove beneficial at this
+eventful season.
+
+Next day the Welshman arrived, and Sir John promised to come back in the
+evening.  Sir Roger brought word from the coast that Lord Henry Seymour's
+fleet was in want both of men and powder.  "Good Lord!"  exclaimed
+Leicester, "how is this come to pass, that both he and, my Lord-Admiral
+are so weakened of men.  I hear they be running away.  I beseech you,
+assemble your forces, and play not away this kingdom by delays.  Hasten
+our horsemen hither and footmen: .  .  .  .  If the Spanish fleet come to
+the narrow seas the, Prince of Parma will play another part than is
+looked for."
+
+As the Armada approached Calais, Leicester was informed that the soldiers
+at Dover began to leave the coast.  It seemed that they were dissatisfied
+with the penuriousness of the government.  Our soldiers do break away at
+Dover, or are not pleased.  I assure you, without wages, the people will
+not tarry, and contributions go hard with them.  Surely I find that her
+Majesty must needs deal liberally, and be at charges to entertain her
+subjects that have chargeably, and liberally used, themselves to serve
+her."  The lieutenant-general even thought it might be necessary for him
+to proceed to Dover in person, in order to remonstrate with these
+discontented troops; for it was possible that those ill-paid,
+undisciplined, and very meagre forces, would find much difficulty in
+opposing Alexander's march, to London, if he should once succeed in
+landing.  Leicester had a very indifferent opinion too of the train-bands
+of the metropolis.  "For your Londoners," he said, "I see their service
+will be little, except they have their own captains, and having them, I
+look for none at all by them, when we shall meet the enemy.  This was not
+complimentary, certainly, to the training of the famous Artillery Garden,
+and furnished a still stronger motive for defending the road over which
+the capital was to be approached.  But there was much jealousy, both
+among citizens and nobles, of any authority entrusted to professional
+soldiers.  "I know what burghers be, well enough," said the Earl, "as
+brave and well-entertained as ever the Londoners were.  If they should
+go forth from the city they should have good leaders.  You know the
+imperfections of the time, how few-leaders you have, and the gentlemen
+of the counties are very loth to have any captains placed with them.  So
+that the beating out of our best captains is like to be cause of great
+danger."'
+
+Sir John Smith, a soldier of experience, employed to drill and organize
+some of the levies, expressed still more disparaging opinions than those
+of Leicester concerning the probable efficiency in the field of these
+English armies.  The Earl was very angry with the knight, however, and
+considered, him incompetent, insolent, and ridiculous.  Sir John seemed,
+indeed, more disposed to keep himself out of harm's way, than to render
+service to the Queen by leading awkward recruits against Alexander
+Farnese.  He thought it better to nurse himself.
+
+"You would laugh to see how Sir John Smith has dealt since my coming,"
+said Leicester.  "He came to me, and told me that his disease so grew
+upon him as he must needs go to the baths.  I told him I would not be
+against his health, but he saw what the time was, and what pains he had
+taken with his countrymen, and that I had provided a good place for him.
+Next day he came again, saying little to my offer then, and seemed
+desirous, for his health, to be gone.  I told him what place I did
+appoint, which was a regiment of a great part of his countrymen.
+He said his health was dear to him, and he desired to take leave of me,
+which I yielded unto.  Yesterday, being our muster-day, he came again to
+me to dinner; but such foolish and vain-glorious paradoxes he burst
+withal, without any cause offered, as made all that knew anything smile
+and answer little, but in sort rather to satisfy men present than to
+argue with him."
+
+And the knight went that day to review Leicester's choice troops--the
+four thousand men of Essex--but was not much more deeply impressed with
+their proficiency than he had been with that of his own regiment.  He
+became very censorious.
+
+"After the muster," said the lieutenant-general, "he entered again into
+such strange cries for ordering of men, and for the fight with the
+weapon, as made me think he was not well.  God forbid he should have
+charge of men that knoweth so little, as I dare pronounce that he doth."
+
+Yet the critical knight was a professional--campaigner, whose opinions
+were entitled to respect; and the more so, it would seem, because they
+did not materially vary from those which Leicester himself was in the
+habit of expressing.  And these interior scenes of discord, tumult,
+parsimony, want of organization, and unsatisfactory mustering of troops,
+were occurring on the very Saturday and Sunday when the Armada lay in
+sight of Dover cliffs, and when the approach of the Spaniards on the
+Dover road might at any moment be expected.
+
+Leicester's jealous and overbearing temper itself was also proving a
+formidable obstacle to a wholesome system of defence.  He was already
+displeased with the amount of authority entrusted to Lord Hunsdon,
+disposed to think his own rights invaded; and desirous that the Lord
+Chamberlain should accept office under himself.  He wished saving clauses
+as to his own authority inserted in Hunsdon's patent.  "Either it must be
+so, or I shall have wrong," said he, "if he absolutely command where my
+patent doth give me power.  You may easily conceive what absurd dealings
+are likely to fall out, if you allow two absolute commanders."
+
+Looking at these pictures of commander-in-chief, officers, and rank and
+file--as painted by themselves--we feel an inexpressible satisfaction
+that in this great crisis of England's destiny, there were such men as
+Howard, Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins, Seymour, Winter, Fenner, and their
+gallant brethren, cruising that week in the Channel, and that Nassau and
+Warmond; De Moor and Van der Does, were blockading the Flemish coast.
+
+There was but little preparation to resist the enemy once landed.  There
+were no fortresses, no regular army, no population trained to any weapon.
+There were patriotism, loyalty, courage, and enthusiasm, in abundance;
+but the commander-in-chief was a queen's favourite, odious to the people,
+with very moderate abilities, and eternally quarrelling with officers
+more competent than himself; and all the arrangements were so hopelessly
+behind-hand, that although great disasters might have been avenged, they
+could scarcely have been avoided.
+
+Remembering that the Invincible Armada was lying in Calais roads on the
+6th of August, hoping to cross to Dover the next morning, let us ponder
+the words addressed on that very day to Queen Elizabeth by the
+Lieutenant-General of England.
+
+"My most dear and gracious Lady," said the Earl, "it is most true that
+those enemies that approach your kingdom and person are your undeserved
+foes, and being so, and hating you for a righteous cause, there is the
+less fear to be had of their malice or their forces; for there is a most
+just God that beholdeth the innocence of that heart.  The cause you are
+assailed for is His and His Church's, and He never failed any that
+faithfully do put their chief trust in His goodness.  He hath, to comfort
+you withal, given you great and mighty means to defend yourself, which
+means I doubt not but your Majesty will timely and princely use them,
+and your good God that ruleth all will assist you and bless you with
+victory."
+
+He then proceeded to give his opinion on two points concerning which the
+Queen had just consulted him--the propriety of assembling her army, and
+her desire to place herself at the head of it in person.
+
+On the first point one would have thought discussion superfluous on the
+6th of August.  "For your army, it is more than time it were gathered and
+about you," said Leicester, "or so near you as you may have the use of it
+at a few hours' warning.  The reason is that your mighty enemies are at
+hand, and if God suffers them to pass by your fleet, you are sure they
+will attempt their purpose of landing with all expedition.  And albeit
+your navy be very strong, but, as we have always heard, the other is not
+only far greater, but their forces of men much beyond yours.  No doubt if
+the Prince of Parma come forth, their forces by sea shall not only be
+greatly, augmented, but his power to land shall the easier take effect
+whensoever he shall attempt it.  Therefore it is most requisite that your
+Majesty at all events have as great a force every way as you can devise;
+for there is no dalliance at such a time, nor with such an enemy. You
+shall otherwise hazard your own honour, besides your person and country,
+and must offend your gracious God that gave you these forces and power,
+though you will not use them when you should."
+
+It seems strange enough that such phrases should be necessary when the
+enemy was knocking at the gate; but it is only too, true that the land-
+forces were never organized until the hour, of danger had, most
+fortunately and unexpectedly, passed by.  Suggestions at this late moment
+were now given for the defence of the throne, the capital, the kingdom,
+and the life of the great Queen, which would not have seemed premature
+had they been made six months before, but which, when offered in August,
+excite unbounded amazement.  Alexander would have had time to, march from
+Dover to Duxham before these directions, now leisurely stated with all
+the air of novelty, could be carried into effect.
+
+"Now for the placing of your army," says the lieutenant-general on the
+memorable Saturday, 6th of August, "no doubt but I think about London
+the, meetest, and I suppose that others will be of the same mind.  And
+your Majesty should forthwith give the charge thereof to some special
+nobleman about you, and likewise place all your chief officers that every
+man may know what he shall do, and gather as many good horse above all
+things as you can, and the oldest, best, and assuredest captains to lead;
+for therein will consist the greatest hope of good success under God.
+And so soon as your army is assembled, let them by and by be exercised,
+every man to know his weapon, and that there be all other things prepared
+in readiness, for your army, as if they should march upon a day's
+warning, especially carriages, and a commissary of victuals, and a master
+of ordnance."
+
+Certainly, with Alexander of Parma on his way to London, at the head of
+his Italian pikemen, his Spanish musketeers, his famous veteran legion--
+"that nursing mother of great soldiers"--it was indeed more than time.
+that every man should know what he should do, that an army of Englishmen
+should be-assembled, and that every man should know his weapon.  "By and
+by" was easily said, and yet, on the 6th of August it was by and by that
+an army, not yet mustered, not yet officered, not yet provided with a
+general, a commissary of victuals, or a master of ordinance, was to be
+exercised, "every man to know his weapon."
+
+English courage might ultimately triumph over, the mistakes of those who
+governed the country, and over those disciplined brigands by whom it was
+to be invaded.  But meantime every man of those invaders had already
+learned on a hundred battle-fields to know his weapon.
+
+It was a magnificent determination on the part of Elizabeth to place
+herself at the head of her troops; and the enthusiasm which her attitude
+inspired, when she had at last emancipated herself from the delusions of
+diplomacy and the seductions of thrift, was some recompense at least for
+the perils caused by her procrastination.  But Leicester could not
+approve of this hazardous though heroic resolution.
+
+The danger passed away.  The Invincible Armada was driven out of the
+Channel by the courage; the splendid seamanship, and the enthusiasm of
+English sailors and volunteers.  The Duke of Parma was kept a close
+prisoner by the fleets of Holland and Zeeland; and the great storm of the
+14th and 15th of August at last completed the overthrow of the Spaniards.
+
+It was, however, supposed for a long time that they would come back, for
+the disasters which had befallen them in the north were but tardily known
+in England.  The sailors, by whom England had been thus defended in her
+utmost need, were dying by hundreds, and even thousands, of ship-fever,
+in the latter days of August.  Men sickened one day, and died the next,
+so that it seemed probable that the ten thousand sailors by whom the
+English ships of war were manned, would have almost wholly disappeared,
+at a moment when their services might be imperatively required.  Nor had
+there been the least precaution taken for cherishing and saving these
+brave defenders of their country.  They rotted in their ships, or died in
+the streets of the naval ports, because there were no hospitals to
+receive them.
+
+"'Tis a most pitiful sight," said the Lord-Admiral, "to see here at
+Margate how the men, having no place where they can be received, die in,
+the streets.  I am driven of force myself to come on land to see them
+bestowed in some lodgings; and the best I can get is barns and such
+outhouses, and the relief is small that I can provide for them here.  It
+would grieve any man's heart to see men that have served so valiantly die
+so miserably."
+
+The survivors, too, were greatly discontented; for, after having been
+eight months at sea, and enduring great privations, they could not get
+their wages.  "Finding it to come thus scantily," said Howard, "it breeds
+a marvellous alteration among them."
+
+But more dangerous than the pestilence or the discontent was the
+misunderstanding which existed at the moment between the leading admirals
+of the English fleet.  Not only was Seymour angry with Howard, but
+Hawkins and Frobisher were at daggers drawn with Drake; and Sir Martin--
+if contemporary, affidavits can be trusted--did not scruple to heap the
+most virulent abuse upon Sir Francis, calling him, in language better
+fitted for the forecastle than the quarter-deck, a thief and a coward,
+for appropriating the ransom for Don Pedro Valdez in which both Frobisher
+and Hawkins claimed at least an equal share with himself.
+
+And anxious enough was the Lord-Admiral with his sailors perishing by
+pestilence, with many of his ships so weakly manned that as Lord Henry
+Seymour declared there were not mariners enough to weigh the anchors,
+and with the great naval heroes, on whose efforts the safety of the realm
+depended, wrangling like fisherwomen among themselves, when rumours came,
+as they did almost daily, of the return of the Spanish Armada, and of new
+demonstrations on the part of Farnese.  He was naturally unwilling that
+the fruits of English valour on the seas should now be sacrificed by the
+false economy of the government.  He felt that, after all that had been
+endured and accomplished, the Queen and her counsellors were still
+capable of leaving England at the mercy of a renewed attempt, "I know not
+what you think at the court," said he; "but I think, and so do all here,
+that there cannot be too great forces maintained for the next five or six
+weeks.  God knoweth whether the Spanish fleet will not, after refreshing
+themselves in Norway; Denmark, and the Orkneys, return.  I think they
+dare not go back to Sprain with this, dishonour, to their King and
+overthrow of the Pope's credit.  Sir, sure bind, sure find.  A kingdom
+is a grand wager.  Security is dangerous; and, if God had not been our
+best friend; we should have found it so."
+
+     [Howard to Walsingham, Aug.8/18 1588. (S. P. Office MS.)]
+
+     ["Some haply may say that winter cometh on apace," said Drake, "but
+     my poor opinion is that I dare not advise her Majesty to hazard a
+     kingdom with the saving of a little charge."  (Drake to Walsingham,
+     Aug. 8/18 1588.)]
+
+Nothing could be more replete, with sound common sense than this simple
+advice, given as it was in utter ignorance of the fate of the Armada;
+after it had been lost sight of by the English vessels off the Firth of
+Forth, and of the cold refreshment which: it had found in Norway and the
+Orkneys.  But, Burghley had a store of pithy apophthegms, for which--he
+knew he could always find sympathy in the Queen's breast, and with which
+he could answer these demands of admirals and generals.  "To spend in
+time convenient is wisdom;" he observed--"to continue charges without
+needful cause bringeth, repentance;"--"to hold on charges without
+knowledge of the certainty thereof and of means how to support them, is
+lack of wisdom;" and so on.
+
+Yet the Spanish fleet might have returned into the Channel for ought the
+Lord-Treasurer on the 22nd August knew--or the Dutch fleet might have
+relaxed, in its vigilant watching of Farnese's movements.  It might have
+then seemed a most plentiful lack of wisdom to allow English sailors to
+die of plague in the streets for want of hospitals; and to grow mutinous
+for default of pay.  To have saved under such circumstances would,
+perhaps have brought repentance.
+
+The invasion of England by Spain had been most portentous.  That the
+danger was at last averted is to be ascribed to the enthusiasm of the
+English, nation--both patricians and plebeians--to the heroism of the
+little English fleet, to the spirit of the naval commanders and
+volunteers, to the stanch, and effective support of the Hollanders; and
+to the hand of God shattering the Armada at last; but very little credit
+can be conscientiously awarded to the diplomatic or the military efforts
+of the Queen's government.  Miracles alone, in the opinion of Roger
+Williams, had saved England on this occasion from perdition.
+
+Towards the end of August, Admiral de Nassau paid a visit to Dover with
+forty ships, "well appointed and furnished."  He dined and conferred with
+Seymour, Palmer, and other officers--Winter being still laid up with his
+wound--and expressed the opinion that Medina Sidonia would hardly return
+to the Channel, after the banquet he had received from her Majesty's navy
+between Calais and Gravelines.  He also gave the information that the
+States had sent fifty Dutch vessels in pursuit of the Spaniards, and had
+compelled all the herring-fishermen for the time to serve in the ships of
+war, although the prosperity of the country depended on that industry.
+"I find the man very wise, subtle, and cunning," said Seymour of the
+Dutch Admiral, "and therefore do I trust him."
+
+Nassau represented the Duke of Parma as evidently discouraged, as having
+already disembarked his troops, and as very little disposed to hazard
+any further enterprise against England.  "I have left twenty-five
+Kromstevens," said he, "to prevent his egress from Sluys, and I am
+immediately returning thither myself.  The tide will not allow his
+vessels at present to leave Dunkerk, and I shall not fail--before the
+next full moon--to place myself before that place, to prevent their
+coming out, or to have a brush with them if they venture to put to sea."
+
+But after the scenes on which the last full moon had looked down in those
+waters, there could be no further pretence on the part of Farnese to
+issue from Sluys and Dunkerk, and England and Holland were thenceforth
+saved from all naval enterprises on the part of Spain.
+
+Meantime, the same uncertainty which prevailed in England as to the
+condition and the intentions of the Armada was still more remarkable
+elsewhere.  There was a systematic deception practised not only upon
+other governments; but upon the King of Spain as well.  Philip, as he
+sat at his writing-desk, was regarding himself as the monarch of England,
+long after his Armada had been hopelessly dispersed.
+
+In Paris, rumours were circulated during the first ten days of August
+that England was vanquished, and that the Queen was already on her way to
+Rome as a prisoner, where she was to make expiation, barefoot, before his
+Holiness.  Mendoza, now more magnificent than ever--stalked into Notre
+Dame with his drawn sword in his hand, crying out with a loud voice,
+"Victory, victory!" and on the 10th of August ordered bonfires to be made
+before his house; but afterwards thought better of that scheme.  He had
+been deceived by a variety of reports sent to him day after day by agents
+on the coast; and the King of France--better informed by Stafford, but
+not unwilling thus to feed his spite against the insolent ambassador--
+affected to believe his fables.  He even confirmed them by intelligence,
+which he pretended to have himself received from other sources, of the
+landing of the Spaniards in England without opposition, and of the entire
+subjugation of that country without the striking of a blow.
+
+Hereupon, on the night of August 10th, the envoy--"like a wise man," as
+Stafford observed--sent off four couriers, one after another, with the
+great news to Spain, that his master's heart might be rejoiced, and
+caused a pamphlet on the subject to be printed and distributed over
+Paris!  "I will not waste a large sheet of paper to express the joy
+which we must all feel," he wrote to Idiaquez, "at this good news.  God
+be praised for all, who gives us small chastisements to make us better,
+and then, like a merciful Father, sends us infinite rewards."  And in the
+same strain he wrote; day after day, to Moura and Idiaquez, and to Philip
+himself.
+
+Stafford, on his side, was anxious to be informed by his government of
+the exact truth, whatever it were, in order that these figments of
+Mendoza might be contradicted.  "That which cometh from me," he said,
+"Will be believed; for I have not been used to tell lies, and in very
+truth I have not the face to do it."
+
+And the news of the Calais squibs, of the fight off Gravelines, and
+the retreat of the Armada towards the north; could not be very long
+concealed.  So soon, therefore, as authentic intelligence reached, the
+English envoy of those events--which was not however for nearly ten days
+after their--occurrence--Stafford in his turn wrote a pamphlet, in answer
+to that of Mendoza, and decidedly the more successful one of the two.
+It cost him but five crowns, he said, to print 'four hundred copies of
+it; but those in whose name it was published got one hundred crowns by
+its sale.  The English ambassador was unwilling to be known as the
+author--although "desirous of touching up the impudence of the Spaniard"
+--but the King had no doubt of its origin.  Poor Henry, still smarting
+under the insults of Mendoza and 'Mucio,--was delighted with this blow
+to Philip's presumption; was loud in his praises of Queen Elizabeth's
+valour, prudence, and marvellous fortune, and declared that what she had
+just done could be compared to the greatest: exploits of the most
+illustrious men in history.
+
+"So soon as ever he saw the pamphlet," said Stafford; "he offered to lay
+a wager it was my doing; and laughed at it heartily."  And there were
+malicious pages about the French; court; who also found much amusement in
+writing to the ambassador, begging his interest with the Duke of Parma
+that they might obtain from that conqueror some odd-refuse town or so in:
+England, such as York, Canterbury, London, or the like--till the luckless
+Don Bernardino was ashamed to show his face.
+
+A letter, from Farnese, however, of 10th August, apprized Philip before
+the end of August of the Calais disasters and caused him great
+uneasiness, without driving him to despair.  "At the very moment," wrote
+the King to Medina Sidonia; "when I was expecting news of the effect
+hoped for from my Armada, I have learned the retreat from before Calais,
+to which it was compelled by the weather; [!] and I have received a
+very great shock which keeps, me in anxiety not to be exaggerated.
+Nevertheless I hope in our Lord that he will have provided a remedy;
+and that if it was possible for you to return upon the enemy to come
+back to the appointed posts and to watch an opportunity for the great
+stroke; you will have done as the case required; and so I am expecting
+with solicitude, to hear what has happened, and please God it may be that
+which is so suitable for his service."
+
+His Spanish children the sacking of London, and the butchering of the
+English nation-rewards and befits similar to those which they bad
+formerly enjoyed in the Netherlands.
+
+And in the same strain, melancholy yet hopeful, were other letters
+despatched on that day to the Duke of Parma.  "The satisfaction caused by
+your advices on the 8th August of the arrival of the Armada near Calais,
+and of your preparations to embark your troops, was changed into a
+sentiment which you can imagine, by your letter of the 10th.  The anxiety
+thus occasioned it would be impossible to exaggerate, although the cause
+being such as it is--there is no ground for distrust.  Perhaps the
+Armada, keeping together, has returned upon the enemy, and given a good
+account of itself, with the help of the Lord.  So I still promise myself
+that you will have performed your part in the enterprise in such wise as
+that the service intended to the Lord may have been executed, and repairs
+made to the reputation of all; which has been so much compromised."
+
+And the King's drooping spirits were revived by fresh accounts which
+reached him in September, by way of France.  He now learned that the
+Armada had taken captive four Dutch men-of-war and many English ships;
+that, after the Spaniards had been followed from Calais roads by the
+enemy's fleet, there had been an action, which the English had attempted
+in vain to avoid; off Newcastle; that Medina Sidonia had charged upon
+them so vigorously, as to sink twenty of their ships, and to capture
+twenty-six others, good and sound; that the others, to escape perdition,
+had fled, after suffering great damage, and had then gone to pieces, all
+hands perishing; that the Armada had taken a port in Scotland, where it
+was very comfortably established; that the flag-ship of Lord-admiral
+Howard, of Drake; and of that "distinguished mariner Hawkins," had all
+been sunk in action, and that no soul had been saved except Drake, who
+had escaped in a cock-boat.  "This is good news," added the writer;
+"and it is most certain."
+
+The King pondered seriously over these conflicting accounts, and remained
+very much in the dark.  Half, the month of September went by, and he had
+heard nothing--official since the news of the Calais catastrophe.  It may
+be easily understood that Medina Sidonia, while flying round the Orkneys
+had not much opportunity for despatching couriers to Spain, and as
+Farnese had not written since the 10th August, Philip was quite at a loss
+whether to consider himself triumphant or defeated.  From the reports by
+way of Calais, Dunkerk, and Rouen, he supposed that the Armada, had
+inflicted much damage on the enemy.  He suggested accordingly, on the 3rd
+September, to the Duke of Parma, that he might now make the passage to
+England, while the English fleet, if anything was left of it was
+repairing its damages.  "'Twill be easy enough to conquer the country,"
+said Philip,"  so soon as you set foot on the soil.  Then perhaps our
+Armada can come back and station itself in the Thames to support you."
+
+Nothing could be simpler.  Nevertheless the King felt a pang of doubt
+lest affairs, after all, might not be going on so swimmingly; so he
+dipped his pen in the inkstand again, and observed with much pathos,
+"But if this hope must be given up, you must take the Isle of Walcheren:
+something must be done to console me."
+
+And on the 15th September he was still no wiser.  "This business of the
+Armada leaves me no repose," he said; "I can think of nothing else.  I
+don't content myself with what I have written, but write again and again,
+although in great want of light.  I hear that the Armada has sunk and
+captured many English ships, and is refitting in a Scotch pert.  If this
+is in the territory, of Lord Huntley, I hope he will stir up the
+Catholics of that country."
+
+And so, in letter after letter, Philip clung to the delusion that
+Alexander could yet, cross to England, and that the Armada might sail up
+the Thames.  The Duke was directed to make immediate arrangements to that
+effect with Medina Sidonia, at the very moment when that tempest-tossed
+grandee was painfully-creeping back towards the Bay of Biscay, with what
+remained of his invincible fleet.
+
+Sanguine and pertinacious, the King refused to believe in, the downfall
+of his long-cherished scheme; and even when the light was at last dawning
+upon him, he was like a child, crying for a fresh toy, when the one which
+had long amused him had been broken.  If the Armada were really very much
+damaged, it was easy enough, he thought, for the Duke of Parma to make
+him a new one, while the old, one was repairing.  "In case the Armada is
+too much shattered to come out," said Philip, "and winter compels it to
+stay in that port, you must cause another Armada to be constructed at
+Emden and the adjacent towns, at my expense, and, with the two together,
+you will certainly be able to conquer England."
+
+And he wrote to Medina Sidonia in similar terms.  That naval commander
+was instructed to enter the Thames at once, if strong enough.  If not, he
+was to winter in the Scotch port which he was supposed to have captured.
+Meantime Farnese would build a new fleet at Emden, and in the spring the
+two dukes would proceed to accomplish the great purpose.
+
+But at last the arrival of Medina Sidonia at Santander dispelled these
+visions, and now the King appeared in another attitude.  A messenger,
+coming post-haste from the captain-general, arrived in the early days of
+October at the Escorial.  Entering the palace he found Idiaquez and Moura
+pacing up and down the corridor, before the door of Philip's cabinet,
+and was immediately interrogated by those counsellors, most anxious,
+of course, to receive authentic intelligence at last as to the fate,
+of the Armada.  The entire overthrow of the great project was now, for
+the first time, fully revealed in Spain; the fabulous victories over the
+English, and the annihilation of Howard and all his ships, were dispersed
+in air.  Broken, ruined, forlorn, the invincible Armada--so far as it
+still existed--had reached a Spanish port.  Great was the consternation
+of Idiaquez and Moura, as they listened to the tale, and very desirous
+was each of the two secretaries that the other should, discharge the
+unwelcome duty of communicating the fatal intelligence to the King.
+
+At last Moura consented to undertake the task, and entering the cabinet,
+he found Philip seated at his desk.  Of course he was writing letters.
+Being informed of the arrival of a messenger from the north, he laid down
+his pen, and inquired the news.  The secretary replied that the accounts,
+concerning the Armada were by no means so favourable as, could be wished.
+The courier was then introduced, and made his dismal report.  The King
+did not change countenance.  "Great thanks," he observed, "do I render to
+Almighty God, by whose generous hand I am gifted with such power, that I
+could easily, if I chose, place another fleet upon the seas.  Nor is it
+of very great importance that a running stream should be sometimes
+intercepted, so long as the fountain from which it flows remains
+inexhaustible."
+
+So saying he resumed his pen, and serenely proceeded with his letters.
+Christopher Moura stared with unaffected amazement at his sovereign,
+thus tranquil while a shattered world was falling on his head, and then
+retired to confer with his colleague.
+
+"And how did his Majesty receive the blow?"  asked Idiaquez.
+
+"His Majesty thinks nothing of the blow," answered Moura, "nor do I,
+consequently, make more of this great calamity than does his Majesty."
+
+So the King--as fortune flew away from him, wrapped himself in his
+virtue; and his counsellors, imitating their sovereign, arrayed
+themselves in the same garment.  Thus draped, they were all prepared
+to bide the pelting of the storm which was only beating figuratively on
+their heads, while it had been dashing the King's mighty galleons on the
+rocks, and drowning by thousands the wretched victims of his ambition.
+Soon afterwards, when the particulars of the great disaster were
+thoroughly known, Philip ordered a letter to be addressed in his name to
+all the bishops of Spain, ordering a solemn thanksgiving to the Almighty
+for the safety of that portion of the invincible Armada which it had
+pleased Him to preserve.
+
+And thus, with the sound of mourning throughout Spain--for there was
+scarce a household of which some beloved member had not perished in the
+great catastrophe--and with the peals of merry bells over all England
+and Holland, and with a solemn 'Te Deum' resounding in every church,
+the curtain fell upon the great tragedy of the Armada.
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Forbidding the wearing of mourning at all
+Hardly a distinguished family in Spain not placed in mourning
+Invincible Armada had not only been vanquished but annihilated
+Nothing could equal Alexander's fidelity, but his perfidy
+One could neither cry nor laugh within the Spanish dominions
+Security is dangerous
+Sixteen of their best ships had been sacrificed
+Sure bind, sure find
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v58
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 59, 1588-1589
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+     Alexander besieges Bergen-op-Zoom--Pallavicini's Attempt to seduce
+     Parma--Alexander's Fury--He is forced to raise the Siege, of Bergen
+     --Gertruydenberg betrayed to Parma--Indignation of the States--
+     Exploits, of Schenk--His Attack on Nymegen--He is defeated and
+     drowned--English-Dutch Expedition to Spain--Its meagre Results--
+     Death of Guise and of the Queen--Mother--Combinations after the
+     Murder of Henry III.--Tandem fit Surculus Arbor.
+
+The fever of the past two years was followed by comparative languor.
+The deadly crisis was past, the freedom of Europe was saved, Holland and
+England breathed again; but tension now gave place to exhaustion.  The
+events in the remainder of the year 1588, with those of 1589--although
+important in themselves--were the immediate results of that history which
+has been so minutely detailed in these volumes, and can be indicated in a
+very few pages.
+
+The Duke of Parma, melancholy, disappointed, angry stung to the soul by
+calumnies as stupid as they were venomous, and already afflicted with a
+painful and lingering disease, which his friends attributed to poison
+administered by command of the master whom he had so faithfully served--
+determined, if possible, to afford the consolation which that master was
+so plaintively demanding at his hands.
+
+So Alexander led the splendid army which had been packed in, and unpacked
+from, the flat boats of Newport and Dunkerk, against Bergen-op-Zoom, and
+besieged that city in form.  Once of great commercial importance,
+although somewhat fallen away from its original prosperity, Bergen was
+well situate on a little stream which connected it with the tide-waters
+of the Scheldt, and was the only place in Brabant, except Willemstad,
+still remaining to the States.  Opposite lay the Isle of Tholen from
+which it was easily to be supplied and reinforced.  The Vosmeer, a branch
+of the Scheldt, separated the island from the main, and there was a path
+along the bed of that estuary, which, at dead low-water, was practicable
+for wading.  Alexander, accordingly, sent a party of eight hundred
+pikemen, under Montigny, Marquis of Renty, and Ottavio Mansfeld,
+supported on the dyke by three thousand musketeers, across; the dangerous
+ford, at ebb-tide, in order to seize this important island.  It was an
+adventure similar to those, which, in the days of the grand commander,
+and under the guidance of Mondragon; had been on two occasions so
+brilliantly successful.  But the Isle of Tholen was now defended by Count
+Solms and a garrison of fierce amphibious Zeelanders--of those determined
+bands which had just been holding Farnese and his fleet in prison, and
+daring him to the issue--and the invading party, after fortunately
+accomplishing their night journey along the bottom of the Vosmeer, were
+unable to effect a landing, were driven with considerable loss into the
+waves again, and compelled to find their way back as best they could,
+along their dangerous path, and with a rapidly rising tide.  It was a
+blind and desperate venture, and the Vosmeer soon swallowed four hundred
+of the Spaniards.  The rest, half-drowned or smothered, succeeded in
+reaching the shore--the chiefs of the expedition, Renty and Mansfeld,
+having been with difficulty rescued by their followers, when nearly
+sinking in the tide.
+
+The Duke continued the siege, but the place was well defended by an
+English and Dutch garrison, to the number of five thousand, and commanded
+by Colonel Morgan, that bold and much experienced Welshman, so well known
+in the Netherland wars.  Willoughby and Maurice of Nassau, and Olden-
+Barneveld were, at different times, within the walls; for the Duke
+had been unable to invest the place so closely as to prevent all
+communications from without; and, while Maurice was present, there were
+almost daily sorties from the town, with many a spirited skirmish, to
+give pleasure to the martial young Prince.  The English, officers, Vere
+and Baskerville, and two Netherland colonels, the brothers Bax, most
+distinguished themselves on these occasions.  The siege was not going on
+with the good fortune which had usually attended the Spanish leaguer.  of
+Dutch cities, while, on the 29th September, a personal incident came to
+increase Alexander's dissatisfaction and melancholy.
+
+On that day the Duke was sitting in his tent, brooding, as he was apt to
+do, over the unjust accusations which had been heaped upon him in regard
+to the failure of the Armada, when a stranger was announced.  His name,
+he said, was Giacomo Morone, and he was the bearer of a letter from Sir
+Horace Pallavicini, a Genoese gentleman long established in London; and
+known to be on confidential terms with the English government.  Alexander
+took the letter, and glancing at the bottom of the last page, saw that it
+was not signed.
+
+"How dare you bring me a dispatch without a signature?"  he exclaimed.
+The messenger, who was himself a Genoese, assured the Duke that the
+letter was most certainly written by Pallavicini--who had himself placed
+it, sealed, in his hands--and that he had supposed it signed, although he
+had of course, not seen the inside.
+
+Alexander began to read the note, which was not a very long one, and his
+brow instantly darkened.  He read a line or two more, when, with an
+exclamation of fury, he drew his dagger, and, seizing the astonished
+Genoese by the throat, was about to strike him dead.  Suddenly mastering
+his rage, however, by a strong effort, and remembering that the man might
+be a useful witness; he flung Morone from him.
+
+"If I had Pallavicini here," he said, "I would treat, him as I have just
+refrained from using you.  And if I had any suspicion that you were aware
+of the contents of this letter, I would send you this instant to be
+hanged."
+
+The unlucky despatch-bearer protested his innocence of all complicity
+with Pallavicini, and his ignorance of the tenor of the communication by
+which the Duke's wrath had been so much excited.  He was then searched
+and cross-examined most carefully by Richardot and other counsellors,
+and his innocence being made apparent-he was ultimately discharged.
+
+The letter of Pallavicini was simply an attempt to sound Farnese as to
+his sentiments in regard to a secret scheme, which could afterwards be
+arranged in form, and according, to which he was to assume the
+sovereignty of the Netherlands himself, to the exclusion of his King, to
+guarantee to England the possession of the cautionary towns, until her
+advances to the States should be refunded, and to receive the support and
+perpetual alliance of the Queen in his new and rebellious position.
+
+Here was additional evidence, if any were wanting, of the universal
+belief in his disloyalty; and Alexander, faithful, if man ever were to
+his master--was cut to the heart, and irritated almost to madness, by
+such insolent propositions.  There is neither proof nor probability that
+the Queen's government was implicated in this intrigue of Pallavicini,
+who appears to have been inspired by the ambition of achieving a bit of
+Machiavellian policy, quite on his own account.  Nothing came of the
+proposition, and the Duke; having transmitted to the King a minute
+narrative of, the affair, together with indignant protestations of the
+fidelity, which all the world seemed determined to dispute, received
+most affectionate replies from that monarch, breathing nothing but
+unbounded confidence in his nephew's innocence and devotion.
+
+Such assurances from any other man in the world might have disarmed
+suspicion, but Alexander knew his master too well to repose upon his
+word, and remembered too bitterly the last hours of Don John of Austria
+--whose dying pillow he had soothed, and whose death had been hastened,
+as he knew, either by actual poison or by the hardly less fatal venom
+of slander--to regain tranquillity as to his own position.
+
+The King was desirous that Pallavicini should be invited over to
+Flanders, in order that Alexander, under pretence of listening to his
+propositions, might draw from the Genoese all the particulars of his
+scheme, and then, at leisure, inflict the punishment which he had
+deserved.  But insuperable obstacles presented themselves, nor was
+Alexander desirous of affording still further pretexts for his
+slanderers.
+
+Very soon after this incident--most important as showing the real
+situation of various parties, although without any immediate result--
+Alexander received a visit in his tent from another stranger.  This time
+the visitor was an Englishman, one Lieutenant Grimstone, and the object
+of his interview with the Duke was not political, but had, a direct
+reference to the siege of Bergen.  He was accompanied by a countryman
+of his own, Redhead by name, a camp-suttler by profession.  The two
+represented themselves as deserters from the besieged city, and offered,
+for a handsome reward, to conduct a force of Spaniards, by a secret path,
+into one of the gates.  The Duke questioned them narrowly, and being
+satisfied with their intelligence and coolness, caused them to take an
+oath on the Evangelists, that they were not playing him false.  He then
+selected a band of one hundred musketeers, partly Spaniards, partly
+Walloons--to be followed at a distance by a much, more considerable
+force; two thousand in number, under Sancho de Leyva: and the Marquis of
+Renti--and appointed the following night for an enterprise against the
+city, under the guidance of Grimstone.
+
+It was a wild autumnal night, moonless, pitch-dark, with a storm of
+wind and rain.  The waters were out--for the dykes had been cut in all
+'directions by the defenders of the city--and, with exception of some
+elevated points occupied by Parma's forces, the whole country was
+overflowed.  Before the party set forth on their daring expedition,
+the two Englishmen were tightly bound with cords, and led, each by two
+soldiers, instructed to put them to instant death if their conduct should
+give cause for suspicion.  But both Grimstone and Redhead preserved a
+cheerful countenance, and inspired a strong confidence in their honest
+intention to betray their countrymen.  And thus the band of bold
+adventurers plunged at once into the darkness, and soon found themselves
+contending with the tempest, and wading breast high in the black waters
+of the Scheldt.
+
+After a long and perilous struggle, they at length reached the appointed
+gate, The external portcullis was raised and the fifteen foremost of the
+band rushed into tho town.  At the next moment, Lord Willoughby, who had
+been privy to the whole scheme, cut with his own hand the cords which,
+held the portcullis, and entrapped the leaders of the expedition, who
+were all, at once put to the sword, while their followers were thundering
+at the gate.  The lieutenant and suttler who had thus overreached that
+great master of dissimulation; Alexander Farnese; were at the same time
+unbound by their comrades, and rescued from the fate intended for them.
+
+Notwithstanding the probability--when the portcullis fell--that the whole
+party, had been deceived by an artifice of war the adventurers, who had
+come so far, refused to abandon the enterprise, and continued an
+impatient battery upon the gate.  At last it was swung wide open, and
+a furious onslaught was made by the garrison upon the Spaniards.  There
+was--a fierce brief struggle, and then the assailants were utterly
+routed.  Some were killed under the walls, while the rest were hunted
+into the waves.  Nearly every one of the, expedition (a thousand in
+number) perished.
+
+It had now become obvious to the Duke that his siege must be raised.
+The days were gone when the walls of Dutch towns seemed to melt before
+the first scornful glance of the Spanish invader; and when a summons
+meant a surrender, and a surrender a massacre.  Now, strong in the
+feeling of independence, and supported by the courage and endurance of
+their English allies, the Hollanders had learned to humble the pride of
+Spain as it had never been humbled before.  The hero of a hundred battle-
+fields, the inventive and brilliant conqueror of Antwerp, seemed in the
+deplorable issue of the English invasion to have lost all his genius, all
+his fortune.  A cloud had fallen upon his fame, and he now saw himself;
+at the head of the best army in Europe, compelled to retire, defeated and
+humiliated, from the walls of Bergen.  Winter was coming on apace; the
+country was flooded; the storms in that-bleak region and inclement season
+were incessant; and he was obliged to retreat before his army should be
+drowned.
+
+On the night of 12-13 November he set fire to his camp; and took his
+departure.  By daybreak he was descried in full retreat, and was hotly
+pursued by the English and Dutch from the city, who drove the great
+Alexander and his legions before them in ignominious flight. Lord
+Willoughby, in full view of the retiring enemy, indulged the allied
+forces with a chivalrous spectacle.  Calling a halt, after it had become
+obviously useless, with their small force of cavalry; to follow any
+longer, through a flooded country, an enemy who had abandoned his design,
+he solemnly conferred the honour of knighthood, in the name of Queen
+Elizabeth, on the officers who had most distinguished themselves during
+the siege, Francis Vere, Baskerville, Powell, Parker, Knowles, and on the
+two Netherland brothers, Paul and Marcellus Bax.
+
+The Duke of Parma then went into winter quarters in Brabant, and, before
+the spring, that obedient Province had been eaten as bare as Flanders had
+already been by the friendly Spaniards.
+
+An excellent understanding between England and Holland had been the
+result of their united and splendid exertions against the Invincible
+Armada.  Late in the year 1588 Sir John Norris had been sent by the Queen
+to offer her congratulations and earnest thanks to the States for their
+valuable assistance in preserving her throne, and to solicit their
+cooperation in some new designs against the common foe.  Unfortunately,
+however, the epoch of good feeling was but of brief duration.  Bitterness
+and dissension seemed the inevitable conditions of the English-Dutch
+alliance.  It will be, remembered, that, on the departure of Leicester,
+several cities had refused to acknowledge the authority of Count Maurice
+and the States; and that civil war in the scarcely-born commonwealth had
+been the result.  Medenblik, Naarden, and the other contumacious cities,
+had however been reduced to obedience after the reception of the Earl's
+resignation, but the important city of Gertruydenberg had remained in a
+chronic state of mutiny.  This rebellion had been partially appeased
+during the year 1588 by the efforts of Willoughby, who had strengthened,
+the garrison by reinforcements of English troops under command of his
+brother-in-law, Sir John Wingfield.  Early in 1589 however, the whole
+garrison became rebellious, disarmed and maltreated the burghers, and
+demanded immediate payment of the heavy arrearages still due to the
+troops.  Willoughby, who--much disgusted with his career in the
+Netherlands--was about leaving for England, complaining that the States
+had not only left him without remuneration for his services, but had not
+repaid his own advances, nor even given him a complimentary dinner, tried
+in vain to pacify them.  A rumour became very current, moreover, that the
+garrison had opened negotiations with Alexander Farnese, and accordingly
+Maurice of Nassau--of whose patrimonial property the city of
+Gertruydenberg made a considerable proportion, to the amount of eight
+thousand pounds sterling a years--after summoning the garrison, in his
+own name and that of the States, to surrender, laid siege to the place
+in form.  It would have been cheaper, no doubt, to pay the demands of the
+garrison in full, and allow them to depart.  But Maurice considered his
+honour at stake.  His letters of summons, in which he spoke of the
+rebellious commandant and his garrison as self-seeking foreigners and
+mercenaries, were taken in very ill part.  Wingfield resented the
+statement in very insolent language, and offered to prove its falsehood
+with his sword against any man and in any place whatever.  Willoughby
+wrote to his brother-in-law, from Flushing, when about to embark,
+disapproving of his conduct and of his language; and to Maurice,
+deprecating hostile measures against a city under the protection of Queen
+Elizabeth.  At any rate, he claimed that Sir John Wingfield and his wife,
+the Countess of Kent, with their newly-born child, should be allowed to
+depart from the place.  But Wingfield expressed great scorn at any
+suggestion of retreat, and vowed that he would rather surrender the city
+to the Spaniards than tolerate the presumption of Maurice and the States.
+The young Prince accordingly, opened his batteries, but before an
+entrance could be effected into the town, was obliged to retire at the
+approach of Count Mansfield with a much superior force.  Gertruydenberg
+was now surrendered to the Spaniards in accordance with a secret
+negotiation which had been proceeding all the spring, and had been
+brought to a conclusion at last.  The garrison received twelve months'
+pay in full and a gratuity of five months in addition, and the city was
+then reduced into obedience to Spain and Rome on the terms which had been
+usual during the government of Farnese.
+
+The loss of this city was most severe to the republic, for the enemy had
+thus gained an entrance into the very heart of Holland.  It was a more
+important acquisition to Alexander than even Bergen-op-Zoom would have
+been, and it was a bitter reflection that to the treachery of
+Netherlanders and of their English allies this great disaster was owing.
+All the wrath aroused a year before by the famous treason of York and
+Stanley, and which had been successfully extinguished, now flamed forth
+afresh.  The States published a placard denouncing the men who had thus
+betrayed the cause of freedom, and surrendered the city of Gertruydenberg
+to the Spaniards, as perjured traitors whom it was made lawful to hang,
+whenever or wherever caught, without trial or sentence, and offering
+fifty florins a-head for every private soldier and one hundred florins
+for any officer of the garrison.  A list of these Englishmen and
+Netherlanders, so far as known, was appended to the placard, and the
+catalogue was headed by the name of Sir John Wingfield.
+
+Thus the consequences of the fatal event were even more deplorable than
+the loss of the city itself.  The fury of Olden-Barneveld at the treason
+was excessive, and the great Advocate governed the policy of the
+republic, at this period, almost like a dictator.  The States, easily
+acknowledging the sway of the imperious orator, became bitter--and
+wrathful with the English, side by side with whom they had lately been
+so cordially standing.
+
+Willoughby, on his part, now at the English court, was furious with the
+States, and persuaded the leading counsellors of the Queen as well as her
+Majesty herself, to adopt his view of the transaction.  Wingfield, it was
+asserted, was quite innocent in the matter; he was entirely ignorant of
+the French language, and therefore was unable to read a word of the
+letters addressed to him by Maurice and the replies which had been signed
+by himself.  Whether this strange excuse ought to be accepted or not, it
+is quite certain that he was no traitor like York and Stanley, and no
+friend to Spain; for he had stipulated for himself the right to return
+to England, and had neither received nor desired any reward.  He hated
+Maurice and he hated the States, but he asserted that he had been held
+in durance, that the garrison was mutinous, and that he was no more
+responsible for the loss of the city than Sir Francis Vere had been, who
+had also been present, and whose name had been subsequently withdrawn, in
+honourable fashion from the list of traitors, by authority of the States.
+His position--so far as he was personally concerned--seemed defensible,
+and the Queen was thoroughly convinced of his innocence.  Willoughby
+complained that the republic was utterly in the hands of Barneveld, that
+no man ventured to lift his voice or his eyes in presence of the terrible
+Advocate who ruled every Netherlander with a rod of iron, and that his
+violent and threatening language to Wingfield and himself at the dinner-
+table in Bergen-op-Zoom on the subject of the mutiny (when one hundred of
+the Gertruydenberg garrison were within sound of his voice) had been the
+chief cause of the rebellion.  Inspired by these remonstrances, the Queen
+once more emptied the vials of her wrath upon the United Netherlands.
+The criminations and recriminations seemed endless, and it was most
+fortunate that Spain had been weakened, that Alexander, a prey to
+melancholy and to lingering disease, had gone to the baths of Spa to
+recruit his shattered health, and that his attention and the schemes of
+Philip for the year 1589 and the following period were to be directed
+towards France.  Otherwise the commonwealth could hardly have escaped
+still more severe disasters than those already experienced in this
+unfortunate condition of its affairs, and this almost hopeless
+misunderstanding with its most important and vigorous friend.
+
+While these events had been occurring in the heart of the republic,
+Martin Schenk, that restless freebooter, had been pursuing a bustling and
+most lucrative career on its outskirts.  All the episcopate of Cologne--
+that debatable land of the two rival paupers, Bavarian Ernest and Gebhard
+Truchsess--trembled before him.  Mothers scared their children into
+quiet with the terrible name of Schenk, and farmers and land-younkers
+throughout the electorate and the land of Berg, Cleves, and Juliers, paid
+their black-mail, as if it were a constitutional impost, to escape the
+levying process of the redoubtable partisan.
+
+But Martin was no longer seconded, as he should have been, by the States,
+to whom he had been ever faithful since he forsook the banner of Spain
+for their own; and he had even gone to England and complained to the
+Queen of the short-comings of those who owed him so much.  His ingenious
+and daring exploit--the capture of Bonn--has already been narrated, but
+the States had neglected the proper precautions to secure that important
+city.  It had consequently, after a six months' siege, been surrendered
+to the Spaniards under Prince Chimay, on the 19th of September; while, in
+December following, the city of Wachtendonk, between the Rhine and Meuse,
+had fallen into Mansfeld's hands.  Rheinberg, the only city of the
+episcopate which remained to the deposed Truchsess, was soon afterwards
+invested by the troops of Parma, and Schenk in vain summoned the States-
+General to take proper measures for its defence.  But with the enemy now
+eating his way towards the heart of Holland, and with so many dangers
+threatening them on every side, it was thought imprudent to go so far
+away to seek the enemy.  So Gebhard retired in despair into Germany,
+and Martin did what he could to protect Rheinberg, and to fill his own
+coffers at the expense of the whole country side.
+
+He had built a fort, which then and long afterwards bore his name-
+Schenken Schans, or Schenk's Sconce--at that important point where the
+Rhine, opening its two arms to enclose the "good meadow" island of
+Batavia, becomes on the left the Waal, while on the right it retains its
+ancient name; and here, on the outermost edge of the republic, and
+looking straight from his fastness into the fruitful fields of Munster,
+Westphalia, and the electorate, the industrious Martin devoted himself
+with advantage to his favourite pursuits.
+
+On the 7th of August, on the heath of Lippe, he had attacked a body of
+Spanish musketeers, more than a thousand strong, who were protecting a
+convoy of provisions, treasure, and furniture, sent by Farnese to
+Verdugo, royal governor of Friesland.  Schenk, without the loss of a
+single man, had put the greater part of these Spaniards and Walloons to
+the sword, and routed the rest.  The leader of the expedition, Colonel
+Aristotle Patton, who had once played him so foul a trick in the
+surrender of Gelder, had soon taken to flight, when he found his ancient
+enemy upon him, and, dashing into the Lippe, had succeeded, by the
+strength and speed of his horse, in gaining the opposite bank, and
+effecting his escape.  Had he waited many minutes longer it is probable
+that the treacherous Aristotle would have passed a comfortless half-hour
+with his former comrade.  Treasure to the amount of seven thousand crowns
+in gold, five hundred horses, with jewels, plate, and other articles of
+value, were the fruit of this adventure, and Schenk returned with his
+followers, highly delighted, to Schenkenschans, and sent the captured
+Spanish colours to her Majesty of England as a token.
+
+A few miles below his fortress was Nymegen, and towards that ancient and
+wealthy city Schenk had often cast longing eyes.  It still held for the
+King, although on the very confines of Batavia; but while acknowledging
+the supremacy of Philip, it claimed the privileges of the empire.  From
+earliest times it had held its head very high among imperial towns, had
+been one of the three chief residences of the Emperor.  Charlemagne, and
+still paid the annual tribute of a glove full of pepper to the German
+empire.
+
+On the evening of the 10th of August, 1589, there was a wedding feast in
+one of the splendid mansions of the stately city.  The festivities were
+prolonged until deep in the midsummer's night, and harp and viol were
+still inspiring the feet of the dancers, when on a sudden, in the midst
+of the holiday-groups, appeared the grim visage of Martin Schenk, the man
+who never smiled.  Clad in no wedding-garment, but in armour of proof,
+with morion on head, and sword in hand, the great freebooter strode
+heavily through the ball-room, followed by a party of those terrible
+musketeers who never gave or asked for quarter, while the affrighted
+revellers fluttered away before them.
+
+Taking advantage of a dark night, he had just dropped down the river from
+his castle, with five-and-twenty barges, had landed with his most trusted
+soldiers in the foremost vessels, had battered down the gate of St.
+Anthony, and surprised and slain the guard.  Without waiting for the rest
+of his boats, he had then stolen with his comrades through the silent
+streets, and torn away the lattice-work, and other slight defences on the
+rear of the house which they had now entered, and through which they
+intended to possess themselves of the market-place.  Martin had long
+since selected this mansion as a proper position for his enterprise, but
+he had not been bidden to the wedding, and was somewhat disconcerted when
+he found himself on the festive scene which he had so grimly interrupted.
+Some of the merry-makers escaped from the house, and proceeded to alarm
+the town; while Schenk hastily fortified his position; and took
+possession of the square.  But the burghers and garrison were soon on
+foot, and he was driven back into the house.  Three times he recovered
+the square by main strength of his own arm, seconded by the handful of
+men whom he had brought with him, and three times he was beaten back by
+overwhelming numbers into the wedding mansion.  The arrival of the
+greater part of his followers, with whose assistance he could easily have
+mastered the city in the first moments of surprise, was mysteriously
+delayed.  He could not account for their prolonged, absence, and was
+meanwhile supported only by those who had arrived with him in the
+foremost barges.
+
+The truth--of which he was ignorant--was, that the remainder of the
+flotilla, borne along by the strong and deep current of the Waal, then in
+a state of freshet, had shot past the landing-place, and had ever since
+been vainly struggling against wind and tide to force their way back to
+the necessary point.  Meantime Schenk and his followers fought
+desperately in the market-place, and desperately in the house which he
+had seized.  But a whole garrison, and a town full of citizens in arms
+proved too much for him, and he was now hotly besieged in the mansion,
+and at last driven forth into the streets.
+
+By this time day was dawning, the whole population, soldiers and
+burghers, men, women, and children, were thronging about the little band
+of marauders, and assailing them with every weapon and every missile to
+be found.  Schenk fought with his usual ferocity, but at last the
+musketeers, in spite of his indignant commands, began rapidly to retreat
+towards the quay.  In vain Martin stormed and cursed, in vain with his
+own hand he struck more than one of his soldiers dead.  He was swept
+along with the panic-stricken band, and when, shouting and gnashing his
+teeth with frenzy, he reached the quay at last, he saw at a glance why
+his great enterprise had failed.  The few empty barges of his own party
+were moored at the steps; the rest were half a mile off, contending
+hopelessly against the swollen and rapid Waal.  Schenk, desperately
+wounded, was left almost alone upon the wharf, for his routed followers
+had plunged helter skelter into the boats, several of which, overladen in
+the panic, sank at once, leaving the soldiers to drown or struggle with
+the waves.  The game was lost.  Nothing was left the freebooter but
+retreat.  Reluctantly turning his back on his enemies, now in full cry
+close behind him, Schenk sprang into the last remaining boat just pushing
+from the quay.  Already overladen, it foundered with his additional
+weight, and Martin Schenk, encumbered with his heavy armour, sank at once
+to the bottom of the Waal.
+
+Some of the fugitives succeeded in swimming down the stream, and were
+picked up by their comrades in the barges below the town, and so made
+their escape.  Many were drowned with their captain.  A few days
+afterwards, the inhabitants of Nymegen fished up the body of the famous
+partisan.  He was easily recognized by his armour, and by his truculent
+face, still wearing the scowl with which he had last rebuked his
+followers.  His head was taken off at once, and placed on one of the
+turrets of the town, and his body, divided in four, was made to adorn
+other portions of the battlements; so that the burghers were enabled to
+feast their eyes on the remnants of the man at whose name the whole
+country had so often trembled.
+
+This was the end of Sir Martin Schenk of Niddegem, knight, colonel, and
+brigand; save that ultimately his dissevered limbs were packed in a
+chest, and kept in a church tower, until Maurice of Nassau, in course of
+time becoming master of Nymegen, honoured the valiant and on the whole
+faithful freebooter with a Christian and military burial.
+
+A few months later (October, 1589) another man who had been playing an
+important part in the Netherlands' drama lost his life.  Count Moeurs and
+Niewenaar, stadholder of Utrecht, Gelderland, and Overysael, while
+inspecting some newly-invented fireworks, was suddenly killed by their
+accidental ignition and explosion.  His death left vacant three great
+stadholderates, which before long were to be conferred upon a youth whose
+power henceforth was rapidly to grow greater.
+
+The misunderstanding between Holland and England continuing, Olden-
+Barneveld, Aerssens, and Buys, refusing to see that they had done wrong
+in denouncing the Dutch and English traitors who had sold Gertruydenberg
+to the enemy, and the Queen and her counsellors persisting in their anger
+at so insolent a proceeding, it may easily be supposed that there was no
+great heartiness in the joint expedition against Spain, which had been
+projected in the autumn of 1588, and was accomplished in the spring and
+summer of 1589.
+
+Nor was this well-known enterprise fruitful of any remarkable result.
+It had been decided to carry the war into Spain itself, and Don Antonio,
+prior of Crato, bastard of Portugal, and pretender to its crown, had
+persuaded himself and the English government that his name would be
+potent to conjure with in that kingdom, hardly yet content with the
+Spanish yoke.  Supported by a determined force of English and Dutch
+adventurers, he boasted that he should excite a revolution by the magic
+of his presence, and cause Philip's throne to tremble, in return for the
+audacious enterprise of that monarch against England.
+
+If a foray were to be made into Spain, no general and no admiral could be
+found in the world so competent to the adventure as Sir John Norris and
+Sir Francis Drake.  They were accompanied, too, by Sir Edward Norris, and
+another of those 'chickens of Mars,' Henry Norris; by the indomitable and
+ubiquitous Welshman, Roger Williams, and by the young Earl of Essex, whom
+the Queen in vain commanded to remain at home, and who, somewhat to the
+annoyance of the leaders of the expedition, concealed himself from her
+Majesty's pursuit, and at last embarked in a vessel which he had
+equipped, in order not to be cheated of his share in the hazard and
+the booty.  "If I speed well," said the spendthrift but valiant youth;
+"I will adventure to be rich; if not, I will never live, to see the end
+of my poverty."
+
+But no great riches were to be gathered in the expedition.  With some
+fourteen thousand men, and one hundred and sixty vessels--of which six
+were the Queen's ships of war, including the famous Revenge and the
+Dreadnought, and the rest armed merchantmen, English, and forty
+Hollanders--and with a contingent of fifteen hundred Dutchmen under
+Nicolas van Meetkerke and Van Laen, the adventurers set sail from
+Plymouth on the 18th of April, 1589.
+
+They landed at Coruna--at which place they certainly could not expect to
+create a Portuguese revolution, which was the first object of the
+expedition--destroyed some shipping in the harbour, captured and sacked
+the lower town, and were repulsed in the upper; marched with six thousand
+men to Burgos, crossed the bridge at push of pike, and routed ten
+thousand Spaniards under Andrada and Altamira--Edward Norris receiving a
+desperate blow on the head at the passage' of the bridge, and being
+rescued from death by his brother John--took sail for the south after
+this action, in which they had killed a thousand Spaniards, and had lost
+but two men of their own; were joined off Cape Finisterre by Essex;
+landed a force at Peniche, the castle of which place surrendered to them,
+and acknowledged the authority of Don Antonio; and thence marched with
+the main body of the troops, under Sir John Norris, forty-eight miles to
+Lisbon, while Drake, with the fleet, was to sail up the Tagus.
+
+Nothing like a revolution had been effected in Portugal.  No one seemed
+to care for the Pretender, or even to be aware that he had ever existed,
+except the governor of Peniche Castle, a few ragged and bare-footed
+peasants, who, once upon the road, shouted "Viva Don Antonio," and one
+old gentleman by the way side, who brought him a plate of plums.  His
+hopes of a crown faded rapidly, and when the army reached Lisbon it had
+dwindled to not much more than four thousand effective men--the rest
+being dead of dysentery, or on the sick-list from imprudence in eating
+and drinking--while they found that they had made an unfortunate omission
+in their machinery for assailing the capital, having not a single
+fieldpiece in the whole army.  Moreover, as Drake was prevented by bad
+weather and head-winds from sailing up the Tagus, it seemed a difficult
+matter to carry the city.  A few cannon, and the co-operation of the
+fleet, were hardly to be dispensed with on such an occasion.
+Nevertheless it would perhaps have proved an easier task than it
+appeared--for so great was the panic within the place that a large number
+of the inhabitants had fled, the Cardinal Viceroy Archduke Albert had but
+a very insufficient guard, and there were many gentlemen of high station
+who were anxious to further the entrance of the English, and who were
+afterwards hanged or garotted for their hostile sentiments to the Spanish
+government.
+
+While the leaders were deliberating what course to take, they were
+informed that Count Fuentes and Henriquez de Guzman, with six thousand
+men, lay at a distance of two miles from Lisbon, and that they had been
+proclaiming by sound of trumpet that the English had been signally
+defeated before Lisbon, and that they were in full retreat.
+
+Fired at this bravado, Norris sent a trumpet to Fuentes and Guzman,
+with a letter signed and sealed, giving them the lie in plainest terms,
+appointing the next day for a meeting of the two forces, and assuring
+them that when the next encounter should take place, it should be seen
+whether a Spaniard or an Englishman would be first to fly; while Essex,
+on his part, sent a note, defying either or both those boastful generals
+to single combat.  Next day the English army took the field, but the
+Spaniards retired before them; and nothing came of this exchange of
+cartels, save a threat on the part of Fuentes to hang the trumpeter who
+had brought the messages.  From the execution of this menace he
+refrained, however, on being assured that the deed would be avenged by
+the death of the Spanish prisoner of highest rank then in English hands,
+and thus the trumpeter escaped.
+
+Soon afterwards the fleet set sail from the Tagus, landed, and burned
+Vigo on their way homeward, and returned to Plymouth about the middle of
+July.
+
+Of the thirteen thousand came home six thousand, the rest having perished
+of dysentery and other disorders.  They had braved and insulted Spain,
+humbled her generals, defied her power, burned some defenceless villages,
+frightened the peasantry, set fire to some shipping, destroyed wine, oil,
+and other merchandize, and had divided among the survivors of the
+expedition, after landing in England, five shillings a head prize-money;
+but they had not effected a revolution in Portugal.  Don Antonio had been
+offered nothing by his faithful subjects but a dish of plums--so that he
+retired into obscurity from that time forward--and all this was scarcely
+a magnificent result for the death of six or seven thousand good English
+and Dutch soldiers, and the outlay of considerable treasure.
+
+As a free-booting foray--and it was nothing else--it could hardly be
+thought successful; although it was a splendid triumph compared with the
+result of the long and loudly heralded Invincible Armada.
+
+In France, great events during the remainder of 1588 and the following
+year, and which are well known even to the most superficial student of
+history, had much changed the aspect of European affairs.  It was
+fortunate for the two commonwealths of Holland and England, engaged in
+the great struggle for civil and religious liberty, and national
+independence, that the attention of Philip became more and more absorbed-
+as time wore on--with the affairs of France.  It seemed necessary for him
+firmly to establish his dominion in that country before attempting once
+more the conquest of England, or the recovery of the Netherlands.  For
+France had been brought more nearly to anarchy and utter decomposition
+than ever.  Henry III., after his fatal forgiveness of the deadly offence
+of Guise, felt day by day more keenly that he had transferred his
+sceptre--such as it was--to that dangerous intriguer.  Bitterly did the
+King regret having refused the prompt offer of Alphonse Corse on the day
+of the barricades; for now, so long as the new generalissimo should live,
+the luckless Henry felt himself a superfluity in his own realm.  The
+halcyon days were for ever past, when, protected by the swords of Joyeuse
+and of Epernon, the monarch of France could pass his life playing at cup
+and ball, or snipping images out of pasteboard, or teaching his parrots-
+to talk, or his lap-dogs to dance.  His royal occupations were gone, and
+murder now became a necessary preliminary to any future tranquillity or
+enjoyment.  Discrowned as he felt himself already, he knew that life or
+liberty was only held by him now at the will of Guise.  The assassination
+of the Duke in December was the necessary result of the barricades in
+May; and accordingly that assassination was arranged with an artistic
+precision of which the world had hardly suspected the Valois to be
+capable, and which Philip himself might have envied.
+
+The story of the murders of Blois--the destruction of Guise and his
+brother the Cardinal, and the subsequent imprisonment of the Archbishop
+of Lyons, the Cardinal Bourbon, and the Prince de Joinville, now, through
+the death of his father, become the young Duke of Guise--all these events
+are too familiar in the realms of history, song, romance, and painting,
+to require more than this slight allusion here.
+
+Never had an assassination been more technically successful; yet its
+results were not commensurate with the monarch's hopes.  The deed which
+he had thought premature in May was already too late in December.  His
+mother denounced his cruelty now, as she had, six months before,
+execrated his cowardice.  And the old Queen, seeing that her game was
+played out--that the cards had all gone against her--that her son was
+doomed, and her own influence dissolved in air, felt that there was
+nothing left for her but to die.  In a week she was dead, and men spoke
+no more of Catharine de' Medici, and thought no more of her than if--in
+the words of a splenetic contemporary--"she had been a dead she-goat."
+Paris howled with rage when it learned the murders of Blois, and the
+sixteen quarters became more furious than ever against the Valois.  Some
+wild talk there was of democracy and republicanism after the manner of
+Switzerland, and of dividing France into cantons--and there was an
+earnest desire on the part of every grandee, every general, every soldier
+of fortune, to carve out a portion of French territory with his sword,
+and to appropriate it for himself and his heirs.  Disintegration was
+making rapid progress, and the epoch of the last Valois seemed mare dark
+and barbarous than the times of the degenerate Carlovingians had been.
+The letter-writer of the Escorial, who had earnestly warned his faithful
+Mucio, week after week, that dangers were impending over him, and that
+"some trick would be played upon him," should he venture into the royal
+presence, now acquiesced in his assassination, and placidly busied
+himself with fresh combinations and newer tools.
+
+Baked, hunted, scorned by all beside, the luckless Henry now threw
+himself into the arms of the Bearnese--the man who could and would have
+protected him long before, had the King been capable of understanding
+their relative positions and his own true interests.  Could the Valois
+have conceived the thought of religious toleration, his throne even then
+might have been safe.  But he preferred playing the game of the priests
+and bigots, who execrated his name and were bent upon his destruction.
+At last, at Plessis les Tours, the Bearnese, in his shabby old chamois
+jacket and his well-dinted cuirass took the silken Henry in his arms, and
+the two--the hero and the fribble--swearing eternal friendship, proceeded
+to besiege Paris.  A few weeks later, the dagger of Jacques Clement put
+an end for ever to, the line of Valois.  Luckless Henry III. slept with
+his forefathers, and Henry of Bourbon and Navarre proclaimed himself King
+of France.  Catharine and her four sons had all past away at last, and it
+would be a daring and a dexterous schemer who should now tear the crown,
+for which he had so long and so patiently waited, from the iron grasp of
+the Bearnese.  Philip had a more difficult game than ever to play in
+France.  It would be hard for him to make valid the claims of the Infanta
+and any husband he might select for her to the crown of her grandfather
+Henry II.  It seemed simple enough for him, while waiting the course of
+events, to set up a royal effigy before the world in the shape of an
+effete old Cardinal Bourbon, to pour oil upon its head and to baptize it
+Charles X.; but meantime the other Bourbon was no effigy, and he called
+himself Henry IV.
+
+It was easy enough for Paris, and Madam League, and Philip the Prudent,
+to cry wo upon the heretic; but the cheerful leader of the Huguenots was
+a philosopher, who in the days of St. Bartholomew had become orthodox to
+save his life, and who was already "instructing himself" anew in order to
+secure his crown.  Philip was used to deal with fanatics, and had often
+been opposed by a religious bigotry as fierce as his own; but he might
+perhaps be baffled by a good-humoured free-thinker, who was to teach him
+a lesson in political theology of which he had never dreamed.
+
+The Leaguers were not long in doubt as to the meaning of "instruction,"
+and they were thoroughly persuaded that--so soon as Henry IV. should
+reconcile himself with Rome--their game was likely to become desperate.
+
+Nevertheless prudent Philip sat in his elbow-chairs writing his
+apostilles, improving himself and his secretaries in orthography, but
+chiefly confining his attention to the affairs of France.  The departed
+Mucio's brother Mayenne was installed as chief stipendiary of Spain and
+lieutenant-general for the League in France, until Philip should
+determine within himself in what form to assume the sovereignty of that
+kingdom.  It might be questionable however whether that corpulent Duke,
+who spent more time in eating than Henry IV. did in sleeping, and was
+longer in reading a letter than Henry in winning a battle, were likely to
+prove a very dangerous rival even with all Spain at his back--to the
+lively Bearnese.  But time would necessarily be consumed before the end
+was reached, and time and Philip were two.  Henry of Navarre and France
+was ready to open his ears to instruction; but even he had declared,
+several years before, that "a religion was not to be changed like a
+shirt."  So while the fresh garment was airing for him at Rome, and while
+he was leisurely stripping off the old, he might perhaps be taken at
+a disadvantage.  Fanaticism on both sides, during this process of
+instruction, might be roused.  The Huguenots on their part might denounce
+the treason of their great chief, and the Papists, on theirs, howl at the
+hypocrisy of the pretended conversion.  But Henry IV. had philosophically
+prepared himself for the denunciations of the Protestants, while
+determined to protect them against the persecutions of the Romanism to
+which he meant to give his adhesion.  While accepting the title of
+renegade, together with an undisputed crown, he was not the man to
+rekindle those fires of religious bigotry which it was his task to
+quench, now that they had lighted his way to the throne.  The demands
+of his Catholic supporters for the exclusion from the kingdom of all
+religions but their own, were steadily refused.
+
+And thus the events of 1588 and 1589 indicated that the great game of
+despotism against freedom would be played, in the coming years, upon the
+soil of France.  Already Elizabeth had furnished the new King with
+L22,000 in gold--a larger sum; as he observed, than he had ever seen
+before in his life,  and the States of the Netherlands had provided him
+with as much more.  Willoughby too, and tough Roger Williams, and
+Baskerville, and Umpton, and Vere, with 4000 English pikemen at their
+back, had already made a brief but spirited campaign in France; and the
+Duke of Parma, after recruiting his health; so, far as it was possible;
+at Spa, was preparing himself to measure swords with that great captain
+of Huguenots; who now assumed the crown of his ancestors, upon the same
+ground.  It seemed probable that for the coming years England would be
+safe from Spanish invasion, and that Holland would have a better
+opportunity than it had ever enjoyed before of securing its liberty and
+perfecting its political organization.  While Parma, Philip; and Mayenne
+were fighting the Bearnese for the crown of France, there might be a
+fairer field for the new commonwealth of the United Netherlands.
+
+And thus many of the personages who have figured in these volumes have
+already passed away.  Leicester had died just after the defeat of the
+Armada, and the thrifty Queen, while dropping a tear upon the grave of
+'sweet Robin,' had sold his goods at auction to defray his debts to
+herself; and Moeurs, and Martin Schenk, and 'Mucio,' and Henry III., and
+Catharine de' Medici, were all dead.  But Philip the Prudent remained,
+and Elizabeth of England, and Henry of France and Navarre, and John of
+Olden-Barneveld; and there was still another personage, a very young man
+still, but a deep-thinking, hard-working student, fagging steadily at
+mathematics and deep in the works of Stevinus, who, before long, might
+play a conspicuous part in the world's great drama.  But, previously to
+1590, Maurice of Nassau seemed comparatively insignificant, and he could
+be spoken of by courtiers as a cipher, and as an unmannerly boy just let
+loose from school.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+I will never live, to see the end of my poverty
+Religion was not to be changed like a shirt
+Tension now gave place to exhaustion
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v59
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS, ENTIRE 1586-89 UNITED NETHERLANDS:
+
+A burnt cat fears the fire
+A free commonwealth--was thought an absurdity
+Act of Uniformity required Papists to assist
+All business has been transacted with open doors
+And thus this gentle and heroic spirit took its flight
+Are wont to hang their piety on the bell-rope
+Arminianism
+As lieve see the Spanish as the Calvinistic inquisition
+As logical as men in their cups are prone to be
+Baiting his hook a little to his appetite
+Beacons in the upward path of mankind
+Been already crimination and recrimination more than enough
+Bungling diplomatists and credulous dotards
+Canker of a long peace
+Casting up the matter "as pinchingly as possibly might be"
+Defect of enjoying the flattery, of his inferiors in station
+Disposed to throat-cutting by the ministers of the Gospel
+During this, whole war, we have never seen the like
+Elizabeth (had not) the faintest idea of religious freedom
+Englishmen and Hollanders preparing to cut each other's throats
+Even to grant it slowly is to deny it utterly
+Evil is coming, the sooner it arrives the better
+Faction has rarely worn a more mischievous aspect
+Fitter to obey than to command
+Five great rivers hold the Netherland territory in their coils
+Fool who useth not wit because he hath it not
+Forbidding the wearing of mourning at all
+Full of precedents and declamatory commonplaces
+God, whose cause it was, would be pleased to give good weather
+Guilty of no other crime than adhesion to the Catholic faith
+Hard at work, pouring sand through their sieves
+Hardly a distinguished family in Spain not placed in mourning
+Heretics to the English Church were persecuted
+High officers were doing the work of private, soldiers
+I did never see any man behave himself as he did
+I am a king that will be ever known not to fear any but God
+I will never live, to see the end of my poverty
+Individuals walking in advance of their age
+Infamy of diplomacy, when diplomacy is unaccompanied by honesty
+Inquisitors enough; but there were no light vessels in The Armada
+Invincible Armada had not only been vanquished but annihilated
+Look for a sharp war, or a miserable peace
+Loving only the persons who flattered him
+Mendacity may always obtain over innocence and credulity
+Never peace well made, he observed, without a mighty war
+Never did statesmen know better how not to do
+Not many more than two hundred Catholics were executed
+Nothing could equal Alexander's fidelity, but his perfidy
+One could neither cry nor laugh within the Spanish dominions
+Only citadel against a tyrant and a conqueror was distrust
+Pray here for satiety, (said Cecil) than ever think of variety
+Rebuked him for his obedience
+Religion was not to be changed like a shirt
+Respect for differences in religious opinions
+Sacrificed by the Queen for faithfully obeying her orders
+Security is dangerous
+She relieth on a hope that will deceive her
+Simple truth was highest skill
+Sixteen of their best ships had been sacrificed
+Sparing and war have no affinity together
+Stake or gallows (for) heretics to transubstantiation
+States were justified in their almost unlimited distrust
+Strength does a falsehood acquire in determined and skilful hand
+Succeeded so well, and had been requited so ill
+Sure bind, sure find
+Sword in hand is the best pen to write the conditions of peace
+Tension now gave place to exhaustion
+That crowned criminal, Philip the Second
+The worst were encouraged with their good success
+The blaze of a hundred and fifty burning vessels
+The sapling was to become the tree
+Their existence depended on war
+There is no man fitter for that purpose than myself
+They chose to compel no man's conscience
+Tolerating religious liberty had never entered his mind
+Torturing, hanging, embowelling of men, women, and children
+Trust her sword, not her enemy's word
+Undue anxiety for impartiality
+Universal suffrage was not dreamed of at that day
+Waiting the pleasure of a capricious and despotic woman
+We were sold by their negligence who are now angry with us
+Wealthy Papists could obtain immunity by an enormous fine
+Who the "people" exactly were
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Entire 1586-89 United Netherlands
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, Project Gutenberg Edition, Vol. 72
+
+History of the United Netherlands, 1590-1599, Complete
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+     Effect of the Assassination of Henry III.--Concentration of forces
+     for the invasion of France--The Netherlands determine on striking a
+     blow for freedom--Organization of a Dutch army--Stratagem to
+     surprise the castle of Breda--Intrepidity and success of the
+     enterprise.
+
+The dagger of Jacques Clement had done much, and was likely to do
+more, to change the face of Europe.  Another proof was afforded that
+assassination had become a regular and recognised factor in the political
+problems of the sixteenth century.  Another illustration was exhibited of
+the importance of the individual--even although that individual was in
+himself utterly despicable--to the working out of great historical
+results.  It seemed that the murder of Henry III.--that forlorn
+caricature of kingship and of manhood--was likely to prove eminently
+beneficial to the cause of the Netherland commonwealth.  Five years
+earlier, the murder of William the Silent had seemed to threaten its
+very existence.
+
+For Philip the Prudent, now that France was deprived of a head, conceived
+that the time had arrived when he might himself assume the sovereignty of
+that kingdom.  While a thing of straw, under the name of Charles X. and
+shape of a Cardinal Bourbon, was set up to do battle with that living
+sovereign and soldier, the heretic Bearnese, the Duke of Parma was
+privately ordered to bend all his energies towards the conquest of the
+realm in dispute, under pretence of assisting the Holy League.
+
+Accordingly, early in the year 1590, Alexander concentrated a
+considerable force on the French frontier in Artois and Hainault,
+apparently threatening Bergen-op-Zoom and other cities in South Holland,
+but in reality preparing to invade France.  The Duke of Mayenne, who had
+assumed the title of lieutenant-general of that kingdom, had already
+visited him at Brussels in order to arrange the plan of the campaign.
+
+While these measures were in preparation, an opportunity was likely to be
+afforded to the Netherlanders of striking a blow or two for liberty and
+independence; now that all the force that possibly could be spared was to
+be withdrawn by their oppressors and to be used for the subjugation of
+their neighbours.  The question was whether there would be a statesman
+and a soldier ready to make use of this golden opportunity.
+
+There was a statesman ripe and able who, since the death of the Taciturn,
+had been growing steadily in the estimation of his countrymen and who
+already was paramount in the councils of the States-General.  There was a
+soldier, still very young, who was possessed of the strongest hereditary
+claims to the confidence and affection of the United Provinces and who
+had been passing a studious youth in making himself worthy of his father
+and his country.  Fortunately, too, the statesman and the soldier were
+working most harmoniously together.  John of Olden-Barneveld, with his
+great experience and vast and steady intellect, stood side by side with
+young Maurice of Nassau at this important crisis in the history of the
+new commonwealth.
+
+At length the twig was becoming the tree--'tandem fit surculus arbor'--
+according to the device assumed by the son of William the Silent after
+his father's death.
+
+The Netherlands had sore need of a practical soldier to contend with the
+scientific and professional tyrants against whom they had so long been
+struggling, and Maurice, although so young, was pre-eminently a practical
+man.  He was no enthusiast; he was no poet.  He was at that period
+certainly no politician.  Not often at the age of twenty has a man
+devoted himself for years to pure mathematics for the purpose of saving
+his country.  Yet this was Maurice's scheme.  Four years long and more,
+when most other youths in his position and at that epoch would have been
+alternating between frivolous pleasures and brilliant exploits in the
+field, the young prince had spent laborious days and nights with the
+learned Simon Stevinus of Bruges.  The scientific work which they
+composed in common, the credit of which the master assigned to the pupil,
+might have been more justly attributed perhaps to the professor than to
+the prince, but it is certain that Maurice was an apt scholar.
+
+In that country, ever held in existence by main human force against the
+elements, the arts of engineering, hydrostatics and kindred branches were
+of necessity much cultivated.  It was reserved for the young
+mathematician to make them as potent against a human foe.
+
+Moreover, there were symptoms that the military discipline, learning and
+practical skill, which had almost made Spain the mistress of the world,
+were sinking into decay.  Farnese, although still in the prime of life,
+was broken in health, and there seemed no one fit to take the place of
+himself and his lieutenants when they should be removed from the scene
+where they had played.  their parts so consummately.  The army of the
+Netherlands was still to be created.  Thus far the contest had been
+mainly carried on by domestic militia and foreign volunteers or
+hirelings.  The train-bands of the cities were aided in their struggles
+against Spanish pikemen and artillerists, Italian and Albanian cavalry by
+the German riders, whom every little potentate was anxious to sell to
+either combatant according to the highest bid, and by English
+mercenaries, whom the love of adventure or the hope of plunder sent forth
+under such well-seasoned captains as Williams and Morgan, Vere and the
+Norrises, Baskerville and Willoughby.
+
+But a Dutch army there was none and Maurice had determined that at last
+a national force should be created.  In this enterprise he was aided and
+guided by his cousin Lewis William, Stadtholder of Friesland--the quaint,
+rugged little hero, young in years but almost a veteran in the wars of
+freedom, who was as genial and intellectual in council as he was reckless
+and impulsive in the field.
+
+Lewis William had felt that the old military art was dying out and that--
+there was nothing to take its place.  He was a diligent student of
+antiquity.  He had revived in the swamps of Friesland the old manoeuvres,
+the quickness of wheeling, the strengthening, without breaking ranks or
+columns, by which the ancient Romans had performed so much excellent work
+in their day, and which seemed to have passed entirely into oblivion.
+Old colonels and rittmasters, who had never heard of Leo the Thracian nor
+the Macedonian phalanx, smiled and shrugged their shoulders, as they
+listened to the questions of the young count, or gazed with profound
+astonishment at the eccentric evolutions to which he was accustoming his
+troops.  From the heights of superior wisdom they looked down with pity
+upon these innovations on the good old battle order.  They were
+accustomed to great solid squares of troops wheeling in one way,
+steadily, deliberately, all together, by one impulse and as one man.
+It was true that in narrow fields, and when the enemy was pressing, such
+stately evolutions often became impossible or ensured defeat; but when
+the little Stadtholder drilled his soldiers in small bodies of various
+shapes, teaching them to turn, advance; retreat; wheel in a variety of
+ways, sometimes in considerable masses, sometimes man by man, sending the
+foremost suddenly to the rear, or bringing the hindmost ranks to the
+front, and began to attempt all this in narrow fields as well as in wide
+ones, and when the enemy was in sight, men stood aghast at his want of
+reverence, or laughed at him as a pedant.  But there came a day when they
+did not laugh, neither friends nor enemies.  Meantime the two cousins,
+who directed all the military operations in the provinces, understood
+each other thoroughly and proceeded to perfect their new system, to be
+adopted at a later period by all civilized nations.
+
+The regular army of the Netherlands was small in number at that moment--
+not more than twenty thousand foot with two thousand horse--but it was
+well disciplined, well equipped, and, what was of great importance,
+regularly paid.  Old campaigners complained that in the halcyon days of
+paper enrolments, a captain could earn more out of his company than a
+colonel now received for his whole regiment.  The days when a thousand
+men were paid for, with a couple of hundred in the field, were passing
+away for the United Provinces and existed only for Italians and
+Spaniards.  While, therefore, mutiny on an organised and extensive scale
+seemed almost the normal condition of the unpaid legions of Philip, the
+little army of Maurice was becoming the model for Europe to imitate.
+
+The United Provinces were as yet very far from being masters of their own
+territory.  Many of their most important cities still held for the king.
+In Brabant, such towns as Breda with its many dependencies and
+Gertruydenberg; on the Waal, the strong and wealthy Nymegen which Martin
+Schenk had perished in attempting to surprise; on the Yssel, the thriving
+city of Zutphen, whose fort had been surrendered by the traitor York, and
+the stately Deventer, which had been placed in Philip's possession by the
+treachery of Sir William Stanley; on the borders of Drenthe, the almost
+impregnable Koevorden, key to the whole Zwollian country; and in the very
+heart of ancient Netherland, Groningen, capital of the province of the
+same name, which the treason of Renneberg had sold to the Spanish tyrant;
+all these flourishing cities and indispensable strongholds were
+garrisoned by foreign troops, making the idea of Dutch independence
+a delusion.
+
+While Alexander of Parma, sorely against his will and in obedience to
+what, he deemed the insane suggestions of his master, was turning his
+back on the Netherlands in order to relieve Paris, now hard pressed
+by the Bearnese, an opportunity offered itself of making at least a
+beginning in the great enterprise of recovering these most valuable
+possessions.
+
+The fair and pleasant city of Breda lies on the Merk, a slender stream,
+navigable for small vessels, which finds its way to the sea through the
+great canal of the Dintel.  It had been the property of the Princes of
+Orange, Barons of Breda, and had passed with the other possessions of
+the family to the house of Chalons-Nassau.  Henry of Nassau had, half a
+century before, adorned and strengthened it by a splendid palace-fortress
+which, surrounded by a deep and double moat, thoroughly commanded the
+town.  A garrison of five companies of Italian infantry and one of
+cavalry lay in this castle, which was under the command of Edward
+Lanzavecchia, governor both of Breda and of the neighbouring
+Gertruydenberg.
+
+Breda was an important strategical position.  It was moreover the feudal
+superior of a large number of adjacent villages as well as of the cities
+Osterhout, Steenberg and Rosendaal.  It was obviously not more desirable
+for Maurice of Nassau to recover his patrimonial city than it was for the
+States-General to drive the Spaniards from so important a position!
+
+In the month of February, 1590, Maurice, being then at the castle of
+Voorn in Zeeland, received a secret visit from a boatman, Adrian van der
+Berg by name, who lived at the village of Leur, eight or ten miles from
+Breda, and who had long been in the habit of supplying the castle with
+turf.  In the absence of woods and coal mines, the habitual fuel of the
+country was furnished by those vast relics of the antediluvian forests
+which abounded in the still partially submerged soil.  The skipper
+represented that his vessel had passed so often into and out of the
+castle as to be hardly liable to search by the guard on its entrance.
+He suggested a stratagem by which it might be possible to surprise the
+stronghold.
+
+The prince approved of the scheme and immediately consulted with
+Barneveld.  That statesman at once proposed, as a suitable man to
+carry out the daring venture, Captain Charles de Heraugiere, a nobleman
+of Cambray, who had been long in the service of the States, had
+distinguished himself at Sluys and on other occasions, but who had been
+implicated in Leicester's nefarious plot to gain possession of the city
+of Leyden a few years before.  The Advocate expressed confidence that he
+would be grateful for so signal an opportunity of retrieving a somewhat
+damaged reputation.  Heraugiere, who was with his company in Voorn at the
+moment, eagerly signified his desire to attempt the enterprise as soon as
+the matter was communicated to him; avowing the deepest devotion to the
+house of William the Silent and perfect willingness to sacrifice his
+life, if necessary, in its cause and that of the country.  Philip Nassau,
+cousin of Prince Maurice and brother of Lewis William, governor of
+Gorcum, Dorcum, and Lowenstein Castle and colonel of a regiment of
+cavalry, was also taken into the secret, as well as Count Hohenlo,
+President Van der Myle and a few others; but a mystery was carefully
+spread and maintained over the undertaking.
+
+Heraugiere selected sixty-eight men, on whose personal daring and
+patience he knew that he could rely, from the regiments of Philip Nassau
+and of Famars, governor of the neighbouring city of Heusden, and from his
+own company.  Besides himself, the officers to command the party were
+captains Logier and Fervet, and lieutenant Matthew Held.  The names of
+such devoted soldiers deserve to be commemorated and are still freshly
+remembered by their countrymen.
+
+On the 25th of February, Maurice and his staff went to Willemstad on the
+Isle of Klundert, it having been given out on his departure from the
+Hague that his destination was Dort.  On the same night at about eleven
+o'clock, by the feeble light of a waning moon, Heraugiere and his band
+came to the Swertsenburg ferry, as agreed upon, to meet the boatman.
+They found neither him nor his vessel, and they wandered about half the
+night, very cold, very indignant, much perplexed.  At last, on their way
+back, they came upon the skipper at the village of Terheyde, who made the
+extraordinary excuse that he had overslept himself and that he feared the
+plot had been discovered.  It being too late to make any attempt that
+night, a meeting was arranged for the following evening.  No suspicion of
+treachery occurred to any of the party, although it became obvious that
+the skipper had grown faint-hearted.  He did not come on the next night
+to the appointed place but he sent two nephews, boatmen like himself,
+whom he described as dare-devils.
+
+On Monday night, the 26th of February, the seventy went on board the
+vessel, which was apparently filled with blocks of turf, and packed
+themselves closely in the hold.  They moved slowly during a little time
+on their perilous voyage; for the winter wind, thick with fog and sleet,
+blew directly down the river, bringing along with it huge blocks of ice
+and scooping the water out of the dangerous shallows, so as to render the
+vessel at any moment liable to be stranded.  At last the navigation
+became impossible and they came to a standstill.  From Monday night till
+Thursday morning those seventy Hollanders lay packed like herrings in the
+hold of their little vessel, suffering from hunger, thirst, and deadly
+cold; yet not one of them attempted to escape or murmured a wish to
+abandon the enterprise.  Even when the third morning dawned there was no
+better prospect of proceeding; for the remorseless east wind still blew a
+gale against them, and the shoals which beset their path had become more
+dangerous than ever.  It was, however, absolutely necessary to recruit
+exhausted nature, unless the adventurers were to drop powerless on the
+threshold when they should at last arrive at their destination.  In all
+secrecy they went ashore at a lonely castle called Nordam, where they
+remained to refresh themselves until about eleven at night, when one of
+the boatmen came to them with the intelligence that the wind had changed
+and was now blowing freshly in from the sea.  Yet the voyage of a few
+leagues, on which they were embarked, lasted nearly two whole days
+longer.  On Saturday afternoon they passed through the last sluice, and
+at about three o'clock the last boom was shut behind them.  There was no
+retreat possible for them now.  The seventy were to take the strong
+castle and city of Breda or to lay down their lives, every man of them.
+No quarter and short shrift--such was their certain destiny, should that
+half-crippled, half-frozen little band not succeed in their task before
+another sunrise.
+
+They were now in the outer harbour and not far from the Watergate which
+led into the inner castle-haven.  Presently an officer of the guard put
+off in a skiff and came on board the vessel.  He held a little
+conversation with the two boatmen, observed that the castle was--much
+in want of full, took a survey of the turf with which the ship was
+apparently laden, and then lounged into the little cabin.  Here he was
+only separated by a sliding trap-door from the interior of the vessel.
+Those inside could hear and see his every movement.  Had there been a
+single cough or sneeze from within, the true character of the cargo,
+then making its way into the castle, would have been discovered and
+every man would within ten minutes have been butchered.  But the officer,
+unsuspecting, soon took his departure, saying that he would send some men
+to warp the vessel into the castle dock.
+
+Meantime, as the adventurers were making their way slowly towards the
+Watergate, they struck upon a hidden obstruction in the river and the
+deeply laden vessel sprang a leak.  In a few minutes those inside were
+sitting up to their knees in water--a circumstance which scarcely
+improved their already sufficiently dismal condition.  The boatmen
+vigorously plied the pumps to save the vessel from sinking outright;
+a party of Italian soldiers soon arrived on the shore, and in the course
+of a couple of hours they had laboriously dragged the concealed
+Hollanders into the inner harbour and made their vessel fast, close to
+the guard-house of the castle.
+
+And now a crowd of all sorts came on board.  The winter nights had been
+long and fearfully cold, and there was almost a dearth of fuel both in
+town and fortress.  A gang of labourers set to work discharging the turf
+from the vessel with such rapidity that the departing daylight began to
+shine in upon the prisoners much sooner than they wished.  Moreover, the
+thorough wetting, to which after all their other inconveniences they had
+just been exposed in their narrow escape from foundering, had set the
+whole party sneezing and coughing.  Never was a catarrh so sudden, so
+universal, or so ill-timed.  Lieutenant Held, unable to control the
+violence of his cough, drew his dagger and eagerly implored his next
+neighbour to stab him to the heart, lest his infirmity should lead to the
+discovery of the whole party.  But the calm and wary skipper who stood on
+the deck instantly commanded his companion to work at the pump with as
+much clatter as possible, assuring the persons present that the hold was
+nearly full of water.  By this means the noise of the coughing was
+effectually drowned.  Most thoroughly did the bold boatman deserve the
+title of dare-devil, bestowed by his more fainthearted uncle.  Calmly
+looking death in the face, he stood there quite at his ease, exchanging
+jokes with his old acquaintances, chaffering with the eager purchasers of
+peat shouting most noisy and superfluous orders to the one man who
+composed his crew, doing his utmost, in short, to get rid of his
+customers and to keep enough of the turf on board to conceal the
+conspirators.
+
+At last, when the case seemed almost desperate, he loudly declared that
+sufficient had been unladen for that evening and that it was too dark
+and he too tired for further work.  So, giving a handful of stivers among
+the workmen, he bade them go ashore at once and have some beer and come
+next morning for the rest of the cargo.  Fortunately, they accepted his
+hospitable proposition and took their departure.  Only the servant of the
+captain of the guard lingered behind, complaining that the turf was not
+as good as usual and that his master would never be satisfied with it.
+
+"Ah!"  returned the cool skipper, "the best part of the cargo is
+underneath.  This is expressly reserved for the captain.  He
+is sure to get enough of it to-morrow."
+
+Thus admonished, the servant departed and the boatman was left to
+himself.  His companion had gone on shore with secret orders to make the
+best of his way to Prince Maurice, to inform him of the arrival of the
+ship within the fortress, and of the important fact which they had just
+learned, that Governor Lanzavecchia, who had heard rumours of some
+projected enterprise and who suspected that the object aimed at was
+Gertruydenberg, had suddenly taken his departure for that city, leaving
+as his lieutenant his nephew Paolo, a raw lad quite incompetent to
+provide for the safety of Breda.
+
+A little before midnight, Captain Heraugiere made a brief address to his
+comrades in the vessel, telling them that the hour for carrying out their
+undertaking had at length arrived.  Retreat was impossible, defeat was
+certain death, only in complete victory lay their own safety and a great
+advantage for the commonwealth.  It was an honor to them to be selected
+for such an enterprise.  To show cowardice now would be an eternal shame
+for them, and he would be the man to strike dead with his own hand any
+traitor or poltroon.  But if, as he doubted not, every one was prepared
+to do his duty, their success was assured, and he was himself ready to
+take the lead in confronting every danger.
+
+He then divided the little band into two companies, one under himself to
+attack the main guard-house, the other under Fervet to seize the arsenal
+of the fortress.
+
+Noiselessly they stole out of the ship where they had so long been
+confined, and stood at last on the ground within the precincts of the
+castle.  Heraugiere marched straight to the guard-house.
+
+"Who goes there?"  cried a sentinel, hearing some movement in the
+darkness.
+
+"A friend," replied the captain, seizing him, by the throat, and
+commanding him, if he valued his life, to keep silence except when
+addressed and then to speak in a whisper.
+
+"How many are there in the garrison?"  muttered Heraugiere.
+
+"Three hundred and fifty," whispered the sentinel.
+
+"How many?"  eagerly demanded the nearest followers, not hearing the
+reply.
+
+"He says there are but fifty of them," said Heraugiere, prudently
+suppressing the three hundred, in order to encourage his comrades.
+
+Quietly as they had made their approach, there was nevertheless a stir
+in the guard-house.  The captain of the watch sprang into the courtyard.
+
+"Who goes there?"  he demanded in his turn.
+
+"A friend," again replied Heraugiere, striking him dead with a single
+blow as he spoke.
+
+Others emerged with torches.  Heraugiere was slightly wounded, but
+succeeded, after a brief struggle, in killing a second assailant.  His
+followers set upon the watch who retreated into the guard-house.
+Heraugiere commanded his men to fire through the doors and windows, and
+in a few minutes every one of the enemy lay dead.
+
+It was not a moment for making prisoners or speaking of quarter.
+Meantime Fervet and his band had not been idle.  The magazine-house of
+the castle was seized, its defenders slain.  Young Lanzavecchia made a
+sally from the palace, was wounded and driven back together with a few of
+his adherents.
+
+The rest of the garrison fled helter-skelter into the town.  Never had
+the musketeers of Italy--for they all belonged to Spinola's famous
+Sicilian Legion--behaved so badly.  They did not even take the precaution
+to destroy the bridge between the castle and the town as they fled panic-
+stricken before seventy Hollanders.  Instead of encouraging the burghers
+to their support they spread dismay, as they ran, through every street.
+
+Young Lanzavecchia, penned into a corner of the castle; began to parley;
+hoping for a rally before a surrender should be necessary.  In the midst
+of the negotiation and a couple of hours before dawn, Hohenlo; duly
+apprised by the boatman, arrived with the vanguard of Maurice's troops
+before the field-gate of the fort.  A vain attempt was made to force this
+portal open, but the winter's ice had fixed it fast.  Hohenlo was obliged
+to batter down the palisade near the water-gate and enter by the same
+road through which the fatal turf-boat had passed.
+
+Soon after he had marched into the town at the head of a strong
+detachment, Prince Maurice himself arrived in great haste, attended by
+Philip Nassau, the Admiral Justinus Nassau, Count Solms, Peter van der
+Does, and Sir Francis Vere, and followed by another body of picked
+troops; the musicians playing merrily that national air, then as now so
+dear to Netherlanders--
+
+                   "Wilhelmus van Nassouwen
+                    Ben ick van Duytaem bloed."
+
+The fight was over.  Some forty of the garrison had been killed, but not
+a man of the attacking party.  The burgomaster sent a trumpet to the
+prince asking permission to come to the castle to arrange a capitulation;
+and before sunrise, the city and fortress of Breda had surrendered to the
+authority of the States-General and of his Excellency.
+
+The terms were moderate.  The plundering was commuted for the payment of
+two months' wages to every soldier engaged in the affair.  Burghers who
+might prefer to leave the city were allowed to do so with protection to
+life, and property.  Those who were willing to remain loyal citizens were
+not to be molested, in their consciences or their households, in regard
+to religion.  The public exercise of Catholic rites was however suspended
+until the States-General should make some universal provision on this
+subject.
+
+Subsequently, it must be allowed, the bargain of commutation proved a bad
+one for the burghers.  Seventy men had in reality done the whole work,
+but so many soldiers, belonging to the detachments who marched in after
+the fortress had been taken, came forward to claim their months' wages
+as to bring the whole amount required above one hundred thousand florins.
+The Spaniards accordingly reproached Prince Maurice with having fined his
+own patrimonial city more heavily than Alexander Farnese had mulcted
+Antwerp, which had been made to pay but four hundred thousand florins,
+a far less sum in proportion to the wealth and importance of the place.
+
+Already the Prince of Parma, in the taking of Breda, saw verified his
+predictions of the disasters about to fall on the Spanish interests in
+the Netherlands, by reason of Philip's obstinate determination to
+concentrate all his energies on the invasion of France.  Alexander had
+been unable, in the midst of preparations for his French campaign, to
+arrest this sudden capture, but his Italian blood was on fire at the
+ignominy which had come upon the soldiership of his countrymen.  Five
+companies of foot and one of horse-picked troops of Spain and Italy--had
+surrendered a wealthy, populous town and a well-fortified castle to a
+mud-scow, and had fled shrieking in dismay from the onset of seventy
+frost-bitten Hollanders.
+
+It was too late to save the town, but he could punish, as it deserved,
+the pusillanimity of the garrison.
+
+Three captains--one of them rejoicing in the martial name of Cesar
+Guerra--were publicly beheaded in Brussels.  A fourth, Ventimiglia,
+was degraded but allowed to escape with life, on account of his near
+relationship to the Duke of Terranova, while Governor Lanzavecchia was
+obliged to resign the command of Gertruydenberg.  The great commander
+knew better than to encourage the yielding up of cities and fortresses
+by a mistaken lenity to their unlucky defenders.
+
+Prince Maurice sent off letters the same night announcing his success to
+the States-General.  Hohenlo wrote pithily to Olden-Barneveld--"The
+castle and town of Breda are ours, without a single man dead on our side.
+The garrison made no resistance but ran distracted out of the town."
+
+The church bells rang and bonfires blazed and cannon thundered in every
+city in the United Provinces to commemorate this auspicious event.
+Olden-Barneveld, too, whose part in arranging the scheme was known to
+have been so valuable, received from the States-General a magnificent
+gilded vase with sculptured representations of the various scenes in the
+drama, and it is probable that not more unmingled satisfaction had been
+caused by any one event of the war than by this surprise of Breda.
+
+The capture of a single town, not of first-rate importance either, would
+hardly seem too merit so minute a description as has been given in the
+preceding pages.  But the event, with all its details, has been preserved
+with singular vividness in Netherland story.  As an example of daring,
+patience, and complete success, it has served to encourage the bold
+spirits of every generation and will always inspire emulation in
+patriotic hearts of every age and clime, while, as the first of a series
+of audacious enterprises by which Dutch victories were to take the place
+of a long procession of Spanish triumphs on the blood-stained soil of the
+provinces, it merits, from its chronological position, a more than
+ordinary attention.
+
+In the course of the summer Prince Maurice, carrying out into practice
+the lessons which he had so steadily been pondering, reduced the towns
+and strong places of Heyl, Flemert, Elshout, Crevecoeur, Hayden,
+Steenberg, Rosendaal, and Osterhout.  But his time, during the remainder
+of the year 1590, was occupied with preparations for a campaign on an
+extended scale and with certain foreign negotiations to which it will
+soon be necessary to direct the reader's attention.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+     Struggle of the United Provinces against Philip of Spain--Progress
+     of the Republic--Influence of Geographical position on the fate of
+     the Netherlands--Contrast offered by America--Miserable state of the
+     so--called "obedient" provinces--Prosperity of the Commonwealth--Its
+     internal government--Tendency to provincialism--Quibbles of the
+     English Members of the Council, Wilkes and Bodley--Exclusion of
+     Olden-Barneveld from the State Council--Proposals of Philip for
+     mediation with the United Provinces--The Provinces resolutely
+     decline all proffers of intervention.
+
+The United Provinces had now been engaged in unbroken civil war for a
+quarter of a century.  It is, however, inaccurate to designate this great
+struggle with tyranny as a civil war.  It was a war for independence,
+maintained by almost the whole population of the United Provinces against
+a foreigner, a despot, alien to their blood, ignorant of their language,
+a hater of their race, a scorner of their religion, a trampler upon their
+liberties, their laws, and institutions--a man who had publicly declared
+that he would rather the whole nation were exterminated than permitted to
+escape from subjection to the Church of Rome.  Liberty of speech, liberty
+of the press, liberty of thought on political, religious, and social
+questions existed within those Dutch pastures and Frisian swamps to a far
+greater degree than in any other part of the world at that day; than in
+very many regions of Christendom in our own time.  Personal slavery was
+unknown.  In a large portion of their territory it had never existed.
+The free Frisians, nearest blood-relations of, in this respect, the less
+favoured Anglo-Saxons, had never bowed the knee to the feudal system, nor
+worn nor caused to be worn the collar of the serf.  In the battles for
+human liberty no nation has stood with cleaner hands before the great
+tribunal, nor offered more spotless examples of patriotism to be emulated
+in all succeeding ages, than the Netherlanders in their gigantic struggle
+with Philip of Spain.  It was not a class struggling for their own
+privileges, but trampling on their fellow-men in a lower scale of
+humanity.  Kings and aristocrats sneered at the vulgar republic where
+Hans Miller, Hans Baker, and Hans Brewer enjoyed political rights end
+prated of a sovereignty other than that of long-descended races and of
+anointed heads.  Yet the pikemen of Spain and the splendid cavalry and
+musketeers of Italy and Burgundy, who were now beginning to show their
+backs both behind entrenchments and in the open field to their republican
+foes, could not deny the valour with which the battles of liberty were
+fought; while Elizabeth of England, maintainer, if such ever were, of
+hereditary sovereignty and hater of popular freedom, acknowledged that
+for wisdom in council, dignity and adroitness in diplomatic debate, there
+were none to surpass the plain burgher statesmen of the new republic.
+
+And at least these Netherlanders were consistent with themselves.  They
+had come to disbelieve in the mystery of kingcraft, in the divine
+speciality of a few transitory mortals to direct the world's events and
+to dictate laws to their fellow-creatures.  What they achieved was for
+the common good of all.  They chose to live in an atmosphere of blood and
+fire for generation after generation rather than flinch from their
+struggle with despotism, for they knew that, cruel as the sea, it would
+swallow them all at last in one common destruction if they faltered or
+paused.  They fought for the liberty of all.  And it is for this reason
+that the history of this great conflict deserved to be deeply pondered by
+those who have the instinct of human freedom.  Had the Hollanders basely
+sunk before the power of Spain, the proud history of England, France, and
+Germany would have been written in far different terms.  The blood and
+tears which the Netherlanders caused to flow in their own stormy days
+have turned to blessings for remotest climes and ages.  A pusillanimous
+peace, always possible at any period of their war, would have been hailed
+with rapture by contemporary statesmen, whose names have vanished from
+the world's memory; but would have sown with curses and misery the soil
+of Europe for succeeding ages.  The territory of the Netherlands is
+narrow and meagre.  It is but a slender kingdom now among the powers of
+the earth.  The political grandeur of nations is determined by physical
+causes almost as much as by moral ones.  Had the cataclysm which
+separated the fortunate British islands from the mainland happened to
+occur, instead, at a neighbouring point of the earth's crust; had the
+Belgian, Dutch, German and Danish Netherland floated off as one island
+into the sea, while that famous channel between two great rival nations
+remained dry land, there would have been a different history of the
+world.
+
+But in the 16th century the history of one country was not an isolated
+chapter of personages and events.  The history of the Netherlands is
+history of liberty.  It was now combined with the English, now with
+French, with German struggles for political and religious freedom, but it
+is impossible to separate it from the one great complex which makes up
+the last half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth
+centuries.
+
+At that day the Netherland republic was already becoming a power of
+importance in the political family of Christendom.  If, in spite of her
+geographical disadvantages, she achieved so much, how much vaster might
+her power have grown, how much stronger through her example might popular
+institutions throughout the world have become, and how much more pacific
+the relations of European tribes, had nature been less niggard in her
+gifts to the young commonwealth.  On the sea she was strong, for the
+ocean is the best of frontiers; but on land her natural boundaries faded
+vaguely away, without strong physical demarcations and with no sharply
+defined limits of tongue, history or race.  Accident or human caprice
+seemed to have divided German Highland from German Netherland; Belgic
+Gaul from the rest of the Gallic realm.  And even from the slender body,
+which an arbitrary destiny had set off for centuries into a separate
+organism, tyranny and religious bigotry had just hewn another portion
+away.  But the commonwealth was already too highly vitalized to permit
+peaceful dismemberment.  Only the low organisms can live in all their
+parts after violent separations.  The trunk remained, bleeding but alive
+and vigorous, while the amputated portion lay for centuries in fossilized
+impotence.
+
+Never more plainly than in the history of this commonwealth was the
+geographical law manifested by which the fate of nations is so deeply
+influenced.  Courage, enterprise amounting almost to audacity, and a
+determined will confronted for a long lapse of time the inexorable, and
+permitted a great empire to germinate out of a few sand-banks held in
+defiance of the ocean, and protected from human encroachments on the
+interior only by the artificial barrier of custom-house and fort.
+
+Thus foredoomed at birth, it must increase our admiration of human energy
+and of the sustaining influence of municipal liberty that the republic,
+even if transitory, should yet have girdled the earth with its
+possessions and held for a considerable period so vast a portion
+of the world in fee.
+
+What a lesson to our transatlantic commonwealth, whom bountiful nature
+had blessed at her birth beyond all the nations of history and seemed to
+speed upon an unlimited career of freedom and peaceful prosperity, should
+she be capable at the first alarm on her track to throw away her
+inestimable advantages!  If all history is not a mockery and a fable,
+she may be sure that the nation which deliberately carves itself in
+pieces and, substitutes artificial boundaries for the natural and
+historic ones, condemns itself either to extinction or to the lower life
+of political insignificance and petty warfare, with the certain loss of
+liberty and national independence at last.  Better a terrible struggle,
+better the sacrifice of prosperity and happiness for years, than the
+eternal setting of that great popular hope, the United American Republic.
+
+I speak in this digression only of the relations of physical nature to
+liberty and nationality, making no allusion to the equally stringent
+moral laws which no people can violate and yet remain in health and
+vigour.
+
+Despite a quarter of a century of what is commonly termed civil war,
+the United Netherlands were prosperous and full of life.  It was in the
+provinces which had seceded from the union of Utrecht that there was
+silence as of the grave, destitution, slavery, abject submission to a
+foreign foe.  The leaders in the movement which had brought about the
+scission of 1579--commonly called the 'Reconciliation'--enjoyed military
+and civil posts under a foreign tyrant, but were poorly rewarded for
+subserviency in fighting against their own brethren by contumely on the
+part of their masters.  As for the mass of the people it would be
+difficult to find a desolation more complete than that recorded of the
+"obedient" provinces.  Even as six years before, wolves littered their
+whelps in deserted farmhouses, cane-brake and thicket usurped the place
+of cornfield and, orchard, robbers swarmed on the highways once thronged
+by a most thriving population, nobles begged their bread in the streets
+of cities whose merchants once entertained emperors and whose wealth and
+traffic were the wonder of the world, while the Spanish viceroy formally
+permitted the land in the agricultural districts to be occupied and
+farmed by the first comer for his own benefit, until the vanished
+proprietors of the soil should make their re-appearance.
+
+"Administered without justice or policy," said a Netherlander who was
+intensely loyal to the king and a most uncompromising Catholic, "eaten up
+and abandoned for that purpose to the arbitrary will of foreigners who
+suck the substance and marrow of the land without benefit to the king,
+gnaw the obedient cities to the bones, and plunder the open defenceless
+country at their pleasure, it may be imagined how much satisfaction these
+provinces take in their condition.  Commerce and trade have ceased in a
+country which traffic alone has peopled, for without it no human
+habitation could be more miserable and poor than our land."--[Discours
+du Seigneur de Champagny sur les affaires des Pays Bas, 21 Dec. 1589.
+Bibl. de Bourgogne, MS. No. 12,962.]
+
+Nothing could be more gloomy than the evils thus described by the
+Netherland statesman and soldier, except the remedy which he suggested.
+The obedient provinces, thus scourged and blasted for their obedience,
+were not advised to improve their condition by joining hands with their
+sister States, who had just constituted themselves by their noble
+resistance to royal and ecclesiastical tyranny into a free and powerful
+commonwealth.  On the contrary, two great sources of regeneration and
+prosperity were indicated, but very different ones from those in which
+the republic had sought and found her strength.  In the first place, it
+was suggested as indispensable that the obedient provinces should have
+more Jesuits and more Friars.  The mendicant orders should be summoned to
+renewed exertions, and the king should be requested to send seminary
+priests to every village in numbers proportionate to the population, who
+should go about from house to house, counting the children, and seeing
+that they learned their catechism if their parents did not teach them,
+and, even in case they did, examining whether it was done thoroughly and
+without deception.
+
+In the second place it was laid down as important that the bishops should
+confirm no one who had not been sufficiently catechized.  "And if the
+mendicant orders," said Champagny, "are not numerous enough for these
+catechizations, the Jesuits might charge themselves therewith, not more
+and not less than the said mendicants, some of each being deputed to each
+parish.  To this end it would be well if his Majesty should obtain from
+the Pope a command to the Jesuits to this effect, since otherwise they
+might not be willing to comply.  It should also be ordered that all
+Jesuits, natives of these provinces, should return hither, instead of
+wandering about in other regions as if their help were not so necessary
+here."--[Ibid.]
+
+It was also recommended that the mendicant friars should turn their
+particular attention to Antwerp, and that one of them should preach in
+French, another in German, another in English, every day at the opening
+of the Exchange.
+
+With these appliances it was thought that Antwerp would revive out of
+its ruins and, despite the blockade of its river, renew its ancient
+commercial glories.  Founded on the substantial rocks of mendicancy and
+jesuitism, it might again triumph over its rapidly rising rival, the
+heretic Amsterdam, which had no better basis for its grandeur than
+religious and political liberty, and uncontrolled access to the ocean.
+
+Such were the aspirations of a distinguished and loyal Netherlander for
+the regeneration of his country.  Such were his opinions as to the true
+sources of the wealth and greatness of nations.  Can we wonder that the
+country fell to decay, or that this experienced, statesman and brave
+soldier should himself, after not many years, seek to hide his
+dishonoured head under the cowl of a monk?
+
+The coast of the obedient provinces was thoroughly blockaded.  The United
+Provinces commanded the sea, their cruisers, large and small, keeping
+diligent watch off every port and estuary of the Flemish coast, so that
+not a herringboat could enter without their permission.  Antwerp, when it
+fell into the hands of the Spaniard, sank for ever from its proud
+position.  The city which Venetians but lately had confessed with a sigh
+to be superior in commercial grandeur to their own magnificent capital,
+had ceased to be a seaport.  Shut in from the ocean by Flushing--firmly
+held by an English garrison as one of the cautionary towns for the
+Queen's loan--her world-wide commerce withered before men's eyes.  Her
+population was dwindling to not much more than half its former numbers,
+while Ghent, Bruges, and other cities were diminished by two-thirds.
+
+On the other hand, the commerce and manufactures of the United Republic
+had enormously augmented.  Its bitterest enemies bore witness to the
+sagacity and success by which its political affairs were administered,
+and to its vast superiority in this respect over the obedient provinces.
+"The rebels are not ignorant of our condition," said Champagny, "they are
+themselves governed with consummate wisdom, and they mock at those who
+submit themselves to the Duke of Parma.  They are the more confirmed in
+their rebellion, when they see how many are thronging from us to them,
+complaining of such bad government, and that all take refuge in flight
+who can from the misery and famine which it has caused throughout these
+provinces!"  The industrial population had flowed from the southern
+provinces into the north, in obedience to an irresistible law.  The
+workers in iron, paper, silk, linen, lace, the makers of brocade,
+tapestry, and satin, as well as of all the coarser fabrics, had fled from
+the land of oppression to the land of liberty.  Never in the history of
+civilisation had there been a more rapid development of human industry
+than in Holland during these years of bloodiest warfare.  The towns were
+filled to overflowing.  Amsterdam multiplied in wealth and population as
+fast as Antwerp shrank.  Almost as much might be said of Middelburg,
+Enkhuyzen, Horn, and many other cities.  It is the epoch to which the
+greatest expansion of municipal architecture is traced.  Warehouses,
+palaces, docks, arsenals, fortifications, dykes, splendid streets and
+suburbs, were constructed on every side, and still there was not room for
+the constantly increasing population, large numbers of which habitually
+dwelt in the shipping.  For even of that narrow span of earth called the
+province of Holland, one-third was then interior water, divided into five
+considerable lakes, those of Harlem, Schermer, Beemster, Waert, and
+Purmer.  The sea was kept out by a magnificent system of dykes under
+the daily superintendence of a board of officers, called dyke-graves,
+while the rain-water, which might otherwise have drowned the soil thus
+painfully reclaimed, was pumped up by windmills and drained off through
+sluices opening and closing with the movement of the tides.
+
+The province of Zeeland was one vast "polder."  It was encircled by an
+outer dyke of forty Dutch equal to one hundred and fifty English, miles
+in extent, and traversed by many interior barriers.  The average cost of
+dyke-building was sixty florins the rod of twelve feet, or 84,000 florins
+the Dutch mile.  The total cost of the Zeeland dykes was estimated at
+3,360,000 florins, besides the annual repairs.
+
+But it was on the sea that the Netherlanders were really at home, and
+they always felt it in their power--as their last resource against
+foreign tyranny--to bury their land for ever in the ocean, and to seek a
+new country at the ends of the earth.  It has always been difficult to
+doom to political or personal slavery a nation accustomed to maritime
+pursuits.  Familiarity with the boundless expanse of ocean, and the habit
+of victoriously contending with the elements in their stormy strength,
+would seem to inspire a consciousness in mankind of human dignity and
+worth.  With the exception of Spain, the chief seafaring nations of the
+world were already protestant.  The counter-league, which was to do
+battle so strenuously with the Holy Confederacy, was essentially a
+maritime league.  "All the maritime heretics of the world, since heresy
+is best suited to navigators, will be banded together," said Champagny,
+"and then woe to the Spanish Indies, which England and Holland are
+already threatening."
+
+The Netherlanders had been noted from earliest times for a free-spoken
+and independent personal demeanour.  At this epoch they were taking the
+lead of the whole world in marine adventure.  At least three thousand
+vessels of between one hundred and four hundred tons, besides innumerable
+doggers, busses, cromstevens, and similar craft used on the rivers and in
+fisheries, were to be found in the United Provinces, and one thousand,
+it was estimated, were annually built.
+
+They traded to the Baltic regions for honey, wax, tallow, lumber, iron,
+turpentine, hemp.  They brought from farthest Indies and from America all
+the fabrics of ancient civilisation, all the newly discovered products of
+a virgin soil, and dispensed them among the less industrious nations of
+the earth.  Enterprise, led on and accompanied by science, was already
+planning the boldest flights into the unknown yet made by mankind, and
+it will soon be necessary to direct attention to those famous arctic
+voyages, made by Hollanders in pursuit of the north-west passage to
+Cathay, in which as much heroism, audacity, and scientific intelligence
+were displayed as in later times have made so many men belonging to both
+branches of the Anglo-Saxon race illustrious.  A people, engaged in
+perennial conflict with a martial and sacerdotal despotism the most
+powerful in the world, could yet spare enough from its superfluous
+energies to confront the dangers of the polar oceans, and to bring back
+treasures of science to enrich the world.
+
+Such was the spirit of freedom.  Inspired by its blessed influence this
+vigorous and inventive little commonwealth triumphed over all human, all
+physical obstacles in its path.  It organised armies on new principles
+to drive the most famous legions of history from its soil.  It built
+navies to help rescue, at critical moments, the cause of England, of
+Protestantism, of civil liberty, and even of French nationality.  More
+than all, by its trade with its arch-enemy, the republic constantly
+multiplied its resources for destroying his power and aggrandizing its
+own.
+
+The war navy of the United Provinces was a regular force of one hundred
+ships--large at a period when a vessel of thirteen hundred tons was a
+monster--together with an indefinite number of smaller craft, which could
+be put into the public service on short notice?  In those days of close
+quarters and light artillery a merchant ship was converted into a cruiser
+by a very simple, process.  The navy was a self-supporting one, for it
+was paid by the produce of convoy fees and licenses to trade.  It must be
+confessed that a portion of these revenues savoured much of black-mail to
+be levied on friend and foe; for the distinctions between, freebooter,
+privateer, pirate, and legitimate sea-robber were not very closely drawn
+in those early days of seafaring.
+
+Prince Maurice of Nassau was lord high admiral, but he was obliged to
+listen to the counsels of various provincial boards of admiralty, which
+often impeded his action and interfered with his schemes.
+
+It cannot be denied that the inherent vice of the Netherland polity was
+already a tendency to decentralisation and provincialism.  The civil
+institutions of the country, in their main characteristics, have been
+frequently sketched in these pages.  At this period they had entered
+almost completely into the forms which were destined to endure until the
+commonwealth fell in the great crash of the French Revolution.  Their
+beneficial effects were more visible now--sustained and bound together as
+the nation was by the sense of a common danger, and by the consciousness
+of its daily developing strength--than at a later day when prosperity and
+luxury had blunted the fine instincts of patriotism.
+
+The supreme power, after the deposition of Philip, and the refusal by
+France and by England to accept the sovereignty of the provinces, was
+definitely lodged in the States-General.  But the States-General did not
+technically represent the, people.  Its members were not elected by the
+people.  It was a body composed of, delegates from each provincial
+assembly, of which there were now five: Holland, Zeeland, Friesland,
+Utrecht, and Gelderland.  Each provincial assembly consisted again of
+delegates, not from the inhabitants of the provinces, but from the
+magistracies of the cities.  Those, magistracies, again, were not elected
+by the citizens.  They elected themselves by renewing their own
+vacancies, and were, in short, immortal corporations.  Thus, in final
+analysis, the supreme power was distributed and localised among the
+mayors and aldermen of a large number of cities, all independent alike
+of the people below and of any central power above.
+
+It is true that the nobles, as, a class, had a voice in the provincial
+and, in the general assembly, both for themselves and as technical
+representatives of the smaller towns and of the rural population.  But,
+as a matter of fact, the influence of this caste had of late years very
+rapidly diminished, through its decrease in numbers, and the far more
+rapid increase in wealth and power of the commercial and manufacturing
+classes.  Individual nobles were constantly employed in the military,
+civil, and diplomatic service of the republic, but their body had ceased
+to be a power.  It had been.  the policy of William the Silent to
+increase the number of cities entitled to send deputies to the States;
+for it was among the cities that his resistance to the tyranny of Spain,
+and his efforts to obtain complete independence for his country, had been
+mainly supported.  Many of the great nobles, as has been seen in these
+pages, denounced the liberator and took sides with the tyrant.  Lamoral
+Egmont had walked to the scaffold to which Philip had condemned him,
+chanting a prayer for Philip's welfare.  Egmont's eldest son was now
+foremost in the Spanish army, doing battle against his own country in
+behalf of the tyrant who had taken his father's life.  Aremberg and
+Ligny, Arachot, Chimay, Croy, Caprea, Montigny, and most of the great
+patrician families of the Netherlands fought on the royal side.
+
+The revolution which had saved the country from perdition and created the
+great Netherland republic was a burgher revolution, and burgher statesmen
+now controlled the State.  The burgher class of Europe is not the one
+that has been foremost in the revolutionary movements of history,
+or that has distinguished itself--especially in more modern times--
+by a passionate love of liberty.  It is always easy to sneer at Hans
+Miller and Hans Baker, and at the country where such plebeians are
+powerful.  Yet the burghers played a prominent part in the great drama
+which forms my theme, and there has rarely been seen a more solid or
+powerful type of their class than the burgher statesman, John of Olden-
+Barneveld, who, since the death of William the Silent and the departure
+of Lord Leicester, had mainly guided the destinies of Holland.  Certainly
+no soldier nor statesman who ever measured intellects with that potent
+personage was apt to treat his genius otherwise than with profound
+respect.
+
+But it is difficult to form a logical theory of government except on the
+fiction of divine right as a basis, unless the fact of popular
+sovereignty, as expressed by a majority, be frankly accepted in spite of
+philosophical objections.
+
+In the Netherlands there was no king, and strictly speaking no people.
+But this latter and fatal defect was not visible in the period of danger
+and of contest.  The native magistrates of that age were singularly pure,
+upright, and patriotic.  Of this there is no question whatever.  And the
+people acquiesced cheerfully in their authority, not claiming a larger
+representation than such as they virtually possessed in the multiple
+power exercised over them, by men moving daily among them, often of
+modest fortunes and of simple lives.  Two generations later, and in the
+wilderness of Massachusetts, the early American colonists voluntarily
+placed in the hands of their magistrates, few in number, unlimited
+control of all the functions of government, and there was hardly an
+instance known of an impure exercise of authority.  Yet out of that
+simple kernel grew the least limited and most powerful democracy ever
+known.
+
+In the later days of Netherland history a different result became
+visible, and with it came the ruin of the State.  The governing class, of
+burgher origin, gradually separated itself from the rest of the citizens,
+withdrew from commercial pursuits, lived on hereditary fortunes in the
+exercise of functions which were likewise virtually hereditary, and so
+became an oligarchy.  This result, together with the physical causes
+already indicated, made the downfall of the commonwealth probable
+whenever it should be attacked by an overwhelming force from without.
+
+The States-General, however, at this epoch--although they had in a manner
+usurped the sovereignty, which in the absence of a feudal lord really
+belonged to the whole people, and had silently repossessed themselves of
+those executive functions which they had themselves conferred upon the
+state council--were at any rate without self-seeking ambition.  The
+Hollanders, as a race, were not office seekers, but were singularly
+docile to constituted authority, while their regents--as the municipal
+magistrates were commonly called--were not very far removed above the
+mass by birth or habitual occupation.  The republic was a social and
+political fact, against which there was no violent antagonism either of
+laws or manners, and the people, although not technically existing, in
+reality was all in all.  In Netherland story the People is ever the true
+hero.  It was an almost unnoticed but significant revolution--that by
+which the state council was now virtually deprived of its authority.
+During Leicester's rule it had been a most important college of
+administration.  Since his resignation it had been entrusted by the
+States-General with high executive functions, especially in war matters.
+It was an assembly of learned counsellors appointed from the various
+provinces for wisdom and experience, usually about eighteen in number,
+and sworn in all things to be faithful to the whole republic.  The
+allegiance of all was rendered to the nation.  Each individual member was
+required to "forswear his native province in order to be true to the
+generality."  They deliberated in common for the general good, and were
+not hampered by instructions from the provincial diets, nor compelled to
+refer to those diets for decision when important questions were at issue.
+It was an independent executive committee for the whole republic.
+
+But Leicester had made it unpopular.  His intrigues, in the name of
+democracy, to obtain possession of sovereign power, to inflame the lower
+classes against the municipal magistracies, and to excite the clergy to
+claim a political influence to which they were not entitled and which was
+most mischievous in its effects, had exposed the state council, with
+which he had been in the habit of consulting, to suspicion.
+
+The Queen of England, by virtue of her treaty had the right to appoint
+two of her subjects to be members of the council.  The governor of her
+auxiliary forces was also entitled to a seat there.  Since the
+malpractices of Leicester and the danger to which the country had been,
+subjected in consequence had been discovered, it was impossible that
+there should be very kindly feeling toward England in the public mind,
+however necessary a sincere alliance between the two countries was known
+to be for the welfare of both.
+
+The bickering of the two English councillors, Wilkes and Bodley,
+and of the governor of the English contingent with the Hollanders,
+was incessant.  The Englishmen went so far as to claim the right of
+veto upon all measures passed by the council, but the States-General
+indignantly replied that the matters deliberated and decided upon by that
+board were their own affairs, not the state affairs of England.  The two
+members and the military officer who together represented her Majesty
+were entitled to participate in the deliberations and to vote with their
+brother members.  For them to claim the right, however, at will to annul
+the proceedings was an intolerable assumption, and could not be listened
+to for a moment.  Certainly it would have been strange had two Dutchmen
+undertaken to veto every measure passed by the Queen's council at
+Richmond or Windsor, and it was difficult to say on what article of the
+contract this extraordinary privilege was claimed by Englishmen at the
+Hague.
+
+Another cause of quarrel was the inability of the Englishmen to
+understand the language in which the debates of the state council were
+held.
+
+According to a custom not entirely unexampled in parliamentary history
+the members of assembly and council made use of their native tongue in
+discussing the state affairs of their native land.  It was however
+considered a grievance by the two English members that the Dutchmen
+should speak Dutch, and it was demanded in the Queen's name that they
+should employ some other language which a foreigner could more easily
+understand.
+
+The Hollanders however refused this request, not believing that in a
+reversed case her Majesty's Council or Houses of Parliament would be
+likely or competent to carry on their discussions habitually in Italian
+or Latin for the benefit of a couple of strangers who might not be
+familiar with English.  The more natural remedy would have been for the
+foreigners to take lessons in the tongue of the country, or to seek for
+an interpreter among their colleagues; especially as the States, when all
+the Netherlands were but provinces, had steadily refused to adopt any
+language but their mother tongue, even at the demand of their sovereign
+prince.
+
+At this moment, Sir Thomas Bodley was mainly entrusted with her Majesty's
+affairs at the Hague, but his overbearing demeanour, intemperate
+language, and passionate style of correspondence with the States and with
+the royal government, did much injury to both countries.  The illustrious
+Walsingham--whose death in the spring of this year England had so much
+reason to deplore--had bitterly lamented, just before his death, having
+recommended so unquiet a spirit for so important a place.  Ortel, envoy
+of the States to London, expressed his hopes that affairs would now be
+handled more to the satisfaction of the States; as Bodley would be
+obliged, since the death of Sir Francis, to address his letters to the
+Lord High Treasurer, with whom it would be impossible for him to obtain
+so much influence as he had enjoyed with the late Secretary of State.
+
+Moreover it was exactly at this season that the Advocate of Holland,
+Olden-Barneveld, was excluded from the state council.  Already the
+important province of Holland was dissatisfied with its influence in that
+body.  Bearing one-half of the whole burthen of the war it was not
+content with one-quarter of the council vote, and very soon it became the
+custom for the States-General to conduct all the most important affairs
+of the republic.   The state council complained that even in war matters
+it was not consulted, and that most important enterprises were undertaken
+by Prince Maurice without its knowledge, and on advice of the Advocate
+alone.  Doubtless this was true, and thus, most unfortunately, the
+commonwealth was degraded to a confederacy instead of becoming an
+incorporate federal State.  The members of the States-General--as it
+has been seen were responsible only to their constituents, the separate
+provinces.  They avowed allegiance, each to his own province, none to the
+central government.  Moreover they were not representatives, but envoys,
+appointed by petty provinces, bound by written orders, and obliged to
+consult at every step with their sovereigns at home.  The Netherland
+polity was thus stamped almost at its birth with a narrow provincialism:
+Delay and hesitation thus necessarily engendered were overcome in the
+days of danger by patriotic fervour.  The instinct of union for the
+sake of the national existence was sufficiently strong, and the robust,
+practical common sense of the people sufficiently enlightened to prevent
+this weakness from degenerating into impotence so long as the war
+pressure remained to mould them into a whole.  But a day was to come for
+bitterly rueing this paralysis of the imperial instincts of the people,
+this indefinite decentralisation of the national strength.
+
+For the present, the legislative and executive body was the States-
+General.  But the States-General were in reality the States provincial,
+and the States provincial were the city municipalities, among which the
+magistracies of Holland were preponderant.
+
+Ere long it became impossible for an individual to resist the decrees of
+the civic authorities.  In 1591, the States-General passed a resolution
+by which these arrogant corporations virtually procured their exemption
+from any process at the suit of a private person to be placed on record.
+So far could the principle of sovereignty be pulverized.  City council
+boards had become supreme.
+
+It was naturally impossible during the long continuance of this great
+struggle, that neutral nations should not be injuriously affected by it
+in a variety of ways.  And as a matter of course neutral nations were
+disposed to counsel peace.  Peace, peace; peace was the sigh of the
+bystanders whose commerce was impeded, whose international relations.
+were complicated, and whose own security was endangered in the course of
+the bloody conflict.  It was however not very much the fashion of that
+day for governments to obtrude advice upon each other; or to read to each
+other moral lectures.  It was assumed that when the expense and sacrifice
+of war had been incurred, it was for cause, and the discovery had not yet
+been made that those not immediately interested in the fray were better
+acquainted with its merits than, the combatants themselves, and were
+moreover endued with, superhuman wisdom to see with perfect clearness
+that future issue which to the parties themselves was concealed.
+
+Cheap apothegms upon the blessings of peace and upon the expediency of
+curbing the angry passions, uttered by the belligerents of yesterday to
+the belligerents of to-day, did not then pass current for profound
+wisdom.
+
+Still the emperor Rudolph, abstaining for a time from his star-gazing,
+had again thought proper to make a feeble attempt at intervention in
+those sublunary matters which were supposed to be within his sphere.
+
+It was perfectly well known that Philip was incapable of abating one jot
+of his pretensions, and that to propose mediation to the United Provinces
+was simply to request them, for the convenience of other powers, to
+return to the slavery out of which, by the persistent efforts of a
+quarter of a century, they had struggled.  Nevertheless it was formally
+proposed to re-open those lukewarm fountains of diplomatic commonplace in
+which healing had been sought during the peace negotiations of Cologne in
+the year 1579.  But the States-General resolutely kept them sealed.  They
+simply answered his imperial Majesty by a communication of certain
+intercepted correspondence between--the King of Spain and his ambassador
+at Vienna, San Clemente, through which it was satisfactorily established
+that any negotiation would prove as gigantic a comedy on the part of
+Spain as had been the memorable conferences at Ostend, by which the
+invasion of England had been masked.
+
+There never was a possibility of mediation or of compromise except by
+complete submission on the part of the Netherlanders to Crown and Church.
+Both in this, as well as in previous and subsequent attempts at
+negotiations, the secret instructions of Philip forbade any real
+concessions on his side.  He was always ready to negotiate, he was
+especially anxious to obtain a suspension of arms from the rebels during
+negotiation; but his agents were instructed to use great dexterity and
+dissimulation in order that the proposal for such armistice, as well as
+for negotiation at all, should appear to proceed, not from himself as was
+the fact, but from the emperor as a neutral potentate.  The king
+uniformly proposed three points; firstly, that the rebels should
+reconvert themselves to the Catholic religion; secondly, that they should
+return to their obedience to himself; thirdly, that they should pay the
+expenses of the war.  Number three was, however, usually inserted in
+order that, by conceding it subsequently, after much contestation, he
+might appear conciliatory.  It was a vehicle of magnanimity towards men
+grown insolent with temporary success.  Numbers one and two were
+immutable.
+
+Especially upon number one was concession impossible.  "The Catholic
+religion is the first thing," said Philip, "and although the rebels do
+not cease to insist that liberty of conscience should be granted them,
+in order that they may preserve that which they have had during these
+past years, this is never to be thought of in any event."  The king
+always made free use of the terrible weapon which the Protestant princes
+of Germany had placed in his hands.  For indeed if it were right that one
+man, because possessed of hereditary power over millions of his fellow
+creatures, should compel them all to accept the dogmas of Luther or of
+Calvin because agreeable to himself, it was difficult to say why another
+man, in a similarly elevated position, might not compel his subjects to
+accept the creed of Trent, or the doctrines of Mahomet or Confucius.
+The Netherlanders were fighting--even more than they knew-for liberty
+of conscience, for equality of all religions; not for Moses, nor for
+Melancthon; for Henry, Philip, or Pius; while Philip justly urged that no
+prince in Christendom permitted license.  "Let them well understand,"
+said his Majesty, "that since others who live in error, hold the opinion
+that vassals are to conform to the religion of their master, it is
+insufferable that it should be proposed to me that my vassals should have
+a different religion from mine--and that too being the true religion,
+proved by so many testimonies and miracles, while all others are
+deception.  This must be arranged with the authority of the commissioners
+of the emperor, since it is well understood by them that the vassal is
+never to differ from the opinion of his master."  Certainly it was worth
+an eighty years' war to drive such blasphemous madness as this out of
+human heads, whether crowned or shaven.
+
+There was likewise a diet held during the summer of this year, of the
+circles of the empire nearest to the Netherlands--Westphalia, Cleves,
+Juliers, and Saxony--from which commissioners were deputed both to
+Brussels and to the Hague, to complain of the misfortunes suffered by
+neutral and neighbouring nations in consequence of the civil war.
+
+They took nothing by their mission to the Duke of Parma.  At the Hague
+the deputies were heard on the 22nd August, 1590.  They complained to the
+States-General of "brandschatting" on the border, of the holding of forts
+beyond the lines, and of other invasions of neutral territory, of the
+cruising of the war-vessels of the States off the shores and on the
+rivers, and of their interference with lawful traders.  Threats were made
+of forcible intervention and reprisals.
+
+The united States replied on the 13th September.  Expressing deep regret
+that neutral nations should suffer, they pronounced it to be impossible
+but that some sparks from the great fire, now desolating their land,
+should fly over into their neighbours' ground.  The States were fighting
+the battle of liberty against slavery, in which the future generations of
+Germany, as well as of the Netherlands were interested.  They were
+combating that horrible institution, the Holy Inquisition.  They were
+doing their best to strike down the universal monarchy of Spain, which
+they described as a bloodthirsty, insatiable, insolent, absolute dominion
+of Saracenic, Moorish Christians.  They warred with a system which placed
+inquisitors on the seats of judges, which made it unlawful to read the
+Scriptures, which violated all oaths, suppressed all civic freedom,
+trampled, on all laws and customs, raised inordinate taxes by arbitrary
+decree, and subjected high and low to indiscriminate murder.  Spain had
+sworn the destruction of the provinces and their subjugation to her
+absolute dominion, in order to carry out her scheme of universal empire.
+
+These were the deeds and designs against which the States were waging
+that war, concerning some inconvenient results of which their neighbours,
+now happily neutral, were complaining.  But the cause of the States was
+the cause of humanity itself.  This Saracenic, Moorish, universal
+monarchy had been seen by Germany to murder, despoil, and trample upon
+the Netherlands.  It had murdered millions of innocent Indians and
+Granadians.  It had kept Naples and Milan in abject slavery.  It had
+seized Portugal.  It had deliberately planned and attempted an accursed
+invasion of England and Ireland.  It had overrun and plundered many
+cities of the empire.  It had spread a web of secret intrigue about
+Scotland.  At last it was sending great armies to conquer France and
+snatch its crown.  Poor France now saw the plans of this Spanish tyranny
+and bewailed her misery.  The subjects of her lawful king were ordered to
+rise against him, on account of religion and conscience.  Such holy
+pretexts were used by these Saracenic Christians in order to gain
+possession of that kingdom.
+
+For all these reasons, men should not reproach the inhabitants of the
+Netherlands, because seeing the aims of this accursed tyranny, they had
+set themselves to resist it.  It was contrary to reason to consider them
+as disturbers of the general peace, or to hold them guilty of violating
+their oaths or their duty to the laws of the holy empire.  The States-
+General were sure that they had been hitherto faithful and loyal, and
+they were resolved to continue in that path.
+
+As members of the holy empire, in part--as of old they were considered to
+be--they had rather the right to expect, instead of reproaches,
+assistance against the enormous power and inhuman oppression of their
+enemies.  They had demanded it heretofore by their ambassadors, and they
+still continued to claim it.  They urged that, according to the laws of
+the empire, all foreign soldiers, Spaniards, Saracens, and the like
+should be driven out of the limits of the empire.  Through these means
+the German Highland and the German Netherland might be restored once more
+to their old friendship and unity, and might deal with each other again
+in amity and commerce.
+
+If, however, such requests could not be granted they at least begged his
+electoral highness and the other dukes, lords, and states to put on the
+deeds of Netherlanders in this laborious and heavy war the best
+interpretation, in order that they might, with the better courage and
+resolution, bear those inevitable burthens which were becoming daily
+heavier in this task of resistance and self-protection; in order that the
+provinces might not be utterly conquered, and serve, with their natural
+resources and advantageous situation, as 'sedes et media belli' for the
+destruction of neighbouring States and the building up of the
+contemplated universal, absolute monarchy.
+
+The United Provinces had been compelled by overpowering necessity to
+take up arms.  That which had resulted was and remained in 'terminis
+defensionis.'  Their object was to protect what belonged to them, to
+recover that which by force or fraud had been taken from them.
+
+In regard to excesses committed by their troops against neutral
+inhabitants on the border, they expressed a strong regret, together with
+a disposition to make all proper retribution and to cause all crimes to
+be punished.
+
+They alluded to the enormous sins of this nature practised by the enemy
+against neutral soil.  They recalled to mind that the Spaniards paid
+their troops ill or not at all, and that they allowed them to plunder the
+innocent and the neutral, while the United States had paid their troops
+better wages, and more punctually, than had ever been done by the
+greatest potentates of Europe.  It was true that the States kept many
+cruisers off the coasts and upon the rivers, but these were to protect
+their own citizens and friendly traders against pirates and against the
+common foe.  Germany derived as much benefit from this system as did the
+Provinces themselves.
+
+Thus did the States-General, respectfully but resolutely, decline all
+proffers of intervention, which, as they were well aware, could only
+enure to the benefit of the enemy.  Thus did they avoid being entrapped
+into negotiations which could only prove the most lamentable of comedies.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+A pusillanimous peace, always possible at any period
+At length the twig was becoming the tree
+Being the true religion, proved by so many testimonies
+Certainly it was worth an eighty years' war
+Chief seafaring nations of the world were already protestant
+Conceding it subsequently, after much contestation
+Fled from the land of oppression to the land of liberty
+German Highland and the German Netherland
+Little army of Maurice was becoming the model for Europe
+Luxury had blunted the fine instincts of patriotism
+Maritime heretics
+Portion of these revenues savoured much of black-mail
+The divine speciality of a few transitory mortals
+The history of the Netherlands is history of liberty
+The nation which deliberately carves itself in pieces
+They had come to disbelieve in the mystery of kingcraft
+Worn nor caused to be worn the collar of the serf
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v61
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 62, 1590
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+     Philip's scheme of aggrandizement--Projected invasion of France--
+     Internal condition of France--Character of Henry of Navarre--
+     Preparation for action--Battle of Ivry--Victory of the French king
+     over the League--Reluctance of the King to attack the French
+     capital--Siege of Paris--The pope indisposed towards the League--
+     Extraordinary demonstration of ecclesiastics--Influence of the
+     priests--Extremities of the siege--Attempted negotiation--State of
+     Philip's army--Difficult position of Farnese--March of the allies to
+     the relief of Paris--Lagny taken and the city relieved--Desertion of
+     the king's army--Siege of Corbeil--Death of Pope Sixtus V.--
+     Re-capture of Lagny and Corbeil--Return of Parma to the Netherlands
+     --Result of the expedition.
+
+The scene of the narrative shifts to France.  The history of the United
+Netherlands at this epoch is a world-history.  Were it not so, it would
+have far less of moral and instruction for all time than it is really
+capable of affording.  The battle of liberty against despotism was now
+fought in the hop-fields of Brabant or the polders of Friesland, now in
+the: narrow seas which encircle England, and now on the sunny plains of
+Dauphiny, among the craggy inlets of Brittany, or along the high roads
+and rivers which lead to the gates of Paris.  But everywhere a noiseless,
+secret, but ubiquitous negotiation was speeding with never an instant's
+pause to accomplish the work which lansquenettes and riders, pikemen and
+carabineers were contending for on a hundred battle-fields and amid a din
+of arms which for a quarter of a century had been the regular hum of
+human industry.  For nearly a generation of mankind, Germans and
+Hollanders, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Scotchmen, Irishmen, Spaniards and
+Italians seemed to be born into the world mainly to fight for or against
+a system of universal monarchy, conceived for his own benefit by a quiet
+old man who passed his days at a writing desk in a remote corner of
+Europe.  It must be confessed that Philip II. gave the world work enough.
+Whether--had the peoples governed themselves--their energies might not
+have been exerted in a different direction, and on the whole have
+produced more of good to the human race than came of all this blood and
+awoke, may be questioned.
+
+But the divine right of kings, associating itself with the power supreme
+of the Church, was struggling to maintain that old mastery of mankind
+which awakening reason was inclined to dispute.  Countries and nations
+being regarded as private property to be inherited or bequeathed by a few
+favoured individuals--provided always that those individuals were
+obedient to the chief-priest--it had now become right and proper for the
+Spanish monarch to annex Scotland, England, and France to the very
+considerable possessions which were already his own.  Scotland he claimed
+by virtue of the expressed wish of Mary to the exclusion of her heretic
+son.
+
+France, which had been unjustly usurped by another family in times past
+to his detriment, and which only a mere human invention--a "pleasantry"
+as Alva had happily termed it, called the "Salic law"--prevented from
+passing quietly to his daughter, as heiress to her mother, daughter of
+Henry II., he was now fully bent upon making his own without further loss
+of time.  England, in consequence of the mishap of the year eighty-eight,
+he was inclined to defer appropriating until the possession of the French
+coasts, together with those of the Netherlands, should enable him to risk
+the adventure with assured chances of success.
+
+The Netherlands were fast slipping beyond his control, to be sure, as he
+engaged in these endless schemes; and ill-disposed people of the day said
+that the king was like Aesop's dog, lapping the river dry in order to get
+at the skins floating on the surface.  The Duke of Parma was driven to
+his wits' ends for expedients, and beside himself with vexation, when
+commanded to withdraw his ill-paid and mutinous army from the Provinces
+for the purpose of invading France.  Most importunate were the appeals
+and potent the arguments by which he attempted to turn Philip from his
+purpose.  It was in vain.  Spain was the great, aggressive, overshadowing
+power at that day, before whose plots and whose violence the nations
+alternately trembled, and it was France that now stood in danger of being
+conquered or dismembered by the common enemy of all.  That unhappy
+kingdom, torn by intestine conflict, naturally invited the ambition and
+the greediness of foreign powers.  Civil war had been its condition, with
+brief intervals, for a whole generation of mankind.  During the last few
+years, the sword had been never sheathed, while "the holy Confederacy"
+and the Bearnese struggled together for the mastery.  Religion was the
+mantle under which the chiefs on both sides concealed their real designs
+as they led on their followers year after year to the desperate conflict.
+And their followers, the masses, were doubtless in earnest.  A great
+principle--the relation of man to his Maker and his condition in a future
+world as laid down by rival priesthoods--has in almost every stage of
+history had power to influence the multitude to fury and to deluge the
+world in blood.  And so long as the superstitious element of human nature
+enables individuals or combinations of them to dictate to their fellow-
+creatures those relations, or to dogmatize concerning those conditions--
+to take possession of their consciences in short, and to interpose their
+mummeries between man and his Creator--it is, probable that such scenes
+as caused the nations to shudder, throughout so large a portion of the
+sixteenth and seventeenth centuries will continue to repeat themselves at
+intervals in various parts of the earth.  Nothing can be more sublime
+than the self-sacrifice, nothing more demoniac than the crimes, which
+human creatures have seemed always ready to exhibit under the name of
+religion.
+
+It was and had been really civil war in France.  In the Netherlands it
+had become essentially a struggle for independence against a foreign
+monarch; although the germ out of which both conflicts had grown to their
+enormous proportions was an effort of the multitude to check the growth
+of papacy.  In France, accordingly, civil war, attended by that gaunt
+sisterhood, murder, pestilence, and famine, had swept from the soil
+almost everything that makes life valuable.  It had not brought in its
+train that extraordinary material prosperity and intellectual development
+at which men wondered in the Netherlands, and to which allusion has just
+been made.  But a fortunate conjunction of circumstances had now placed
+Henry of Navarre in a position of vantage.  He represented the principle
+of nationality, of French unity.  It was impossible to deny that he was
+in the regular line of succession, now that luckless Henry of Valois
+slept with his fathers, and the principle of nationality might perhaps
+prove as vital a force as attachment to the Roman Church.  Moreover, the
+adroit and unscrupulous Bearnese knew well how to shift the mantle of
+religion from one shoulder to the other, to serve his purposes or the
+humours of those whom he addressed.
+
+"The King of Spain would exclude me from the kingdom and heritage of my
+father because of my religion," he said to the Duke of Saxony; "but in
+that religion I am determined to persist so long as I shall live."  The
+hand was the hand of Henry, but it was the voice of Duplessis Mornay.
+
+"Were there thirty crowns to win," said he, at about the same time to the
+States of France, "I would not change my religion on compulsion, the
+dagger at my throat.  Instruct me, instruct me, I am not obstinate."
+There spoke the wily freethinker, determined not to be juggled out of
+what he considered his property by fanatics or priests of either church.
+Had Henry been a real devotee, the fate of Christendom might have been
+different.  The world has long known how much misery it is in the power
+of crowned bigots to inflict.
+
+On the other hand, the Holy League, the sacred Confederacy, was catholic
+or nothing.  Already it was more papist than the pope, and loudly
+denounced Sixtus V. as a Huguenot because he was thought to entertain a
+weak admiration both for Henry the heretic and for the Jezebel of
+England.
+
+But the holy confederacy was bent on destroying the national government
+of France, and dismembering the national domain.  To do this the pretext
+of trampling out heresy and indefinitely extending the power of Rome, was
+most influential with the multitude, and entitled the leaders to enjoy
+immense power for the time being, while maturing their schemes for
+acquiring permanent possession of large fragments of the national
+territory.  Mayenne, Nemours, Aumale, Mercoeur longed to convert
+temporary governments into independent principalities.  The Duke of
+Lorraine looked with longing eyes on Verdun, Sedan, and, the other fair
+cities within the territories contiguous--to his own domains.  The
+reckless house of Savoy; with whom freebooting and landrobbery seemed
+geographical, and hereditary necessities, was busy on the southern
+borders, while it seemed easy enough for Philip, II., in right of his
+daughter, to secure at least the duchy of Brittany before entering on
+the sovereignty of the whole kingdom.
+
+To the eyes of the world at large: France might well seem in a condition
+of hopeless disintegration; the restoration of its unity and former
+position among the nations, under the government of a single chief, a
+weak and wicked dream.  Furious and incessant were the anathemas hurled
+on the head of the Bearnese for his persistence in drowning the land in
+blood in the hope of recovering a national capital which never could be
+his, and of wresting from the control of the confederacy that power.
+which, whether usurped or rightful, was considered, at least by the
+peaceably inclined, to have become a solid fact.
+
+The poor puppet locked in the tower of Fontenay, and entitled Charles X.;
+deceived and scared no one.  Such money as there was might be coined, in
+its name, but Madam League reigned supreme in Paris.  The confederates,
+inspired by the eloquence of a cardinal legate, and supplied with funds
+by the faithful, were ready to dare a thousand  deaths rather than submit
+to the rule of a tyrant and heretic.
+
+What was an authority derived from the laws of the land and the history
+of the race compared with the dogmas of Rome and the trained veterans of
+Spain?  It remained to be seen whether nationality or bigotry would
+triumph.  But in the early days of 1590 the prospects of nationality were
+not encouraging.
+
+Francois de Luxembourg, due de Pincey, was in Rome at that moment,
+deputed by such catholic nobles of France as were friendly to Henry of
+Navarre.  Sixtus might perhaps be influenced as to the degree of respect
+to be accorded to the envoy's representations by the events of the
+campaign about to open.  Meantime the legate Gaetano, young, rich,
+eloquent, unscrupulous, distinguished alike for the splendour of his
+house and the brilliancy of his intellect, had arrived in Paris.
+
+Followed by a great train of adherents he had gone down to the House of
+Parliament, and was about to seat himself under the dais reserved for the
+king, when Brisson, first President of Parliament, plucked him back by
+the arm, and caused him to take a seat immediately below his own.
+
+Deeply was the bold president to expiate this defence of king and law
+against the Holy League.  For the moment however the legate contented
+himself with a long harangue, setting forth the power of Rome, while
+Brisson replied by an oration magnifying the grandeur of France.
+
+Soon afterwards the cardinal addressed himself to the counteraction
+of Henry's projects of conversion.  For, well did the subtle priest
+understand that in purging himself of heresy, the Bearnese was about to
+cut the ground from beneath his enemies' feet.  In a letter to the
+archbishops and bishops of France, he argued the matter at length.
+Especially he denied the necessity or the legality of an assembly of all
+the prelates of France, such as Henry desired to afford him the requisite
+"instruction" as to the respective merits of the Roman and the reformed
+Church.  Certainly, he urged, the Prince of Bearne could hardly require
+instruction as to the tenets of either, seeing that at different times he
+had faithfully professed both.
+
+But while benches of bishops and doctors of the Sorbonne were burnishing
+all the arms in ecclesiastical and legal arsenals for the approaching
+fray, the sound of louder if not more potent artillery began to be heard
+in the vicinity of Paris.  The candid Henry, while seeking ghostly
+instruction with eagerness from his papistical patrons, was equally
+persevering in applying for the assistance of heretic musketeers and
+riders from his protestant friends in England, Holland, Germany, and
+Switzerland.
+
+Queen Elizabeth and the States-General vied with each other in generosity
+to the great champion of protestantism, who was combating the holy league
+so valiantly, and rarely has a great historical figure presented itself
+to the world so bizarre of aspect, and under such shifting perplexity of
+light and shade, as did the Bearnese in the early spring of 1590.
+
+The hope of a considerable portion of the catholic nobility of his realm,
+although himself an excommunicated heretic; the mainstay of Calvinism
+while secretly bending all his energies to effect his reconciliation with
+the pope; the idol of the austere and grimly puritanical, while himself a
+model of profligacy; the leader of the earnest and the true, although
+false as water himself in every relation in which human beings can stand
+to each other; a standardbearer of both great branches of the Christian
+Church in an age when religion was the atmosphere of men's daily lives,
+yet finding his sincerest admirer, and one of his most faithful allies,
+in the Grand Turk,
+
+     [A portion of the magnificently protective letter of Sultan Amurath,
+     in which he complimented Henry on his religious stedfastness, might
+     almost have made the king's cheek tingle.]
+
+the representative of national liberty and human rights against regal and
+sacerdotal absolutism, while himself a remorseless despot by nature and
+education, and a believer in no rights of the people save in their
+privilege to be ruled by himself; it seems strange at first view that
+Henry of Navarre should have been for centuries so heroic and popular an
+image.  But he was a soldier, a wit, a consummate politician; above all,
+he was a man, at a period when to be a king was often to be something
+much less or much worse.
+
+To those accustomed to weigh and analyse popular forces it might well
+seem that he was now playing an utterly hopeless game.  His capital
+garrisoned by the Pope and the King of Spain, with its grandees and its
+populace scoffing at his pretence of authority and loathing his name;
+with an exchequer consisting of what he could beg or borrow from Queen
+Elizabeth--most parsimonious of sovereigns reigning over the half of a
+small island--and from the States-General governing a half-born, half-
+drowned little republic, engaged in a quarter of a century's warfare with
+the greatest monarch in the world; with a wardrobe consisting of a dozen
+shirts and five pocket-handkerchiefs, most of them ragged, and with a
+commissariat made up of what could be brought in the saddle-bags of his
+Huguenot cavaliers who came to the charge with him to-day, and to-morrow
+were dispersed again to their mountain fastnesses; it did not seem likely
+on any reasonable theory of dynamics that the power of the Bearnese was
+capable of outweighing Pope and Spain, and the meaner but massive
+populace of France, and the Sorbonne, and the great chiefs of the
+confederacy, wealthy, long descended, allied to all the sovereigns of
+Christendom, potent in territorial possessions and skilful in wielding
+political influences.
+
+"The Bearnese is poor but a gentleman of good family," said the cheerful
+Henry, and it remained to-be seen whether nationality, unity, legitimate
+authority, history, and law would be able to neutralise the powerful
+combination of opposing elements.
+
+The king had been besieging Dreux and had made good progress in reducing
+the outposts of the city.  As it was known that he was expecting
+considerable reinforcements of English ships, Netherlanders, and Germans,
+the chiefs of the league issued orders from Paris for an attack before he
+should thus be strengthened.
+
+For Parma, unwillingly obeying the stringent commands of his master, had
+sent from Flanders eighteen hundred picked cavalry under Count Philip
+Egmont to join the army of Mayenne.  This force comprised five hundred
+Belgian heavy dragoons under the chief nobles of the land, together with
+a selection, in even proportions, of Walloon, German, Spanish, and
+Italian troopers.
+
+Mayenne accordingly crossed the Seine at Mantes with an army of ten
+thousand foot, and, including Egmont's contingent, about four thousand
+horse.  A force under Marshal d'Aumont, which lay in Ivry at the passage
+of the Eure, fell back on his approach and joined the remainder of the
+king's army.  The siege of Dreux was abandoned; and Henry withdrew to the
+neighbourhood of Nonancourt.  It was obvious that the duke meant to offer
+battle, and it was rare that the king under any circumstances could be
+induced to decline a combat.
+
+On the night of the 12th-13th March, Henry occupied Saint Andre, a
+village situated on an elevated and extensive plain four leagues from
+Nonancourt, in the direction of Ivry, fringed on three sides by villages
+and by a wood, and commanding a view of all the approaches from the
+country between the Seine and Eure.  It would have been better had
+Mayenne been beforehand with him, as the sequel proved; but the duke was
+not famed for the rapidity of his movements.  During the greater part of
+the night, Henry was employed in distributing his orders for that
+conflict which was inevitable on the following day.  His army was drawn
+up according to a plan prepared by himself, and submitted to the most
+experienced of his generals for their approval.  He then personally
+visited every portion of the encampment, speaking words of encouragement
+to his soldiers, and perfecting his arrangements for the coming conflict.
+Attended by Marshals d'Aumont and Biron he remained on horseback during a
+portion of the night, having ordered his officers to their tents and
+reconnoitred as well as he could the position of the enemy.  Towards
+morning he retired to his headquarters at Fourainville, where he threw
+himself half-dressed on his truckle bed, and although the night was
+bitterly cold, with no covering but his cloak.  He was startled from his
+slumber before the dawn by a movement of lights in the enemy's camp, and
+he sprang to his feet supposing that the duke was stealing a march upon
+him despite all his precautions.  The alarm proved to be a false one, but
+Henry lost no time in ordering his battle.  His cavalry he divided in
+seven troops or squadrons.  The first, forming the left wing, was a body
+of three hundred under Marshal d'Aumont, supported by two regiments of
+French infantry.  Next, separated by a short interval, was another troop
+of three hundred under the Duke of Montpensier, supported by two other
+regiments of foot, one Swiss and one German.  In front of Montpensier was
+Baron Biron the younger, at the head of still another body of three
+hundred.  Two troops of cuirassiers, each four hundred strong, were on
+Biron's left, the one commanded by the Grand Prior of France, Charles
+d'Angouleme, the other by Monsieur de Givry.  Between the Prior and Givry
+were six pieces of heavy artillery, while the battalia, formed of eight
+hundred horse in six squadrons, was commanded by the king in person, and
+covered on both sides by English and Swiss infantry, amounting to some
+four thousand in all.  The right wing was under the charge of old Marshal
+Biron, and comprised three troops of horse, numbering one hundred and
+fifty each, two companies of German riders, and four regiments of French
+infantry.  These numbers, which are probably given with as much accuracy
+as can be obtained, show a force of about three thousand horse and twelve
+thousand foot.
+
+The Duke of Mayenne, seeing too late the advantage of position which he
+might have easily secured the day before, led his army forth with the
+early light, and arranged it in an order not very different from that
+adopted by the king, and within cannon-shot of his lines.  The right wing
+under Marshal de la Chatre consisted of three regiments of French and one
+of Germans, supporting three regiments of Spanish lancers, two cornets of
+German riders under the Bastard of Brunswick, and four hundred
+cuirassiers.  The battalia, which was composed of six hundred splendid
+cavalry, all noblemen of France, guarding the white banner of the Holy
+League, and supported by a column of three thousand Swiss and two
+thousand French infantry, was commanded by Mayenne in person, assisted by
+his half-brother, the Duke of Nemours.  In front of the infantry was a
+battery of six cannon and three culverines.  The left wing was commanded
+by Marshal de Rene, with six regiments of French and Lorrainers, two
+thousand Germans, six hundred French cuirassiers, and the mounted
+troopers of Count Egmont.  It is probable that Mayenne's whole force,
+therefore, amounted to nearly four thousand cavalry and at least thirteen
+thousand foot.
+
+Very different was the respective appearance of the two armies, so far,
+especially, as regarded the horsemen on both sides.  Gay in their gilded
+armour and waving plumes, with silken scarves across their shoulders, and
+the fluttering favours of fair ladies on their arms or in their helmets,
+the brilliant champions of the Holy Catholic Confederacy clustered around
+the chieftains of the great house of Guise, impatient for the conflict.
+It was like a muster for a brilliant and chivalrous tournament.  The
+Walloon and Flemish nobles, outrivalling even the self-confidence of
+their companions in arms, taunted them with their slowness.  The,
+impetuous Egmont, burning to eclipse the fame of his ill-fated father at
+Gravelines and St. Quintin in the same holy cause, urged on the battle
+with unseemly haste, loudly proclaiming that if the French were faint-
+hearted he would himself give a good account of the Navarrese prince
+without any assistance from them.
+
+A cannon-shot away, the grim puritan nobles who had come forth from their
+mountain fastnesses to do battle for king and law and for the rights of
+conscience against the Holy League--men seasoned in a hundred battle-
+fields, clad all in iron, with no dainty ornaments nor holiday luxury of
+warfare--knelt on the ground, smiting their mailed breasts with iron
+hands, invoking blessings on themselves and curses and confusion on their
+enemies in the coming conflict, and chanting a stern psalm of homage to
+the God of battles and of wrath.  And Henry of France and Navarre,
+descendant of Lewis the Holy and of Hugh the Great, beloved chief of the
+Calvinist cavaliers, knelt among his heretic brethren, and prayed and
+chanted with them.  But not the staunchest Huguenot of them all, not
+Duplessis, nor D'Aubigne, nor De la Noue with the iron arm, was more
+devoted on that day to crown and country than were such papist supporters
+of the rightful heir as had sworn to conquer the insolent foreigner on
+the soil of France or die.
+
+When this brief prelude was over, Henry made an address to his soldiers,
+but its language has not been preserved.  It is known, however, that he
+wore that day his famous snow-white plume, and that he ordered his
+soldiers, should his banner go down in the conflict, to follow wherever
+and as long as that plume should be seen waving on any part of the field.
+He had taken a position by which his troops had the sun and wind in their
+backs, so that the smoke rolled toward the enemy and the light shone in
+their eyes.  The combat began with the play of artillery, which soon
+became so warm that Egmont, whose cavalry--suffering and galled--soon
+became impatient, ordered a charge.  It was a most brilliant one.  The
+heavy troopers of Flanders and Hainault, following their spirited
+chieftain, dashed upon old Marshal Biron, routing his cavalry, charging
+clean up to the Huguenot guns and sabring the cannoneers.  The shock was
+square, solid, irresistible, and was followed up by the German riders
+under Eric of Brunswick, who charged upon the battalia of the royal army,
+where the king commanded in person.
+
+There was a panic.  The whole royal cavalry wavered, the supporting
+infantry recoiled, the day seemed lost before the battle was well begun.
+Yells of "Victory!  Victory!  up with the Holy League, down with the
+heretic Bearnese," resounded through the Catholic squadrons.  The king
+and Marshal Biron, who were near each other, were furious with rage, but
+already doubtful of the result.  They exerted themselves to rally the
+troops under their immediate command, and to reform the shattered ranks.
+
+The German riders and French lancers under Brunswick and Bassompierre
+had, however, not done their work as thoroughly as Egmont had done.  The
+ground was so miry and soft that in the brief space which separated the
+hostile lines they had not power to urge their horses to full speed.
+Throwing away their useless lances, they came on at a feeble canter,
+sword in hand, and were unable to make a very vigorous impression on the
+more heavily armed troopers opposed to them.  Meeting with a firm
+resistance to their career, they wheeled, faltered a little and fell a
+short distance back.  Many of the riders being of the reformed religion,
+refused moreover to fire upon the Huguenots, and discharged their
+carbines in the air.
+
+The king, whose glance on the battle-field was like inspiration, saw the
+blot and charged upon them in person with his whole battalia of cavalry.
+The veteran Biron followed hard upon the snow-white plume.  The scene was
+changed, victory succeeded to impending defeat, and the enemy was routed.
+The riders and cuirassiers, broken into a struggling heap of confusion,
+strewed the ground with their dead bodies, or carried dismay into the
+ranks of the infantry as they strove to escape.  Brunswick went down in
+the melee, mortally wounded as it was believed.  Egmont renewing the
+charge at the head of his victorious Belgian troopers, fell dead with a
+musket-ball through his heart.  The shattered German and Walloon cavalry,
+now pricked forward by the lances of their companions, under the
+passionate commands of Mayenne and Aumale, now fading back before the
+furious charges of the Huguenots, were completely overthrown and cut to
+pieces.
+
+Seven times did Henry of Navarre in person lead his troopers to the
+charge; but suddenly, in the midst of the din of battle and the cheers of
+victory, a message of despair went from lip to lip throughout the royal
+lines.  The king had disappeared.  He was killed, and the hopes of
+Protestantism and of France were fallen for ever with him.  The white
+standard of his battalia had been seen floating wildly and purposelessly
+over the field; for his bannerman, Pot de Rhodes, a young noble of
+Dauphiny, wounded mortally in the head, with blood streaming over his
+face and blinding his sight, was utterly unable to control his horse, who
+gallopped hither and thither at his own caprice, misleading many troopers
+who followed in his erratic career.  A cavalier, armed in proof, and
+wearing the famous snow-white plume, after a hand-to-hand struggle with
+a veteran of Count Bossu's regiment, was seen to fall dead by the side of
+the bannerman: The Fleming, not used to boast, loudly asserted that he
+had slain the Bearnese, and the news spread rapidly over the battle-
+field.  The defeated Confederates gained new courage, the victorious
+Royalists were beginning to waver, when suddenly, between the hostile
+lines, in the very midst of the battle, the king gallopped forward,
+bareheaded, covered with blood and dust, but entirely unhurt.  A wild
+shout of "Vive le Roi!"  rang through the air.  Cheerful as ever, he
+addressed a few encouraging words to his soldiers, with a smiling face,
+and again led a charge.  It was all that was necessary to complete the
+victory.  The enemy broke and ran away on every side in wildest
+confusion, followed by the royalist cavalry, who sabred them as they
+fled.  The panic gained the foot-soldiers, who should have supported the
+cavalry, but had not been at all engaged in the action.  The French
+infantry threw away their arms as they rushed from the field and sought
+refuge in the woods.  The Walloons were so expeditious in the race, that
+they never stopped till they gained their own frontier.  The day was
+hopelessly lost, and although Mayenne had conducted himself well in the
+early part of the day, it was certain that he was excelled by none in the
+celerity of his flight when the rout had fairly begun.  Pausing to draw
+breath as he gained the wood, he was seen to deal blows with his own
+sword among the mob of fugitives, not that he might rally them to their
+flag and drive them back to another encounter, but because they
+encumbered his own retreat.
+
+The Walloon carbineers, the German riders, and the French lancers,
+disputing as to the relative blame to be attached to each corps, began
+shooting and sabring each other, almost before they were out of the
+enemy's sight.  Many were thus killed.  The lansquenets were all put to
+the sword.  The Swiss infantry were allowed to depart for their own
+country on pledging themselves not again to bear arms against Henry IV.
+
+It is probable that eight hundred of the leaguers were either killed on
+the battle-field or drowned in the swollen river in their retreat.  About
+one-fourth of that number fell in the army of the king.  It is certain
+that of the contingent from the obedient Netherlands, two hundred and
+seventy, including their distinguished general, lost their lives.  The
+Bastard of Brunswick, crawling from beneath a heap of slain, escaped with
+life.  Mayenne lost all his standards and all the baggage of his army,
+while the army itself was for a time hopelessly dissolved.
+
+Few cavalry actions have attained a wider celebrity in history than the
+fight of Ivry.  Yet there have been many hard-fought battles, where the
+struggle was fiercer and closer, where the issue was for a longer time
+doubtful, where far more lives on either side were lost, where the final
+victory was immediately productive of very much greater results, and
+which, nevertheless, have sunk into hopeless oblivion.  The, personal
+details which remain concerning the part enacted by the adventurous king
+at this most critical period of his career, the romantic interest which
+must always gather about that ready-witted, ready-sworded Gascon, at the
+moment when, to contemporaries, the result of all his struggles seemed so
+hopeless or at best so doubtful; above all, the numerous royal and
+princely names which embellished the roll-call of that famous passage of
+arms, and which were supposed, in those days at least, to add such lustre
+to a battle-field, as humbler names, however illustrious by valour or
+virtue, could never bestow, have made this combat for ever famous.
+
+Yet it is certain that the most healthy moral, in military affairs, to be
+derived from the event, is that the importance of a victory depends less
+upon itself than on the use to be made of it.  Mayenne fled to Mantes,
+the Duke of Nemours to Chartres, other leaders of the League in various
+directions, Mayenne told every body he met that the Bearnese was killed,
+and that although his own army was defeated, he should soon have another
+one on foot.  The same intelligence was communicated to the Duke of
+Parma, and by him to Philip.  Mendoza and the other Spanish agents went
+about Paris spreading the news of Henry's death, but the fact seemed
+woefully to lack confirmation, while the proofs of the utter overthrow
+and shameful defeat of the Leaguers were visible on every, side.  The
+Parisians--many of whom the year before had in vain hired windows in the
+principal streets, in order to witness the promised entrance of the
+Bearnese, bound hand and foot, and with a gag in his mouth, to swell the
+triumph of Madam League--were incredulous as to the death now reported to
+them of this very lively heretic, by those who had fled so ignominiously
+from his troopers.
+
+De la None and the other Huguenot chieftains, earnestly urged upon Henry
+the importance of advancing upon Paris without an instant's delay, and it
+seems at least extremely probable that, had he done so, the capital would
+have fallen at once into his hands.  It is the concurrent testimony of
+contemporaries that the panic, the destitution, the confusion would have
+made resistance impossible had a determined onslaught been made.  And
+Henry had a couple of thousand horsemen flushed with victory, and a dozen
+thousand foot who had been compelled to look upon a triumph in which they
+had no opportunity of sharing: Success and emulation would have easily
+triumphed over dissension and despair.
+
+But the king, yielding to the councils of Biron and other Catholics,
+declined attacking the capital, and preferred waiting the slow, and in
+his circumstances eminently hazardous, operations of a regular siege.
+Was it the fear of giving a signal triumph to the cause of Protestantism
+that caused the Huguenot leader--so soon to become a renegade--to pause
+in his career?  Was it anxiety lest his victorious entrance into Paris
+might undo the diplomacy of his catholic envoys at Rome? or was it simply
+the mutinous condition of his army, especially of the Swiss mercenaries,
+who refused to advance a step unless their arrears of pay were at once
+furnished them out of the utterly empty exchequer of the king?  Whatever
+may have been the cause of the delay, it is certain that the golden fruit
+of victory was not plucked, and that although the confederate army had
+rapidly dissolved, in consequence of their defeat, the king's own forces
+manifested as little cohesion.
+
+And now began that slow and painful siege, the details of which are as
+terrible, but as universally known, as those of any chapters in the
+blood-stained history of the century.  Henry seized upon the towns
+guarding the rivers Seine and Marne, twin nurses of Paris.  By
+controlling the course of those streams as well as that of the Yonne and
+Oise--especially by taking firm possession of Lagny on the Marne, whence
+a bridge led from the Isle of France to the Brie country--great
+thoroughfare of wine and corn--and of Corbeil at the junction of the
+little river Essonne with the Seine-it was easy in that age to stop the
+vital circulation of the imperial city.
+
+By midsummer, Paris, unquestionably the first city of Europe at that day,
+was in extremities, and there are few events in history in which our
+admiration is more excited by the power of mankind to endure almost
+preternatural misery, or our indignation more deeply aroused by the
+cruelty with which the sublimest principles of human nature may be made
+to serve the purposes of selfish ambition and grovelling superstition,
+than this famous leaguer.
+
+Rarely have men at any epoch defended their fatherland against foreign
+oppression with more heroism than that which was manifested by the
+Parisians of 1590 in resisting religious toleration, and in obeying a
+foreign and priestly despotism.  Men, women, and children cheerfully laid
+down their lives by thousands in order that the papal legate and the king
+of Spain might trample upon that legitimate sovereign of France who was
+one day to become the idol of Paris and of the whole kingdom.
+
+A census taken at the beginning of the siege had showed a populace of two
+hundred thousand souls, with a sufficiency of provisions, it was thought,
+to last one month.  But before the terrible summer was over--so
+completely had the city been invested--the bushel of wheat was worth
+three hundred and sixty crowns, rye and oats being but little cheaper.
+Indeed, grain might as well have cost three thousand crowns the bushel,
+for the prices recorded placed it beyond the reach of all but the
+extremely wealthy.  The flesh of horses, asses, dogs, cats, rats had
+become rare luxuries.  There was nothing cheap, said a citizen bitterly,
+but sermons.  And the priests and monks of every order went daily about
+the streets, preaching fortitude in that great resistance to heresy, by
+which Paris was earning for itself a crown of glory, and promising the
+most direct passage to paradise for the souls of the wretched victims
+who fell daily, starved to death, upon the pavements.  And the monks and
+priests did their work nobly, aiding the general resolution by the
+example of their own courage.  Better fed than their fellow citizens,
+they did military work in trench, guard-house and rampart, as the
+population became rapidly unfit, from physical exhaustion, for the
+defence of the city.
+
+The young Duke of Nemours, governor of the place, manifested as much
+resolution and conduct in bringing his countrymen to perdition as if the
+work in which he was engaged had been the highest and holiest that ever
+tasked human energies.  He was sustained in his task by that proud
+princess, his own and Mayenne's mother, by Madame Montpensier, by the
+resident triumvirate of Spain, Mendoza, Commander Moreo, and John Baptist
+Tasais, by the cardinal legate Gaetano, and, more than all, by the
+sixteen chiefs of the wards, those municipal tyrants of the unhappy
+populace.
+
+Pope Sixtus himself was by no means eager for the success of the League.
+After the battle of Ivry, he had most seriously inclined his ear to the
+representations of Henry's envoy, and showed much willingness to admit
+the victorious heretic once more into the bosom of the Church.  Sixtus
+was not desirous of contributing to the advancement of Philip's power.
+He feared his designs on Italy, being himself most anxious at that time
+to annex Naples to the holy see.  He had amassed a large treasure, but he
+liked best to spend it in splendid architecture, in noble fountains, in
+magnificent collections of art, science, and literature, and, above all,
+in building up fortunes for the children of his sister the washerwoman,
+and in allying them all to the most princely houses of Italy, while never
+allowing them even to mention the name of their father, so base was his
+degree; but he cared not to disburse from his hoarded dollars to supply
+the necessities of the League.
+
+But Gaetano, although he could wring but fifty thousand crowns from his
+Holiness after the fatal fight of Ivry, to further the good cause, was
+lavish in expenditures from his own purse and from other sources, and
+this too at a time when thirty-three per cent. interest was paid to the
+usurers of Antwerp for one month's loan of ready money.  He was
+indefatigable, too, and most successful in his exhortations and ghostly
+consolations to the people.  Those proud priests and great nobles were
+playing a reckless game, and the hopes of mankind beyond the grave were
+the counters on their table.  For themselves there were rich prizes for
+the winning.  Should they succeed in dismembering the fair land where
+they were enacting their fantastic parts, there were temporal
+principalities, great provinces, petty sovereignties, to be carved out
+of the heritage which the Bearnese claimed for his own.  Obviously then,
+their consciences could never permit this shameless heretic, by a
+simulated conversion at the critical moment, to block their game and
+restore the national unity and laws.  And even should it be necessary to
+give the whole kingdom, instead of the mere duchy of Brittany, to Philip
+of Spain, still there were mighty guerdons to be bestowed on his
+supporters before the foreign monarch could seat himself on the throne of
+Henry's ancestors.
+
+As to the people who were fighting, starving, dying by thousands in
+this great cause, there were eternal rewards in another world profusely
+promised for their heroism instead of the more substantial bread and
+beef, for lack of which they were laying down their lives.
+
+It was estimated that before July twelve thousand human beings in Paris
+had died, for want of food, within three months.  But as there were no
+signs of the promised relief by the army of Parma and Mayenne, and as the
+starving people at times appeared faint-hearted, their courage was
+strengthened one day by a stirring exhibition.
+
+An astonishing procession marched through the streets of the city, led by
+the Bishop of Senlis and the Prior of Chartreux, each holding a halberd
+in one hand and a crucifix in the other, and graced by the presence of
+the cardinal-legate, and of many prelates from Italy.  A lame monk,
+adroitly manipulating the staff of a drum major, went hopping and limping
+before them, much to the amazement of the crowd.  Then came a long file
+of monks-Capuchins, Bernardists, Minimes, Franciscans, Jacobins,
+Carmelites, and other orders--each with his cowl thrown back, his long
+robes trussed up, a helmet on his head, a cuirass on his breast, and a
+halberd in his hand.  The elder ones marched first, grinding their teeth,
+rolling their eyes, and making other ferocious demonstrations.  Then came
+the younger friars, similarly attired, all armed with arquebusses, which
+they occasionally and accidentally discharged to the disadvantage of the
+spectators, several of whom were killed or wounded on the spot.  Among
+others a servant of Cardinal Gaetano was thus slain, and the even caused
+much commotion, until the cardinal proclaimed that a man thus killed in
+so holy a cause had gone straight to heaven and had taken his place among
+the just.  It was impossible, thus argued the people in their simplicity,
+that so wise and virtuous a man as the cardinal should not know what was
+best.
+
+The procession marched to the church of our Lady of Loretto, where they
+solemnly promised to the blessed Virgin a lamp and ship of gold--should
+she be willing to use her influence in behalf of the suffering city--to
+be placed on her shrine as soon as the siege should be raised.
+
+But these demonstrations, however cheering to the souls, had
+comparatively little effect upon the bodies of the sufferers.  It was
+impossible to walk through the streets of Paris without stumbling over
+the dead bodies of the citizens.  Trustworthy eye-witnesses of those
+dreadful days have placed the number of the dead during the summer at
+thirty thousand.  A tumultuous assemblage of the starving and the forlorn
+rushed at last to the municipal palace, demanding peace or bread.  The
+rebels were soon dispersed however by a charge, headed by the Chevalier
+d'Aumale, and assisted by the chiefs of the wards, and so soon as the
+riot was quelled, its ringleader, a leading advocate, Renaud by name, was
+hanged.
+
+Still, but for the energy of the priests, it is doubtful whether the city
+could have been held by the Confederacy.  The Duke of Nemours confessed
+that there were occasions when they never would have been able to sustain
+a determined onslaught, and they were daily expecting to see the Prince
+of Bearne battering triumphantly at their gates.
+
+But the eloquence of the preachers, especially of the one-eyed father
+Boucher, sustained the fainting spirits of the people, and consoled the
+sufferers in their dying agonies by glimpses of paradise.  Sublime was
+that devotion, superhuman that craft; but it is only by weapons from the
+armoury of the Unseen that human creatures can long confront such horrors
+in a wicked cause.  Superstition, in those days at least, was a political
+force absolutely without limitation, and most adroitly did the agents of
+Spain and Rome handle its tremendous enginery against unhappy France.
+For the hideous details of the most dreadful sieges recorded in ancient
+or modern times were now reproduced in Paris.  Not a revolutionary
+circumstance, at which the world had shuddered in the accounts of the
+siege of Jerusalem, was spared.  Men devoured such dead vermin as could
+be found lying in the streets.  They crowded greedily around stalls in
+the public squares where the skin, bones, and offal of such dogs, cats
+and unclean beasts as still remained for the consumption of the wealthier
+classes were sold to the populace.  Over the doorways of these flesh
+markets might be read "Haec runt munera pro iis qui vitam pro Philippo
+profuderunt."  Men stood in archways and narrow passages lying in wait
+for whatever stray dogs still remained at large, noosed them, strangled
+them, and like savage beasts of prey tore them to pieces and devoured
+them alive.  And it sometimes happened, too, that the equally hungry dog
+proved the more successful in the foul encounter, and fed upon the man.
+A lady visiting the Duchess of Nemours--called for the high pretensions
+of her sons by her two marriages the queen-mother--complained bitterly
+that mothers in Paris had been compelled to kill their own children
+outright to save them from starving to death in lingering agony.  "And if
+you are brought to that extremity," replied the duchess, "as for the sake
+of our holy religion to be forced to kill your own children, do you think
+that so great a matter after all?  What are your children made of more
+than other people's children?  What are we all but dirt and dust?"  Such
+was the consolation administered by the mother of the man who governed
+Paris, and defended its gates against its lawful sovereign at the command
+of a foreigner; while the priests in their turn persuaded the populace
+that it was far more righteous to kill their own children, if they had no
+food to give them, than to obtain food by recognising a heretic king.
+
+It was related too, and believed, that in some instances mothers had
+salted the bodies of their dead children and fed upon them, day by day,
+until the hideous repast would no longer support their own life.  They
+died, and the secret was revealed by servants who had partaken of the
+food.  The Spanish ambassador, Mendoza, advised recourse to an article of
+diet which had been used in some of the oriental sieges.  The counsel at
+first was rejected as coming from the agent of Spain, who wished at all
+hazards to save the capital of France from falling out of the hands of
+his master into those of the heretic.  But dire necessity prevailed, and
+the bones of the dead were taken in considerable quantities from the
+cemeteries, ground into flour, baked into bread, and consumed.  It was
+called Madame Montpensier's cake, because the duchess earnestly
+proclaimed its merits to the poor Parisians.  "She was never known to
+taste it herself, however," bitterly observed one who lived in Paris
+through that horrible summer.  She was right to abstain, for all who ate
+of it died, and the Montpensier flour fell into disuse.
+
+Lansquenets and other soldiers, mad with hunger and rage, when they could
+no longer find dogs to feed on, chased children through the streets, and
+were known in several instances to kill and devour them on the spot.   To
+those expressing horror at the perpetration of such a crime, a leading
+personage, member of the Council of Nine, maintained that there was less
+danger to one's soul in satisfying one's hunger with a dead child, in
+case of necessity, than in recognizing the heretic Bearnese, and he added
+that all the best theologians and doctors of Paris were of his opinion.
+
+As the summer wore on to its close, through all these horrors, and as
+there were still no signs of Mayenne and Parma leading their armies to
+the relief of the city, it became necessary to deceive the people by a
+show of negotiation with the beleaguering army.  Accordingly, the Spanish
+ambassador, the legate, and the other chiefs of the Holy League appointed
+a deputation, consisting of the Cardinal Gondy, the Archbishop of Lyons,
+and the Abbe d'Elbene, to Henry.  It soon became evident to the king,
+however, that these commissioners were but trifling with him in order to
+amuse the populace.  His attitude was dignified and determined throughout
+the interview.  The place appointed was St. Anthony's Abbey, before the
+gates of Paris.  Henry wore a cloak and the order of the Holy Ghost, and
+was surrounded by his council, the princes of the blood, and by more than
+four hundred of the chief gentlemen of his army.  After passing the
+barricade, the deputies were received by old Marshal Biron, and conducted
+by him to the king's chamber of state.  When they had made their
+salutations, the king led the way to an inner cabinet, but his progress
+was much impeded by the crowding of the nobles about him.  Wishing to
+excuse this apparent rudeness, he said to the envoys: "Gentlemen, these
+men thrust me on as fast to the battle against the foreigner as they now
+do to my cabinet.  Therefore bear with them."  Then turning to the crowd,
+he said: "Room, gentlemen, for the love of me," upon which they all
+retired.
+
+The deputies then stated that they had been sent by the authorities of
+Paris to consult as to the means of obtaining a general peace in France.
+They expressed the hope that the king's disposition was favourable to
+this end, and that he would likewise permit them to confer with the Duke
+of Mayenne.  This manner of addressing him excited his choler.  He told
+Cardinal Gondy, who was spokesman of the deputation, that he had long
+since answered such propositions.  He alone could deal with his subjects.
+He was like the woman before Solomon; he would have all the child or none
+of it.  Rather than dismember his kingdom he would lose the whole.  He
+asked them what they considered him to be.  They answered that they knew
+his rights, but that the Parisians had different opinions.  If Paris
+would only acknowledge him to be king there could be no more question of
+war.  He asked them if they desired the King of Spain or the Duke of
+Mayenne for their king, and bade them look well to themselves.  The King
+of Spain could not help them, for he had too much business on hand; while
+Mayenne had neither means nor courage, having been within three leagues
+of them for three weeks doing nothing.  Neither king nor duke should have
+that which belonged to him, of that they might be assured.  He told them
+he loved Paris as his capital, as his eldest daughter.  If the Parisians
+wished to see the end of their miseries it was to him they should appeal,
+not to the Spaniard nor to the Duke of Mayenne.  By the grace of God and
+the swords of his brave gentlemen he would prevent the King of Spain from
+making a colony of France as he had done of Brazil.  He told the
+commissioners that they ought to die of shame that they, born Frenchmen,
+should have so forgotten their love of country and of liberty as thus to
+bow the head to the Spaniard, and--while famine was carrying off
+thousands of their countrymen before their eyes--to be so cowardly as not
+to utter one word for the public welfare from fear of offending Cardinal.
+Gaetano, Mendoza, and Moreo.  He said that he longed for a combat to
+decide the issue, and that he had charged Count de Brissac to tell
+Mayenne that he would give a finger of his right hand for a battle, and
+two for a general peace.  He knew and pitied the sufferings of Paris, but
+the horrors now raging there were to please the King of Spain.  That
+monarch had told the Duke of Parma to trouble himself but little about
+the Netherlands so long as he could preserve for him his city of Paris.
+But it was to lean on a broken reed to expect support from this old,
+decrepit king, whose object was to dismember the flourishing kingdom of
+France, and to divide it among as many tyrants as he had sent viceroys to
+the Indies.  The crown was his own birthright.  Were it elective he
+should receive the suffrages of the great mass of the electors.  He hoped
+soon to drive those red-crossed foreigners out of his kingdom.  Should he
+fail, they would end by expelling the Duke of Mayenne and all the rest
+who had called them in, and Paris would become the theatre of the
+bloodiest tragedy ever yet enacted.  The king then ordered Sir Roger
+Williams to see that a collation was prepared for the deputies, and the
+veteran Welshman took occasion to indulge in much blunt conversation with
+the guests.  He informed them that he, Mr. Sackville, and many other
+strangers were serving the king from the hatred they bore the Spaniards
+and Mother League, and that his royal mistress had always 8000 Englishmen
+ready to maintain the cause.
+
+While the conferences were going on, the officers and soldiers of the
+besieging army thronged to the gate, and had much talk with the townsmen.
+Among others, time-honoured La None with the iron arm stood near the gate
+and harangued the Parisians.  "We are here," said he, "five thousand
+gentlemen; we desire your good, not your ruin.  We will make you rich:
+let us participate in your labour and industry.  Undo not yourselves to
+serve the ambition of a few men."  The townspeople hearing the old
+warrior discoursing thus earnestly, asked who he was.  When informed that
+it was La Noue they cheered him vociferously, and applauded his speech
+with the greatest vehemence.  Yet La Noue was the foremost Huguenot that
+the sun shone upon, and the Parisians were starving themselves to death
+out of hatred to heresy.  After the collation the commissioners were
+permitted to go from the camp in order to consult Mayenne.
+
+Such then was the condition of Paris during that memorable summer of
+tortures.  What now were its hopes of deliverance out of this Gehenna?
+The trust of Frenchmen was in Philip of Spain, whose legions, under
+command of the great Italian chieftain, were daily longed for to save
+them from rendering obedience to their lawful prince.
+
+For even the king of straw--the imprisoned cardinal--was now dead, and
+there was not even the effigy of any other sovereign than Henry of
+Bourbon to claim authority in France.  Mayenne, in the course of long
+interviews with the Duke of Parma at Conde and Brussels, had expressed
+his desire to see Philip king of France, and had promised his best
+efforts to bring about such a result.  In that case he stipulated for
+the second place in the kingdom for himself, together with a good rich
+province in perpetual sovereignty, and a large sum of money in hand.
+Should this course not run smoothly, he would be willing to take the
+crown himself, in which event he would cheerfully cede to Philip the
+sovereignty of Brittany and Burgundy, besides a selection of cities to be
+arranged for at a later day.  Although he spoke of himself with modesty,
+said Alexander, it was very plain that he meant to arrive at the crown
+himself: Well had the Bearnese alluded to the judgment of Solomon.  Were
+not children, thus ready to dismember their mother, as foul and unnatural
+as the mother who would divide her child?
+
+And what was this dependence on a foreign tyrant really worth?  As we
+look back upon those dark days with the light of what was then the almost
+immediate future turned full and glaring upon them, we find it difficult
+to exaggerate the folly of the chief actors in those scenes of crime.
+Did not the penniless adventurer, whose keen eyesight and wise
+recklessness were passing for hallucination and foolhardiness in the eyes
+of his contemporaries, understand the game he was playing better than did
+that profound thinker, that mysterious but infallible politician, who sat
+in the Escorial and made the world tremble at every hint of his lips,
+every stroke of his pen?
+
+The Netherlands--that most advanced portion of Philip's domain, without
+the possession of which his conquest of England and his incorporation of
+France were but childish visions, even if they were not monstrous
+chimeras at best--were to be in a manner left to themselves, while their
+consummate governor and general was to go forth and conquer France at the
+head of a force with which he had been in vain attempting to hold those
+provinces to their obedience.  At that very moment the rising young
+chieftain of the Netherlands was most successfully inaugurating his
+career of military success.  His armies well drilled, well disciplined,
+well paid, full of heart and of hope, were threatening their ancient
+enemy in every quarter, while the veteran legions of Spain and Italy,
+heroes of a hundred Flemish and Frisian battle-fields, were disorganised,
+starving, and mutinous.  The famous ancient legion, the terzo viejo, had
+been disbanded for its obstinate and confirmed unruliness.  The legion of
+Manrique, sixteen hundred strong, was in open mutiny at Courtray.
+Farnese had sent the Prince of Ascoli to negotiate with them, but his
+attempts were all in vain.  Two years' arrearages--to be paid, not in
+cloth at four times what the contractors had paid for it, but in solid
+gold--were their not unreasonable demands after years of as hard fighting
+and severe suffering as the world has often seen.  But Philip, instead of
+ducats or cloth, had only sent orders to go forth and conquer a new
+kingdom for him.  Verdugo, too, from Friesland was howling for money,
+garrotting and hanging his mutinous veterans every day, and sending
+complaints and most dismal forebodings as often as a courier could make
+his way through the enemy's lines to Farnese's headquarters.  And
+Farnese, on his part, was garrotting and hanging the veterans.
+
+Alexander did not of course inform his master that he was a mischievous
+lunatic, who upon any healthy principle of human government ought long
+ago to have been shut up from all communion with his species.  It was
+very plain, however, from his letters, that such was his innermost,
+thought, had it been safe, loyal, or courteous to express it in plain
+language.
+
+He was himself stung almost to madness moreover by the presence of
+Commander Moreo, who hated him, who was perpetually coming over from
+France to visit him, who was a spy upon all his actions, and who was
+regularly distilling his calumnies into the ears of Secretary Idiaquez
+and of Philip himself.  The king was informed that Farnese was working
+for his own ends, and was disgusted with his sovereign; that there never
+had been a petty prince of Italy that did not wish to become a greater
+one, or that was not jealous of Philip's power, and that there was not a
+villain in all Christendom but wished for Philip's death.  Moreo followed
+the prince about to Antwerp, to Brussels, to Spa, whither he had gone to
+drink the waters for his failing health, pestered him, lectured him,
+pried upon him, counselled him, enraged him.  Alexander told him at last
+that he cared not if the whole world came to an end so long as Flanders
+remained, which alone had been entrusted to him, and that if he was
+expected to conquer France it would be as well to give him the means of
+performing that exploit.  So Moreo told the king that Alexander was
+wasting time and wasting money, that he was the cause of Egmont's
+overthrow, and that he would be the cause of the loss of Paris and of
+the downfall of the whole French scheme; for that he was determined to
+do nothing to assist Mayenne, or that did not conduce to his private
+advantage.
+
+Yet Farnese had been not long before informed in sufficiently plain
+language, and by personages of great influence, that in case he wished to
+convert his vice-royalty of the Netherlands into a permanent sovereignty,
+he might rely on the assistance of Henry of Navarre, and perhaps of Queen
+Elizabeth.  The scheme would not have been impracticable, but the duke
+never listened to it for a moment.
+
+If he were slow in advancing to the relief of starving, agonising
+Paris, there were sufficient reasons for his delay.  Most decidedly and
+bitterly, but loyally, did he denounce the madness of his master's course
+in all his communications to that master's private ear.
+
+He told him that the situation in which he found himself was horrible.
+He had no money for his troops, he had not even garrison bread to put in
+their mouths.  He had not a single stiver to advance them on account.
+From Friesland, from the Rhine country, from every quarter, cries of
+distress were rising to heaven, and the lamentations were just.  He was
+in absolute penury.  He could not negotiate a bill on the royal account,
+but had borrowed on his own private security a few thousand crowns which
+he had given to his soldiers.  He was pledging his jewels and furniture
+like a bankrupt, but all was now in vain to stop the mutiny at Courtray.
+If that went on it would be of most pernicious example, for the whole
+army was disorganised, malcontent, and of portentous aspect.  "These
+things," said he, "ought not to surprise people of common understanding,
+for without money, without credit, without provisions, and in an
+exhausted country, it is impossible to satisfy the claims, or even to
+support the life of the army."  When he sent the Flemish cavalry to
+Mayenne in March, it was under the impression that with it that prince
+would have maintained his reputation and checked the progress of the
+Bearnese until greater reinforcements could be forwarded.  He was now
+glad that no larger number had been sent, for all would have been
+sacrificed on the fatal field of Ivry.
+
+The country around him was desperate, believed itself abandoned, and was
+expecting fresh horrors everyday.  He had been obliged to remove portions
+of the garrisons at Deventer and Zutphen purely to save them from
+starving and desperation.  Every day he was informed by his garrisons
+that they could feed no longer on fine words or hopes, for in them they
+found no sustenance.
+
+But Philip told him that he must proceed forthwith to France, where he
+was to raise the siege of Paris, and occupy Calais and Boulogne in order
+to prevent the English from sending succour to the Bearnese, and in order
+to facilitate his own designs on England.  Every effort was to be made
+before the Bearnese climbed into the seat.  The Duke of Parma was to talk
+no more of difficulties, but to conquer them; a noble phrase on the
+battle field, but comparatively easy of utterance at the writing-desk!
+
+At last, Philip having made some remittances, miserably inadequate for
+the necessities of the case, but sufficient to repress in part the
+mutinous demonstrations throughout the army, Farnese addressed himself
+with a heavy heart to the work required of him.  He confessed the deepest
+apprehensions of the result both in the Netherlands and in France.  He
+intimated a profound distrust of the French, who had, ever been Philip's
+enemies, and dwelt on the danger of leaving the provinces, unable to
+protect themselves, badly garrisoned, and starving.  "It grieves me to
+the soul, it cuts me to the heart," he said, "to see that your Majesty
+commands things which are impossible, for it is our Lord alone that can
+work miracles.  Your Majesty supposes that with the little money you have
+sent me, I can satisfy all the soldiers serving in these provinces,
+settle with the Spanish and the German mutineers--because, if they are
+to be used in the expedition, they must at least be quieted--give money
+to Mayenne and the Parisians, pay retaining wages (wartgeld) to the
+German Riders for the protection of these provinces, and make sure of the
+maritime places where the same mutinous language is held as at Courtray.
+The poverty, the discontent, and the desperation of this unhappy
+country," he added, "have, been so often described to your Majesty that I
+have nothing to add.  I am hanging and garrotting my veterans everywhere,
+only because they have rebelled for want of pay without committing any
+excess.  Yet under these circumstances I am to march into France with
+twenty thousand troops--the least number to effect anything withal.  I am
+confused and perplexed because the whole world is exclaiming against me,
+and protesting that through my desertion the country entrusted to my care
+will come to utter perdition.  On the other hand, the French cry out upon
+me that I am the cause that Paris is going to destruction, and with it
+the Catholic cause in France.  Every one is pursuing his private ends.
+It is impossible to collect a force strong enough for the necessary work.
+Paris has reached its extreme unction, and neither Mayenne nor any one of
+the confederates has given this invalid the slightest morsel to support
+her till your Majesty's forces should arrive."
+
+He reminded his sovereign that the country around Paris was eaten bare of
+food and forage, and yet that it was quite out of the question for him to
+undertake the transportation of supplies for his army all the way--
+supplies from the starving Netherlands to starving France.  Since the
+king was so peremptory, he had nothing for it but to obey, but he
+vehemently disclaimed all responsibility for the expedition, and, in case
+of his death, he called on his Majesty to vindicate his honour, which his
+enemies were sure to assail.
+
+The messages from Mayenne becoming daily more pressing, Farnese hastened
+as much as possible those preparations which at best were so woefully
+inadequate, and avowed his determination not to fight the Bearnese if it
+were possible to avoid an action.  He feared, however, that with totally
+insufficient forces he should be obliged to accept the chances of an
+engagement.
+
+With twelve thousand foot and three thousand horse Farnese left the
+Netherlands in the beginning of August, and arrived on the 3rd of that
+month at Valenciennes.  His little army, notwithstanding his bitter
+complaints, was of imposing appearance.  The archers and halberdiers of
+his bodyguard were magnificent in taffety and feathers and surcoats of
+cramoisy velvet.  Four hundred nobles served in the cavalry.  Arenberg
+and Barlaymont and Chimay, and other grandees of the Netherlands, in
+company with Ascoli and the sons of Terranova and Pastrana, and many more
+great lords of Italy and Spain were in immediate attendance on the
+illustrious captain.  The son of Philip's Secretary of State, Idiaquez,
+and the nephew of the cardinal-legate, Gaetano, were among the marshals
+of the camp.
+
+Alexander's own natural authority and consummate powers of organisation
+had for the time triumphed over the disintegrating tendencies which, it
+had been seen, were everywhere so rapidly destroying the foremost
+military establishment of the world.  Nearly half his forces, both
+cavalry and infantry, were Netherlanders; for--as if there were not
+graves enough in their own little territory--those Flemings, Walloons,
+and Hollanders were destined to leave their bones on both sides of every
+well-stricken field of that age between liberty and despotism.  And thus
+thousands of them had now gone forth under the banner of Spain to assist
+their own tyrant in carrying out his designs upon the capital of France,
+and to struggle to the death with thousands of their own countrymen who
+were following the fortunes of the Bearnese.  Truly in that age it was
+religion that drew the boundary line between nations.
+
+The army was divided into three portions.  The vanguard was under the
+charge of the Netherland General, Marquis of Renty.  The battalia was
+commanded by Farnese in person, and the rearguard was entrusted to that
+veteran Netherlander, La Motte, now called the Count of Everbeck.  Twenty
+pieces of artillery followed the last division.  At Valenciennes
+Farnese remained eight days, and from this place Count Charles Mansfeld
+took his departure in a great rage--resigning his post as chief of
+artillery because La Motte had received the appointment of general-
+marshal of the camp--and returned to his father, old Peter Ernest
+Mansfeld, who was lieutenant-governor of the Netherlands in Parma's
+absence.
+
+Leaving Valenciennes on the 11th, the army proceeded by way of Quesney,
+Guise, Soissons, Fritemilon to Meaux.  At this place, which is ten
+leagues from Paris, Farnese made his junction, on the 22nd of August,
+with Mayenne, who was at the head of six thousand infantry--one half of
+them Germans under Cobalto, and the other half French--and of two
+thousand horse.
+
+On arriving at Meaux, Alexander proceeded straightway to the cathedral,
+and there, in presence of all, he solemnly swore that he had not come
+to France in order to conquer that kingdom or any portion of it, in the
+interests of his master, but only to render succour to the Catholic cause
+and to free the friends and confederates of his Majesty from violence and
+heretic oppression.  Time was to show the value of that oath.
+
+Here the deputation from Paris--the Archbishop of Lyons and his
+colleagues, whose interview with Henry has just been narrated--were
+received by the two dukes.  They departed, taking with them promises of
+immediate relief for the starving city.  The allies remained five days at
+Meaux, and leaving that place on the 27th, arrived in the neighbourhood
+of Chelles, on the last day but one of the summer.  They had a united
+force of five thousand cavalry and eighteen thousand foot.
+
+The summer of horrors was over, and thus with the first days of autumn
+there had come a ray of hope for the proud city which was lying at its
+last gasp.  When the allies, came in sight of the monastery of Chellea
+they found themselves in the immediate neighbourhood of the Bearnese.
+
+The two great captains of the age had at last met face to face.  They
+were not only the two first commanders of their time, but there was not a
+man in Europe at that day to be at all compared with either of them.  The
+youth, concerning whose earliest campaign an account will be given in the
+following chapter, had hardly yet struck his first blow.  Whether that
+blow was to reveal the novice or the master was soon to be seen.
+Meantime in 1590 it would have been considered a foolish adulation to
+mention the name of Maurice of Nassau in the same breath with that of
+Navarre or of Farnese.
+
+The scientific duel which was now to take place was likely to task the
+genius and to bring into full display the peculiar powers and defects of
+the two chieftains of Europe.  Each might be considered to be still in
+the prime of life, but Alexander, who was turned of forty-five, was
+already broken in health, while the vigorous Henry was eight years
+younger, and of an iron constitution.  Both had passed then lives in the
+field, but the king, from nature, education, and the force of
+circumstances, preferred pitched battles to scientific combinations,
+while the duke, having studied and practised his art in the great Spanish
+and Italian schools of warfare, was rather a profound strategist than a
+professional fighter, although capable of great promptness and intense
+personal energy when his judgment dictated a battle.  Both were born with
+that invaluable gift which no human being can acquire, authority, and
+both were adored and willingly obeyed by their soldiers, so long as
+those soldiers were paid and fed.
+
+The prize now to be contended for was a high one.  Alexander's complete
+success would tear from Henry's grasp the first city of Christendom, now
+sinking exhausted into his hands, and would place France in the power of
+the Holy League and at the feet of Philip.  Another Ivry would shatter
+the confederacy, and carry the king in triumph to his capital and his
+ancestral throne.  On the approach of the combined armies under Parma and
+Mayenne, the king had found himself most reluctantly compelled to suspend
+the siege of Paris.  His army, which consisted of sixteen thousand foot
+and five thousand horse, was not sufficiently numerous to confront at the
+same time the relieving force and to continue the operations before the
+city.  So long, however, as he held the towns and bridges on the great
+rivers, and especially those keys to the Seine and Marne, Corbeil and
+Lagny, he still controlled the life-blood of the capital, which indeed
+had almost ceased to flow.
+
+On the 31st August he advanced towards the enemy.  Sir Edward Stafford,
+Queen Elizabeth's ambassador, arrived at St. Denis in the night of the
+30th August.  At a very early hour next morning he heard a shout under
+his window, and looking down beheld King Henry at the head of his troops,
+cheerfully calling out to his English friend as he passed his door.
+"Welcoming us after his familiar manner," said Stafford, "he desired us,
+in respect of the battle every hour expected, to come as his friends to
+see and help him, and not to treat of anything which afore, we meant,
+seeing the present state to require it, and the enemy so near that we
+might well have been interrupted in half-an-hour's talk, and necessity
+constrained the king to be in every corner, where for the most part we
+follow him."
+
+That day Henry took up his headquarters at the monastery of Chelles, a
+fortified place within six leagues of Paris, on the right bank of the
+Marne.  His army was drawn up in a wide valley somewhat encumbered with
+wood and water, extending through a series of beautiful pastures towards
+two hills of moderate elevation.  Lagny, on the left bank of the river,
+was within less than a league of him on his right hand.  On the other
+side of the hills, hardly out of cannon-shot, was the camp of the allies.
+Henry, whose natural disposition in this respect needed no prompting, was
+most eager for a decisive engagement.  The circumstances imperatively
+required it of him.  His infantry consisted of Frenchmen, Netherlanders,
+English, Germans, Scotch; but of his cavalry four thousand were French
+nobles, serving at their own expense, who came to a battle as to a
+banquet, but who were capable of riding off almost as rapidly, should the
+feast be denied them.  They were volunteers, bringing with them rations
+for but a few days, and it could hardly be expected that they would
+remain as patiently as did Parma's veterans, who, now that their mutiny
+had been appeased by payment of a portion of their arrearages, had become
+docile again.  All the great chieftains who surrounded Henry, whether
+Catholic or Protestant--Montpensier, Nevers, Soissons, Conti, the Birons,
+Lavradin, d'Aumont, Tremouille, Turenne, Chatillon, La Noue--were urgent
+for the conflict, concerning the expediency of which there could indeed
+be no doubt, while the king was in raptures at the opportunity of dealing
+a decisive blow at the confederacy of foreigners and rebels who had so
+long defied his authority and deprived him of his rights.
+
+Stafford came up with the king, according to his cordial invitation, on
+the same day, and saw the army all drawn up in battle array.  While Henry
+was "eating a morsel in an old house," Turenne joined him with six or
+seven hundred horsemen and between four and five thousand infantry.
+"They were the likeliest footmen," said Stafford, "the best
+countenanced, the best furnished that ever I saw in my life; the best
+part of them old soldiers that had served under the king for the Religion
+all this while."
+
+The envoy was especially enthusiastic, however, in regard to the French
+cavalry.  "There are near six thousand horse," said he, "whereof
+gentlemen above four thousand, about twelve hundred other French, and
+eight hundred reiters.  I never saw, nor I think never any man saw, in
+prance such a company of gentlemen together so well horsed and so well
+armed."
+
+Henry sent a herald to the camp of the allies, formally challenging them
+to a general engagement, and expressing a hope that all differences might
+now be settled by the ordeal of battle, rather than that the sufferings
+of the innocent people should be longer protracted.
+
+Farnese, on arriving at Meaux, had resolved to seek the enemy and take
+the hazards of a stricken field.  He had misgivings as to the possible
+result, but he expressly announced this intention in his letters to
+Philip, and Mayenne confirmed him in his determination.  Nevertheless,
+finding the enemy so eager and having reflected more maturely, he saw no
+reason for accepting the chivalrous cartel.  As commanderin-chief--for
+Mayenne willingly conceded the supremacy which it would have been absurd
+in him to dispute--he accordingly replied that it was his custom to
+refuse a combat when a refusal seemed advantageous to himself, and to
+offer battle whenever it suited his purposes to fight.  When that moment
+should arrive the king would find him in the field.  And, having sent
+this courteous, but unsatisfactory answer to the impatient Bearnese, he
+gave orders to fortify his camp, which was already sufficiently strong.
+Seven days long the two armies lay face to face--Henry and his chivalry
+chafing in vain for the longed-for engagement--and nothing occurred
+between those forty or fifty thousand mortal enemies, encamped within a
+mile or two of each other, save trifling skirmishes leading to no result.
+
+At last Farnese gave orders for an advance.  Renty, commander of the
+vanguard, consisting of nearly all the cavalry, was instructed to move
+slowly forward over the two hills, and descending on the opposite side,
+to deploy his forces in two great wings to the right and left.  He was
+secretly directed in this movement to magnify as much as possible the
+apparent dimensions of his force.  Slowly the columns moved over the
+hills.  Squadron after squadron, nearly all of them lancers, with their
+pennons flaunting gaily in the summer wind, displayed themselves
+deliberately and ostentatiously in the face of the Royalists.  The
+splendid light-horse of Basti, the ponderous troopers of the Flemish
+bands of ordnance under Chimay and Berlaymont, and the famous Albanian
+and Italian cavalry, were mingled with the veteran Leaguers of France who
+had fought under the Balafre, and who now followed the fortunes of his
+brother Mayenne.  It was an imposing demonstration.
+
+Henry could hardly believe his eyes as the much-coveted opportunity,
+of which he had been so many days disappointed, at last presented itself,
+and he waited with more than his usual caution until the plan of attack
+should be developed by his great antagonist.  Parma, on his side, pressed
+the hand of Mayenne as he watched the movement, saying quietly, "We have
+already fought our battle and gained the victory."  He then issued orders
+for the whole battalia--which, since the junction, had been under command
+of Mayenne, Farnese reserving for himself the superintendence of the
+entire army--to countermarch rapidly towards the Marne and take up a
+position opposite Lagny.  La Motte, with the rearguard, was directed
+immediately to follow.  The battalia had thus become the van, the
+rearguard the battalia, while the whole cavalry corps by this movement
+had been transformed from the vanguard into the rear.  Renty was
+instructed to protect his manoeuvres, to restrain the skirmishing as much
+as possible, and to keep the commander-in-chief constantly informed of
+every occurrence.  In the night he was to entrench and fortify himself
+rapidly and thoroughly, without changing his position.
+
+Under cover of this feigned attack, Farnese arrived at the river side on
+the 15th September, seized an open village directly opposite Lagny, which
+was connected with it by a stone bridge, and planted a battery of nine
+pieces of heavy artillery directly opposite the town.  Lagny was
+fortified in the old-fashioned manner, with not very thick walls, and
+without a terreplain.  Its position, however, and its command of the
+bridge, seemed to render an assault impossible, and De la Fin, who lay
+there with a garrison of twelve hundred French, had no fear for the
+security of the place.  But Farnese, with the precision and celerity
+which characterized his movements on special occasions, had thrown
+pontoon bridges across the river three miles above, and sent a
+considerable force of Spanish and Walloon infantry to the other side.
+These troops were ordered to hold themselves ready for an assault, so
+soon as the batteries opposite should effect a practicable breach.  The
+next day Henry, reconnoitering the scene, saw, with intense indignation,
+that he had been completely out-generalled.  Lagny, the key to the Marne,
+by holding which he had closed the door on nearly all the food supplies
+for Paris, was about to be wrested from him.  What should he do?  Should
+he throw himself across the river and rescue the place before it fell?
+This was not to be thought of even by the audacious Bearnese.  In the
+attempt to cross the river, under the enemy's fire, he was likely to lose
+a large portion of his army.  Should he fling himself upon Renty's
+division which had so ostentatiously offered battle the day before?  This
+at least might be attempted, although not so advantageously as would have
+been the case on the previous afternoon.  To undertake this was the
+result of a rapid council of generals.  It was too late.  Renty held the
+hills so firmly entrenched and fortified that it was an idle hope to
+carry them by assault.  He might hurl column after column against those
+heights, and pass the day in seeing his men mowed to the earth without
+result.
+
+His soldiers, magnificent in the open field, could not be relied upon to
+carry so strong a position by sudden storm; and there was no time to be
+lost.  He felt the enemy a little.  There was some small skirmishing, and
+while it was going on, Farnese opened a tremendous fire across the river
+upon Lagny.  The weak walls soon crumbled; a breach was effected, the
+signal for assault was given, and the troops posted on the other side,
+after a brief but sanguinary straggle, overcame all, resistance, and were
+masters of the town.  The whole garrison, twelve hundred strong, was
+butchered, and the city thoroughly sacked; for Farnese had been brought
+up in the old-fashioned school of Alva; and Julian Romero and Com-.
+wander Requesens.
+
+Thus Lagny was seized before the eyes of Henry, who was forced to look
+helplessly on his great antagonist's triumph.  He had come forth in full
+panoply and abounding confidence to offer battle.  He was foiled of his
+combat; and he had lost the prize.  Never was blow more successfully
+parried, a counter-stroke more ingeniously planted.  The bridges of
+Charenton and St. Maur now fell into Farnese's hands without a contest.
+In an incredibly short space of time provisions and munitions were poured
+into the starving city; two thousand boat-loads arriving in a single day.
+Paris was relieved.  Alexander had made his demonstration, and solved the
+problem.  He had left the Netherlands against his judgment, but he had at
+least accomplished his French work as none but he could have done it.
+The king was now in worse plight than ever.  His army fell to pieces.
+His cavaliers, cheated of their battle; and having neither food nor
+forage, rode off by hundreds every day.  "Our state is such," said
+Stafford; on the 16th September, "and so far unexpected and wonderful,
+that I am almost ashamed to write, because methinks everybody should
+think I dream.  Myself seeing of it methinketh that I dream.  For, my
+lord, to see an army such a one I think as I shall never see again--
+especially for horsemen and gentlemen to take a mind to disband upon the
+taking of such a paltry thing as Lagny, a town no better indeed than
+Rochester, it is a thing so strange to me that seeing of it I can scarce
+believe it.  They make their excuses of their want, which I know indeed
+is great--for there were few left with one penny in their purses--but yet
+that extremity could not be such but that they might have tarried ten
+days or fifteen at the most that the king desired of them . . . . . From
+six thousand horse that we were and above, we are come to two thousand
+and I do not see an end of our leave-takers, for those be hourly.
+
+"The most I can see we can make account of to tarry are the Viscount
+Turenne's troops, and Monsieur de Chatillon's, and our Switzers, and
+Lanaquenettes, which make very near five thousand.  The first that went
+away, though he sent word to the king an hour before he would tarry, was
+the Count Soissons, by whose parting on a sudden and without leave-taking
+we judge a discontentment."
+
+The king's army seemed fading into air.  Making virtue of necessity he
+withdrew to St. Denis, and decided to disband his forces, reserving to
+himself only a flying camp with which to harass the enemy as often as
+opportunity should offer.
+
+It must be confessed that the Bearnese had been thoroughly out-
+generalled.  "It was not God's will," said Stafford, who had been in
+constant attendance upon Henry through the whole business; "we deserved
+it not; for the king might as easily have had Paris as drunk, four or
+five times.  And at the last, if he had not committed those faults that
+children would not have done, only with the desire to fight and give the
+battle (which the other never meant), he had had it in the Duke of
+Parma's eight as he took Lagny in ours."  He had been foiled of the
+battle on which he had set his heart, and, in which he felt confident of
+overthrowing the great captain of the age, and trampling the League under
+his feet.  His capital just ready to sink exhausted into his hands had
+been wrested from his grasp, and was alive with new hope and new
+defiance.  The League was triumphant, his own army scattering to the four
+winds.  Even a man of high courage and sagacity might have been in
+despair.  Yet never were the magnificent hopefulness, the wise audacity
+of Henry more signally manifested than now when he seemed most blundering
+and most forlorn.  His hardy nature ever met disaster with so cheerful a
+smile as almost to perplex disaster herself.
+
+Unwilling to relinquish his grip without a last effort, he resolved on a
+midnight assault upon Paris.  Hoping that the joy at being relieved, the
+unwonted feasting which had succeeded the long fasting, and the
+conciousness of security from the presence of the combined armies of the
+victorious League, would throw garrison and citizens off their guard, he
+came into the neighbourhood of the Faubourgs St. Jacques, St. Germain,
+St. Marcel, and St. Michel on the night of 9th September.  A desperate
+effort was made to escalade the walls between St. Jacques and St.
+Germain.  It was foiled, not by the soldiers nor the citizens, but by the
+sleepless Jesuits, who, as often before during this memorable siege, had
+kept guard on the ramparts, and who now gave the alarm.  The first
+assailants were hurled from their ladders, the city was roused, and the
+Duke of Nemours was soon on the spot, ordering burning pitch hoops,
+atones, and other missiles to be thrown down upon the invaders.  The
+escalade was baffled; yet once more that night, just before dawn, the
+king in person renewed the attack on the Faubourg St. Germain.  The
+faithful Stafford stood by his side in the trenches, and was witness to
+his cool determination, his indomitable hope.  La None too was there,
+and was wounded in the leg--an accident the results of which were soon
+to cause much weeping through Christendom.  Had one of those garlands of
+blazing tar which all night had been fluttering from the walls of Paris
+alighted by chance on the king's head there might have been another
+history of France.  The ladders, too, proved several feet too short,
+and there were too few, of them.  Had they been more numerous and longer,
+the tale might have been a different one.  As it was, the king was forced
+to retire with the approaching daylight.
+
+The characteristics of the great commander of the Huguenots and of the
+Leaguers' chieftain respectively were well illustrated in several
+incidents of this memorable campaign.  Farnese had been informed by
+scouts and spies of this intended assault by Henry on the walls of Paris.
+With his habitual caution he discredited the story.  Had he believed it,
+he might have followed the king in overwhelming force and taken him
+captive.  The penalty of Henry's unparalleled boldness was thus remitted
+by Alexander's exuberant discretion.
+
+Soon afterwards Farnese laid siege to Corbeil.  This little place--owing
+to the extraordinary skill and determination of its commandant, Rigaut,
+an old Huguenot officer, who had fought with La Noue in Flanders--
+resisted for nearly four weeks.  It was assaulted at last, Rigaut killed,
+the garrison of one thousand French soldiers put to the sword, and the
+town sacked.  With the fall of Corbeil both the Seine and Marne were re-
+opened.
+
+Alexander then made a visit to Paris, where he was received with great
+enthusiasm.  The legate, whose efforts and whose money had so much
+contributed to the successful defence of the capital had returned to
+Italy to participate in the election of a new pope.  For the "Huguenot
+pope," Sixtus V., had died at the end of August, having never bestowed
+on the League any of his vast accumulated treasures to help it in its
+utmost need.  It was not surprising that Philip was indignant, and had
+resorted to menace of various kinds against the holy father, when he
+found him swaying so perceptibly in the direction of the hated Bearnese.
+Of course when he died his complaint was believed to be Spanish poison.
+In those days, none but the very obscure were thought capable of dying
+natural deaths, and Philip was esteemed too consummate an artist to allow
+so formidable an adversary as Sixtus to pass away in God's time only.
+Certainly his death was hailed as matter of great rejoicing by the
+Spanish party in Rome, and as much ignominy bestowed upon his memory as
+if he had been a heretic; while in Paris his decease was celebrated with
+bonfires and other marks of popular hilarity.
+
+To circumvent the great Huguenot's reconciliation with the Roman Church
+was of course an indispensable portion of Philip's plan; for none could
+be so dull as not to perceive that the resistance of Paris to its heretic
+sovereign would cease to be very effective, so soon as the sovereign had
+ceased to be heretic.  It was most important therefore that the successor
+of Sixtus should be the tool of Spain.  The leading confederates were
+well aware of Henry's intentions to renounce the reformed faith, and to
+return to the communion of Rome whenever he could formally accomplish
+that measure.  The crafty Bearnese knew full well that the road to Paris
+lay through the gates of Rome.  Yet it is proof either of the privacy
+with which great public matters were then transacted, or of the
+extraordinary powers of deceit with which Henry was gifted, that the
+leaders of protestantism were still hoodwinked in regard to his attitude.
+Notwithstanding the embassy of Luxembourg, and the many other indications
+of the king's intentions, Queen Elizabeth continued to regard him as the
+great champion of the reformed faith.  She had just sent him an emerald,
+which she had herself worn, accompanied by the expression of her wish
+that the king in wearing it might never strike a blow without demolishing
+an enemy, and that in his farther progress he might put all his enemies
+to rout and confusion.  "You will remind the king, too," she added, "that
+the emerald has this virtue, never to break so long as faith remains
+entire and firm."
+
+And the shrewd Stafford, who was in daily attendance upon him, informed
+his sovereign that there were no symptoms of wavering on Henry's part.
+"The Catholics here," said he, "cry hard upon the king to be a Catholic
+or else that he is lost, and they would persuade him that for all their
+calling in the Spaniards, both Paris and all other towns will yield to
+him, if he will but assure them that he will become a Catholic.  For my
+part, I think they would laugh at him when he had done so, and so I find
+he believeth the same, if he had mind to it, which I find no disposition
+in him unto it."  The not very distant future was to show what the
+disposition of the bold Gascon really was in this great matter, and
+whether he was likely to reap nothing but ridicule from his apostasy,
+should it indeed become a fact.  Meantime it was the opinion of the
+wisest sovereign in Europe, and of one of the most adroit among her
+diplomatists, that there was really nothing in the rumours as to the
+king's contemplated conversion.
+
+It was, of course, unfortunate for Henry that his staunch friend and
+admirer Sixtus was no more.  But English diplomacy could do but little in
+Rome, and men were trembling with apprehension lest that arch-enemy of
+Elizabeth, that devoted friend of Philip, the English Cardinal Allen,
+should be elected to the papal throne.  "Great ado is made in Rome," said
+Stafford, "by the Spanish ambassador, by all corruptions and ways that
+may be, to make a pope that must needs depend and be altogether at the
+King of Spain's devotion.  If the princes of Italy put not their hands
+unto it, no doubt they will have their wills, and I fear greatly our
+villainous Allen, for, in my judgment, I can comprehend no man more with
+reason to be tied altogether to the King of Spain's will than he.
+I pray God send him either to God or the Devil first.  An evil-minded
+Englishman, tied to the King of Spain by necessity, finding almost four
+millions of money, is a dangerous beast for a pope in this time."
+
+Cardinal Allen was doomed to disappointment.  His candidacy was not
+successful, and, after the brief reign--thirteen days long--of Urban VII,
+Sfondrato wore the triple tiara with the title of Gregory XIV.  Before
+the year closed, that pontiff had issued a brief urging the necessity of
+extirpating heresy in France, and of electing a Catholic king, and
+asserting his determination to send to Paris--that bulwark of the
+Catholic faith--not empty words alone but troops, to be paid fifteen
+thousand crowns of gold each month, so long as the city should need
+assistance.  It was therefore probable that the great leader of the
+Huguenots, now that he had been defeated by Farnese, and that his
+capital was still loyal to the League, would obtain less favour--however
+conscientiously he might instruct himself--from Gregory XIV. than he had
+begun to find in the eyes of Sixtus after the triumph of Ivry.
+
+Parma refreshed his army by a fortnight's repose, and early in November
+determined on his return to the Netherlands.  The Leaguers were aghast at
+his decision, and earnestly besought him to remain.  But the duke had
+given them back their capital, and although this had been accomplished
+without much bloodshed in their army or his own, sickness was now making
+sad ravages among his troops, and there was small supply of food or
+forage for such large forces as had now been accumulated, in the
+neighbourhood of Paris.  Moreover, dissensions were breaking out.
+between the Spaniards, Italians, and Netherlanders of the relieving army
+with their French allies.  The soldiers and peasants hated the foreigners
+who came there as victors, even although to assist the Leaguers in
+overthrowing the laws, government, and nationality of France.  The
+stragglers and wounded on Farnese's march were killed by the country
+people in considerable numbers, and it was a pure impossibility for him
+longer to delay his return to the provinces which so much against his
+will he had deserted.
+
+He marched back by way of Champagne rather than by that of Picardy, in
+order to deceive the king.  Scarcely had he arrived in Champagne when he
+heard of the retaking of Lagny and Corbeil.  So soon as his back was
+turned, the League thus showed its impotence to retain the advantage
+which his genius had won.  Corbeil, which had cost him a month of hard
+work, was recaptured in two days.  Lagny fell almost as quickly.
+Earnestly did the confederates implore him to return to their rescue,
+but he declined almost contemptuously to retrace his steps.  His march
+was conducted in the same order and with the same precision which--had
+marked his advance.  Henry, with his flying camp, hung upon his track,
+harassing him now in front, now in rear, now in flank.  None of the
+skirmishes were of much military importance.  A single cavalry combat,
+however, in which old Marshal Biron was nearly surrounded and was in
+imminent danger of death or capture, until chivalrously rescued by the
+king in person at the head of a squadron of lancers, will always possess
+romantic interest.  In a subsequent encounter, near Baroges on the Yesle,
+Henry had sent Biron forward with a few companies of horse to engage some
+five hundred carabineers of Farnese on their march towards the frontier,
+and had himself followed close upon the track with his usual eagerness to
+witness or participate in every battle.  Suddenly Alphonse Corse, who
+rode at Henry's aide, pointed out to him, not more than a hundred paces
+off, an officer wearing a felt hat, a great ruff, and a little furred
+cassock, mounted on a horse without armour or caparisons, galloping up
+and down and brandishing his sword at the carabineers to compel them to
+fall back.
+
+This was the Duke of Parma, and thus the two great champions of the
+Huguenots and of the Leaguers--the two foremost captains of the age--had
+met face to face.  At that moment La Noue, riding up, informed the king
+that he had seen the whole of the enemy's horse and foot in battle array,
+and Henry, suspecting the retreat of Farnese to be a feint for the
+purpose of luring him on with his small force to an attack, gave orders
+to retire as soon as possible.
+
+At Guise, on the frontier, the duke parted with Mayenne, leaving with him
+an auxiliary force of four thousand foot and five hundred horse, which he
+could ill spare.  He then returned to Brussels, which city he reached on
+the 4th December, filling every hotel and hospital with his sick
+soldiers, and having left one-third of his numbers behind him.  He had
+manifested his own military skill in the adroit and successful manner in
+which he had accomplished the relief of Paris, while the barrenness of
+the result from the whole expedition vindicated the political sagacity
+with which he had remonstrated against his sovereign's infatuation.
+
+Paris, with the renewed pressure on its two great arteries at Lagny and
+Corbeil, soon fell into as great danger as before; the obedient
+Netherlands during the absence of Farnese had been sinking rapidly to
+ruin, while; on the other hand, great progress and still greater
+preparations in aggressive warfare had been made by the youthful general
+and stadtholder of the Republic.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Alexander's exuberant discretion
+Divine right of kings
+Ever met disaster with so cheerful a smile
+Future world as laid down by rival priesthoods
+Invaluable gift which no human being can acquire, authority
+King was often to be something much less or much worse
+Magnificent hopefulness
+Myself seeing of it methinketh that I dream
+Nothing cheap, said a citizen bitterly, but sermons
+Obscure were thought capable of dying natural deaths
+Philip II. gave the world work enough
+Righteous to kill their own children
+Road to Paris lay through the gates of Rome
+Shift the mantle of religion from one shoulder to the other
+Thirty-three per cent. interest was paid (per month)
+Under the name of religion (so many crimes)
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v62
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 63, 1590-1592
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+     Prince Maurice--State of the Republican army--Martial science of the
+     period--Reformation of the military system by Prince Maurice--His
+     military genius--Campaign in the Netherlands--The fort and town of
+     Zutphen taken by the States' forces--Attack upon Deventer--Its
+     capitulation--Advance on Groningen, Delfzyl, Opslag, Yementil,
+     Steenwyk, and other places--Farnese besieges Fort Knodsenburg--
+     Prince Maurice hastens to its relief--A skirmish ensues resulting in
+     the discomfiture of the Spanish and Italian troops--Surrender of
+     Hulat and Nymegen--Close of military, operations of the year.
+
+While the events revealed in the last chapter had been occupying the
+energies of Farnese and the resources of his sovereign, there had been
+ample room for Prince Maurice to mature his projects, and to make a
+satisfactory beginning in the field.  Although Alexander had returned to
+the Netherlands before the end of the year 1590, and did not set forth on
+his second French campaign until late in the following year, yet the
+condition of his health, the exhaustion of his funds, and the dwindling
+of his army, made it impossible for him to render any effectual
+opposition to the projects of the youthful general.
+
+For the first time Maurice was ready to put his theories and studies into
+practice on an extensive scale.  Compared with modern armaments, the
+warlike machinery to be used for liberating the republic from its foreign
+oppressors would seem almost diminutive.  But the science and skill of a
+commander are to be judged by the results he can work out with the
+materials within reach.  His progress is to be measured by a comparison
+with the progress of his contemporaries--coheirs with him of what Time
+had thus far bequeathed.
+
+The regular army of the republic, as reconstructed, was but ten thousand
+foot and two thousand horse, but it was capable of being largely expanded
+by the trainbands of the cities, well disciplined and enured to hardship,
+and by the levies of German reiters and other, foreign auxiliaries in
+such numbers as could be paid for by the hard-pressed exchequer of the
+provinces.
+
+To the state-council, according to its original constitution, belonged
+the levying and disbanding of troops, the conferring of military offices,
+and the supervision of military operations by sea and land.  It was its
+duty to see that all officers made oath of allegiance to the United
+Provinces.
+
+The course of Leicester's administration, and especially the fatal
+treason of Stanley and of York, made it seem important for the true
+lovers of their country to wrest from the state-council, where the
+English had two seats, all political and military power.  And this, as
+has been seen, was practically but illegally accomplished.  The silent
+revolution by which at this epoch all the main attributes of government
+passed into the hands of the States-General-acting as a league of
+sovereignties--has already been indicated.  The period during which the
+council exercised functions conferred on it by the States-General
+themselves was brief and evanescent.  The jealousy of the separate
+provinces soon prevented the state-council--a supreme executive body
+entrusted with the general defence of the commonwealth--from causing
+troops to pass into or out of one province or another without a patent
+from his Excellency the Prince, not as chief of the whole army, but as
+governor and captain-general of Holland, or Gelderland, or Utrecht, as
+the case might be.
+
+The highest military office in the Netherlands was that of captain-
+general or supreme commander.  This quality was from earliest times
+united to that of stadholder, who stood, as his title implied, in the
+place of the reigning sovereign, whether count, duke, king, or emperor.
+After the foundation of the Republic this dynastic form, like many
+others, remained, and thus Prince Maurice was at first only captain-
+general of Holland and Zeeland, and subsequently of Gelderland, Utrecht,
+and Overyssel, after he had been appointed stadholder of those three
+provinces in 1590 on the death of Count Nieuwenaar.  However much in
+reality he was general-in-chief of the army, he never in all his life
+held the appointment of captain-general of the Union.
+
+To obtain a captain's commission in the army, it was necessary to have
+served four years, while three years' service was the necessary
+preliminary to the post of lieutenant or ensign.  Three candidates were
+presented by the province for each office, from whom the stadholder
+appointed one.--The commissions, except those of the highest commanders,
+were made out in the name of the States-General, by advice and consent of
+the council of state.  The oath of allegiance, exacted from soldiers as
+well as officers; mentioned the name of the particular province to which
+they belonged, as well as that of the States-Generals.  It thus appears
+that, especially after Maurice's first and successful campaigns; the
+supreme authority over the army really belonged to the States-General,
+and that the powers of the state-council in this regard fell, in the
+course of four years, more and more into the back-ground, and at last
+disappeared almost entirely.  During the active period of the war,
+however; the effect of this revolution was in fact rather a greater
+concentration of military power than its dispersion, for the States-
+General meant simply the province of Holland.  Holland was the republic.
+
+The organisation of the infantry was very simple.  The tactical unit
+was the company.  A temporary combination of several companies--made a
+regiment, commanded by a colonel or lieutenant-colonel, but for such
+regiments there was no regular organisation.  Sometimes six or seven
+companies were thus combined, sometimes three times that number, but the
+strength of a force, however large, was always estimated by the number of
+companies, not of regiments.
+
+The normal strength of an infantry company, at the beginning of Maurice's
+career, may be stated at one hundred and thirteen, commanded by one
+captain, one lieutenant, one ensign, and by the usual non-commissioned
+officers.  Each company was composed of musketeers, harquebusseers,
+pikemen, halberdeers, and buckler-men.  Long after, portable firearms had
+come into use, the greater portion of foot soldiers continued to be armed
+with pikes, until the introduction of the fixed bayonet enabled the
+musketeer to do likewise the duty of pikeman.  Maurice was among the
+first to appreciate the advantage of portable firearms, and he
+accordingly increased the proportion of soldiers armed with the musket
+in his companies.  In a company of a hundred and thirteen, including
+officers, he had sixty-four armed with firelocks to thirty carrying pikes
+and halberds.  As before his time the proportion between the arms had
+been nearly even; he thus more than doubled the number of firearms.
+
+Of these weapons there were two sorts, the musket and the harquebus.  The
+musket was a long, heavy, unmanageable instrument.  When fired it was-
+placed upon an iron gaffle or fork, which: the soldier carried with him,
+and stuck before him into the ground.  The bullets of the musket were
+twelve to the pound.
+
+The harquebus--or hak-bus, hook-gun, so called because of the hook in the
+front part of the barrel to give steadiness in firing--was much lighter,
+was discharged from the hand; and carried bullets of twenty-four to the
+pound.  Both weapons had matchlocks.
+
+The pike was eighteen feet long at least, and pikemen as well as
+halberdsmen carried rapiers.
+
+There were three buckler-men to each company, introduced by Maurice for
+the personal protection of the leader of the company.  The prince was
+often attended by one himself, and, on at least one memorable occasion,
+was indebted to this shield for the preservation of his life.
+
+The cavalry was divided into lancers and carabineers.  The unit was the
+squadron, varying in number from sixty to one hundred and fifty, until
+the year 1591, when the regular complement of the squadron was fixed at
+one hundred and twenty.
+
+As the use of cavalry on the battle-field at that day, or at least in the
+Netherlands, was not in rapidity of motion, nor in severity of shock--the
+attack usually taking place on a trot--Maurice gradually displaced the
+lance in favour of the carbine.  His troopers thus became rather mounted
+infantry than regular cavalry.
+
+The carbine was at least three feet long, with wheel-locks, and carried
+bullets of thirty to the pound.
+
+The artillery was a peculiar Organisation.  It was a guild of citizens,
+rather than a strictly military force like the cavalry and infantry.  The
+arm had but just begun to develop itself, and it was cultivated as a
+special trade by the guild of the holy Barbara existing in all the
+principal cities.  Thus a municipal artillery gradually organised itself,
+under the direction of the gun-masters (bus-meesters), who in secret
+laboured at the perfection of their art, and who taught it to their
+apprentices and journeymen; as the principles of other crafts were
+conveyed by master to pupil.  This system furnished a powerful element of
+defence at a period when every city had in great measure to provide for
+its own safety.
+
+In the earlier campaigns of Maurice three kinds of artillery were used;
+the whole cannon (kartow) of forty-eight pounds; the half-cannon, or
+twenty-four pounder, and the field-piece carrying a ball of twelve
+pounds.  The two first were called battering pieces or siege-guns.  All
+the guns were of bronze.
+
+The length of the whole cannon was about twelve feet; its weight one
+hundred and fifty times that of the ball, or about seven thousand pounds.
+It was reckoned that the whole kartow could fire from eighty to one
+hundred shots in an hour.  Wet hair cloths were used to cool the piece
+after every, ten or twelve discharges.  The usual charge was twenty
+pounds of powder.
+
+The whole gun was drawn by thirty-one horses, the half-cannon by twenty-
+three.
+
+The field-piece required eleven horses, but a regular field-artillery, as
+an integral part of the army, did not exist, and was introduced in much
+later times.  In the greatest pitched battle ever fought by Maurice, that
+of Nieuport, he had but six field-pieces.
+
+The prince also employed mortars in his sieges, from which were thrown
+grenades, hot shot, and stones; but no greater distance was reached than
+six hundred yards.  Bomb-shells were not often used although they had
+been known for a century.
+
+Before the days of Maurice a special education for engineers had never
+been contemplated.  Persons who had privately acquired a knowledge of
+fortification and similar branches of the science were employed, upon
+occasion, but regular corps of engineers there were none.  The prince
+established a course of instruction in this profession at the University
+of Leyden, according to a system drawn up by the celebrated Stevinus.
+
+Doubtless the most important innovation of the prince, and the one which
+required the most energy to enforce, was the use of the spade.  His
+soldiers were jeered at by the enemy as mere boors and day labourers who
+were dishonouring themselves and their profession by the use of that
+implement instead of the sword.  Such a novelty was a shock to all the
+military ideas of the age, and it was only the determination and vigour
+of the prince and of his cousin Lewis William that ultimately triumphed
+over the universal prejudice.
+
+The pay of the common soldier varied from ten to twenty florins the
+month, but every miner had eighteen florins, and, when actually working
+in the mines, thirty florins monthly.  Soldiers used in digging trenches
+received, over and above their regular pay, a daily wage of from ten to
+fifteen styvers, or nearly a shilling sterling.
+
+Another most wholesome improvement made by the prince was in the payment
+of his troops.  The system prevailing in every European country at that
+day, by which Governments were defrauded and soldiers starved, was most
+infamous.  The soldiers were paid through the captain, who received the
+wages of a full company, when perhaps not one-third of the names on the
+master-roll were living human beings.  Accordingly two-thirds of all the
+money stuck to the officer's fingers, and it was not thought a disgrace
+to cheat the Government by dressing and equipping for the day a set of
+ragamuffins, caught up in the streets for the purpose, and made to pass
+muster as regular soldiers.
+
+These parse-volants, or scarecrows, were passed freely about from one
+company to another, and the indecency of the fraud was never thought a
+disgrace to the colours of the company.
+
+Thus, in the Armada year, the queen had demanded that a portion of her
+auxiliary force in the Netherlands should be sent to England.  The States
+agreed that three thousand of these English troops, together with a few
+cavalry companies, should go, but stipulated that two thousand should
+remain in the provinces.  The queen accepted the proposal, but when the
+two thousand had been counted out, it appeared that there was scarcely a
+man left for the voyage to England.  Yet every one of the English
+captains had claimed full pay for his company from her Majesty's
+exchequer.
+
+Against this tide of peculation and corruption the strenuous Maurice set
+himself with heart and soul, and there is no doubt that to his
+reformation in this vital matter much of his military success was owing.
+It was impossible that roguery and venality should ever furnish a solid
+foundation for the martial science.
+
+To the student of military history the campaigns and sieges of Maurice,
+and especially the earlier: ones, are of great importance.  There is no
+doubt whatever, that the youth who now, after deep study and careful
+preparation, was measuring himself against the first captains of the age,
+was founding the great modern school of military science.  It was in this
+Netherland academy, and under the tuition of its consummate professor,
+that the commanders of the seventeenth century not only acquired the
+rudiments, but perfected themselves in the higher walks of their art.
+Therefore the siege operations, in which all that had been invented by
+modern genius, or rescued from the oblivion which had gathered over
+ancient lore during the more vulgar and commonplace practice of the
+mercenary commanders of the day was brought into successful application,
+must always engage the special attention of the military student.
+
+To the general reader, more interested in marking the progress of
+civilisation and the advance of the people in the path of development
+and true liberty, the spectacle of tho young stadholder's triumphs has
+an interest of another kind.  At the moment when a thorough practical
+soldier was most needed by the struggling little commonwealth, to enable
+it to preserve liberties partially secured by its unparalleled sacrifices
+of blood and treasure during a quarter of a century, and to expel the
+foreign invader from the soil which he had so long profaned, it was
+destined that a soldier should appear.
+
+Spade in hand, with his head full of Roman castrametation and geometrical
+problems, a prince, scarce emerged from boyhood, presents himself on that
+stage where grizzled Mansfelds, drunken Hohenlos, and truculent Verdugos
+have been so long enacting, that artless military drama which consists
+of hard knocks and wholesale massacres.  The novice is received with
+universal hilarity.  But although the machinery of war varies so steadily
+from age to age that a commonplace commander of to-day, rich in the
+spoils of preceding time, might vanquish the Alexanders, and Caesars,
+and Frederics, with their antiquated enginery, yet the moral stuff out of
+which great captains, great armies, great victories are created, is the
+simple material it was in the days of Sesostris or Cyrus.  The moral and
+physiological elements remain essentially the same as when man first
+began to walk up and down the earth and destroy his fellow-creatures.
+
+To make an army a thorough mowing-machine, it then seemed necessary that
+it should be disciplined into complete mechanical obedience.  To secure
+this, prompt payment of wages and inexorable punishment of delinquencies
+were indispensable.  Long arrearages were now converting Farnese's
+veterans into systematic marauders; for unpaid soldiers in every age
+and country have usually degenerated into highwaymen, and it is an
+impossibility for a sovereign, with the strictest intentions, to persist
+in starving his soldiers and in killing them for feeding themselves.  In
+Maurice's little army, on the contrary, there were no back-wages and no
+thieving.  At the siege of Delfzyl Maurice hung two of his soldiers for
+stealing, the one a hat and the other a poniard, from the townsfolk,
+after the place had capitulated.  At the siege of Hulst he ordered
+another to be shot, before the whole camp, for robbing a woman.
+
+This seems sufficiently harsh, but war is not a pastime nor a very humane
+occupation.  The result was, that robbery disappeared, and it is better
+for all that enlisted men should be soldiers rather than thieves.  To
+secure the ends which alone can justify war--and if the Netherlanders
+engaged in defending national existence and human freedom against foreign
+tyranny were not justifiable then a just war has never been waged--
+a disciplined army is vastly more humane in its operations than a band
+of brigands.  Swift and condign punishments by the law-martial, for even
+trifling offences, is the best means of discipline yet devised.
+
+To bring to utmost perfection the machinery already in existence,
+to encourage invention, to ponder the past with a practical application
+to the present, to court fatigue, to scorn pleasure, to concentrate the
+energies on the work in hand, to cultivate quickness of eye and calmness
+of nerve in the midst of danger, to accelerate movements, to economise
+blood even at the expense of time, to strive after ubiquity and
+omniscience in the details of person and place, these were the
+characteristics of Maurice, and they have been the prominent traits of
+all commanders who have stamped themselves upon their age.  Although his
+method of war-making differed as far as possible from that quality in
+common, of the Bearnese, yet the two had one personal insensibility to
+fear.  But in the case of Henry, to confront danger for its own sake
+was in itself a pleasure, while the calmer spirit of Maurice did not
+so much seek the joys of the combat as refuse to desist from scientific
+combinations in the interests of his personal safety.  Very frequently,
+in the course of his early campaigns, the prince was formally and
+urgently requested by the States-General not to expose his life so
+recklessly, and before he had passed his twenty-fifth year he had
+received wounds which, but for fortunate circumstances, would have proved
+mortal, because he was unwilling to leave special operations on which
+much was depending to other eyes than his own.  The details of his
+campaigns are, of necessity, the less interesting to a general reader
+from their very completeness.  Desultory or semi-civilised warfare, where
+the play of the human passions is distinctly visible, where individual
+man, whether in buff jerkin or Milan coat of proof, meets his fellow man
+in close mortal combat, where men starve by thousands or are massacred by
+town-fulls, where hamlets or villages blaze throughout whole districts or
+are sunk beneath the ocean--scenes of rage, hatred, vengeance, self-
+sacrifice, patriotism, where all the virtues and vices of which humanity
+is capable stride to and fro in their most violent colours and most
+colossal shape where man in a moment rises almost to divinity, or sinks
+beneath the beasts of the field--such tragical records of which the
+sanguinary story of mankind is full--and no portion of them more so than
+the Netherland chronicles appeal more vividly to the imagination than the
+neatest solution of mathematical problems.  Yet, if it be the legitimate
+end of military science to accomplish its largest purposes at the least
+expense of human suffering; if it be progress in civilisation to acquire
+by scientific combination what might be otherwise attempted, and perhaps
+vainly attempted, by infinite carnage, then is the professor with his
+diagrams, standing unmoved amid danger, a more truly heroic image than
+Coeur-de-Lion with his battle-axe or Alva with his truncheon.
+
+The system--then a new one--which Maurice introduced to sustain that
+little commonwealth from sinking of which he had become at the age of
+seventeen the predestined chief, was the best under the circumstances
+that could have been devised.  Patriotism the most passionate, the most
+sublime, had created the republic.  To maintain its existence against
+perpetual menace required the exertion of perpetual skill.
+
+Passionless as algebra, the genius of Maurice was ready for the task.
+Strategic points of immense value, important cities and fortresses, vital
+river-courses and communications--which foreign tyranny had acquired
+during the tragic past with a patient iniquity almost without a parallel,
+and which patriotism had for years vainly struggled to recover--were the
+earliest trophies and prizes of his art.  But the details of his
+victories may be briefly indicated, for they have none of the
+picturesqueness of crime.  The sieges of Naarden, Harlem, Leyden, were
+tragedies of maddening interest, but the recovery of Zutphen, Deventer,
+Nymegen, Groningen, and many other places--all important though they
+were--was accomplished with the calmness of a consummate player, who
+throws down on the table the best half dozen invincible cards which it
+thus becomes superfluous to play.
+
+There were several courses open to the prince before taking the field.
+It was desirable to obtain control of the line of the Waal, by which that
+heart of the republic--Holland--would be made entirely secure.  To this
+end, Gertruydenberg--lately surrendered to the enemy by the perfidy of
+the Englishman Wingfield, to whom it had been entrusted--Bois le Duc, and
+Nymegen were to be wrested from Spain.
+
+It was also important to hold the Yssel, the course of which river led
+directly through the United Netherlands, quite to the Zuyder Zee, cutting
+off Friesland, Groningen, and Gelderland from their sister provinces of
+Holland and Zeeland.  And here again the keys to this river had been lost
+by English treason.  The fort of Zutphen and the city of Deventer had
+been transferred to the Spaniard by Roland York and Sir William Stanley,
+in whose honour the republic had so blindly confided, and those cities it
+was now necessary to reduce by regular siege before the communications
+between the eastern and western portions of the little commonwealth could
+ever be established.
+
+Still farther in the ancient Frisian depths, the memorable treason of
+that native Netherlander, the high-born Renneberg, had opened the way
+for the Spaniard's foot into the city of Groningen.  Thus this whole
+important province--with its capital--long subject to the foreign
+oppressor, was garrisoned with his troops.
+
+Verdugo, a veteran officer of Portuguese birth, who had risen from the
+position of hostler to that of colonel and royal stadholder, commanded in
+Friesland.  He had in vain demanded reinforcements and supplies from
+Farnese, who most reluctantly was obliged to refuse them in order that he
+might obey his master's commands to neglect everything for the sake of
+the campaign in France.
+
+And Verdugo, stripped of all adequate forces to protect his important
+province, was equally destitute of means for feeding the troops that were
+left to him.  "I hope to God that I may do my duty to the king and your
+Highness," he cried, "but I find myself sold up and pledged to such an
+extent that I am poorer than when I was a soldier at four crowns a month.
+And everybody in the town is as desperate as myself."
+
+Maurice, after making a feint of attacking Gertruydenberg and Bois le
+Duc, so that Farnese felt compelled, with considerable difficulty, to
+strengthen the garrison of those places, came unexpectedly to Arnhem
+with a force of nine thousand foot and sixteen hundred horse.  He had
+previously and with great secrecy sent some companies of infantry under
+Sir Francis Vere to Doesburg.
+
+On the 23rd May (1591) five peasants and six peasant women made their
+appearance at dawn of day before the chief guard-house of the great fort
+in the Badmeadow (Vel-uwe), opposite Zutphen, on the west side of the
+Yssel.  It was not an unusual occurrence.  These boors and their wives
+had brought baskets of eggs, butter, and cheese, for the garrison, and
+they now set themselves quietly down on the ground before the gate,
+waiting for the soldiers of the garrison to come out and traffic with
+them for their supplies.  Very soon several of the guard made their
+appearance, and began to chaffer with the peasants, when suddenly one of
+the women plucked a pistol from under her petticoats and shot dead the
+soldier who was cheapening her eggs.  The rest of the party, transformed
+in an instant from boors to soldiers, then sprang upon the rest of the
+guard, overpowered and bound them, and took possession of the gate.  A
+considerable force, which had been placed in ambush by Prince Maurice
+near the spot, now rushed forward, and in a few minutes the great fort of
+Zutphen was mastered by the States' forces without loss of a man.  It was
+a neat and perfectly successful stratagem.
+
+Next day Maurice began the regular investment of the city.  On the 26th,
+Count Lewis William arrived with some Frisian companies.  On the 27th,
+Maurice threw a bridge of boats from the Badmeadow side, across the river
+to the Weert before the city.  On the 28th he had got batteries, mounting
+thirty-two guns, into position, commanding the place at three points.  On
+the 30th the town capitulated.  Thus within exactly one week from the
+firing of the pistol shot by the supposed butterwoman, this fort and
+town, which had so long resisted the efforts of the States, and were such
+important possessions of the Spaniards, fell into the hands of Maurice.
+The terms of surrender were easy.  The city being more important than
+its garrison, the soldiers were permitted to depart with bag and baggage.
+The citizens were allowed three days to decide whether to stay under
+loyal obedience to the States-General, or to take their departure.
+Those who chose to remain were to enjoy all the privileges of citizens
+of the United Provinces.
+
+But very few substantial citizens were left, for such had been the
+tyranny, the misery, and the misrule during the long occupation by a
+foreign soldiery of what was once a thriving Dutch town, that scarcely
+anybody but paupers and vagabonds were left.  One thousand houses were
+ruined and desolate.  It is superfluous to add that the day of its
+restoration to the authority of the Union was the beginning of its
+renewed prosperity.
+
+Maurice, having placed a national garrison in the place, marched the same
+evening straight upon Deventer, seven miles farther down the river,
+without pausing to sleep upon his victory.  His artillery and munitions
+were sent rapidly down the Yssel.
+
+Within five days he had thoroughly invested the city, and brought twenty-
+eight guns to bear upon the weakest part of its defences.
+
+It was a large, populous, well-built town, once a wealthy member of the
+Hanseatic League, full of fine buildings, both public and private, the
+capital of the rich and fertile province of Overyssel, and protected by a
+strong wall and moat--as well-fortified a place as could be found in the
+Netherlands.  The garrison consisted of fourteen hundred Spaniards and
+Walloons, under the command of Count Herman van den Berg, first cousin of
+Prince Maurice.
+
+No sooner had the States army come before the city than a Spanish captain
+observed--"We shall now have a droll siege--cousins on the outside,
+cousins on the inside.  There will be a sham fight or two, and then the
+cousins will make it up, and arrange matters to suit themselves."
+
+Such hints had deeply wounded Van den Berg, who was a fervent Catholic,
+and as loyal a servant to Philip II. as he could have been, had that
+monarch deserved, by the laws of nature and by his personal services and
+virtues, to govern all the swamps of Friesland.  He slept on the gibe,
+having ordered all the colonels and captains of the garrison to attend at
+solemn mass in the great church the next morning.  He there declared to
+them all publicly that he felt outraged at the suspicions concerning his
+fidelity, and after mass he took the sacrament, solemnly swearing never
+to give up the city or even to speak of it until he had made such
+resistance that he must be carried from the breach.  So long as he could
+stand or sit he would defend the city entrusted to his care.
+
+The whole council who had come from Zutphen to Maurice's camp were
+allowed to deliberate concerning the siege.  The, enemy had been seen
+hovering about the neighbourhood in considerable numbers, but had not
+ventured an attempt to throw reinforcements into the place.  Many of the
+counsellors argued against the siege.  It was urged that the resistance
+would be determined and protracted, and that the Duke of Parma was sure
+to take the field in person to relieve so important a city, before its
+reduction could be effected.
+
+But Maurice had thrown a bridge across the Yssel above, and another below
+the town, had carefully and rapidly taken measures in the success of
+which he felt confident, and now declared that it would be cowardly and
+shameful to abandon an enterprise so well begun.
+
+The city had been formally summoned to surrender, and a calm but most
+decided refusal had been returned.
+
+On the 9th June the batteries began playing, and after four thousand six
+hundred shots a good breach had been effected in the defences along the
+Kaye--an earthen work lying between two strong walls of masonry.
+
+The breach being deemed practicable, a storm was ordered.  To reach the
+Kaye it was necessary to cross a piece of water called the Haven, over
+which a pontoon bridge was hastily thrown.  There was now a dispute among
+the English, Scotch, and Netherlanders for precedence in the assault.
+It was ultimately given to the English, in order that the bravery of that
+nation might now on the same spot wipe out the disgrace inflicted upon
+its name by the treason of Sir William Stanley.  The English did their
+duty well and rushed forward merrily, but the bridge proved too short.
+Some sprang over and pushed boldly for the breach.  Some fell into the
+moat and were drowned.  Others, sustained by the Netherlanders under
+Solms, Meetkerke, and Brederode, effected their passage by swimming,
+leaping, or wading, so that a resolute attack was made.  Herman van den
+Berg met them in the breach at the head of seven companies.  The
+defenders were most ferocious in their resistance.  They were also very
+drunk.  The count had placed many casks of Rhenish and of strong beer
+within reach, and ordered his soldiers to drink their fill as they
+fought.  He was himself as vigorous in his potations as he was chivalrous
+with sword and buckler.  Two pages and two lieutenants fell at his side,
+but still he fought at the head of his men with a desperation worthy of
+his vow, until he fell wounded in the eye and was carried from the place.
+Notwithstanding this disaster to the commander of the town, the
+assailants were repulsed, losing two hundred-and twenty-five in killed
+and wounded--Colonel Meetkerke and his brother, two most valuable Dutch
+officers, among them.
+
+During the whole of the assault, a vigorous cannonade had been kept up
+upon other parts of the town, and houses and church-towers were toppling
+down in all directions.  Meanwhile the inhabitants--for it was Sunday--
+instead of going to service were driven towards the breach by the
+serjeant-major, a truculent Spaniard, next in command to Van den Berg,
+who ran about the place with a great stick, summoning the Dutch burghers
+to assist the Spanish garrison on the wall.  It was thought afterwards
+that this warrior would have been better occupied among the soldiers, at
+the side of his commander.
+
+A chivalrous incident in the open field occurred during the assault.
+A gigantic Albanian cavalry officer came prancing out of Deventer into
+the spaces between the trenches, defying any officer in the States' army
+to break a lance with him.  Prince Maurice forbade any acceptance of the
+challenge, but Lewis van der Cathulle, son of the famous Ryhove of Ghent,
+unable to endure the taunts and bravado of this champion, at last
+obtained permission to encounter him in single combat.  They met
+accordingly with much ceremony, tilted against each other, and shivered
+their lances in good style, but without much effect.  The Albanian then
+drew a pistol.  Cathulle had no weapon save a cutlass, but with this
+weapon he succeeded in nearly cutting off the hand which held the pistol.
+He then took his enemy prisoner, the vain-glorious challenger throwing
+his gold chain around his conqueror's neck in token of his victory.
+Prince Maurice caused his wound to be bound up and then liberated him,
+sending him into the city with a message to the governor.
+
+During the following night the bridge, over which the  assailants had
+nearly forced their way into the town, was vigorously attacked by the
+garrison, but Count Lewis William, in person, with a chosen band defended
+it stoutly till morning, beating back the Spaniards with heavy loss in a
+sanguinary midnight contest.
+
+Next morning there was a unanimous outcry on the part of the besieged for
+a capitulation.  It was obvious that, with the walls shot to ruins as
+they had been, the place was no longer tenable against Maurice's superior
+forces.  A trumpet was sent to the prince before the dawn of day, and on
+the 10th of June, accordingly, the place capitulated.
+
+It was arranged that the garrison should retire with arms and baggage
+whithersoever they chose.  Van den Berg stipulated nothing in favour of
+the citizens, whether through forgetfulness or spite does not distinctly
+appear.  But the burghers were received like brothers.  No plunder was
+permitted, no ransom demanded, and the city took its place among its
+sisterhood of the United Provinces.
+
+Van den Berg himself was received at the prince's head, quarters with
+much cordiality.  He was quite blind; but his wound seemed to be the
+effect of exterior contusions, and he ultimately recovered the sight of
+one eye.  There was mach free conversation between himself and his
+cousins during the brief interval in which he was their guest.
+
+"I've often told Verdugo," said he, "that the States had no power to make
+a regular siege, nor to come with proper artillery into the field, and he
+agreed with me.  But we were both wrong, for I now see the contrary."
+
+To which Count Lewis William replied with a laugh: "My dear cousin, I've
+observed that in all your actions you were in the habit of despising us
+Beggars, and I have said that you would one day draw the shortest straw
+in consequence.  I'm glad to hear this avowal from your own lips."
+Herman attempted no reply but let the subject drop, seeming to regret
+having said so much.
+
+Soon afterwards he was forwarded by Maurice in his own coach to Ulff,
+where he was attended by the prince's body physician till he was re-
+established in health.
+
+Thus within ten days of his first appearance before its walls, the city
+of Deventer, and with it a whole province, had fallen into the hands of
+Maurice.  It began to be understood that the young pedant knew something
+about his profession, and that he had not been fagging so hard at the
+science of war for nothing.
+
+The city was in a sorry plight when the States took possession of it.
+As at Zutphen, the substantial burghers had wandered away, and the
+foreign soldiers bivouacking there so long had turned the stately old
+Hanseatic city into a brick and mortar wilderness.  Hundreds of houses
+had been demolished by the garrison, that the iron might be sold and the
+woodwork burned for fuel; for the enemy had conducted himself as if
+feeling in his heart that the occupation could not be a permanent one,
+and as if desirous to make the place as desolate as possible for the
+Beggars when they should return.
+
+The dead body of the traitor York, who had died and been buried in
+Deventer, was taken from the tomb, after the capture of the city, and
+with the vulgar ferocity so characteristic of the times, was hung, coffin
+and all, on the gibbet for the delectation of the States' soldiery.
+
+Maurice, having thus in less than three weeks recovered two most
+important cities, paused not an instant in his career but moved at once
+on Groningen.  There was a strong pressure put upon him to attempt the
+capture of Nymegen, but the understanding with the Frisian stadholders
+and his troops had been that the enterprise upon Groningen should follow
+the reduction of Deventer.
+
+On the 26th June Maurice appeared before Groningen.  Next day, as a
+precautionary step, he moved to the right and attacked the strong city of
+Delfzyl.  This place capitulated to him on the 2nd July.  The fort of
+Opslag surrendered on the 7th July.  He then moved to the west of
+Groningen, and attacked the forts of Yementil and Lettebaest, which fell
+into his hands on the 11th July.  He then moved along the Nyenoort
+through the Seven Wolds and Drenthe to Steenwyk, before which strongly
+fortified city he arrived on the 15th July.
+
+Meantime, he received intercepted letters from Verdugo to the Duke of
+Parma, dated 19th June from Groningen.  In these, the Spanish stadholder
+informed Farnese that the enemy was hovering about his neighbourhood, and
+that it would be necessary for the duke to take the field in person in
+considerable force, or that Groningen would be lost, and with it the
+Spanish forces in the province.  He enclosed a memorial of the course
+proper to be adopted by the duke for his relief.
+
+Notwithstanding the strictness by which Philip had tied his great
+general's hands, Farnese felt the urgency of the situation.  By the end
+of June, accordingly, although full of his measures for marching to the
+relief of the Leaguers in Normandy, he moved into Gelderland, coming by
+way of Xanten, Rees, and neighbouring places.  Here he paused for a
+moment perplexed, doubting whether to take the aggressive in Gelderland
+or to march straight to the relief of Groningen.  He decided that it was
+better for the moment to protect the line of the Waal.  Shipping his army
+accordingly into the Batavian Island or Good-meadow (Bet-uwe), which lies
+between the two great horns of the Rhine, he laid siege to Fort
+Knodsenburg, which Maurice had built the year before, on the right bank
+of the Waal for the purpose of attacking Nymegen.  Farnese, knowing that
+the general of the States was occupied with his whole army far away to
+the north, and separated from him by two great rivers, wide and deep, and
+by the whole breadth of that dangerous district called the Foul-meadow
+(Vel-uwe), and by the vast quagmire known as the Rouvenian morass, which
+no artillery nor even any organised forces had ever traversed since the
+beginning of the world, had felt no hesitation in throwing his army in
+boats across the Waal.  He had no doubt of reducing a not very powerful
+fortress long before relief could be brought to it, and at the same time
+of disturbing by his presence in Batavia the combinations of his young
+antagonist in Friesland and Groningen.
+
+So with six thousand foot and one thousand horse, Alexander came before
+Knodsenburg.  The news reached Maurice at Steenwyk on the 15th July.
+Instantly changing his plans, the prince decided that Farnese must be
+faced at once, and, if possible, driven from the ground, thinking it more
+important to maintain, by concentration, that which had already been
+gained, than to weaken and diffuse his forces in insufficient attempts to
+acquire more.  Before two days had passed, he was on the march southward,
+having left Lewis William with a sufficient force to threaten Groningen.
+Coming by way of Hasselt Zwol to Deventer, he crossed the Yssel on a
+bridge of boats on the 18th of July, 1591 and proceeded to Arnhem.
+His army, although excessively fatigued by forced marches in very hot
+weather, over nearly impassable roads, was full of courage and
+cheerfulness, having learned implicit confidence in their commander.
+On the 20th he was at Arnhem.  On the 22nd his bridge of boats was made,
+and he had thrown his little army across the Rhine into Batavia, and
+entrenched himself with his six thousand foot and fourteen hundred horse
+in the immediate neighbourhood of Farnese--Foul-meadow and Good-meadow,
+dyke, bog, wold, and quagmire, had been successfully traversed, and
+within one week of his learning that the great viceroy of Philip had
+reached the Batavian island, Maurice stood confronting that famous
+chieftain in battle-array.
+
+On the 22nd July, Farnese, after firing two hundred and eighty-five shots
+at Fort Knodsenburg, ordered an assault, expecting that so trifling a
+work could hardly withstand a determined onslaught by his veterans.
+To his surprise they were so warmly received that two hundred of the
+assailants fell at the first onset, and the attack was most conclusively
+repulsed.
+
+And now Maurice had appeared upon the scene, determined to relieve a
+place so important for his ulterior designs.  On the 24th July he sent
+out a small but picked force of cavalry to reconnoitre the enemy.  They
+were attacked by a considerable body of Italian and Spanish horse from
+the camp before Knodsenburg, including Alexander's own company of lancers
+under Nicelli.  The States troops fled before them in apparent dismay for
+a little distance, hotly pursued by the royalists, until, making a sudden
+halt, they turned to the attack, accompanied by five fresh companies of
+cavalry and a thousand musketeers, who fell upon the foe from all
+directions.  It was an ambush, which had been neatly prepared by Maurice
+in person, assisted by Sir Francis Vere.  Sixty of the Spaniards and
+Italians were killed and one hundred and fifty prisoners, including
+Captain Nicelli, taken, while the rest of the party sought safety in
+ignominious flight.  This little skirmish, in which ten companies of the
+picked veterans of Alexander Farnese had thus been utterly routed before
+his eyes, did much to inspire the States troops with confidence in
+themselves and their leader.
+
+Parma was too experienced a campaigner, and had too quick an eye, not to
+recognise the error which he had committed in placing the dangerous river
+Waal, without a bridge; between himself and his supplies.  He had not
+dreamed that his antagonist would be capable of such celerity of movement
+as he had thus displayed, and his first business now was to extricate
+himself from a position which might soon become fatal.  Without
+hesitation, he did his best to amuse the enemy in front of the fort, and
+then passed the night in planting batteries upon the banks of the river,
+under cover of which he succeeded next day in transporting in ferry-boats
+his whole force, artillery and: baggage, to the opposite shore, without
+loss, and with his usual skill.
+
+He remained but a short time in Nymegen, but he was hampered by the
+express commands of the king.  Moreover, his broken health imperatively
+required that he should once more seek the healing influence of the
+waters of Spa, before setting forth on his new French expedition.
+Meanwhile, although he had for a time protected the Spanish possessions
+in the north by his demonstration in Gelderland, it must be confessed
+that the diversion thus given to the plans of Maurice was but a feeble
+one.
+
+Having assured the inhabitants of Nymegen that he would watch over the
+city like the apple of, his eye, he took his departure on the 4th of
+August for Spa.  He was accompanied on his journey by his son, Prince
+Ranuccio, just arrived from Italy.
+
+After the retreat of Farnese, Maurice mustered his forces at Arnhem, and
+found himself at the head of seven thousand foot and fifteen hundred
+horse.  It was expected by all the world that, being thus on the very
+spot, he would forthwith proceed to reduce the ancient, wealthy, imperial
+city of Nynegen.  The garrison and burghers accordingly made every
+preparation to resist the attack, disconcerted as they were, however,
+by the departure of Parma, and by the apparent incapacity of Verdugo to
+bring them effectual relief.
+
+But to the surprise of all men, the States forces suddenly disappeared
+from the scene, having been, as it were, spirited away by night-time,
+along those silent watery highways and crossways of canal, river, and
+estuary--the military advantages of which to the Netherlands, Maurice was
+the first thoroughly to demonstrate.  Having previously made great
+preparations of munitions and provisions in Zeeland, the young general,
+who was thought hard at work in Gelderland, suddenly presented himself
+on the 19th September, before the gates of Hulst, on the border of
+Zeeland and Brabant.
+
+It was a place of importance from its situation, its possession by the
+enemy being a perpetual thorn in the side of the States, and a constant
+obstacle to the plans of Maurice.  His arrangements having been made with
+the customary, neatness, celerity, and completeness, he received the
+surrender of the city on the fifth day after his arrival.
+
+Its commander, Castillo, could offer no resistance; and was subsequently,
+it is said, beheaded by order of the Duke of Parma for his negligence.
+The place is but a dozen miles from Antwerp, which city was at the very,
+moment keeping great holiday and outdoing itself in magnificent festivals
+in honour of young Ranuccio.  The capture of Hulst before his eyes was a
+demonstration quite unexpected by the prince, and great was the wrath of
+old Mondragon, governor of Antwerp, thus bearded in his den.  The veteran
+made immediate preparations for chastising the audacious Beggars of
+Zeeland and their, pedantic young commander, but no sooner had the
+Spaniards taken the field than the wily foe had disappeared as magically
+as he had come.
+
+The Flemish earth seemed to have bubbles as the water hath, and while
+Mondragon was beating the air in vain on the margin of the Scheld,
+Maurice was back again upon the Waal, horse, foot, and artillery, bag,
+baggage, and munition, and had fairly set himself down in earnest to
+besiege Nymegen, before the honest burghers and the garrison had finished
+drawing long breaths at their recent escape.  Between the 14th and 16th
+October he had bridged the deep, wide, and rapid river, had transported
+eight thousand five hundred infantry and, sixteen companies of cavalry to
+the southern side, had entrenched his camp and made his approaches, and
+had got sixty-eight pieces of artillery into three positions commanding
+the weakest part of the defences of the city between the Falcon Tower and
+the Hoender gate.  The fort of Knodsenburg was also ready to throw hot
+shot across the river into the town.  Not a detail in all these
+preparations escaped the vigilant eye of the Commander-in-Chief, and
+again and again was he implored not so recklessly to expose a life
+already become precious to his country.  On the 20th October, Maurice
+sent to demand the surrender of the city.  The reply was facetious but
+decisive.
+
+The prince was but a young suitor, it was said, and the city a spinster
+not so lightly to be won.  A longer courtship and more trouble would be
+necessary.
+
+Whereupon the suitor opened all his batteries without further delay, and
+the spinster gave a fresh example of the inevitable fate of talking
+castles and listening ladies.
+
+Nymegen, despite her saucy answer on the 20th, surrendered on the 21st.
+Relief was impossible.  Neither Parma, now on his way to France, nor
+Verdugo, shut up in Friesland, could come to the rescue of the place,
+and the combinations of Maurice were an inexorable demonstration.
+
+The terms of the surrender were similar to those accorded to Zutphen and
+Deventer.  In regard to the religious point it was expressly laid down by
+Maurice that the demand for permission to exercise publicly the Roman
+Catholic religion should be left to the decision of the States-General.
+
+And thus another most important city had been added to the domains of the
+republic.  Another triumph was inscribed on the record of the young
+commander.  The exultation was very great throughout the United
+Netherlands, and heartfelt was the homage rendered by all classes of his
+countrymen to the son of William the Silent.
+
+Queen Elizabeth wrote to congratulate him in warmest terms on his great
+successes, and even the Spaniards began to recognise the merits of the
+new chieftain.  An intercepted letter from Verdugo, who had been foiled
+in his efforts to arrest the career of Maurice, indicated great respect
+for his prowess.  "I have been informed," said the veteran, "that Count
+Maurice of Nassau wishes to fight me.  Had I the opportunity I assure you
+that I should not fail him, for even if ill luck were my portion, I
+should at least not escape the honour of being beaten by such a
+personage.  I beg you to tell him so with my affectionate compliments.
+Yours, FRANCIS VERDUGO."
+
+These chivalrous sentiments towards Prince Maurice had not however
+prevented Verdugo from doing his best to assassinate Count Lewis William.
+Two Spaniards had been arrested in the States camp this summer, who came
+in as deserters, but who confessed "with little, or mostly without
+torture," that they had been sent by their governor and colonel with
+instructions to seize a favourable opportunity to shoot Lewis William and
+set fire to his camp.  But such practices were so common on the part of
+the Spanish commanders as to occasion no surprise whatever.
+
+It will be remembered that two years before, the famous Martin Schenk had
+come to a tragic end at Nymegen.  He had been drowned, fished up, hanged,
+drawn, and quartered; after which his scattered fragments, having been
+exposed on all the principal towers of the city, had been put in
+pickle and deposited in a chest.  They were now collected and buried
+triumphantly in the tomb of the Dukes of Gelderland.  Thus the shade
+of the grim freebooter was at last appeased.
+
+The government of the city was conferred upon Count Lewis William, with
+Gerard de Jonge as his lieutenant.  A substantial garrison was placed in
+the city, and, the season now far advanced Maurice brought the military
+operations of the year, saving a slight preliminary demonstration against
+Gertruydenberg, to a close.  He had deserved and attained--considerable
+renown.  He had astonished the leisurely war-makers and phlegmatic
+veterans of the time, both among friends and foes, by the unexampled
+rapidity of his movements and the concentration of his attacks.  He had
+carried great waggon trains and whole parks of siege artillery--the
+heaviest then known--over roads and swamps which had been deemed
+impassable even for infantry.  He had traversed the length and breadth of
+the republic in a single campaign, taken two great cities in Overyssel,
+picked up cities and fortresses in the province of Groningen, and
+threatened its capital, menaced Steenwyk, relieved Knodsenburg though
+besieged in person by the greatest commander of the age, beaten the most
+famous cavalry of Spain and Italy under the eyes of their chieftain,
+swooped as it were through the air upon Brabant, and carried off an
+important city almost in the sight of Antwerp, and sped back again in the
+freezing weather of early autumn, with his splendidly served and
+invincible artillery, to the imperial city of Nymegen, which Farnese had
+sworn to guard like the apple of his eye, and which, with consummate
+skill, was forced out of his grasp in five days.
+
+"Some might attribute these things to blind fortune," says an honest
+chronicler who had occupied important posts in the service of the prince
+and of his cousin Lewis William, "but they who knew the prince's constant
+study and laborious attention to detail, who were aware that he never
+committed to another what he could do himself, who saw his sobriety,
+vigilance, his perpetual study and holding of council with Count Lewis
+William (himself possessed of all these good gifts, perhaps even in
+greater degree), and who never found him seeking, like so many other
+commanders, his own ease and comfort, would think differently."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+     War in Brittany and Normandy--Death of La Noue--Religious and
+     political persecution in Paris--Murder of President Brisson,
+     Larcher, and Tardif--The sceptre of France offered to Philip--The
+     Duke of Mayenne punishes the murderers of the magistrates--Speech of
+     Henry's envoy to the States-General--Letter of Queen Elizabeth to
+     Henry--Siege of Rouen--Farnese leads an army to its relief--The king
+     is wounded in a skirmish--Siege of Rue by Farnese--Henry raises the
+     siege of Rouen--Siege of Caudebec--Critical position of Farnese and
+     his army--Victory of the Duke of Mercoeur in Brittany.
+
+Again the central point towards which the complicated events to be
+described in this history gravitate is found on the soil of France.
+Movements apparently desultory and disconnected--as they may have seemed
+to the contemporaneous observer, necessarily occupied with the local and
+daily details which make up individual human life--are found to be
+necessary parts of a whole, when regarded with that breadth and clearness
+of vision which is permitted to human beings only when they can look
+backward upon that long sequence of events which make up the life of
+nations and which we call the Past.  It is only by the anatomical study
+of what has ceased to exist that we can come thoroughly to comprehend the
+framework and the vital conditions of that which lives.  It is only by
+patiently lifting the shroud from the Past that we can enable ourselves
+to make even wide guesses at the meaning of the dim Present and the
+veiled Future.  It is only thus that the continuity of human history
+reveals itself to us as the most important of scientific facts.
+
+If ever commonwealth was apparently doomed to lose that national
+existence which it had maintained for a brief period at the expense of
+infinite sacrifice of blood and treasure, it was the republic of the
+United Netherlands in the period immediately succeeding the death of
+William the Silent.  Domestic treason, secession of important provinces,
+religious-hatred, foreign intrigue, and foreign invasion--in such a sea
+of troubles was the republic destined generations long to struggle.  Who
+but the fanatical, the shallow-minded, or the corrupt could doubt the
+inevitable issue of the conflict?  Did not great sages and statesmen
+whose teachings seemed so much wiser in their generation than the
+untaught impulses of the great popular heart, condemn over and over again
+the hopeless struggles and the atrocious bloodshed which were thought to
+disgrace the age, and by which it was held impossible that the cause of
+human liberty should ever be advanced?
+
+To us who look back from the vantage summit which humanity has reached--
+thanks to the toil and sacrifices of those who have preceded us--it may
+seem doubtful whether premature peace in the Netherlands, France, and
+England would have been an unmitigated blessing, however easily it might
+have been purchased by the establishment all over Europe of that holy
+institution called the Inquisition, and by the tranquil acceptance of the
+foreign domination of Spain.
+
+If, too; ever country seemed destined to the painful process of national
+vivisection and final dismemberment, it was France: Its natural guardians
+and masters, save one, were in secret negotiation with foreign powers to
+obtain with their assistance a portion of the national territory under
+acknowledgment of foreign supremacy.  There was hardly an inch of French
+soil that had not two possessors.  In Burgundy Baron Biron was battling
+against the Viscount Tavannes; in the Lyonese and Dauphiny Marshal des
+Digiueres was fighting with the Dukes of Savoy and Nemours; in Provence,
+Epernon was resisting Savoy; in Languedoc, Constable Montmorency
+contended with the Duke of Joyeuse; in Brittany, the Prince of Dombes was
+struggling with the Duke of Mercoeur.
+
+But there was one adventurer who thought he could show a better legal
+title to the throne of France than all the doctors of the Sorbonne could
+furnish to Philip II. and his daughter, and who still trusted, through
+all the disasters which pursued him, and despite the machinations of
+venal warriors and mendicant princes, to his good right and his good
+sword, and to something more potent than both, the cause of national
+unity.  His rebuke to the intriguing priests at the interview of St.
+Denis, and his reference to the judgment of Solomon, formed the text to
+his whole career.
+
+The brunt of the war now fell upon Brittany and Normandy.  Three thousand
+Spaniards under Don John de Aquila had landed in the port of Blavet which
+they had fortified, as a stronghold on the coast.  And thither, to defend
+the integrity of that portion of France, which, in Spanish hands, was a
+perpetual menace to her realm, her crown, even to her life, Queen
+Elizabeth had sent some three thousand Englishmen, under commanders well
+known to France and the Netherlands.  There was black Norris again
+dealing death among the Spaniards and renewing his perpetual squabbles
+with Sir Roger Williams.  There was that doughty Welshman himself,
+truculent and caustic as ever--and as ready with sword or pen, foremost
+in every mad adventure or every forlorn hope, criticising with sharpest
+tongue the blunders and shortcomings of friend and foe, and devoting the
+last drop in his veins with chivalrous devotion to his Queen.  "The world
+cannot deny," said he, "that any carcase living ventured himself freer
+and oftener for his prince, state, and friends than I did mine.  There is
+no more to be had of a poor beast than his skin, and for want of other
+means I never respected mine in the least respect towards my sovereign's
+service, or country."  And so passing his life in the saddle and under
+fire, yet finding leisure to collect the materials for, and to complete
+the execution of, one of the most valuable and attractive histories of
+the age, the bold Welshman again and again appears, wearing the same
+humorous but truculent aspect that belonged to him when he was wont to
+run up and down in a great morion and feathers on Flemish battlefields,
+a mark for the Spanish sharpshooters.
+
+There, too, under the banner of the Bearnese, that other historian of
+those sanguinary times, who had fought on almost every battle-field where
+tyranny and liberty had sought to smite each other dead, on French or
+Flemish soil, and who had prepared his famous political and military
+discourses in a foul dungeon swarming with toads and rats and other
+villainous reptiles to which the worse than infernal tyranny of Philip
+II. had consigned him for seven years long as a prisoner of war--the
+brave and good La Noue, with the iron arm, hero of a hundred combats,
+was fighting his last fight.  At the siege of Lamballe in Brittany, he
+had taken off his calque and climbed a ladder to examine the breach
+effected by the batteries.  An arquebus shot from the town grazed his
+forehead, and, without inflicting a severe wound, stunned him so much
+that he lost his balance and fell head foremost towards the ground; his
+leg, which had been wounded at the midnight assault upon Paris, where he
+stood at the side of King Henry, caught in the ladder and held him
+suspended.  His head was severely bruised, and the contusions and shock
+to his war-worn frame were so great that he died after lingering eighteen
+days.
+
+His son de Teligny; who in his turn had just been exchanged and released
+from the prison where he had lain since his capture before Antwerp, had
+hastened with joy to join his father in the camp, but came to close his
+eyes.  The veteran caused the chapter in Job on the resurrection of the
+body to be read to him on his death-bed, and died expressing his firm
+faith in a hereafter.  Thus passed away, at the age of sixty, on the 4th
+August, 1591, one of the most heroic spirits of France.  Prudence,
+courage, experience, military knowledge both theoretic and practical,
+made him one of the first captains of the age, and he was not more
+distinguished for his valour than for the purity of his life, and the
+moderation, temperance, and justice of his character.  The Prince of
+Dombes, in despair at his death, raised the siege of Lamballe.
+
+There was yet another chronicler, fighting among the Spaniards, now in
+Brittany, now in Normandy, and now in Flanders, and doing his work as
+thoroughly with his sword as afterwards with his pen, Don Carlos Coloma,
+captain of cavalry, afterwards financier, envoy, and historian.  For it
+was thus that those writers prepared themselves for their work.  They
+were all actors in the great epic, the episodes of which they have
+preserved.  They lived and fought, and wrought and suffered and wrote.
+Rude in tongue; aflame with passion, twisted all awry by prejudice,
+violent in love and hate, they have left us narratives which are at
+least full of colour and thrilling with life.
+
+Thus Netherlanders, Englishmen, and Frenchmen were again mingling their
+blood and exhausting their energies on a hundred petty battle-fields of
+Brittany and Normandy; but perhaps to few of those hard fighters was it
+given to discern the great work which they were slowly and painfully
+achieving.
+
+In Paris the League still maintained its ascendancy.  Henry, having again
+withdrawn from his attempts to reduce the capital, had left the sixteen
+tyrants who governed it more leisure to occupy themselves with internal
+politics.  A network of intrigue was spread through the whole atmosphere
+of the place.  The Sixteen, sustained by the power of Spain and Rome, and
+fearing nothing so much as the return of peace, by which their system of
+plunder would come to an end, proceeded with their persecution of all
+heretics, real or supposed, who were rich enough to offer a reasonable
+chance of spoil.  The soul of all these intrigues was the new legate,
+Sego, bishop of Piacenza.  Letters from him to Alexander Farnese,
+intercepted by Henry, showed a determination to ruin the Duke of Mayenne
+and Count Belin governor of Paris, whom he designated as Colossus and
+Renard, to extirpate the magistrates, and to put Spanish partizans in
+their places, and in general to perfect the machinery by which the
+authority of Philip was to be established in France.  He was perpetually
+urging upon that monarch the necessity of spending more money among his
+creatures in order to carry out these projects.
+
+Accordingly the attention of the Sixteen had been directed to President
+Brisson, who had already made himself so dangerously conspicuous by his
+resistance to the insolent assumption of the cardinal-legate.  This
+eminent juris-consult had succeeded Pomponne de Bellievre as first
+president of the Parliament of Paris.  He had been distinguished for
+talent, learning, and eloquence as an advocate; and was the author of
+several important legal works.  His ambition to fill the place of first
+president had caused him to remain in Paris after its revolt against
+Henry III.  He was no Leaguer; and, since his open defiance of the ultra-
+Catholic party, he had been a marked man--doomed secretly by the
+confederates who ruled the capital.  He had fondly imagined that he could
+govern the Parisian populace as easily as he had been in the habit of
+influencing the Parliament or directing his clients.  He expected to
+restore the city to its obedience to the constituted authorities.  He
+hoped to be himself the means of bringing Henry IV. in triumph to the
+throne of his ancestors.  He found, however, that a revolution was more
+difficult to manage than a law case; and that the confederates of the
+Holy League were less tractable than his clients had usually been found.
+
+On the night of the 14th November; 1591; he was seized on the bridge St.
+Michel, while on his way to parliament, and was told that he was expected
+at the Hotel de Ville.  He was then brought to the prison of the little
+Chatelet.
+
+Hardly had he been made secure in the dimly-lighted dungeon, when Crome,
+a leader among the Parisian populacey made his appearance, accompanied by
+some of his confederates, and dressed in a complete suit of mail.  He
+ordered the magistrate to take off his hat and to kneel.  He then read a
+sentence condemning him to death.  Profoundly astonished, Brisson
+demanded to know of what crime he was accused; and under what authority.
+The answer was a laugh; and an assurance that he had no time to lose.
+He then begged that at least he might be imprisoned long enough to enable
+him to complete a legal work on which he was engaged, and which, by his
+premature death, would be lost to the commonwealth.  This request
+produced no doubt more merriment than his previous demands.  His judges
+were inflexible; and allowed him hardly time to confess himself.  He was
+then hanged in his dungeon.
+
+Two other magistrates, Larcher and Tardif, were executed in the same
+way, in the same place, and on the same night.  The crime charged against
+them was having spoken in a public assembly somewhat freely against the
+Sixteen, and having aided in the circulation in Paris of a paper drawn
+up by the Duke of Nevers, filled with bitterness against the Lorraine
+princes and the League, and addressed to the late Pope Sixtus.
+
+The three bodies were afterwards gibbeted on the Greve in front of the
+Hotel de Ville, and exposed for two days to the insults and fury of the
+populace.
+
+This was the culminating point of the reign of terror in Paris.  Never
+had the sixteen tyrants; lords of the market halls, who governed the
+capital by favour of and in the name of the populace, seemed more
+omnipotent.  As representatives or plenipotentiaries of Madam League they
+had laid the crown.  at the feet of the King of Spain, hoping by still
+further drafts on his exchequer and his credulity to prolong indefinitely
+their own ignoble reign.  The extreme democratic party, which had
+hitherto supported the House of Lorraine and had seemed to idolize that
+family in the person of the great Balafre, now believed themselves
+possessed of sufficient power to control the Duke of Mayenne and all his
+adherents.  They sent the Jesuit Claude Mathieu with a special memorial
+to Philip II.  That monarch was implored to take, the sceptre of France,
+and to reign over them, inasmuch as they most willingly threw themselves
+into his arms?  They assured him that all reasonable people, and
+especially the Holy League, wished him to take the reins of Government,
+on condition of exterminating heresy throughout the kingdom by force of
+arms, of publishing the Council of Trent, and of establishing everywhere
+the Holy inquisition--an institution formidable only to the wicked and
+desirable for the good.  It was suggested that Philip should not call
+himself any longer King of Spain nor adopt the title of King of France,
+but that he should proclaim himself the Great King, or make use of some
+similar designation, not indicating any specialty but importing universal
+dominion.
+
+Should Philip, however, be disinclined himself to accept the monarchy,
+it was suggested that the young Duke of Guise, son of the first martyr
+of France, would be the most appropriate personage to be honoured with
+the hand of the legitimate Queen of France, the Infanta Clara Isabella.
+
+But the Sixteen were reckoning without the Duke of Mayenne.  That great
+personage, although an indifferent warrior and an utterly unprincipled
+and venal statesman, was by no means despicable as a fisherman in the
+troubled waters of revolution.  He knew how to manage intrigues with both
+sides for his own benefit.  Had he been a bachelor he might have obtained
+the Infanta and shared her prospective throne.  Being encumbered with a
+wife he had no hope of becoming the son-in-law of Philip, and was
+determined that his nephew Guise should not enjoy a piece of good fortune
+denied to himself.  The escape of the young duke from prison had been the
+signal for the outbreak of jealousies between uncle and nephew, which
+Parma and other agents had been instructed by their master to foster to
+the utmost.  "They must be maintained in such disposition in regard to
+me," he said, "that the one being ignorant of my relations to the other,
+both may without knowing it do my will."
+
+But Mayenne, in this grovelling career of self-seeking, in this perpetual
+loading of dice and marking of cards, which formed the main occupation of
+so many kings and princes of the period, and which passed for
+Machiavellian politics, was a fair match for the Spanish king and his
+Italian viceroy.  He sent President Jeannin on special mission to Philip,
+asking for two armies, one to be under his command, the other under that
+of Farnese, and assured him that he should be king himself, or appoint
+any man he liked to the vacant throne.  Thus he had secured one hundred
+thousand crowns a month to carry on his own game withal.  "The
+maintenance of these two armies costs me 261,000 crowns a month," said
+Philip to his envoy Ybarra.
+
+And what was the result of all this expenditure of money, of all this
+lying and counter-lying, of all this frantic effort on the part of the
+most powerful monarch of the age to obtain property which did not belong
+to him--the sovereignty of a great kingdom, stocked with a dozen millions
+of human beings--of all this endless bloodshed of the people in the
+interests of a high-born family or two, of all this infamous brokerage
+charged by great nobles for their attempts to transfer kingdoms like
+private farms from one owner to another?  Time was to show.  Meanwhile
+men trembled at the name of Philip II., and grovelled before him as the
+incarnation of sagacity, high policy, and king-craft.
+
+But Mayenne, while taking the brokerage, was less anxious about the
+transfer.  He had fine instinct enough to suspect that the Bearnese,
+outcast though he seemed, might after all not be playing so desperate a
+game against the League as it was the fashion to suppose.  He knew
+whether or not Henry was likely to prove a more fanatical Huguenot in
+1592 than he bad shown himself twenty years before at the Bartholomew
+festival.  And he had wit enough to foresee that the "instruction" which
+the gay free-thinker held so cautiously in his fingers might perhaps turn
+out the trump card.  A bold, valorous Frenchman with a flawless title,
+and washed whiter than snow by the freshet of holy water, might prove a
+more formidable claimant to the allegiance of Frenchmen than a foreign
+potentate, even though backed by all the doctors of the Sorbonne.
+
+The murder of President Brisson and his colleagues by the confederates of
+the sixteen quarters, was in truth the beginning of the end.  What seemed
+a proof of supreme power was the precursor of a counter-revolution,
+destined ere long to lead farther than men dreamed.  The Sixteen believed
+themselves omnipotent.  Mayenne being in their power, it was for them to
+bestow the crown at their will, or to hold it suspended in air as long as
+seemed best to them.  They felt no doubt that all the other great cities
+in the kingdom would follow the example of Paris.
+
+But the lieutenant-general of the realm felt it time for him to show that
+his authority was not a shadow--that he was not a pasteboard functionary
+like the deceased cardinal-king, Charles X.  The letters entrusted by the
+Sixteen to Claude Mathieu were intercepted by Henry, and, very probably,
+an intimation of their contents was furnished to Mayenne.  At any rate,
+the duke, who lacked not courage nor promptness when his own interests
+were concerned, who felt his authority slipping away from him, now that
+it seemed the object of the Spaniards to bind the democratic party to
+themselves by a complicity in crime, hastened at once to Paris,
+determined to crush these intrigues and to punish the murderers of the
+judges.  The Spanish envoy Ybarra, proud, excitable, violent, who had
+been privy to the assassinations, and was astonished that the deeds had
+excited indignation and fury instead of the terror counted upon,
+remonstrated with Mayenne, intimating that in times of civil commotion it
+was often necessary to be blind and deaf.
+
+In vain.  The duke carried it with a high and firm hand.  He arrested the
+ringleaders, and hanged four of them in the basement of the Louvre within
+twenty days after the commission of their crime.  The energy was well-
+timed and perfectly successful.  The power of the Sixteen was struck to
+the earth at a blow.  The ignoble tyrants became  in a moment as
+despicable as they had been formidable and insolent.  Crome, more
+fortunate than many of his fellows, contrived to make his escape
+out of the kingdom.
+
+Thus Mayenne had formally broken with the democratic party, so called-
+with the market-halls oligarchy.  In thus doing, his ultimate rupture
+with the Spaniards was foreshadowed.  The next combination for him to
+strive for would be one to unite the moderate Catholics and the Bearnese.
+Ah! if Henry would but "instruct" himself out of hand, what a game the
+duke might play!
+
+The burgess-party, the mild royalists, the disgusted portion of the
+Leaguers, coalescing with those of the Huguenots whose fidelity might
+prove stanch even against the religious apostasy contemplated by their
+chief--this combination might prove an over-match for the ultra-leaguers,
+the democrats, and the Spaniards.  The king's name would be a tower of
+strength for that "third party," which began to rear its head very boldly
+and to call itself "Politica."  Madam League might succumb to this new
+rival in the fickle hearts of the French.
+
+At the beginning of the year 1591; Buzanval had presented his credentials
+to the States-General at the Hague as envoy of Henry IV.  In the speech
+which he made on this occasion he expressed the hope that the mission of
+the Viscount Turenne, his Majesty's envoy to England and to the
+Netherlands, had made known the royal sentiments towards the States and
+the great satisfaction of the king with their energetic sympathy and
+assistance.  It was notorious, said Buzanval, that the King of Spain for
+many years had been governed by no other motive than to bring all the
+rest of Christendom under his dominion, while at the same time he forced
+upon those already placed under his sceptre a violent tyranny, passing
+beyond all the bounds that God, nature, and reason had set to lawful
+forms of government.  In regard to nations born under other laws than
+his, he had used the pretext of religion for reducing them to servitude.
+The wars stirred up by his family in Germany, and his recent invasion of
+England, were proofs of this intention, still fresh in the memory of all
+men.  Still more flagrant were his machinations in the present troubles
+of France.  Of his dealings with his hereditary realms, the condition of
+the noble provinces of the Netherlands, once so blooming under reasonable
+laws, furnished, a sufficient illustration.  You see, my masters,
+continued the envoy, the subtle plans of the Spanish king and his
+counsellors to reach with certainty the object of their ambition.
+They have reflected that Spain, which is the outermost corner of Europe,
+cannot conveniently make war upon other Christian realms.  They have seen
+that a central position is necessary to enable them to stretch their arms
+to every side.  They have remembered that princes who in earlier days
+were able to spread their wings over all Christendom had their throne in
+France, like Charles the Great and his descendants.  Therefore the king
+is now earnestly bent on seizing this occasion to make himself master of
+France.  The death of the late king (Henry III.) had no sooner occurred,
+than--as the blood through great terror rushes from the extremities and
+overflows the heart--they here also, fearing to lose their opportunity
+and astonished at the valour of our present king, abandoned all their
+other enterprises in order to pour themselves upon France.
+
+Buzanval further reminded the States that Henry had received the most
+encouraging promises from the protestant princes of Germany, and that so
+great a personage as the Viscount Turenne, who had now gone thither to
+reap the fruit of those promises, would not have been sent on such a
+mission except that its result was certain.  The Queen of England, too,
+had promised his Majesty most liberal assistance.
+
+It was not necessary to argue as to the close connection between the
+cause of the Netherlands and that of France.  The king had beaten down
+the mutiny of his own subjects, and repulsed the invasion of the Dukes of
+Savoy and of Lorraine.  In consideration of the assistance promised by
+Germany and England--for a powerful army would be at the command of Henry
+in the spring--it might be said that the Netherlands might repose for a
+time and recruit their exhausted energies, under the shadow of these
+mighty preparations.
+
+"I do not believe, however," said the minister, "that you will all answer
+me thus.  The faint-hearted and the inexperienced might flatter
+themselves with such thoughts, and seek thus to cover their cowardice,
+but the zealous and the courageous will see that it is time to set sail
+on the ship, now that the wind is rising so freshly and favourably.
+
+"For there are many occasions when an army might be ruined for want of
+twenty thousand crowns.  What a pity if a noble edifice, furnished to the
+roof-tree, should fall to decay for want of a few tiles.  No doubt your
+own interests are deeply connected with our own.  Men may say that our
+proposals should be rejected on the principle that the shirt is nearer
+to the skin than the coat, but it can be easily proved that our cause
+is one.  The mere rumour of this army will prevent the Duke of Parma from
+attacking you.  His forces will be drawn to France.  He will be obliged
+to intercept the crash of this thunderbolt.  The assistance of this army
+is worth millions to you, and has cost you nothing.  To bring France into
+hostility with Spain is the very policy that you have always pursued and
+always should pursue in order to protect your freedom.  You have always
+desired a war between France and Spain, and here is a fierce and cruel
+one in which you have hazarded nothing.  It cannot come to an end without
+bringing signal advantages to yourselves.
+
+"You have always desired an alliance with a French sovereign, and here is
+a firm friendship offered you by our king, a natural alliance.
+
+"You know how unstable are most treaties that are founded on shifting
+interests, and do not concern the freedom of bodies and souls.  The first
+are written with pen upon paper, and are generally as light as paper.
+They have no roots in the heart.  Those founded on mutual assistance on
+trying occasions have the perpetual strength of nature.  They bring
+always good and enduring fruit in a rich soil like the heart of our king;
+that heart which is as beautiful and as pure from all untruth as the lily
+upon his shield.
+
+"You will derive the first profits from the army thus raised.  From the
+moment of its mustering under a chief of such experience as Turenne, it
+will absorb the whole attention of Spain, and will draw her thoughts from
+the Netherlands to France."
+
+All this and more in the same earnest manner did the envoy urge upon the
+consideration of the States-General, concluding with a demand of 100,000
+florins as their contribution towards the French campaign.
+
+His eloquence did not fall upon unwilling ears; for the States-General,
+after taking time to deliberate, replied to the propositions by an
+expression of the strongest sympathy with, and admiration for, the heroic
+efforts of the King of France.  Accordingly, notwithstanding their own
+enormous expenses, past and present, and their strenuous exertions at
+that very moment to form an army of foot and horse for the campaign, the
+brilliant results of which have already been narrated, they agreed to
+furnish the required loan of 100,000 florins to be repaid in a year,
+besides six or seven good ships of war to co-operate with the fleets of
+England and France upon the coasts of Normandy.  And the States were
+even better than their word.
+
+Before the end of autumn of the year 1591, Henry had laid siege to Rouen,
+then the second city of the kingdom.  To leave much longer so important a
+place--dominating, as it did, not only Normandy but a principal portion
+of the maritime borders of France--under the control of the League and of
+Spain was likely to be fatal to Henry's success.  It was perfectly sound
+in Queen Elizabeth to insist as she did, with more than her usual
+imperiousness towards her excellent brother, that he should lose no more
+time before reducing that city.  It was obvious that Rouen in the hands
+of her arch-enemy was a perpetual menace to the safety of her own
+kingdom.  It was therefore with correct judgment, as well as with that
+high-flown gallantry so dear to the heart of Elizabeth, that her royal
+champion and devoted slave assured her of his determination no longer to
+defer obeying her commands in this respect.
+
+The queen had repeatedly warned him of the necessity of defending the
+maritime frontier of his kingdom, and she was not sparing of her
+reproaches that the large sums which she expended in his cause had been
+often ill bestowed.  Her criticisms on what she considered his military
+mistakes were not few, her threats to withdraw her subsidies frequent.
+"Owning neither the East nor the West Indies," she said, "we are unable
+to supply the constant demands upon us; and although we have the
+reputation of being a good housewife, it does not follow that we can be a
+housewife for all the world."  She was persistently warning the king of
+an attack upon Dieppe, and rebuking him for occupying himself with petty
+enterprises to the neglect of vital points.  She expressed her surprise
+that after the departure of Parma, he had not driven the Spaniards out of
+Brittany, without allowing them to fortify themselves in that country.
+"I am astonished," she said to him, "that your eyes are so blinded as not
+to see this danger.  Remember, my dear brother," she frankly added, "that
+it is not only France that I am aiding, nor are my own natural realms of
+little consequence to me.  Believe me, if I see that you have no more
+regard to the ports and maritime places nearest to us, it will be
+necessary that my prayers should serve you in place of any other
+assistance, because it does not please me to send my people to the
+shambles where they may perish before having rendered you any assistance.
+I am sure the Spaniards will soon besiege Dieppe.  Beware of it, and
+excuse my bluntness, for if in the beginning you had taken the maritime
+forts, which are the very gates of your kingdom, Paris would not have
+been so well furnished, and other places nearer the heart of the kingdom
+would not have received so much foreign assistance, without which the
+others would have soon been vanquished.  Pardon my simplicity as
+belonging to my own sex wishing to give a lesson to one who knows better,
+but my experience in government makes me a little obstinate in believing
+that I am not ignorant of that which belongs to a king, and I persuade
+myself that in following my advice you will not fail to conquer your
+assailants."
+
+Before the end of the year Henry had obtained control of the, Seine, both
+above and below the city, holding Pont de l'Arche on the north--where was
+the last bridge across the river; that of Rouen, built by the English
+when they governed Normandy, being now in ruins--and Caudebec on the
+south in an iron grasp.  Several war-vessels sent by the Hollanders,
+according to the agreement with Buzanval, cruised in the north of the
+river below Caudebec, and rendered much service to the king in cutting
+off supplies from the beleaguered place, while the investing army of
+Henry, numbering twenty-five thousand foot--inclusive of the English
+contingent, and three thousand Netherlanders--and ten thousand cavalry,
+nearly all French, was fast reducing the place to extremities.
+
+Parma, as usual, in obedience to his master's orders, but entirely
+against his own judgment, had again left the rising young general of the
+Netherlands to proceed from one triumph to another, while he transferred
+beyond the borders of that land which it was his first business to
+protect, the whole weight of his military genius and the better portion
+of his well disciplined forces.
+
+Most bitterly and indignantly did he express himself, both at the outset
+and during the whole progress of the expedition, concerning the utter
+disproportions between the king's means and aims.  The want of money was
+the cause of wholesale disease, desertion, mutiny, and death in his
+slender army.
+
+Such great schemes as his master's required, as he perpetually urged,
+liberality of expenditure and measures of breadth.  He protested that he
+was not to blame for the ruin likely to come upon the whole enterprise.
+He had besought, remonstrated, reasoned with the king in vain.  He had
+seen his beard first grow, he said, in the king's service, and he had
+grown gray in that service, but rather than be kept longer in such a
+position, without money, men, or means to accomplish the great purposes
+on which he was sent, he protested that he would "abandon his office and
+retire into the woods to feed on roots."  Repeatedly did he implore his
+master for a large and powerful army; for money and again money.  The
+royal plans should be enforced adequately or abandoned entirely.  To
+spend money in small sums, as heretofore, was only throwing it into the
+sea.
+
+It was deep in the winter however before he could fairly come to the
+rescue of the besieged city.  Towards the end of January, 1592, he moved
+out of Hainault, and once more made his junction at Guise with the Duke
+of Mayenne.  At a review of his forces on 16th January, 1592, Alexander
+found himself at the head of thirteen thousand five hundred and sixteen
+infantry and four thousand and sixty-one cavalry.  The Duke of Mayenne's
+army, for payment of which that personage received from Philip 100,000
+dollars a month, besides 10,000 dollars a month for his own pocket, ought
+to have numbered ten thousand foot and three thousand horse, according to
+contract, but was in reality much less.
+
+The Duke of Montemarciano, nephew of Gregory XIV., had brought two
+thousand Swiss, furnished by the pontiff to the cause of the League,
+and the Duke of Lorraine had sent his kinsmen, the Counts Chaligny and
+Vaudemont, with a force of seven hundred lancers and cuirassiers.
+
+The town of Fere was assigned in pledge to Farnese to hold as a
+convenient: mustering-place and station in proximity to his own borders,
+and, as usual, the chief command over the united armies was placed in his
+hands.  These arrangements concluded, the allies moved slowly forward
+much in the same order as in the previous year.  The young Duke of Guise,
+who had just made his escape from the prison of Tours, where he had been
+held in durance since the famous assassination of his father and uncle,
+and had now come to join his uncle Mayenne, led the vanguard.  Ranuccio,
+son of the duke, rode also in the advance, while two experienced
+commanders, Vitry and De la Chatre, as well as the famous Marquis del
+Vasto, formerly general of cavalry in the Netherlands, who had been
+transferred to Italy but was now serving in the League's army as a
+volunteer, were associated with the young princes.  Parma, Mayenne, and
+Montemarciano rode in the battalia, the rear being under command of the
+Duke of Aumale and the Count Chaligny.  Wings of cavalry protected the
+long trains of wagons which were arranged on each flank of the invading
+army.  The march was very slow, a Farnese's uniform practice to guard
+himself scrupulously against any possibility of surprise and to entrench
+himself thoroughly at nightfall.
+
+By the middle of February they reached the vicinity of Aumale in Picardy.
+Meantime Henry, on the news of the advance of the relieving army, had
+again the same problem to solve that had been presented to him before
+Paris in the summer of 1590.  Should he continue in the trenches,
+pressing more and more closely the city already reduced to great straits?
+Should he take the open field against the invaders and once more attempt
+to crush the League and its most redoubtable commander in a general
+engagement?  Biron strenuously advised the continuance of the siege.
+Turenne, now, through his recent marriage with the heiress, called Duc
+de Bouillon, great head of the Huguenot party in France, counselled as
+warmly the open attack.  Henry, hesitating more than was customary with
+him, at last decided on a middle course.  The resolution did not seem a
+very wise one, but the king, who had been so signally out-generalled in
+the preceding campaign by the great Italian, was anxious to avoid his
+former errors, and might perhaps fall into as great ones by attempting
+two inconsistent lines of action.  Leaving Biron in command of the
+infantry and a portion of the horse to continue the siege, he took the
+field himself with the greater part of the cavalry, intending to
+intercept and harass the enemy and to prevent his manifest purpose of
+throwing reinforcements and supplies into the invested city.
+
+Proceeding to Neufchatel and Aumale, he soon found himself in the
+neighbourhood of the Leaguers, and it was not long before skirmishing
+began.  At this time, on a memorable occasion, Henry, forgetting as
+usual, in his eagerness for the joys of the combat that he was not a
+young captain of cavalry with his spurs to win by dashing into every mad
+adventure that might present itself, but a king fighting for his crown,
+with the welfare of a whole people depending on his fortunes, thought
+proper to place himself at the head of a handful of troopers to
+reconnoitre in person the camp of the Leaguers.  Starting with five
+hundred horse, and ordering Lavardin and Givry to follow with a larger
+body, while the Dukes of Nevers and Longueville were to move out, should
+it prove necessary, in force, the king rode forth as merrily as to a
+hunting party, drove in the scouts and pickets of the confederated
+armies, and, advancing still farther in his investigations, soon found
+himself attacked by a cavalry force of the enemy much superior to his
+own.  A skirmish began, and it was necessary for the little troop to beat
+a hasty retreat, fighting as it ran.  It was not long before Henry was
+recognised by the enemy, and the chase became all the more lively; George
+Basti, the famous Albanian trooper, commanding the force which pressed
+most closely upon the king.  The news spread to the camp of the League
+that the Bearnese was the leader of the skirmishers.  Mayenne believed
+it, and urged the instant advance of the flying squadron and of the whole
+vanguard.  Farnese refused.  It was impossible that the king should be
+there, he said, doing picket duty at the head of a company.  It was a
+clumsy ambush to bring on a general engagement in the open field, and he
+was not to be drawn out of his trenches into a trap by such a shallow
+device.  A French captain, who by command of Henry had purposely allowed
+himself to be taken, informed his captors that the skirmishers were in
+reality supported by a heavy force of infantry.  This suggestion of the
+ready Bearnese confirmed the doubts of Alexander.  Meantime the
+skirmishing steeplechase went on before his eyes.  The king dashing down
+a hill received an arquebus shot in his side, but still rode for his
+life.  Lavardin and Givry came to the rescue, but a panic seized their
+followers as the rumour flew that the king was mortally wounded--was
+already dead--so that they hardly brought a sufficient force to beat back
+the Leaguers.  Givry's horse was soon killed under him, and his own thigh
+crushed; Lavardin was himself dangerously wounded.  The king was more
+hard pressed than ever, men were falling on every side of him, when four
+hundred French dragoons--as a kind of musketeers who rode on hacks to the
+scene of action but did their work on foot, were called at that day--now
+dismounted and threw themselves between Henry and his pursuers.  Nearly
+every man of them laid down his life, but they saved the king's.  Their
+vigorous hand to hand fighting kept off the assailants until Nevers and
+Longueville received the king at the gates of Aumale with a force before
+which the Leaguers were fain to retreat as rapidly as they had come.
+
+In this remarkable skirmish of Aumale the opposite qualities of Alexander
+and of Henry were signally illustrated.  The king, by his constitutional
+temerity, by his almost puerile love of confronting danger for the
+danger's sake, was on the verge of sacrificing himself with all the hopes
+of his house and of the nobler portion of his people for an absolute
+nothing; while the duke, out of his superabundant caution, peremptorily
+refused to stretch out his hand and seize the person of his great enemy
+when directly within his, grasp.  Dead or alive, the Bearnese was
+unquestionably on that day in the power of Farnese, and with him the
+whole issue of the campaign and of the war.  Never were the narrow limits
+that separate valour on the one side and discretion on the other from
+unpardonable lunacy more nearly effaced than on that occasion.'
+
+When would such an opportunity occur again?
+
+The king's wound proved not very dangerous, although for many days
+troublesome, and it required, on account of his general state of health,
+a thorough cure.  Meantime the royalists fell back from Aumale and
+Neufchatel, both of which places were at once occupied by the Leaguers:
+In pursuance of his original plan, the Duke of Parma advanced with his
+customary steadiness and deliberation towards Rouen.  It was his
+intention to assault the king's army in its entrenchments in combination
+with a determined sortie to be made by the besieged garrison.  His
+preparations for the attack were ready on the 26th February, when he
+suddenly received a communication from De Villars, who had thus far most
+ably and gallantly conducted the defence of the place, informing him that
+it was no longer necessary to make a general attack.  On the day before
+he had made a sally from the four gates of the city, had fallen upon the
+besiegers in great force, had wounded Biron and killed six hundred of his
+soldiers, had spiked several pieces of artillery and captured others
+which he had successfully brought into the town, and had in short so
+damaged the enemy's works and disconcerted him in all his plans, that he
+was confident of holding the place longer than the king could afford to
+stay in front of him.  All he wished was a moderate reinforcement of men
+and munitions.  Farnese by no means sympathized with the confident tone
+of Villars nor approved of his proposition.  He had come to relieve Rouen
+and to raise the siege, and he preferred to do his work thoroughly.
+Mayenne was however most heartily in favour of taking the advice of
+Villars.  He urged that it was difficult for the Bearnese to keep an army
+long in the field, still more so in the trenches.  Let them provide for
+the immediate wants of the city; then the usual process of decomposition
+would soon be witnessed in the ill-paid, ill-fed, desultory forces of the
+heretic pretender.
+
+Alexander deferred to the wishes of Mayenne, although against his better
+judgment.  Eight hundred infantry, were successfully sent into Rouen.
+The army of the League then countermarched into Picardy near the confines
+of Artois.
+
+They were closely followed by Henry at the head of his cavalry, and
+lively skirmishes were of frequent occurrence.  In a military point of
+view none of these affairs were of consequence, but there was one which
+partook at once of the comic and the pathetic.  For it chanced that in a
+cavalry action of more than common vivacity the Count Chaligny found
+himself engaged in a hand to hand conflict with a very dashing swordsman,
+who, after dealing and receiving many severe blows, at last succeeded in
+disarming the count and taking him prisoner.  It was the fortune of war,
+and, but a few days before, might have been the fate of the great Henry
+himself.  But Chaligny's mortification at his captivity became intense
+when he discovered that the knight to whom he had surrendered was no
+other than the king's jester.  That he, a chieftain of the Holy League,
+the long-descended scion of the illustrious house of Lorraine, brother of
+the great Duke of Mercoeur, should become the captive of a Huguenot
+buffoon seemed the most stinging jest yet perpetrated since fools had
+come in fashion.  The famous Chicot--who was as fond of a battle as of a
+gibe, and who was almost as reckless a rider as his master--proved on
+this occasion that the cap and bells could cover as much magnanimity as
+did the most chivalrous crest.  Although desperately wounded in the
+struggle which had resulted in his triumph, he generously granted to the
+Count his freedom without ransom.  The proud Lorrainer returned to his
+Leaguers and the poor fool died afterwards of his wounds.
+
+The army of the allies moved through Picardy towards the confines of
+Artois, and sat down leisurely to beleaguer Rue, a low-lying place on the
+banks and near the mouth of the Somme, the only town in the province
+which still held for the king.  It was sufficiently fortified to
+withstand a good deal of battering, and it certainly seemed mere trifling
+for the great Duke of Parma to leave the Netherlands in such confusion,
+with young Maurice of Nassau carrying everything before him, and to come
+all the way into Normandy in order, with the united armies of Spain and
+the League, to besiege the insignificant town of Rue.
+
+And this was the opinion of Farnese, but he had chosen throughout the
+campaign to show great deference to the judgment of Mayenne.  Meantime
+the month of March wore away, and what had been predicted came to pass.
+Henry's forces dwindled away as usual.  His cavaliers rode off to forage
+for themselves, when their battles were denied them, and the king was now
+at the head of not more than sixteen thousand foot and five thousand
+horse.  On the other hand the Leaguers' army had been melting quite as
+rapidly.  With the death of Pope Sfondrato, his nephew Montemarciano had
+disappeared with his two thousand Swiss; while the French cavalry and
+infantry, ill-fed and uncomfortable, were diminishing daily.  Especially
+the Walloons, Flemings, and other Netherlanders of Parma's army, took
+advantage of their proximity to the borders and escaped in large numbers
+to their own homes.  It was but meagre and profitless campaigning on both
+sides during those wretched months of winter and early spring, although
+there was again an opportunity for Sir Roger Williams, at the head of two
+hundred musketeers and one hundred and fifty pikemen, to make one of his
+brilliant skirmishes under the eye of the Bearnese.  Surprised and
+without armour, he jumped, in doublet and hose, on horseback, and led his
+men merrily against five squadrons of Spanish and Italian horse, and six
+companies of Spanish infantry; singled out and unhorsed the leader of the
+Spanish troopers, and nearly cut off the head, of the famous Albanian
+chief George Basti with one swinging blow of his sword.  Then, being
+reinforced by some other English companies, he succeeded in driving the
+whole body of Italians and Spaniards, with great loss, quite into their
+entrenchments.  "The king doth commend him very highly," said Umton,
+"and doth more than wonder at the valour of our nation.  I never heard
+him give more honour to any service nor to any man than he doth to Sir
+Roger Williams and the rest, whom he held as lost men, and for which he
+has caused public thanks to be given to God."
+
+At last Villars, who had so peremptorily rejected assistance at the end
+of February, sent to say that if he were not relieved by the middle of
+April he should be obliged to surrender the city.  If the siege were not
+raised by the twentieth of the month he informed Parma, to his profound
+astonishment, that Rouen would be in Henry's hands.
+
+In effecting this result the strict blockade maintained by the Dutch
+squadron at the mouth of the river, and the resolute manner in which
+those cruisers dashed at every vessel attempting to bring relief to
+Rouen, were mainly instrumental.  As usual with the stern Hollanders and
+Zeelanders when engaged at sea with the Spaniards, it was war to the
+knife.  Early in April twelve large vessels, well armed and manned,
+attempted to break the blockade.  A combat ensued, at the end of which
+eight of the Spanish ships were captured, two were sunk, and two were set
+on fire in token of victory, every man on board of all being killed and
+thrown into the sea.  Queen Elizabeth herself gave the first news of this
+achievement to the Dutch envoy in London.  "And in truth," said he, "her
+Majesty expressed herself, in communicating these tidings, with such
+affection and extravagant joy to the glory and honour of our nation and
+men-of-war's-men, that it wonderfully delighted me, and did me good into
+my very heart to hear it from her."
+
+Instantly Farnese set himself to the work which, had he followed his own
+judgment, would already have been accomplished.  Henry with his cavalry
+had established himself at Dieppe and Arques, within a distance of five
+or six leagues from the infantry engaged in the siege of Rouen.
+Alexander saw the profit to be derived from the separation between the
+different portions of the enemy's forces, and marched straight upon the
+enemy's entrenchments.  He knew the disadvantage of assailing a strongly
+fortified camp, but believed that by a well-concerted, simultaneous
+assault by Villars from within and the Leaguers from without, the king's
+forces would be compelled to raise the siege or be cut up in their
+trenches.
+
+But Henry did not wait for the attack.  He had changed his plan, and,
+for once in his life, substituted extreme caution for his constitutional
+temerity.  Neither awaiting the assault upon his entrenchments nor
+seeking his enemy in the open field, he ordered the whole camp to be
+broken up, and on the 20th of April raised the siege.
+
+Farnese marched into Rouen, where the Leaguers were received with
+tumultuous joy, and this city, most important for the purposes of the
+League and for Philip's ulterior designs, was thus wrested from the grasp
+just closing upon it.  Henry's main army now concentrated itself in the
+neighbourhood of Dieppe, but the cavalry under his immediate
+superintendence continued to harass the Leaguers.  It was now determined
+to lay siege to Caudebec, on the right bank of the Seine, three leagues
+below Rouen; the possession of this place by the enemy being a constant.
+danger and difficulty to Rouen, whose supplies by the Seine were thus cut
+off.
+
+Alexander, as usual, superintended the planting of the batteries against
+the place.  He had been suffering during the whole campaign with those
+dropsical ailments which were making life a torture to him; yet his
+indomitable spirit rose superior to his physical disorders, and he
+wrought all day long on foot or on horseback, when he seemed only fit to
+be placed on his bed as a rapid passage to his grave.  On this occasion,
+in company with the Italian engineer Properzio, he had been for some time
+examining with critical nicety the preliminaries, for the siege, when it
+was suddenly observed by those around him that he was growing pale.  It
+then appeared that he had received a musket-ball between the wrist and
+the elbow, and had been bleeding profusely; but had not indicated by a
+word or the movement of a muscle that he had been wounded, so intent was
+he upon carrying out the immediate task to which he had set himself.  It
+was indispensable, however, that he should now take to his couch.  The
+wound was not trifling, and to one in his damaged and dropsical condition
+it was dangerous.  Fever set in, with symptoms of gangrene, and it became
+necessary to entrust the command of the League to Mayenne.  But it was
+hardly concealed from Parma that the duke was playing a double game.
+Prince Ranuccio, according to his father's express wish, was placed
+provisionally at the head of the Flemish forces.  This was conceded;
+however, with much heart-burning, and with consequences easily to be
+imagined.
+
+Meantime Caudebec fell at once.  Henry did nothing to relieve it, and the
+place could offer but slight resistance to the force arrayed against it.
+The bulk of the king's army was in the neighbourhood of Dieppe, where
+they had been recently strengthened by twenty companies of Netherlanders
+and Scotchmen brought by Count Philip Nassau.  The League's headquarters
+were in the village of Yvetot, capital of the realm of the whimsical
+little potentate so long renowned under that name.
+
+The king, in pursuance of the plan he had marked out for himself,
+restrained his skirmishing more than was his wont.  Nevertheless he lay
+close to Yvetot.  His cavalry, swelling and falling as usual like an
+Alpine torrent, had now filled up its old channels again, for once more
+the mountain chivalry had poured themselves around their king.  With ten
+thousand horsemen he was now pressing the Leaguers, from time to time,
+very hard, and on one occasion the skirmishing became so close and so
+lively that a general engagement seemed imminent.  Young Ranuccio had a
+horse shot under him, and his father--suffering as he was--had himself
+dragged out of bed and brought on a litter into the field, where he was
+set on horseback, trampling on wounds and disease, and, as it were, on
+death itself, that he might by his own unsurpassed keenness of eye and
+quickness of resource protect the army which had been entrusted to his
+care.  The action continued all day; young Bentivoglio, nephew of the
+famous cardinal, historian and diplomatist, receiving a bad wound in the
+leg, as he fought gallantly at the side of Ranuccio.  Carlo Coloma also
+distinguished himself in the engagement.  Night separated the combatants
+before either side had gained a manifest advantage, and on the morrow it
+seemed for the interest of neither to resume the struggle.
+
+The field where this campaign was to be fought was a narrow peninsula
+enclosed between the sea and the rivers Seine and Dieppe.  In this
+peninsula, called the Land of Caux, it was Henry's intention to shut up
+his enemy.  Farnese had finished the work that he had been sent to do,
+and was anxious, as Henry was aware, to return to the Netherlands.  Rouen
+was relieved, Caudebec had fallen.  There was not food or forage enough
+in the little peninsula to feed both the city and the whole army of the
+League.  Shut up in this narrow area, Alexander must starve or surrender.
+His only egress was into Picardy and so home to Artois, through the base
+of the isosceles triangle between the two rivers and on the borders of
+Picardy.  On this base Henry had posted his whole army.  Should Farnese
+assail him, thus provided with a strong position and superiority of
+force, defeat was certain.  Should he remain where he was, he must
+inevitably starve.  He had no communications with the outside.  The
+Hollanders lay with their ships below Caudebec, blockading the river's
+mouth and the coast.  His only chance of extrication lay across the
+Seine.  But Alexander was neither a bird nor a fish, and it was
+necessary, so Henry thought, to be either the one or the other to cross
+that broad, deep, and rapid river, where there were no bridges, and where
+the constant ebb and flow of the tide made transportation almost
+impossible in face of a powerful army in rear and flank.  Farnese's
+situation seemed, desperate; while the shrewd Bearnese sat smiling
+serenely, carefully watching at the mouth of the trap into which he had
+at last inveigled his mighty adversary.  Secure of his triumph, he seemed
+to have changed his nature, and to have become as sedate and wary as, by
+habit, he was impetuous and hot.
+
+And in truth Farnese found himself in very narrow quarters.  There was no
+hay for his horses, no bread for his men.  A penny loaf was sold for two
+shillings.  A jug of water was worth a crown.  As for meat or wine, they
+were hardly to be dreamed of.  His men were becoming furious at their
+position.  They had enlisted to fight, not to starve, and they murmured
+that it was better for an army to fall with weapons in its hands than to
+drop to pieces hourly with the enemy looking on and enjoying their agony.
+
+It was obvious to Farnese that there were but two ways out of his
+dilemma.  He might throw himself upon Henry--strongly entrenched as he
+was, and with much superior forces to his own, upon ground deliberately
+chosen for himself--defeat him utterly, and march over him back to the
+Netherlands.  This would be an agreeable result; but the undertaking
+seemed difficult, to say the least.  Or he might throw his army across
+the Seine and make his escape through the isle of France and Southern
+Picardy back to the so-called obedient provinces.  But it seemed,
+hopeless without bridges or pontoons to attempt the passage of the Seine.
+
+There was; however, no time left, for hesitation.  Secretly he took his
+resolution and communicated it in strict confidence to Mayenne, to
+Ranuccio, and to one or two other chiefs.  He came to Caudebec, and
+there, close to the margin of the river, he threw up a redoubt.  On the
+opposite bank, he constructed another.  On both he planted artillery,
+placing a force of eight hundred Netherlanders under Count Bossu in the
+one, and an equal number of the same nation, Walloons chiefly, under
+Barlotte in the other.  He collected all the vessels, flatboats,--
+wherries,--and rafts that could be found or put together at Rouen, and
+then under cover of his forts he transported all the Flemish infantry,
+and the Spanish, French, and Italian cavalry, during the night of 22nd
+May to the 22 May, opposite bank of the Seine.  Next morning he sent up
+all the artillery together with the Flemish cavalry to Rouen, where,
+making what use he could by temporary contrivances of the broken arches
+of the broken bridge, in order to shorten the distance from shore to
+shore, he managed to convey his whole army with all its trains across the
+river.
+
+A force was left behind, up to the last moment, to engage in the
+customary skirmishes, and to display themselves as largely as possible
+for the purpose of imposing upon the enemy.  The young Prince of Parma
+had command of this rearguard.  The device was perfectly successful.  The
+news of the movement was not brought to the ears of Henry until after it
+had been accomplished.  When the king reached the shore of the Seine, he
+saw to his infinite chagrin and indignation that the last stragglers of
+the army, including the garrison of the fort on the right bank, were just
+ferrying themselves across under command of Ranuccio.
+
+Furious with disappointment, he brought some pieces of artillery to bear
+upon the triumphant fugitives.  Not a shot told, and the Leaguers had the
+satisfaction of making a bonfire in the king's face of the boats which
+had brought them over.  Then, taking up their line of march rapidly
+inland, they placed themselves completely out of the reach of the
+Huguenot guns.
+
+Henry had a bridge at Pont de l'Arche, and his first impulse was to
+pursue with his cavalry, but it was obvious that his infantry could never
+march by so circuitous a route fast enough to come up with the enemy, who
+had already so prodigious a stride in advance.
+
+There was no need to disguise it to himself.  Henry saw himself for the
+second time out-generalled by the consummate Farnese.  The trap was
+broken, the game had given him the slip.  The manner in which the duke
+had thus extricated himself from a profound dilemma; in which his
+fortunes seemed hopelessly sunk, has usually been considered one of the
+most extraordinary exploits of his life.
+
+Precisely at this time, too, ill news reached Henry from Brittany and the
+neighbouring country.  The Princes Conti and Dombes had been obliged, on
+the 13th May, 1592, to raise the siege of Craon, in consequence of the
+advance of the Duke of Mercoeur, with a force of seven thousand men.
+
+They numbered, including lanzknechts and the English contingent, about
+half as many, and before they could effect their retreat, were attacked
+by Mercoeur, and utterly routed.  The English, who alone stood to their
+colours, were nearly all cut to pieces.  The rest made a disorderly
+retreat,  but were ultimately, with few exceptions, captured or slain.
+The duke, following up his victory, seized Chateau Gontier and La Val,
+important crossing places on the river Mayenne, and laid siege to
+Mayenne, capital city of that region.  The panic, spreading through
+Brittany and Maine, threatened the king's cause there with complete
+overthrow, hampered his operations in Normandy, and vastly encouraged the
+Leaguers.  It became necessary for Henry to renounce his designs upon
+Rouen, and the pursuit of Parma, and to retire to Vernon, there to occupy
+himself with plans for the relief of Brittany.  In vain had the Earl of
+Essex, whose brother had already been killed in the campaign, manifested
+such headlong gallantry in that country as to call forth the sharpest
+rebukes from the admiring but anxious Elizabeth.  The handful of brave
+Englishmen who had been withdrawn from the Netherlands, much to the
+dissatisfaction of the States-General, in order to defend the coasts of
+Brittany, would have been better employed under Maurice of Nassau.  So
+soon as the heavy news reached the king, the faithful Umton was sent for.
+"He imparted the same unto me," said the envoy, "with extraordinary
+passion and discontent.  He discoursed at large of his miserable estate,
+of the factions of his servants, and of their ill-dispositions, and then
+required my opinion touching his course for Brittan, as also what further
+aid he might expect from her Majesty; alleging that unless he were
+presently strengthened by England it was impossible for him, longer to
+resist the greatness of the King of Spain, who assailed his country by
+Brittany, Languedoc, the Low Countries by the Duke of Saxony and the Duke
+of Lorraine, and so ended his speech passionately."  Thus adjured, Sir
+Henry spoke to the king firmly but courteously, reminding him how,
+contrary to English advice, he had followed other counsellors to the
+neglect of Brittany, and had broken his promises to the queen.  He
+concluded by urging him to advance into that country in person, but did
+not pledge himself on behalf of her Majesty to any further assistance.
+"To this," said Umton, "the king gave a willing ear, and replied, with
+many thanks, and without disallowing of anything that I alleged, yielding
+many excuses of his want of means, not of disposition, to provide a
+remedy, not forgetting to acknowledge her Majesty's care of him and his
+country, and especially of Brittany, excusing much the bad disposition of
+his counsellors, and inclining much to my motion to go in person thither,
+especially because he might thereby give her Majesty better satisfaction;
+.  .  .  .  and protesting that he would either immediately himself make
+war there in those parts or send an army thither.  I do not doubt," added
+the ambassador, "but with good handling her Majesty may now obtain any
+reasonable matter for the conservation of Brittany, as also for a place
+of retreat for the English, and I urge continually the yielding of Brest
+into her Majesty's hands, whereunto I find the king well inclined, if he
+might bring it to pass."
+
+Alexander passed a few days in Paris, where he was welcomed with much
+cordiality, recruiting his army for a brief period in the land of Brie,
+and then--broken in health but entirely successful--he dragged himself
+once more to Spa to drink the waters.  He left an auxiliary force with
+Mayenne, and promised--infinitely against his own wishes--to obey his
+master's commands and return again before the winter to do the League's
+work.
+
+And thus Alexander had again solved a difficult problem.  He had saved
+for his master and for the League the second city of France and the whole
+coast of Normandy.  Rouen had been relieved in masterly manner even as
+Paris had been succoured the year before.  He had done this, although
+opposed by the sleepless energy and the exuberant valour of the quick-
+witted Navarre, and although encumbered by the assistance of the
+ponderous Duke of Mayenne.  His military reputation, through these
+two famous reliefs and retreats, grew greater than ever.
+
+No commander of the age was thought capable of doing what he had thus
+done.  Yet, after all, what had he accomplished?  Did he not feel in his
+heart of hearts that he was but a strong and most skilful swimmer
+struggling for a little while against an ocean-tide which was steadily
+sweeping him and his master and all their fortunes far out into the
+infinite depths?
+
+Something of this breathed ever in his most secret utterances.  But, so
+long as life was in him, his sword and his genius were at the disposal of
+his sovereign, to carry out a series of schemes as futile as they were
+nefarious.
+
+For us, looking back upon the Past, which was then the Future, it is
+easy to see how remorselessly the great current of events was washing
+away the system and the personages seeking to resist its power and to
+oppose the great moral principles by which human affairs in the long run
+are invariably governed.  Spain and Rome were endeavouring to obliterate
+the landmarks of race, nationality, historical institutions, and the
+tendencies of awakened popular conscience, throughout Christendom,
+and to substitute for them a dead level of conformity to one regal
+and sacerdotal despotism.
+
+England, Holland, the Navarre party in France, and a considerable part of
+Germany were contending for national unity and independence, for vested
+and recorded rights.  Much farther than they themselves or their
+chieftains dreamed those millions of men were fighting for a system
+of temperate human freedom; for that emancipation under just laws from
+arbitrary human control, which is the right--however frequently trampled
+upon--of all classes, conditions, and races of men; and for which it is
+the instinct of the human race to continue to struggle under every
+disadvantage, and often against all hope, throughout the ages, so long
+as the very principle of humanity shall not be extinguished in those
+who have been created after their Maker's image.
+
+It may safely be doubted whether the great Queen, the Bearnese, Alexander
+Farnese, or his master, with many of their respective adherents, differed
+very essentially from each other in their notions of the right divine and
+the right of the people.  But history has shown us which of them best
+understood the spirit of the age, and had the keenest instinct to keep
+themselves in the advance by moving fastest in the direction whither it
+was marshalling all men.  There were many, earnest, hard-toiling men in
+those days, men who believed in the work to which they devoted their
+lives.  Perhaps, too, the devil-worshippers did their master's work as
+strenuously and heartily as any, and got fame and pelf for their pains.
+Fortunately, a good portion of what they so laboriously wrought for has
+vanished into air; while humanity has at least gained something from
+those who deliberately or instinctively conformed themselves to her
+eternal laws.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Anatomical study of what has ceased to exist
+Artillery
+Bomb-shells were not often used although known for a century
+Court fatigue, to scorn pleasure
+For us, looking back upon the Past, which was then the Future
+Hardly an inch of French soil that had not two possessors
+Holy institution called the Inquisition
+Inevitable fate of talking castles and listening ladies
+Life of nations and which we call the Past
+Often necessary to be blind and deaf
+Picturesqueness of crime
+Royal plans should be enforced adequately or abandoned entirely
+Toil and sacrifices of those who have preceded us
+Use of the spade
+Utter disproportions between the king's means and aims
+Valour on the one side and discretion on the other
+Walk up and down the earth and destroy his fellow-creatures
+We have the reputation of being a good housewife
+Weapons
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v63
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 64, 1592
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+     Return of Prince Maurice to the siege of Steenwyck--Capitulation of
+     the besieged--Effects of the introduction of mining operations--
+     Maurice besieges Coeworden--Verdugo attempts to relieve the city,
+     but fails--The city capitulates, and Prince Maurice retreats into
+     winter quarters.
+
+While Farnese had thus been strengthening the bulwarks of Philip's
+universal monarchy in that portion of his proposed French dominions which
+looked towards England, there had been opportunity for Prince Maurice to
+make an assault upon the Frisian defences of this vast realm.  It was
+difficult to make half Europe into one great Spanish fortification,
+guarding its every bastion and every point of the curtain, without far
+more extensive armaments than the "Great King," as the Leaguers proposed
+that Philip should entitle himself, had ever had at his disposal.  It
+might be a colossal scheme to stretch the rod of empire over so large a
+portion of the earth, but the dwarfish attempts to carry the design into
+execution hardly reveal the hand of genius.  It is astonishing to
+contemplate the meagre numbers and the slender funds with which this
+world-empire was to be asserted and maintained.  The armies arrayed at
+any important point hardly exceeded a modern division or two; while the
+resources furnished for a year would hardly pay in later days for a few
+weeks' campaign.
+
+When Alexander, the first commander of his time, moved out of Flanders
+into France with less than twenty thousand men, he left most vital
+portions of his master's hereditary dominions so utterly unprotected that
+it was possible to attack them with a handful of troops.  The young
+disciple of Simon Stevinus now resumed that practical demonstration of
+his principles which had been in the previous year so well begun.
+
+On the 28th May, 1592, Maurice, taking the field with six thousand foot
+and two thousand horse, came once more before Steenwyck.  It will be
+remembered that he had been obliged to relinquish the siege of this place
+in order to confront the Duke of Parma in July, 1591, at Nymegen.
+
+The city--very important from its position, being the key to the province
+of Drenthe as well as one of the safeguards of Friesland--had been
+besieged in vain by Count Renneberg after his treasonable surrender of
+Groningen, of which he was governor, to the Spaniards, but had been
+subsequently surprised by Tassis.  Since that time it had held for the
+king.  Its fortifications were strong, and of the best description known
+at that day.  Its regular garrison was sixteen companies of foot and some
+cavalry under Antoine de Quocqueville, military governor.  Besides these
+troops were twelve hundred Walloon infantry, commanded by Lewis, youngest
+Count van den Berg, a brave lad of eighteen years, with whom were the
+lord of Waterdyck and other Netherland nobles.
+
+To the military student the siege may possess importance as marking a
+transitional epoch in the history of the beleaguering science.  To the
+general reader, as in most of the exploits of the young Poliorcetes, its
+details have but slender interest.  Perhaps it was here that the spade
+first vindicated its dignity, and entitled itself to be classed as a
+military weapon of value along with pike and arquebus.  It was here that
+the soldiers of Maurice, burrowing in the ground at ten stuyvers a day,
+were jeered at by the enemy from the battlements as boors and ditchers,
+who had forfeited their right to be considered soldiers--but jeered at
+for the last time.
+
+From 30th May to 9th June the prince was occupied in throwing up
+earthworks on the low grounds in order to bring his guns into position.
+On the 13th June he began to batter with forty-five pieces, but effected
+little more than to demolish some of the breast-works.  He threw hot shot
+into the town very diligently, too, but did small damage.  The
+cannonading went on for nearly a week, but the practice was so very
+indifferent--notwithstanding the protection of the blessed Barbara and
+the tuition of the busmasters--that the besieged began to amuse
+themselves with these empty and monotonous salvos of the honourable
+Artillery Guild.  When all this blazing and thundering had led to no
+better result than to convert a hundred thousand good Flemish florins
+into noise and smoke, the thrifty Netherlanders on both sides of the
+walls began to disparage the young general's reputation.  After all,
+they said, the Spaniards were right when they called artillery mere
+'espanta-vellacos' or scare-cowards.  This burrowing and bellowing must
+at last give place to the old-fashioned push of pike, and then it would
+be seen who the soldiers were.  Observations like these were freely made
+under a flag of truce; for on the 19th June--notwithstanding their
+contempt for the 'espanta-vellacos'--the besieged had sent out a
+deputation to treat for an honourable surrender.  Maurice entertained the
+negotiators hospitably in his own tent, but the terms suggested to him
+were inadmissible.  Nothing came of the conference therefore but mutual
+criticisms, friendly enough, although sufficiently caustic.
+
+Maurice now ceased cannonading, and burrowed again for ten days without
+interruption.  Four mines, leading to different points of the defences,
+were patiently constructed, and two large chambers at the terminations,
+neatly finished off and filled respectively with five thousand and
+twenty-five hundred pounds of powder, were at last established under two
+of the principal bastions.
+
+During all this digging there had been a couple of sorties in which the
+besieged had inflicted great damage on their enemy, and got back into the
+town with a few prisoners, having lost but six of their own men.  Sir
+Francis Vere had been severely wounded in the leg, so that he was obliged
+to keep his bed during the rest of the siege.  Verdugo, too, had made a
+feeble attempt to reinforce the place with three hundred men, sixty or
+seventy of whom had entered, while the rest had been killed or captured.
+On such a small scale was Philip's world-empire contended for by his
+stadholder in Friesland; yet it was certainly not the fault of the stout
+old Portuguese.  Verdugo would rather have sent thirty thousand men to
+save the front door of his great province than three hundred.  But every
+available man--and few enough of them they were--had been sent out of the
+Netherlands, to defend the world-empire in its outposts of Normandy and
+Brittany.
+
+This was Philip the Prudent's system for conquering the world, and men
+looked upon him as the consummation of kingcraft.
+
+On the 3rd July Maurice ordered his whole force to be in readiness for
+the assault.  The mines were then sprung.
+
+The bastion of the east gate was blown to ruins.  The mine under the
+Gast-Huys bulwark, burst outwardly, and buried alive many Hollanders
+standing ready for the assault.  At this untoward accident Maurice
+hesitated to give the signal for storming the breach, but the panic
+within the town was so evident that Lewis William lost no time in seizing
+the overthrown eastern bulwark, from the ruins of which he looked over
+the whole city. The other broken bastion was likewise easily mastered,
+and the besieged, seeing the storm about to burst upon them with
+irresistible fury, sent a trumpet.  Meantime Maurice, inspecting the
+effects of the explosion and preparing for the assault, had been shot
+through the left cheek.  The wound was not dangerous, and the prince
+extracted the bullet with his own hand, but the change of half an inch
+would have made it fatal.  He was not incapacitated--after his wound had
+been dressed, amidst the remonstrances of his friends for his temerity-
+from listening to the propositions of the city.  They were refused, for
+the prince was sure of having his town on his own terms.
+
+Next day he permitted the garrison to depart; the officers and soldiers
+promising not to serve the King of Spain on the Netherland side of the
+Rhine for six months.  They were to take their baggage, but to leave
+arms, flags, munitions, and provisions.  Both Maurice and Lewis William
+were for insisting on sterner conditions, but the States' deputies and
+members of the council who were present, as usual, in camp urged the
+building of the golden bridge.  After all, a fortified city, the second
+in importance after Groningen of all those regions, was the real prize
+contended for.  The garrison was meagre and much reduced during the
+siege.  The fortifications, of masonry and earthwork combined, were
+nearly as strong as ever.  Saint Barbara had done them but little damage,
+but the town itself was in a sorry plight.  Churches and houses were
+nearly all shot to pieces, and the inhabitants had long been dwelling in
+the cellars.  Two hundred of the garrison remained, severely wounded, in
+the town; three hundred and fifty had been killed, among others the young
+cousin of the Nassaus, Count Lewis van den Berg.  The remainder of the
+royalists marched out, and were treated with courtesy by Maurice, who
+gave them an escort, permitting the soldiers to retain their side-arms,
+and furnishing horses to the governor.
+
+In the besieging army five or six hundred had been killed and many
+wounded, but not in numbers bearing the same proportion to the slain as
+in modern battles.
+
+The siege had lasted forty-four days.  When it was over, and men came out
+from the town to examine at leisure the prince's camp and his field of
+operations, they were astounded at the amount of labor performed in so
+short a time.  The oldest campaigners confessed that they never before
+had understood what a siege really was, and they began to conceive a
+higher respect for the art of the engineer than they had ever done
+before.  "Even those who were wont to rail at science and labour," said
+one who was present in the camp of Maurice, "declared that the siege
+would have been a far more arduous undertaking had it not been for those
+two engineers, Joost Matthes of Alost, and Jacob Kemp of Gorcum.  It is
+high time to take from soldiers the false notion that it is shameful to
+work with the spade; an error which was long prevalent among the
+Netherlanders, and still prevails among the French, to the great
+detriment of the king's affairs, as may be seen in his sieges."
+
+Certainly the result of Henry's recent campaign before Rouen had proved
+sufficiently how much better it would have been for him had there been
+some Dutch Joosts and Jacobs with their picks and shovels in his army at
+that critical period.  They might perhaps have baffled Parma as they had
+done Verdugo.
+
+Without letting the grass grow under his feet, Maurice now led his army
+from Steenwyck to Zwol and arrived on the 26th July before Coeworden.
+
+This place, very strong by art and still stronger by-nature, was the
+other key to all north Netherland--Friesland, Groningen, and Drenthe.
+Should it fall into the hands of the republic it would be impossible for
+the Spaniards to retain much longer the rich and important capital of all
+that country, the city of Groningen.  Coeworden lay between two vast
+morasses, one of which--the Bourtange swamp--extended some thirty miles
+to the bay of the Dollart; while the other spread nearly as far in a
+westerly direction to the Zuyder Zee.  Thus these two great marshes were
+a frame--an almost impassable barrier--by which the northern third of the
+whole territory of the republic was encircled and defended.  Throughout
+this great morass there was not a hand-breadth of solid ground--not a
+resting-place for a human foot, save the road which led through
+Coeworden.  This passage lay upon a natural deposit of hard, dry sand,
+interposed as if by a caprice of nature between the two swamps; and was
+about half a mile in width.
+
+The town itself was well fortified, and Verdugo had been recently
+strengthening the position with additional earthworks.  A thousand
+veterans formed the garrison under command of another Van den Berg, the
+Count Frederic.  It was the fate of these sister's-children of the great
+founder of the republic to serve the cause of foreign despotism with
+remarkable tenacity against their own countrymen, and against their
+nearest blood relations.  On many conspicuous occasions they were almost
+as useful to Spain and the Inquisition as the son and nearly all the
+other kinsmen of William the Silent had rendered themselves to the cause
+of Holland and of freedom.
+
+Having thoroughly entrenched his camp before Coeworden and begun the
+regular approaches, Maurice left his cousin Lewis William to superintend
+the siege operations for the moment, and advanced towards Ootmarsum, a
+frontier town which might give him trouble if in the hands of a relieving
+force.  The place fell at once, with the loss of but one life to the
+States army, but that a very valuable one; General de Famars, one of the
+original signers of the famous Compromise; and a most distinguished
+soldier of the republic, having been killed before the gates.
+
+On the 31st July, Maurice returned to his entrenchments.  The enemy
+professed unbounded confidence; Van den Berg not doubting that he should
+be relieved by Verdugo, and Verdugo being sure that Van den Berg would
+need no relief.  The Portuguese veteran indeed was inclined to wonder at
+Maurice's presumption in attacking so impregnable a fortress.  "If
+Coeworden does not hold," said he, "there is no place in the world that
+can hold."
+
+Count Peter Ernest, was still acting as governor-general for Alexander
+Farnese, on returning from his second French campaign, had again betaken
+himself, shattered and melancholy, to the waters of Spa, leaving the
+responsibility for Netherland affairs upon the German octogenarian.  To
+him; and to the nonagenarian Mondragon at Antwerp, the veteran Verdugo
+now called loudly for aides against the youthful pedant, whom all men had
+been laughing at a twelvemonth or so before.  The Macedonian phalanx,
+Simon Stevinus and delving Dutch boors--unworthy of the name of soldiers-
+-seemed to be steadily digging the ground from under Philip's feet in his
+hereditary domains.
+
+What would become of the world-empire, where was the great king--not of
+Spain alone, nor of France alone--but the great monarch of all
+Christendom, to plant his throne securely, if his Frisian strongholds,
+his most important northern outposts, were to fall before an almost
+beardless youth at the head of a handful of republican militia?
+
+Verdugo did his best, but the best was little.  The Spanish and Italian
+legions had been sent out of the Netherlands into France.  Many had died
+there, many were in hospital after their return, nearly all the rest were
+mutinous for want of pay.
+
+On the 16th August, Maurice formally summoned Coeworden to surrender.
+After the trumpeter had blown thrice; Count Van den Berg, forbidding all
+others, came alone upon the walls and demanded his message.  "To claim
+this city in the name of Prince Maurice of Nassau and of the States-
+General," was the reply.
+
+"Tell him first to beat down my walls as flat as the ditch," said Van den
+Berg, "and then to bring five or six storms.  Six months after that I
+will think whether I will send a trumpet."
+
+The prince proceeded steadily with his approaches, but he was infinitely
+chagrined by the departure out of his camp of Sir Francis Vere with his
+English contingent of three regiments, whom Queen Elizabeth had
+peremptorily ordered to the relief of King Henry in Brittany.
+
+Nothing amazes the modern mind so much as the exquisite paucity of forces
+and of funds by which the world-empire was fought for and resisted in
+France, Holland, Spain, and England.  The scenes of war were rapidly
+shifted--almost like the slides of a magic-lantern--from one country to
+another; the same conspicuous personages, almost the same individual
+armies, perpetually re-appearing in different places, as if a wild
+phantasmagoria were capriciously repeating itself to bewilder the
+imagination.  Essex, and Vere, and Roger Williams, and Black Norris-Van
+der Does, and Admiral Nassau, the Meetkerks and Count Philip-Farnese and
+Mansfeld, George Basti, Arenberg, Berlaymont, La None and Teligny, Aquila
+and Coloma--were seen alternately fighting, retreating, triumphant,
+beleaguering, campaigning all along the great territory which extends
+from the Bay of Biscay to the crags of Brittany, and across the narrow
+seas to the bogs of Ireland, and thence through the plains of Picardy and
+Flanders to the swamps of Groningen and the frontiers of the Rhine.
+
+This was the arena in which the great struggle was ever going on, but the
+champions were so few in number that their individual shapes become
+familiar to us like the figures of an oft-repeated pageant.  And now the
+withdrawal of certain companies of infantry and squadrons of cavalry from
+the Spanish armies into France, had left obedient Netherland too weak to
+resist rebellious Netherland, while, on the other hand, the withdrawal of
+some twenty or thirty companies of English auxiliaries--most hard-
+fighting veterans it is true, but very few in number--was likely to
+imperil the enterprise of Maurice in Friesland.
+
+The removal of these companies from the Low Countries to strengthen the
+Bearnese in the north of France, formed the subject of much bitter
+diplomatic conference between the States and England; the order having
+been communicated by the great queen herself in many a vehement epistle
+and caustic speech, enforced by big, manly oaths.
+
+Verdugo, although confident in the strength of the place, had represented
+to Parma and to Mansfeld the immense importance of relieving Coeworden.
+The city, he said, was more valuable than all the towns taken the year
+before.  All Friesland hung upon it, and it would be impossible to save
+Groningen should Coeworden fall.
+
+Meantime Count Philip Nassau arrived from the campaign in France with his
+three regiments which he threw into garrison, and thus set free an equal
+number of fresh troops, which were forthwith sent to the camp of Maurice.
+The prince at the same time was made aware that Verdugo was about to
+receive important succour, and he was advised by the deputies of the
+States-General present at his headquarters to send out his German Reiters
+to intercept them.  Maurice refused.  Should his cavalry be defeated, he
+said, his whole army would be endangered.  He determined to await within
+his fortified camp the attack of the relieving force.
+
+During the whole month of August he proceeded steadily with his sapping
+and mining.  By the middle of the month his lines had come through the
+ditch, which he drained of water into the counterscarp.  By the beginning
+of September he had got beneath the principal fort, which, in the course
+of three or four days, he expected to blow into the air.  The rainy
+weather had impeded his operations and the march of the relieving army.
+Nevertheless that army was at last approaching.  The regiments of
+Mondragon, Charles Mansfeld, Gonzaga, Berlaymont, and Arenberg had been
+despatched to reinforce Verdugo.  On the 23rd August, having crossed the
+Rhine at Rheinberg, they reached Olfen in the country of Benthem, ten
+miles from Coeworden.  Here they threw up rockets and made other signals
+that relief was approaching the town.  On the 3rd of September Verdugo,
+with the whole force at his disposal, amounting to four thousand foot and
+eighteen hundred horse, was at the village of Emblichen, within a league
+of the besieged city.  That night a peasant was captured with letters
+from Verdugo to the Governor of Coeworden, giving information that he
+intended to make an assault on the besiegers on the night of 6th-7th
+September.
+
+Thus forewarned, Maurice took the best precautions and calmly within his
+entrenchments awaited the onslaught.  Punctual to his appointment,
+Verdugo with his whole force, yelling "Victoria!  Victoria!"  made a
+shirt-attack, or camiciata--the men wearing their shirts outside their
+armour to distinguish each other in the darkness--upon that portion of
+the camp which was under command of Hohenlo.  They were met with
+determination and repulsed, after fighting all night, with a loss of
+three hundred killed and a proportionate number of wounded.  The
+Netherlanders had but three killed and six wounded.  Among the latter,
+however, was Lewis William, who received a musket-ball in the belly, but
+remained on the ground until the enemy had retreated.  It was then
+discovered that his wound was not mortal--the intestines not having been
+injured--and he was soon about his work again.  Prince Maurice, too, as
+usual, incurred the remonstrances of the deputies and others for the
+reckless manner in which he exposed himself wherever the fire was hottest
+He resolutely refused, however, to permit his cavalry to follow the
+retreating enemy.  His object was Coeworden--a prize more important than
+a new victory over the already defeated Spaniards would prove--and this
+object he kept ever before his eyes.
+
+This was Verdugo's first and last attempt to relieve the city.  He had
+seen enough of the young prince's tactics and had no further wish to
+break his teeth against those scientific entrenchments.  The Spaniards at
+last, whether they wore their shirts inside or outside their doublets,
+could no longer handle the Dutchmen at pleasure.  That people of butter,
+as the iron duke of Alva was fond of calling the Netherlanders, were
+grown harder with the pressure of a twenty-five years' war.
+
+Five days after the sanguinary 'camiciata' the besieged offered to
+capitulate.  The trumpet at which the proud Van den Berg had hinted for
+six months later arrived on the 12th September.  Maurice was glad to get
+his town.  His "little soldiers" did not insist, as the Spaniards and
+Italians were used to do in the good old days, on unlimited murder, rape,
+and fire, as the natural solace and reward of their labours in the
+trenches.  Civilization had made some progress, at least in the
+Netherlands.  Maurice granted good terms, such as he had been in the
+habit of conceding to all captured towns.  Van den Berg was courteously
+received by his cousins, as he rode forth from the place at the head of
+what remained of his garrison, five hundred in number, with colours
+flying, matches burning, bullet in mouth, and with all their arms and
+baggage except artillery and ammunition, and the heroic little Lewis,
+notwithstanding the wound in his belly, got on horseback and greeted him
+with a cousinly welcome in the camp.
+
+The city was a most important acquisition, as already sufficiently set
+forth, but Queen Elizabeth, much misinformed on this occasion, was
+inclined to undervalue it.  She wrote accordingly to the States,
+reproaching them for using all that artillery and that royal force
+against a mere castle and earthheap, instead of attempting some
+considerable capital, or going in force to the relief of Brittany.  The
+day was to come when she would acknowledge the advantage of not leaving
+this earth-heap in the hands of the Spaniard.  Meantime, Prince Maurice--
+the season being so far advanced--gave the world no further practical
+lessons in the engineering science, and sent his troops into winter
+quarters.
+
+These were the chief military phenomena in France and Flanders during
+three years of the great struggle to establish Philip's universal
+dominion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+     Negotiations between Queen Elizabeth and the States--Aspect of
+     affair between England and the Netherlands--Complaints of the
+     Hollanders on the piratical acts of the English--The Dutch Envoy and
+     the English Government--Caron's interview with Elizabeth--The Queen
+     promises redress of grievances.
+
+It is now necessary to cast a glance at certain negotiations on delicate
+topics which had meantime been occurring between Queen Elizabeth and the
+States.
+
+England and the republic were bound together by ties so close that it was
+impossible for either to injure the other without inflicting a
+corresponding damage on itself.  Nevertheless this very community of
+interest, combined with a close national relationship--for in the
+European family the Netherlanders and English were but cousins twice
+removed--with similarity of pursuits, with commercial jealousy, with an
+intense and ever growing rivalry for that supremacy on the ocean towards
+which the monarchy and the republic were so earnestly struggling, with a
+common passion for civil and religious freedom, and with that inveterate
+habit of self-assertion--the healthful but not engaging attribute of all
+vigorous nations--which strongly marked them both, was rapidly producing
+an antipathy between the two countries which time was likely rather to
+deepen than efface.  And the national divergences were as potent as the
+traits of resemblance in creating this antagonism.
+
+The democratic element was expanding itself in the republic so rapidly
+as to stifle for a time the oligarchical principle which might one day
+be developed out of the same matrix; while, despite the hardy and
+adventurous spirit which characterised the English nation throughout all
+its grades, there was never a more intensely aristocratic influence in
+the world than the governing and directing spirit of the England of that
+age.
+
+It was impossible that the courtiers of Elizabeth and the burgher-
+statesmen of Holland and Friesland should sympathize with each other in
+sentiment or in manner.  The republicans in their exuberant consciousness
+of having at last got rid of kings and kingly paraphernalia in their own,
+land--for since the rejection of the sovereignty offered to France and
+England in 1585 this feeling had become so predominant as to make it
+difficult to believe that those offers had been in reality so recent--
+were insensibly adopting a frankness, perhaps a roughness, of political
+and social demeanour which was far from palatable to the euphuistic
+formalists of other, countries.
+
+Especially the English statesmen, trained to approach their sovereign
+with almost Oriental humility, and accustomed to exact for themselves
+a large amount of deference, could ill brook the free and easy tone
+occasionally adopted in diplomatic and official intercourse by these
+upstart republicans.
+
+     [The Venetian ambassador Contarin relates that in the reign of James
+     I.  the great nobles of England were served at table by lackeys on
+     they knees.]
+
+A queen, who to loose morals, imperious disposition, and violent temper
+united as inordinate a personal vanity as was ever vouchsafed to woman,
+and who up to the verge of decrepitude was addressed by her courtiers in
+the language of love-torn swain to blooming shepherdess, could naturally
+find but little to her taste in the hierarchy of Hans Brewer and Hans
+Baker.  Thus her Majesty and her courtiers, accustomed to the faded
+gallantries with which the serious affairs of State were so grotesquely
+intermingled, took it ill when they were bluntly informed, for instance,
+that the State council of the Netherlands, negotiating on Netherland
+affairs, could not permit a veto to the representatives of the queen,
+and that this same body of Dutchmen discussing their own business
+insisted upon talking Dutch and not Latin.
+
+It was impossible to deny that the young Stadholder was a gentleman of a
+good house, but how could the insolence of a common citizen like John of
+Olden-Barneveld be digested?  It was certain that behind those shaggy,
+overhanging brows there was a powerful brain stored with legal and
+historic lore, which supplied eloquence to an ever-ready tongue and pen.
+Yet these facts, difficult to gainsay, did not make the demands so
+frequently urged by the States-General upon the English Government for
+the enforcement of Dutch rights and the redress of English wrongs the
+more acceptable.
+
+Bodley, Gilpin, and the rest were in a chronic state of exasperation
+with the Hollanders, not only because of their perpetual complaints,
+but because their complaints were perpetually just.
+
+The States-General were dissatisfied, all the Netherlanders were
+dissatisfied--and not entirely without reason--that the English, with
+whom the republic was on terms not only of friendship but of alliance,
+should burn their ships on the high seas, plunder their merchants, and
+torture their sea-captains in order to extort information as to the most
+precious portions of their cargoes.  Sharp language against such
+malpractices was considered but proof of democratic vulgarity.  Yet it
+would be hard to maintain that Martin Frobisher, Mansfield, Grenfell, and
+the rest of the sea-kings, with all their dash and daring and patriotism,
+were not as unscrupulous pirates as ever sailed blue water, or that they
+were not apt to commit their depredations upon friend and foe alike.
+
+On the other hand; by a liberality of commerce in extraordinary contrast
+with the practice of modern times, the Netherlanders were in the habit of
+trading directly with the arch-enemy of both Holland and England, even in
+the midst of their conflict with him, and it was complained of that even
+the munitions of war and the implements of navigation by which Spain had
+been enabled to effect its foot-hold in Brittany, and thus to threaten
+the English coast, were derived from this very traffic.
+
+The Hollanders replied, that, according to their contract with England,
+they were at liberty to send as many as forty or fifty vessels at a time
+to Spain and Portugal, that they had never exceeded the stipulated
+number, that England freely engaged in the same traffic herself with the
+common enemy, that it was not reasonable to consider cordage or dried
+fish or shooks and staves, butter, eggs, and corn as contraband of war,
+that if they were illegitimate the English trade was vitiated to the same
+degree, and that it would be utterly hopeless for the provinces to
+attempt to carry on the war, except by enabling themselves, through the
+widest and most unrestricted foreign commerce, even including the enemy's
+realms, to provide their nation with the necessary wealth to sustain so
+gigantic a conflict.
+
+Here were ever flowing fountains of bitterest discussion and
+recrimination.  It must be admitted however that there was occasionally
+an advantage in the despotic and summary manner in which the queen took
+matters into her own hands.  It was refreshing to see this great
+sovereign--who was so well able to grapple with questions of State, and
+whose very imperiousness of temper impelled her to trample on shallow
+sophistries and specious technicalities--dealing directly with cases of
+piracy and turning a deaf ear to the counsellors, who in that, as in
+every age, were too prone to shove by international justice in order to
+fulfil municipal forms.
+
+It was, however, with much difficulty that the envoy of the republic was
+able to obtain a direct hearing from her Majesty in order to press the
+long list of complaints on account of the English piratical proceedings
+upon her attention.  He intimated that there seemed to be special reasons
+why the great ones about her throne were disposed to deny him access to
+the queen, knowing as they did in what intent he asked for interviews.
+They described in strong language the royal wrath at the opposition
+recently made by the States to detaching the English auxiliaries in the
+Netherlands for the service of the French king in Normandy, hoping
+thereby to deter him from venturing into her presence with a list of
+grievances on the part of his government.  "I did my best to indicate the
+danger incurred by such transferring of troops at so critical a moment,"
+said Noel de Canon, "showing that it was directly in opposition to the
+contract made with her Majesty.  But I got no answer save very high words
+from the Lord Treasurer, to the effect that the States-General were never
+willing to agree to any of her Majesty's prepositions, and that this
+matter was as necessary to the States' service as to that of the French
+king.  In effect, he said peremptorily that her Majesty willed it and
+would not recede from her resolution."
+
+The envoy then requested an interview with the queen before her departure
+into the country.
+
+Next day, at noon, Lord Burghley sent word that she was to leave between
+five and six o'clock that evening, and that the minister would be welcome
+meantime at any hour.
+
+"But notwithstanding that I presented myself," said Caron, "at two
+o'clock in the afternoon, I was unable to speak to her Majesty until a
+moment before she was about to mount her horse.  Her language was then
+very curt.  She persisted in demanding her troops, and strongly expressed
+her dissatisfaction that we should have refused them on what she called
+so good an occasion for using them.  I was obliged to cut my replies very
+short, as it was already between six and seven o'clock, and she was to
+ride nine English miles to the place where she was to pass the night.
+I was quite sensible, however; that the audience was arranged to be thus
+brief, in order that I should not be able to stop long enough to give
+trouble, and perhaps to find occasion to renew our complaints touching
+the plunderings and robberies committed upon us at sea.  This is what
+some of the great personages here, without doubt, are afraid of, for they
+were wonderfully well overhauled in my last audience.  I shall attempt to
+speak to her again before she goes very deep into the country."
+
+It was not however before the end of the year, after Caron had made a
+voyage to Holland and had returned, that he 14 Nov. was able to bring the
+subject thoroughly before her Majesty.  On the 14th November he had
+preliminary interviews with the Lord High Admiral and the Lord Treasurer
+at Hampton Court, where the queen was then residing.  The plundering
+business was warmly discussed between himself and the Admiral, and there
+was much quibbling and special pleading in defence of the practices which
+had created so much irritation and pecuniary loss in Holland.  There was
+a good deal of talk about want of evidence and conflict of evidence,
+which, to a man who felt as sure of the facts and of the law as the Dutch
+envoy did--unless it were according to public law for one friend and,
+ally to plunder and burn the vessels of another friend and ally--was not
+encouraging as to the probable issue of his interview with her Majesty.
+It would be tedious to report the conversation as fully as it was laid by
+Noel de Caron before the States-General; but at last the admiral
+expressed a hope that the injured parties would be able to make good
+their, case.  At any rate he assured the envoy that he would take care of
+Captain Mansfield for the present, who was in prison with two other
+captains, so that proceedings might be had against them if it was thought
+worth while.
+
+Caron answered with Dutch bluntness.  "I recommended him very earnestly
+to do this," he said, "and told him roundly that this was by all means
+necessary for the sake of his own honour.  Otherwise no man could ever be
+made to believe that his Excellency was not seeking to get his own profit
+out of the affair.  But he vehemently swore and protested that this was
+not the case."
+
+He then went to the Lord Treasurer's apartment, where a long and stormy
+interview followed on the subject of the withdrawal of the English
+troops.  Caron warmly insisted that the measure had been full of danger,
+for the States; that they had been ordered out of Prince Maurice's camp
+at a most critical moment; that; had it not, been for the Stallholder's
+promptness and military skill; very great disasters to the common cause
+must have ensued; and that, after all, nothing had been done by the
+contingent in any other field, for they had been for six months idle and
+sick, without ever reaching Brittany at all.
+
+"The Lord Treasurer, who, contrary to his custom," said the envoy, "had
+been listening thus long to what I had to say, now observed that the
+States had treated her Majesty very ill, that they had kept her running
+after her own troops nearly half a year, and had offered no excuse for
+their proceedings."
+
+It would be superfluous to repeat the arguments by which Caron
+endeavoured to set forth that the English troops, sent to the Netherlands
+according to a special compact, for a special service, and for a special
+consideration and equivalent, could not honestly be employed, contrary to
+the wishes of the States-General, upon a totally different service and in
+another country.  The queen willed it, he was informed, and it was ill-
+treatment of her Majesty on the part of the Hollanders to oppose her
+will.  This argument was unanswerable.
+
+Soon afterwards, Caron was admitted to the presence of Elizabeth.  He
+delivered, at first, a letter from the States-General, touching the
+withdrawal of the troops.  The queen, instantly broke the seal and read
+the letter to the end.  Coming to the concluding passage, in which the
+States observed that they had great and just cause highly to complain on
+that subject, she paused, reading the sentences over twice or thrice, and
+then remarked:
+
+"Truly these are comical people.  I have so often been complaining that
+they refused to send my troops, and now the States complain that they are
+obliged to let them go.  Yet my intention is only to borrow them for a
+little while, because I can give my brother of France no better succour
+than by sending him these soldiers, and this I consider better than if I
+should send him four thousand men.  I say again, I am only borrowing
+them, and surely the States ought never to make such complaints, when
+the occasion was such a favourable one, and they had received already
+sufficient aid from these troops, and had liberated their whole country.
+I don't comprehend these grievances.  They complain that I withdraw my
+people, and meantime they are still holding them and have brought them
+ashore again.  They send me frivolous excuses that the skippers don't
+know the road to my islands, which is, after all, as easy to find as the
+way to Caen, for it is all one.  I have also sent my own pilots; and I
+complain bitterly that by making this difficulty they will cause the loss
+of all Brittany.  They run with their people far away from me, and
+meantime they allow the enemy to become master of all the coasts lying
+opposite me.  But if it goes badly with me they will rue it deeply
+themselves."
+
+There was considerable reason, even if there were but little justice,
+in this strain of remarks.  Her Majesty continued it for some little time
+longer, and it is interesting to see the direct and personal manner in
+which this great princess handled the weightiest affairs of state.  The
+transfer of a dozen companies of English infantry from Friesland to
+Brittany was supposed to be big with the fate of France, England, and the
+Dutch republic, and was the subject of long and angry controversy, not as
+a contested point of principle, in regard to which numbers, of course,
+are nothing, but as a matter of practical and pressing importance.
+
+"Her Majesty made many more observations of this nature," said Caron,
+"but without getting at all into a passion, and, in my opinion, her
+discourse was sensible, and she spoke with more moderation than she is
+wont at other times."
+
+The envoy then presented the second letter from the States-General in
+regard to the outrages inflicted on the Dutch merchantmen.  The queen
+read it at once, and expressed herself as very much displeased with her
+people.  She said that she had received similar information from
+Counsellor Bodley, who had openly given her to understand that the
+enormous outrages which her people were committing at sea upon the
+Netherlanders were a public scandal.  It had made her so angry, she said,
+that she knew not which way to turn.  She would take it in hand at once,
+for she would rather make oath never more to permit a single ship of war
+to leave her ports than consent to such thieveries and villanies.  She
+told Caron that he would do well to have his case in regard to these
+matters verified, and then to give it into her own hands, since otherwise
+it would all be denied her and she would find herself unable to get at
+the truth."
+
+"I have all the proofs and documents of the merchants by me, "replied the
+envoy, "and, moreover, several of the sea-captains who have been robbed
+and outraged have come over with me, as likewise some merchants who were
+tortured by burning of the thumbs and other kinds of torments."
+
+This disturbed the queen very much, and she expressed her wish that Caron
+should not allow himself to be put off with, delays by the council, but
+should insist upon all due criminal punishment, the infliction of which
+she promised in the strongest terms to order; for she could never enjoy
+peace of mind, she said; so long as such scoundrels were tolerated in her
+kingdom.
+
+The envoy had brought with him a summary of the cases, with the names of
+all the merchants interested, and a list of all the marks on the sacks of
+money which had been stolen.  The queen looked over it very carefully,
+declaring it to be her intention that there should be no delays
+interposed in the conduct of this affair by forms of special pleading,
+but that speedy cognizance should be taken of the whole, and that the
+property should forthwith be restored.
+
+She then sent for Sir Robert Cecil, whom she directed to go at once and
+tell his father, the Lord Treasurer, that he was to assist Caron in this
+affair exactly as if it were her own.  It was her intention, she said,
+that her people were in no wise to trouble the Hollanders in legitimate
+mercantile pursuits.  She added that it was not enough for her people to
+say that they had only been seizing Spaniards' goods and money, but she
+meant that they should prove it, too, or else they should swing for it.
+
+Caron assured her Majesty that he had no other commission from his
+masters than to ask for justice, and that he had no instructions to claim
+Spanish property or enemy's goods.  He had brought sufficient evidence
+with him, he said, to give her Majesty entire satisfaction.
+
+It is not necessary to pursue the subject any farther.  The great nobles
+still endeavoured to interpose delays, and urged the propriety of taking
+the case before the common courts of law.  Carom strong in the support of
+the queen, insisted that it should be settled, as her Majesty had
+commanded, by the council, and it was finally arranged that the judge of
+admiralty should examine the evidence on both sides, and then communicate
+the documents at once to the Lord Treasurer.  Meantime the money was to
+be deposited with certain aldermen of London, and the accused parties
+kept in prison.  The ultimate decision was then to be made by the
+council, "not by form of process but by commission thereto ordained."
+In the course of the many interviews which followed between the Dutch
+envoy and the privy counsellors, the Lord Admiral stated that an English
+merchant residing in the Netherlands had sent to offer him a present of
+two thousand pounds sterling, in case the affair should be decided
+against the Hollanders.  He communicated the name of the individual to
+Caron, under seal of secrecy, and reminded the Lord Treasurer that he too
+had seen the letter of the Englishman.  Lord Burghley observed that he
+remembered the fact that certain letters had been communicated to him by
+the Lord Admiral, but that he did not know from whence they came, nor
+anything about the person of the writer.
+
+The case of the plundered merchants was destined to drag almost as slowly
+before the council as it might have done in the ordinary tribunals, and
+Caron was "kept running," as he expressed it, "from the court to London,
+and from London to the court," and it was long before justice was done to
+the sufferers.  Yet the energetic manner in which the queen took the case
+into her own hands, and the intense indignation with which she denounced
+the robberies and outrages which had been committed by her subjects upon
+her friends and allies, were effective in restraining such wholesale
+piracy in the future.
+
+On the whole, however, if the internal machinery is examined by which the
+masses of mankind were moved at epoch in various parts of Christendom, we
+shall not find much reason to applaud the conformity of Governments to
+the principles of justice, reason, or wisdom.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Accustomed to the faded gallantries
+Conformity of Governments to the principles of justice
+Considerable reason, even if there were but little justice
+Disciple of Simon Stevinus
+Self-assertion--the healthful but not engaging attribute
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v64
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 65, 1592-1594
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+     Influence of the rule and character of Philip II.--Heroism of the
+     sixteenth century--Contest for the French throne--Character and
+     policy of the Duke of Mayenne--Escape of the Duke of Guise from
+     Castle Tours--Propositions for the marriage of the Infanta--Plotting
+     of the Catholic party--Grounds of Philip's pretensions to the crown
+     of France--Motives of the Duke of Parma maligned by Commander Moreo
+     --He justifies himself to the king--View of the private relations
+     between Philip and the Duke of Mayenne and their sentiments towards
+     each other--Disposition of the French politicians and soldiers
+     towards Philip--Peculiar commercial pursuits of Philip--Confused
+     state of affairs in France--Treachery of Philip towards the Duke of
+     Parma--Recall of the duke to Spain--His sufferings and death.
+
+The People--which has been generally regarded as something naturally
+below its rulers, and as born to be protected and governed, paternally or
+otherwise, by an accidental selection from its own species, which by some
+mysterious process has shot up much nearer to heaven than itself--is
+often described as brutal, depraved, self-seeking, ignorant, passionate,
+licentious, and greedy.
+
+It is fitting, therefore, that its protectors should be distinguished, at
+great epochs of the world's history, by an absence of such objectionable
+qualities.
+
+It must be confessed, however, that if the world had waited for heroes--
+during the dreary period which followed the expulsion of something that
+was called Henry III. of France from the gates of his capital, and
+especially during the time that followed hard upon the decease of that
+embodiment of royalty--its axis must have ceased to turn for a long
+succession of years.  The Bearnese was at least alive, and a man. He
+played his part with consummate audacity and skill; but alas for an epoch
+or a country in which such a shape--notwithstanding all its engaging and
+even commanding qualities--looked upon as an incarnation of human
+greatness!
+
+But the chief mover of all things--so far as one man can be prime mover--
+was still the diligent scribe who lived in the Escorial.  It was he whose
+high mission it was to blow the bellows of civil war, and to scatter
+curses over what had once been the smiling abodes of human creatures,
+throughout the leading countries of Christendom.  The throne of France
+was vacant, nominally as well as actually, since--the year 1589.  During
+two-and-twenty years preceding that epoch he had scourged the provinces,
+once constituting the richest and most enlightened portions of his
+hereditary domains, upon the theory that without the Spanish Inquisition
+no material prosperity was possible on earth, nor any entrance permitted
+to the realms of bliss beyond the grave.  Had every Netherlander
+consented to burn his Bible, and to be burned himself should he be found
+listening to its holy precepts if read to him in shop, cottage, farm-
+house, or castle; and had he furthermore consented to renounce all the
+liberal institutions which his ancestors had earned, in the struggle of
+centuries, by the sweat of their brows and the blood of, their hearts;
+his benignant proprietor and master, who lived at the ends of the earth,
+would have consented at almost any moment to peace.  His arms were ever
+open.  Let it not be supposed that this is the language of sarcasm or
+epigram.  Stripped of the decorous sophistication by which human beings
+are so fond of concealing their naked thoughts from each other, this was
+the one simple dogma always propounded by Philip.  Grimace had done its
+worst, however, and it was long since it had exercised any power in the
+Netherlands.  The king and the Dutchmen understood each other; and the
+plain truths with which those republicans answered the imperial proffers
+of mediation, so frequently renewed, were something new, and perhaps not
+entirely unwholesome in diplomacy.
+
+It is not an inviting task to abandon the comparatively healthy
+atmosphere of the battle-field, the blood-stained swamp, the murderous
+trench--where human beings, even if communing only by bullets and push of
+pike, were at least dealing truthfully with each other--and to descend
+into those subterranean regions where the effluvia of falsehood becomes
+almost too foul for ordinary human organisation.
+
+Heroes in those days, in any country, there were few.  William the Silent
+was dead.  De la Noue was dead.  Duplessis-Mornay was living, but his
+influence over his royal master was rapidly diminishing.  Cecil, Hatton,
+Essex, Howard, Raleigh, James Croft, Valentine Dale, John Norris, Roger
+Williams, the "Virgin Queen" herself--does one of these chief agents in
+public affairs, or do all of them together, furnish a thousandth part of
+that heroic whole which the England of the sixteenth century presents to
+every imagination?  Maurice of Nassau-excellent soldier and engineer as
+he had already proved himself--had certainly not developed much of the
+heroic element, although thus far he was walking straightforward like a
+man, in the path of duty, with the pithy and substantial Lewis William
+ever at his side.  Olden-Barneveld--tough burgher-statesman, hard-headed,
+indomitable man of granite--was doing more work, and doing it more
+thoroughly, than any living politician, but he was certainly not of the
+mythological brotherhood who inhabit the serene regions of space beyond
+the moon.  He was not the son of god or goddess, destined, after removal
+from this sphere, to shine with planetary lustre, among other
+constellations, upon the scenes of mortal action.  Those of us who are
+willing to rise-or to descend if the phrase seems wiser--to the idea of
+a self-governing people must content ourselves, for this epoch, with the
+fancy of a hero-people and a people-king.
+
+A plain little republic, thrusting itself uninvited into the great
+political family-party of heaven-anointed sovereigns and long-descended
+nobles, seemed a somewhat repulsive phenomenon.  It became odious and
+dangerous when by the blows it could deal in battle, the logic it could
+chop in council, it indicated a remote future for the world, in which
+right divine and regal paraphernalia might cease to be as effective
+stage-properties as they had always been considered.
+
+Yet it will be difficult for us to find the heroic individualised very
+perceptibly at this period, look where we may.  Already there seemed
+ground for questioning the comfortable fiction that the accidentally
+dominant families and castes were by nature wiser, better, braver than
+that much-contemned entity, the People.  What if the fearful heresy
+should gain ground that the People was at least as wise, honest, and
+brave as its masters?  What if it should become a recognised fact that
+the great individuals and castes, whose wealth and station furnished them
+with ample time and means for perfecting themselves in the science of
+government, were rather devoting their leisure to the systematic filling
+of their own pockets than to the hiving up of knowledge for the good of
+their fellow creatures?  What if the whole theory of hereditary
+superiority should suddenly exhale?  What if it were found out that we
+were all fellow-worms together, and that those which had crawled highest
+were not necessarily the least slimy?
+
+Meantime it will be well for us, in order to understand what is called
+the Past, to scrutinise somewhat closely that which was never meant to be
+revealed.  To know the springs which once controlled the world's
+movements, one must ponder the secret thoughts, purposes, aspirations,
+and baffled attempts of the few dozen individuals who once claimed that
+world in fee-simple.  Such researches are not in a cheerful field; for
+the sources of history are rarely fountains of crystal, bubbling through
+meadows of asphodel.  Vast and noisome are the many sewers which have
+ever run beneath decorous Christendom.
+
+Some of the leading military events in France and Flanders, patent to all
+the world, which grouped themselves about the contest for the French
+throne, as the central point in the history of Philip's proposed world-
+empire, have already been indicated.
+
+It was a species of triangular contest--so far as the chief actors were
+concerned--for that vacant throne.  Philip, Mayenne, Henry of Navarre,
+with all the adroitness which each possessed, were playing for the
+splendid prize.
+
+Of Philip it is not necessary to speak.  The preceding volumes of this
+work have been written in vain, if the reader has not obtained from
+irrefragable testimony--the monarch's own especially--a sufficient
+knowledge of that human fetish before which so much of contemporary
+humanity grovelled.
+
+The figure of Navarre is also one of the most familiar shapes in history.
+
+As for the Duke of Mayenne, he had been, since the death of his brother
+the Balafre, ostensible leader of the League, and was playing, not
+without skill, a triple game.
+
+Firstly, he hoped for the throne for himself.
+
+Secondly, he was assisting the King of Spain to obtain that dignity.
+
+Thirdly, he was manoeuvring in dull, dumb, but not ineffective manner, in
+favour of Navarre.
+
+So comprehensive and self-contradictory a scheme would seem to indicate
+an elasticity of principle and a fertility of resource not often
+vouchsafed to man.
+
+Certainly one of the most pregnant lessons of history is furnished in
+the development of these cabals, nor is it, in this regard, of great
+importance whether the issue was to prove them futile or judicious.  It
+is sufficient for us now, that when those vanished days constituted the
+Present--the vital atmosphere of Christendom--the world's affairs were
+controlled by those plotters and their subordinates, and it is therefore
+desirable for us to know what manner of men they were, and how they
+played their parts.
+
+Nor should it ever be forgotten that the leading motive with all was
+supposed to be religion.  It was to maintain the supremacy of the Roman
+Church, or to vindicate, to a certain extent, liberty of conscience,
+through the establishment of a heterodox organisation, that all these
+human beings of various lineage and language throughout Christendom had
+been cutting each other's throats for a quarter of a century.
+
+Mayenne was not without courage in the field when he found himself there,
+but it was observed of him that he spent more time at table than the
+Bearnese in sleep, and that he was so fat as to require the assistance of
+twelve men to put him in the saddle again whenever he fell from his
+horse.  Yet slow fighter as he was, he was a most nimble intriguer.  As
+for his private character, it was notoriously stained with every vice,
+nor was there enough of natural intelligence or superior acquirement to
+atone for his, crapulous; licentious, shameless life.  His military
+efficiency at important emergencies was impaired and his life endangered
+by vile diseases.  He was covetous and greedy beyond what was considered
+decent even in that cynical age.  He received subsidies and alms with
+both hands from those who distrusted and despised him, but who could not
+eject him from his advantageous position.
+
+He wished to arrive at the throne of France.  As son of Francis of Guise,
+as brother of the great Balafre, he considered himself entitled to the
+homage of the fishwomen and the butchers' halls.  The constitution of the
+country in that age making a People impossible, the subtle connection
+between a high-born intriguer and the dregs of a populace, which can only
+exist in societies of deep chasms and precipitous contrasts, was easily
+established.
+
+The duke's summary dealing with the sixteen tyrants of Paris in the
+matter of the president's murder had, however, loosened his hold on what
+was considered the democracy; but this was at the time when his schemes
+were silently swinging towards the Protestant aristocracy; at the moment
+when Politica was taking the place of Madam League in his secret
+affections.  Nevertheless, so long as there seemed a chance, he was
+disposed to work the mines for his own benefit.  His position as
+lieutenant-general gave him an immense advantage for intriguing with both
+sides, and--in case his aspirations for royalty were baffled--for
+obtaining the highest possible price for himself in that auction in which
+Philip and the Bearnese were likely to strain all their resources in
+outbidding each other.
+
+On one thing his heart was fixed.  His brother's son should at least not
+secure the golden prize if he could prevent it.  The young Duke of Guise,
+who had been immured in Castle Tours since the famous murder of his
+father and uncle, had made his escape by a rather neat stratagem.  Having
+been allowed some liberty for amusing himself in the corridors in the
+neighbourhood of his apartment, he had invented a game of hop, skip, and
+jump up stairs and down, which he was wont to play with the soldiers of
+the guard, as a solace to the tediousness of confinement.  One day he
+hopped and skipped up the staircase with a rapidity which excited the
+admiration of the companions of his sport, slipped into his room, slammed
+and bolted the doors, and when the guard, after in vain waiting a
+considerable tine for him to return and resume the game, at last forced
+an entrance, they found the bird flown out of window.  Rope-ladders,
+confederates, fast-galloping post-horses did the rest, and at last the
+young duke joined his affectionate uncle in camp, much to that eminent
+relative's discomfiture.  Philip gave alternately conflicting
+instructions to Farnese--sometimes that he should encourage the natural
+jealousy between the pair; sometimes that he should cause them to work
+harmoniously together for the common good--that common good being the
+attainment by the King of Spain of the sovereignty of France.
+
+But it was impossible, as already intimated, for Mayenne to work
+harmoniously with his nephew.  The Duke of Guise might marry with the
+infanta and thus become King of France by the grace of God and Philip.
+To such a consummation in the case of his uncle there stood, as we know,
+an insuperable obstacle in the shape of the Duchess of Mayenne.  Should
+it come to this at last, it was certain that the Duke would make any and
+every combination to frustrate such a scheme.  Meantime he kept his own
+counsel, worked amiably with Philip, Parma, and the young duke, and
+received money in overflowing measure, and poured into his bosom from
+that Spanish monarch whose veterans in the Netherlands were maddened by
+starvation into mutiny.
+
+Philip's plans were a series of alternatives.  France he regarded as the
+property of his family.  Of that there could be no doubt at all.  He
+meant to put the crown upon his own head, unless the difficulties in the
+way should prove absolutely insuperable.  In that case he claimed France
+and all its inhabitants as the property of his daughter.  The Salic law
+was simply a pleasantry, a bit of foolish pedantry, an absurdity.  If
+Clara Isabella, as daughter of Isabella of France, as grandchild of Henry
+II., were not manifestly the owner of France--queen-proprietary, as the
+Spanish doctors called it--then there was no such thing, so he thought,
+as inheritance of castle, farm-house, or hovel--no such thing as property
+anywhere in the world.  If the heiress of the Valois could not take that
+kingdom as her private estate, what security could there ever be for any
+possessions public or private?
+
+This was logical reasoning enough for kings and their counsellors.  There
+was much that might be said, however, in regard to special laws.  There
+was no doubt that great countries, with all their livestock--human or
+otherwise--belonged to an individual, but it was not always so clear who
+that individual was.  This doubt gave much work and comfortable fees to
+the lawyers.  There was much learned lore concerning statutes of descent,
+cutting off of entails, actions for ejectment, difficulties of enforcing
+processes, and the like, to occupy the attention of diplomatists,
+politicians and other sages.  It would have caused general hilarity,
+however, could it have been suggested that the live-stock had art or part
+in the matter; that sheep, swine, or men could claim a choice of their
+shepherds and butchers.
+
+Philip--humbly satisfied, as he always expressed himself, so long as the
+purity of the Roman dogmas and the supremacy of the Romish Church over
+the whole earth were maintained--affected a comparative indifference as
+to whether he should put the crown of St. Louis and of Hugh Capet upon
+his own grey head or whether he should govern France through his daughter
+and her husband.  Happy the man who might exchange the symbols of mutual
+affection with Philip's daughter.
+
+The king had various plans in regard to the bestowal of the hand thus
+richly endowed.  First and foremost it was suggested--and the idea was
+not held too monstrous to be even believed in by some conspicuous
+individuals--that he proposed espousing his daughter himself.  The pope
+was to be relied on, in this case, to give a special dispensation.  Such
+a marriage, between parties too closely related to be usually united in
+wedlock, might otherwise shock the prejudices of the orthodox.  His late
+niece and wife was dead, so that there was no inconvenience on that
+score, should the interests of his dynasty, his family, and, above all,
+of the Church, impel him, on mature reflection, to take for his fourth
+marriage one step farther within the forbidden degrees than he had done
+in his third.  Here is the statement, which, if it have no other value,
+serves to show the hideous designs of which the enemies of Philip
+sincerely believed that monarch capable.
+
+"But God is a just God," wrote Sir Edward Stafford, "and if with all
+things past, that be true that the king ('videlicet' Henry IV.) yesterday
+assured me to be true, and that both his ambassador from Venice writ to
+him and Monsieur de Luxembourg from Rome, that the Count Olivarez had
+made a great instance to the pope (Sixtus V.) a little afore his death,
+to permit his master to marry his daughter, no doubt God will not leave
+it long unpunished."
+
+Such was the horrible tale which was circulated and believed in by Henry
+the Great of France and by eminent nobles and ambassadors, and at least
+thought possible by the English envoy.  By such a family arrangement it
+was obvious that the conflicting claims of father and daughter to the
+proprietorship of France would be ingeniously adjusted, and the children
+of so well assorted a marriage might reign in undisputed legitimacy over
+France and Spain, and the rest of the world-monarchy.  Should the king
+decide on the whole against this matrimonial project, should Innocent or
+Clement prove as intractable as Sixtus, then it would be necessary to
+decide among various candidates for the Infanta's hand.
+
+In Mayenne's Opinion the Duke of Guise was likely to be the man; but
+there is little doubt that Philip, in case these more cherished schemes
+should fail, had made up his mind--so far as he ever did make up his mind
+upon anything--to select his nephew the Archduke Ernest, brother of the
+Emperor Rudolph, for his son-in-law.  But it was not necessary to make an
+immediate choice.  His quiver was full of archdukes, any one of whom
+would be an eligible candidate, while not one of them would be likely to
+reject the Infanta with France on her wedding-finger.  Meantime there was
+a lion in the path in the shape of Henry of Navarre.
+
+Those who disbelieve in the influence of the individual on the fate of
+mankind may ponder the possible results to history and humanity, had the
+dagger of Jacques Clement entered the stomach of Henry IV. rather than of
+Henry III. in the summer of 1589, or the perturbations in the world's
+movements that might have puzzled philosophers had there been an
+unsuspected mass of religious conviction revolving unseen in the mental
+depths of the Bearnese.  Conscience, as it has from time to time
+exhibited itself on this planet of ours, is a powerful agent in
+controlling political combinations; but the instances are unfortunately
+not rare, so far as sublunary progress is concerned, in which the absence
+of this dominant influence permits a prosperous rapidity to individual
+careers.  Eternal honour to the noble beings, true chieftains among men,
+who have forfeited worldly power or sacrificed life itself at the dictate
+of religious or moral conviction--even should the basis of such
+conviction appear to some of us unsafe or unreal.  Shame on the tongue
+which would malign or ridicule the martyr or the honest convert to any
+form of Christian faith!  But who can discover aught that is inspiring to
+the sons of men in conversions--whether of princes or of peasants--
+wrought, not at risk of life and pelf, but for the sake of securing and
+increasing the one and the other?
+
+Certainly the Bearnese was the most candid of men.  It was this very
+candour, this freedom from bigotry, this want of conviction, and this
+openness to conviction, that made him so dangerous and caused so much
+anxiety to Philip.  The Roman Church might or might not be strengthened
+by the re-conversion of the legitimate heir of France, but it was certain
+that the claims of Philip and the Infanta to the proprietorship of that
+kingdom would be weakened by the process.  While the Spanish king knew
+himself to be inspired in all his actions by a single motive, the
+maintenance of the supremacy of the Roman Church, he was perfectly aware
+that the Prince of Bearne was not so single-hearted nor so conscientious
+as himself.
+
+The Prince of Bearne--heretic, son of heretics, great chieftain of
+heretics--was supposed capable of becoming orthodox whenever the Pope
+would accept his conversion.  Against this possibility Philip struggled
+with all his strength.
+
+Since Pope Sixtus V., who had a weakness for Henry, there had been
+several popes.  Urban VII., his immediate successor, had reigned but
+thirteen days.  Gregory XIV.  (Sfondrato) had died 15th October, 1591,
+ten months after his election.  Fachinetti, with the title of Innocent
+IX., had reigned two months, from 29th October to 29th December, 1591.
+He died of "Spanish poison," said Envoy Umton, as coolly as if speaking
+of gout, or typhus, or any other recognised disorder.  Clement VIII.
+(Aldobrandini) was elected 30th January, 1592.  He was no lover of Henry,
+and lived in mortal fear of Philip, while it must be conceded that the
+Spanish ambassador at Rome was much given to brow-beating his Holiness.
+Should he dare to grant that absolution which was the secret object of
+the Bearnese, there was no vengeance, hinted the envoy, that Philip would
+not wreak on the holy father.  He would cut off his supplies from Naples
+and Sicily, and starve him and all-his subjects; he would frustrate all
+his family schemes, he would renounce him, he would unpope him, he would
+do anything that man and despot could do, should the great shepherd dare
+to re-admit this lost sheep, and this very black sheep, into the fold of
+the faithful.
+
+As for Henry himself, his game--for in his eyes it was nothing but a
+game--lay every day plainer and plainer before him.  He was indispensable
+to the heretics.  Neither England, nor Holland, nor Protestant Germany,
+could renounce him, even should he renounce "the religion."  Nor could
+the French Huguenots exist without that protection which, even although
+Catholic, he could still extend to them when he should be accepted as
+king by the Catholics.
+
+Hereditary monarch by French law and history, released from his heresy by
+the authority that could bind and loose, purged as with hyssop and washed
+whiter than snow, it should go hard with him if Philip, and Farnese, and
+Mayenne, and all the pikemen and reiters they might muster, could keep
+him very long from the throne of his ancestors.
+
+Nothing could match the ingenuousness with which he demanded the
+instruction whenever the fitting time for it should arrive; as if,
+instead of having been a professor both of the Calvinist and Catholic
+persuasion, and having relapsed from both, he had been some innocent
+Peruvian or Hindoo, who was invited to listen to preachings and to
+examine dogmas for the very first time in his life.
+
+Yet Philip had good grounds for hoping a favourable result from his
+political and military manoeuvre.  He entertained little doubt that
+France belonged to him or to his daughter; that the most powerful party
+in the country was in favour of his claims, provided he would pay the
+voters liberally enough for their support, and that if the worst came to
+the worst it would always be in his power to dismember the kingdom, and
+to reserve the lion's share for himself, while distributing some of the
+provinces to the most prominent of his confederates.
+
+The sixteen tyrants of Paris had already, as we have seen, urged the
+crown upon him, provided he would establish in France the Inquisition,
+the council of Trent, and other acceptable institutions, besides
+distributing judiciously a good many lucrative offices among various
+classes of his adherents.
+
+The Duke of Mayenne, in his own name and that of all the Catholics of
+France, formally demanded of him to maintain two armies, forty thousand
+men in all, to be respectively under command of the duke himself and of
+Alexander Farnese, and regularly to pay for them.  These propositions,
+as has been seen, were carried into effect as nearly as possible, at
+enormous expense to Philip's exchequer, and he naturally expected as good
+faith on the part of Mayenne.
+
+In the same paper in which the demand was made Philip was urged to
+declare himself king of France.  He was assured that the measure could
+be accomplished "by freely bestowing marquisates, baronies, and peerages,
+in order to content the avarice and ambition of many persons, without at
+the same time dissipating the greatness from which all these members
+depended.  Pepin and Charlemagne," said the memorialists, "who were
+foreigners and Saxons by nation, did as much in order to get possession
+of a kingdom to which they had no other right except that which they
+acquired there by their prudence and force, and after them Hugh Capet,
+much inferior to them in force and authority, following their example,
+had the same good fortune for himself and his posterity, and one which
+still endures.
+
+"If the authority of the holy see could support the scheme at the same
+time," continued Mayenne and friends, "it would be a great help.  But it
+being perilous to ask for that assistance before striking the blow, it
+would be better to obtain it after the execution."
+
+That these wholesome opinions were not entirely original on the
+part of Mayenne, nor produced spontaneously, was plain from the secret
+instructions given by Philip to his envoys, Don Bernardino de Mendoza,
+John Baptist de Tassis, and the commander Moreo, whom he had sent soon
+after the death of Henry III. to confer with Cardinal Gaetano in Paris.
+
+They were told, of course, to do everything in their power to prevent the
+election of the Prince of Bearne, "being as he was a heretic, obstinate
+and confirmed, who had sucked heresy with his mother's milk."  The legate
+was warned that "if the Bearnese should make a show of converting
+himself, it would be frigid and fabricated."
+
+If they were asked whom Philip desired for king--a question which
+certainly seemed probable under the circumstances--they were to reply
+that his foremost wish was to establish the Catholic religion in the
+kingdom, and that whatever was most conducive to that end would be most
+agreeable to him.  "As it is however desirable, in order to arrange
+matters, that you should be informed of everything," said his Majesty,
+"it is proper that you should know that I have two kinds of right to all
+that there is over there.  Firstly, because the crown of France has been
+usurped from me, my ancestors having been unjustly excluded by foreign
+occupation of it; and secondly, because I claim the same crown as first
+male of the house of Valois."
+
+Here certainly were comprehensive pretensions, and it was obvious that
+the king's desire for the establishment of the Catholic religion must
+have been very lively to enable him to invent or accept such astonishing
+fictions.
+
+But his own claims were but a portion of the case.  His daughter and
+possible spouse had rights of her own, hard, in his opinion, to be
+gainsaid.  "Over and above all this," said Philip, "my eldest daughter,
+the Infanta, has two other rights; one to all the states which as dower-
+property are joined by matrimony and through females to this crown, which
+now come to her in direct line, and the other to the crown itself, which
+belongs directly to the said Infanta, the matter of the Salic law being a
+mere invention."
+
+Thus it would appear that Philip was the legitimate representative, not
+only of the ancient races of French monarchs--whether Merovingians,
+Carlovingians, or otherwise was not stated but also of the usurping
+houses themselves, by whose intrusion those earlier dynasties had been
+ejected, being the eldest male heir of the extinct line of Valois, while
+his daughter was, if possible, even more legitimately the sovereign and
+proprietor of France than he was himself.
+
+Nevertheless in his magnanimous desire for the peace of the world and
+the advancement of the interests of the Church, he was, if reduced to
+extremities, willing to forego his own individual rights--when it should
+appear that they could by no possibility be enforced--in favour of his
+daughter and of the husband whom he should select for her.
+
+"Thus it may be seen," said the self-denying man, "that I know how, for
+the sake of the public repose, to strip myself of my private property."
+
+Afterwards, when secretly instructing the Duke of Feria, about to proceed
+to Paris for the sake of settling the sovereignty of the kingdom, he
+reviewed the whole subject, setting forth substantially the same
+intentions.  That the Prince of Bearne could ever possibly succeed to the
+throne of his ancestors was an idea to be treated only with sublime scorn
+by all right-minded and sensible men.  "The members of the House of
+Bourbon," said he, "pretend that by right of blood the crown belongs to
+them, and hence is derived the pretension made by the Prince of Bearne;
+but if there were wanting other very sufficient causes to prevent this
+claim--which however are not wanting--it is quite enough that he is
+a relapsed heretic, declared to be such by the Apostolic See, and
+pronounced incompetent, as well as the other members of his house, all
+of them, to say the least, encouragers of heresy; so that not one of them
+can ever be king of France, where there have been such religious princes
+in time past, who have justly merited the name of Most Christian; and so
+there is no possibility of permitting him or any of his house to aspire
+to the throne, or to have the subject even treated of in the estates.
+It should on the contrary be entirely excluded as prejudicial to the
+realm and unworthy to be even mentioned among persons so Catholic as
+those about to meet in that assembly."
+
+The claims of the man whom his supporters already called Henry the
+Fourth of France being thus disposed of, Philip then again alluded with
+his usual minuteness to the various combinations which he had formed for
+the tranquillity and good government of that kingdom and of the other
+provinces of his world-empire.
+
+It must moreover be never forgotten that what he said passed with his
+contemporaries almost for oracular dispensations.  What he did or ordered
+to be done was like the achievements or behests of a superhuman being.
+Time, as it rolls by, leaves the wrecks of many a stranded reputation to
+bleach in the sunshine of after-ages.  It is sometimes as profitable to
+learn what was not done by the great ones of the earth, in spite of all
+their efforts, as to ponder those actual deeds which are patent to
+mankind.  The Past was once the Present, and once the Future, bright with
+rainbows or black with impending storm; for history is a continuous whole
+of which we see only fragments.
+
+He who at the epoch with which we are now occupied was deemed greatest
+and wisest among the sons of earth, at whose threats men quailed, at
+whose vast and intricate schemes men gasped in palefaced awe, has left
+behind him the record of his interior being.  Let us consider whether he
+was so potent as his fellow mortals believed, or whether his greatness
+was merely their littleness; whether it was carved out, of the
+inexhaustible but artificial quarry of human degradation.  Let us see
+whether the execution was consonant with the inordinate plotting; whether
+the price in money and blood--and certainly few human beings have
+squandered so much of either as did Philip the Prudent in his long
+career--was high or low for the work achieved.
+
+Were after generations to learn, only after curious research,
+of a pretender who once called himself, to the amusement of his
+contemporaries, Henry the Fourth of France; or was the world-empire for
+which so many armies were marshalled, so many ducats expended, so many
+falsehoods told, to prove a bubble after all?  Time was to show.
+Meantime wise men of the day who, like the sages of every generation,
+read the future like a printed scroll, were pitying the delusion and
+rebuking the wickedness of Henry the Bearnese; persisting as he did in
+his cruel, sanguinary, hopeless attempt to establish a vanished and
+impossible authority over a land distracted by civil war.
+
+Nothing could be calmer or more reasonable than the language of the great
+champion of the Inquisition.
+
+"And as President Jeannin informs me," he said, "that the Catholics have
+the intention of electing me king, that appearing to them the gentlest
+and safest method to smooth all rivalries likely to arise among the
+princes aspiring to the crown, I reply, as you will see by the copy
+herewith sent.  You will observe that after not refusing myself to that
+which may be the will of our Lord, should there be no other mode of
+serving Him, above all I desire that which concerns my daughter, since to
+her belongs the kingdom.  I desire nothing else nor anything for myself,
+nor for anybody else, except as a means for her to arrive at her right."
+
+He had taken particular pains to secure his daughter's right in Brittany,
+while the Duchess of Mercoeur, by the secret orders of her husband, had
+sent a certain ecclesiastic to Spain to make over the sovereignty of this
+province to the Infanta.  Philip directed that the utmost secrecy should
+be observed in regard to this transaction with the duke and duchess,
+and promised the duke, as his reward for these proposed services in
+dismembering his country, the government of the province for himself and
+his heirs.
+
+For the king was quite determined--in case his efforts to obtain the
+crown for himself or for his daughter were unsuccessful--to dismember
+France, with the assistance of those eminent Frenchmen who were now so
+industriously aiding him in his projects.
+
+"And in the third place," said he, in his secret instructions to Feria,
+"if for the sins of all, we don't manage to make any election, and if
+therefore the kingdom (of France) has to come to separation and to be
+divided into many hands; in this case we must propose to the Duke of
+Mayenne to assist him in getting possession of Normandy for himself, and
+as to the rest of the kingdom, I shall take for myself that which seems
+good to me--all of us assisting each other."
+
+But unfortunately it was difficult for any of these fellow-labourers to
+assist each other very thoroughly, while they detested each other so
+cordially and suspected each other with such good reason.
+
+Moreo, Ybarra, Feria, Parma, all assured their master that Mayenne was
+taking Spanish money as fast as he could get it, but with the sole
+purpose of making himself king.  As to any of the House of Lorraine
+obtaining the hand of the Infanta and the throne with it, Feria assured
+Philip that Mayenne "would sooner give the crown to the Grand Turk."
+
+Nevertheless Philip thought it necessary to continue making use of the
+duke.  Both were indefatigable therefore in expressing feelings of
+boundless confidence each in the other.
+
+It has been seen too how entirely the king relied on the genius and
+devotion of Alexander Farnese to carry out his great schemes; and
+certainly never had monarch a more faithful, unscrupulous, and dexterous
+servant.  Remonstrating, advising, but still obeying--entirely without
+conscience, unless it were conscience to carry out his master's commands,
+even when most puerile or most diabolical--he was nevertheless the object
+of Philip's constant suspicion, and felt himself placed under perpetual
+though secret supervision.
+
+Commander Moreo was unwearied in blackening the duke's character, and in
+maligning his every motive and action, and greedily did the king incline
+his ear to the calumnies steadily instilled by the chivalrous spy.
+
+"He has caused all the evil we are suffering," said Moreo.  "When he sent
+Egmont to France 'twas without infantry, although Egmont begged hard for
+it, as did likewise the Legate, Don Bernardino, and Tassis.  Had he done
+this there is no doubt at all that the Catholic cause in France would
+have been safe, and your Majesty would now have the control over that
+kingdom which you desire.  This is the opinion of friends and foes.  I
+went to the Duke of Parma and made free to tell him that the whole world
+would blame him for the damage done to Christianity, since your Majesty
+had exonerated yourself by ordering him to go to the assistance of the
+French Catholics with all the zeal possible.  Upon this he was so
+disgusted that he has never shown me a civil face since.  I doubt whether
+he will send or go to France at all, and although the Duke of Mayenne
+despatches couriers every day with protestations and words that would
+soften rocks, I see no indications of a movement."
+
+Thus, while the duke was making great military preparations far invading
+France without means; pawning his own property to get bread for his
+starving veterans, and hanging those veterans whom starving had made.
+mutinous, he was depicted, to the most suspicious and unforgiving mortal
+that ever wore a crown, as a traitor and a rebel, and this while he was
+renouncing his own judicious and well-considered policy in obedience to
+the wild schemes of his master.
+
+"I must make bold to remind your Majesty," again whispered the spy, "that
+there never was an Italian prince who failed to pursue his own ends, and
+that there are few in the world that are not wishing to become greater
+than they are.  This man here could strike a greater blow than all the
+rest of them put together.  Remember that there is not a villain anywhere
+that does not desire the death of your Majesty.  Believe me, and send to
+cut off my head if it shall be found that I am speaking from passion, or
+from other motive than pure zeal for your royal service."
+
+The reader will remember into what a paroxysm of rage Alexander was
+thrown on, a former occasion, when secretly invited to listen to
+propositions by which the sovereignty over the Netherlands was to be
+secured to himself, and how near he was to inflicting mortal punishment
+with his own hand on the man who had ventured to broach that treasonable
+matter.
+
+Such projects and propositions were ever floating, as it were, in the
+atmosphere, and it was impossible for the most just men to escape
+suspicion in the mind of a king who fed upon suspicion as his daily
+bread.  Yet nothing could be fouler or falser than the calumny which
+described Alexander as unfaithful to Philip.  Had he served his God as he
+served his master perhaps his record before the highest tribunal would
+have been a clearer one.
+
+And in the same vein in which he wrote to the monarch in person did the
+crafty Moreo write to the principal secretary of state, Idiaquez, whose
+mind, as well as his master's, it was useful to poison, and who was in
+daily communication with Philip.
+
+"Let us make sure of Flanders," said he, "otherwise we shall all of us be
+well cheated.  I will tell you something of that which I have already
+told his Majesty, only not all, referring you to Tassis, who, as a
+personal witness to many things, will have it in his power to undeceive
+his Majesty, I have seen very clearly that the duke is disgusted with his
+Majesty, and one day he told me that he cared not if the whole world went
+to destruction, only not Flanders."
+
+"Another day he told me that there was a report abroad that his Majesty
+was sending to arrest him, by means of the Duke of Pastrana, and looking
+at me he said: 'See here, seignior commander, no threats, as if it were
+in the power of mortal man to arrest me, much less of such fellows as
+these.'"
+
+"But this is but a small part of what I could say," continued the
+detective knight-commander, "for I don't like to trust these ciphers.
+But be certain that nobody in Flanders wishes well to these estates or to
+the Catholic cause, and the associates of the Duke of Parma go about
+saying that it does not suit the Italian potentates to have his Majesty
+as great a monarch as he is trying to be."
+
+This is but a sample of the dangerous stuff with which the royal mind was
+steadily drugged, day after day, by those to whom Farnese was especially
+enjoined to give his confidence.
+
+Later on it will be seen how-much effect was thus produced both upon the
+king and upon the duke.  Moreo, Mendoza, and Tasais were placed about the
+governor-general, nominally as his counsellors, in reality as police-
+officers.
+
+"You are to confer regularly with Mendoza, Tassis, and Moreo," said
+Philip to Farnese.
+
+"You are to assist, correspond, and harmonize in every way with the Duke
+of Parma," wrote Philip to Mendoza, Tassis, and Moreo. And thus cordially
+and harmoniously were the trio assisting and corresponding with the duke.
+
+But Moreo was right in not wishing to trust the ciphers, and indeed he
+had trusted them too much, for Farnese was very well aware of his
+intrigues, and complained bitterly of them to the king and to Idiaquez.
+
+Most eloquently and indignantly did he complain of the calumnies, ever
+renewing themselves, of which he was the subject.  "'Tis this good Moreo
+who is the author of the last falsehoods," said he to the secretary; "and
+this is but poor payment for my having neglected my family, my parents
+and children for so many years in the king's service, and put my life
+ever on the hazard, that these fellows should be allowed to revile me
+and make game of me now, instead of assisting me."
+
+He was at that time, after almost superhuman exertions, engaged in the
+famous relief of Paris.  He had gone there, he said, against his judgment
+and remonstrating with his Majesty on the insufficiency of men and money
+for such an enterprise.  His army was half-mutinous and unprovided with
+food, artillery, or munitions; and then he found himself slandered,
+ridiculed, his life's life lied away.  'Twas poor payment for his
+services, he exclaimed, if his Majesty should give ear to these
+calumniators, and should give him no chance of confronting his accusers
+and clearing his reputation.  Moreo detested him, as he knew, and Prince
+Doria said that the commander once spoke so ill of Farnese in Genoa that
+he was on the point of beating him; while Moreo afterwards told the story
+as if he had been maltreated because of defending Farnese against Doria's
+slanders.
+
+And still more vehemently did he inveigh against Moreo in his direct
+appeals to Philip.  He had intended to pass over his calumnies, of which
+he was well aware, because he did not care to trouble the dead--for Moreo
+meantime had suddenly died, and the gossips, of course, said it was of
+Farnese poison--but he had just discovered by documents that the
+commander had been steadily and constantly pouring these his calumnies
+into the monarch's ears.  He denounced every charge as lies, and demanded
+proof.  Moreo had further been endeavouring to prejudice the Duke of
+Mayenne against the King of Spain and himself, saying that he, Farnese,
+had been commissioned to take Mayenne into custody, with plenty of
+similar lies.
+
+"But what I most feel," said Alexander, with honest wrath, "is to see
+that your Majesty gives ear to them without making the demonstration
+which my services merit, and has not sent to inform me of them, seeing
+that they may involve my reputation and honour.  People have made more
+account of these calumnies than of my actions performed upon the theatre
+of the world.  I complain, after all my toils and dangers in your
+Majesty's service, just when I stood with my soul in my mouth and death
+in my teeth, forgetting children, house, and friends, to be treated thus,
+instead of receiving rewards and honour, and being enabled to leave to my
+children, what was better than all the riches the royal hand could
+bestow, an unsullied and honourable name."
+
+He protested that his reputation had so much suffered that he would
+prefer to retire to some remote corner as a humble servant of the king,
+and leave a post which had made him so odious to all.  Above all, he
+entreated his Majesty to look upon this whole affair "not only like a
+king but like a gentleman."
+
+Philip answered these complaints and reproaches benignantly, expressed
+unbounded confidence in the duke, assured him that the calumnies of his
+supposed enemies could produce no effect upon the royal mind, and coolly
+professed to have entirely forgotten having received any such letter as
+that of which his nephew complained.  "At any rate I have mislaid it," he
+said, "so that you see how much account it was with me."
+
+As the king was in the habit of receiving such letters every week, not
+only from the commander, since deceased, but from Ybarra and others, his
+memory, to say the least, seemed to have grown remarkably feeble.  But
+the sequel will very soon show that he had kept the letters by him and
+pondered them to much purpose.  To expect frankness and sincerity from
+him, however, even in his most intimate communications to his most
+trusted servants, would have been to "swim with fins of lead."
+
+Such being the private relations between the conspirators, it is
+instructive to observe how they dealt with each other in the great game
+they were playing for the first throne in Christendom.  The military
+events have been sufficiently sketched in the preceding pages, but the
+meaning and motives of public affairs can be best understood by
+occasional glances behind the scenes.  It is well for those who would
+maintain their faith in popular Governments to study the workings of the
+secret, irresponsible, arbitrary system; for every Government, as every
+individual, must be judged at last by those moral laws which no man born
+of woman can evade.
+
+During the first French expedition-in the course of which Farnese had
+saved Paris from falling into, the hands of Henry, and had been doing his
+best to convert it prospectively into the capital of his master's empire-
+-it was his duty, of course, to represent as accurately as possible the
+true state of France.  He submitted his actions to his master's will, but
+he never withheld from him the advantage that he might have derived, had
+he so chosen, from his nephew's luminous intelligence and patient
+observation.
+
+With the chief personage he had to deal with he professed himself, at
+first, well satisfied.  "The Duke of Mayenne," said he to Philip,
+"persists in desiring your Majesty only as King of France, and will hear
+of no other candidate, which gives me satisfaction such as can't be
+exaggerated."  Although there were difficulties in the way, Farnese
+thought that the two together with God's help might conquer them.
+"Certainly it is not impossible that your Majesty may succeed," he said,
+"although very problematical; and in case your Majesty does succeed in
+that which we all desire and are struggling for, Mayenne not only demands
+the second place in the kingdom for himself, but the fief of some great
+province for his family."
+
+Should it not be possible for Philip to obtain the crown, Farnese was,
+on the whole, of opinion that Mayenne had better be elected.  In that
+event he would make over Brittany and Burgundy to Philip, together with
+the cities opposite the English coast.  If they were obliged to make the
+duke king, as was to be feared, they should at any rate exclude the
+Prince of Bearne, and secure, what was the chief point, the Catholic
+religion.  "This," said Alexander, "is about what I can gather of
+Mayenne's views, and perhaps he will put them down in a despatch to your
+Majesty."
+
+After all, the duke was explicit enough.  He was for taking all he could
+get--the whole kingdom if possible--but if foiled, then as large a slice
+of it as Philip would give him as the price of his services.  And
+Philip's ideas were not materially different from those of the other
+conspirator.
+
+Both were agreed on one thing.  The true heir must be kept out of his
+rights, and the Catholic religion be maintained in its purity.  As to the
+inclination of the majority of the inhabitants, they could hardly be in
+the dark.  They knew that the Bearnese was instinctively demanded by the
+nation; for his accession to the throne would furnish the only possible
+solution to the entanglements which had so long existed.
+
+As to the true sentiments of the other politicians and soldiers of the
+League with whom Bearnese came in contact in France, he did not disguise
+from his master that they were anything but favourable.
+
+"That you may know, the, humour of this kingdom," said he, "and the
+difficulties in which I am placed, I must tell you that I am by large
+experience much confirmed in that which I have always suspected.  Men
+don't love nor esteem the royal name of your Majesty, and whatever the
+benefits and assistance they get from you they have no idea of anything
+redounding to your benefit and royal service, except so far as implied in
+maintaining the Catholic religion and keeping out the Bearne.  These two
+things, however, they hold to be so entirely to your Majesty's profit,
+that all you are doing appears the fulfilment of a simple obligation.
+They are filled with fear, jealousy, and suspicion of your Majesty.  They
+dread your acquiring power here.  Whatever negotiations they pretend
+in regard to putting the kingdom or any of their cities under your
+protection, they have never had any real intention of doing it, but their
+only object is to keep up our vain hopes while they are carrying out
+their own ends.  If to-day they seem to have agreed upon any measure,
+tomorrow they are sure to get out of it again.  This has always been the
+case, and all your Majesty's ministers that have had dealings here would
+say so, if they chose to tell the truth.  Men are disgusted with the
+entrance of the army, and if they were not expecting a more advantageous
+peace in the kingdom with my assistance than without it, I don't know
+what they would do; for I have heard what I have heard and seen what I
+have seen.  They are afraid of our army, but they want its assistance and
+our money."
+
+Certainly if Philip desired enlightenment as to the real condition of the
+country he had determined to, appropriate; and the true sentiments of its
+most influential inhabitants, here, was the man most competent of all the
+world to advise him; describing the situation for him, day by day, in the
+most faithful manner.  And at every, step the absolutely puerile
+inadequacy of the means, employed by the king to accomplish his gigantic
+purposes became apparent.  If the crime of subjugating or at least
+dismembering the great kingdom of France were to, be attempted with any
+hope of success, at least it might have been expected that the man
+employed to consummate the deed would be furnished with more troops and
+money than would be required to appropriate a savage island off the
+Caribbean, or a German.  principality.  But Philip expected miracles to
+be accomplished by the mere private assertion of his will.  It was so
+easy to conquer realms the writing table.
+
+"I don't say," continued Farnese, "if I could have entered France with a
+competent army, well paid and disciplined, with plenty of artillery, and
+munitions, and with funds enough to enable Mayenne to buy up the nobles
+of his party, and to conciliate the leaders generally with presents and
+promises, that perhaps they might not have softened.  Perhaps interest
+and fear would have made that name agreeable which pleases them so
+little, now that the very reverse of all this has occurred.  My want of
+means is causing a thousand disgusts among the natives of the country,
+and it is this penury that will be the chief cause of the disasters which
+may occur."
+
+Here was sufficiently plain speaking.  To conquer a war-like nation
+without an army; to purchase a rapacious nobility with an empty purse,
+were tasks which might break the stoutest heart.  They were breaking
+Alexander's.
+
+Yet Philip had funds enough, if he had possessed financial ability
+himself, or any talent for selecting good financiers.  The richest
+countries of the old world and the new were under his sceptre; the mines
+of Peru and Mexico; the wealth of farthest Ind, were at his disposition;
+and moreover he drove a lucrative traffic in the sale of papal bulls and
+massbooks, which were furnished to him at a very low figure, and which he
+compelled the wild Indians of America and the savages of the Pacific to
+purchase of him at an enormous advance.  That very year, a Spanish
+carrack had been captured by the English off the Barbary coast, with an
+assorted cargo, the miscellaneous nature of which gives an idea of royal
+commercial pursuits at that period.  Besides wine in large quantities
+there were fourteen hundred chests of quicksilver, an article
+indispensable to the working of the silver mines, and which no one but
+the king could, upon pain of death, send to America.  He received,
+according to contract; for every pound of quicksilver thus delivered a
+pound of pure silver, weight for weight.  The ship likewise contained ten
+cases of gilded mass-books and papal bulls.  The bulls, two million and
+seventy thousand in number, for the dead and the living, were intended
+for the provinces of New Spain, Yucatan, Guatemala, Honduras, and the
+Philippines.  The quicksilver and the bulls cost the king three hundred
+thousand florins, but he sold them for five million.  The .price at,
+which the bulls were to be sold varied-according to the letters of advice
+found in the ships--from two to four reals a piece, and the inhabitants
+of those conquered regions were obliged to buy them.  "From all this,"
+says a contemporary chronicler; "is to be seen what a thrifty trader was
+the king."
+
+The affairs of France were in such confusion that it was impossible for
+them, according to Farnese, to remain in such condition much longer
+without bringing about entire decomposition.  Every man was doing as he
+chose--whether governor of a city, commander of a district, or gentleman
+in his castle.  Many important nobles and prelates followed the Bearnese
+party, and Mayenne was entitled to credit for doing as well as he did.
+There was no pretence, however, that his creditable conduct was due to
+anything but the hope of being well paid.  "If your Majesty should decide
+to keep Mayenne," said Alexander, "you can only do it with large: sums of
+money.  He is a good Catholic and very firm in his purpose, but is so
+much opposed by his own party, that if I had not so stimulated him by
+hopes of his own grandeur, he would have grown desperate--such small
+means has he of maintaining his party--and, it is to be feared, he would
+have made arrangements with Bearne, who offers him carte-blanche."
+
+The disinterested man had expressed his assent to the views of Philip in
+regard to the assembly of the estates and the election of king, but had
+claimed the sum of six hundred thousand dollars as absolutely necessary
+to the support of himself and followers until those events should occur.
+Alexander not having that sum at his disposal was inclined to defer
+matters, but was more and more confirmed in his opinion that the Duke was
+a "man of truth, faith, and his word."  He had distinctly agreed that no
+king should be elected, not satisfactory to Philip, and had "stipulated
+in return that he should have in this case, not only the second place in
+the kingdom, but some very great and special reward in full property."
+
+Thus the man of truth, faith, and his word had no idea of selling himself
+cheap, but manifested as much commercial genius as the Fuggers themselves
+could have displayed, had they been employed as brokers in these
+mercantile transactions.
+
+Above all things, Alexander implored the king to be expeditious,
+resolute, and liberal; for, after all, the Bearnese might prove a more
+formidable competitor than he was deemed.  "These matters must be
+arranged while the iron is hot," he said, "in order that the name and
+memory of the Bearne and of all his family may be excluded at once and
+forever; for your Majesty must not doubt that the whole kingdom inclines
+to him, both because he is natural successor, to the crowns and because
+in this way the civil war would cease.  The only thing that gives trouble
+is the religions defect, so that if this should be remedied in
+appearance, even if falsely, men would spare no pains nor expense in his
+cause."
+
+No human being at that moment, assuredly, could look into the immediate
+future accurately enough to see whether the name and memory of the man,
+whom his adherents called Henry the Fourth of France, and whom Spaniards,
+legitimists and enthusiastic papists, called the Prince of Bearne, were
+to be for ever excluded from the archives of France; whether Henry, after
+spending the whole of his life as a pretender, was destined to bequeath
+the same empty part to his descendants, should they think it worth their
+while to play it.  Meantime the sages smiled superior at his delusion;
+while Alexander Farnese, on the contrary, better understanding the
+chances of the great game which they were all playing, made bold to tell
+his master that all hearts in France were inclining to their natural
+lord.  "Differing from your Majesty," said he, "I am of opinion that
+there is no better means of excluding him than to make choice of the Duke
+of Mayenne, as a person agreeable to the people, and who could only reign
+by your permission and support."
+
+Thus, after much hesitation and circumlocution, the nephew made up his
+mind to chill his uncle's hopes of the crown, and to speak a decided
+opinion in behalf of the man of his word, faith and truth.
+
+And thus through the whole of the two memorable campaigns made by
+Alexander in France, he never failed to give his master the most accurate
+pictures of the country, and an interior view of its politics; urging
+above all the absolute necessity of providing much more liberal supplies
+for the colossal adventure in which he was engaged.  "Money and again
+money is what is required," he said.  "The principal matter is to be
+accomplished with money, and the particular individuals must be bought
+with money.  The good will of every French city must be bought with
+money.  Mayenne must be humoured.  He is getting dissatisfied.  Very
+probably he is intriguing with Bearne.  Everybody is pursuing his private
+ends.  Mayenne has never abandoned his own wish to be king, although he
+sees the difficulties in the way; and while he has not the power to do us
+as much good as is thought, it is certainly in his hands to do us a great
+deal of injury."
+
+When his army was rapidly diminishing by disease, desertion, mutiny, and
+death, he vehemently and perpetually denounced the utter inadequacy of
+the king's means to his vast projects.  He protested that he was not to
+blame for the ruin likely to come upon the whole enterprise.  He had
+besought, remonstrated, reasoned with Philip--in vain.  He assured his
+master that in the condition of weakness in which they found themselves,
+not very triumphant negotiations could be expected, but that he would do
+his best.  "The Frenchmen," he said, "are getting tired of our disorders,
+and scandalized by our weakness, misery, and poverty.  They disbelieve
+the possibility of being liberated through us."
+
+He was also most diligent in setting before the king's eyes the dangerous
+condition of the obedient Netherlands, the poverty of the finances, the
+mutinous degeneration of the once magnificent Spanish army, the misery of
+the country, the ruin of the people, the discontent of the nobles, the
+rapid strides made by the republic, the vast improvement in its military
+organization, the rising fame of its young stadholder, the thrift of its
+exchequer, the rapid development of its commerce, the menacing aspect
+which it assumed towards all that was left of Spanish power in those
+regions.
+
+Moreover, in the midst of the toils and anxieties of war-making and
+negotiation, he had found time to discover and to send to his master
+the left leg of the glorious apostle St. Philip, and the head of the
+glorious martyr St. Lawrence, to enrich his collection of relics; and it
+may be doubted whether these treasures were not as welcome to the king as
+would have been the news of a decisive victory.
+
+During the absence of Farnese in his expeditions against the Bearnese,
+the government of his provinces was temporarily in the hands of Peter
+Ernest Mansfeld.
+
+This grizzled old fighter--testy, choleric, superannuated--was utterly
+incompetent for his post.  He was a mere tool in the hands of his son.
+Count Charles hated Parma very cordially, and old Count Peter was made
+to believe himself in danger of being poisoned or poniarded by the duke.
+He was perpetually wrangling with, importuning and insulting him in
+consequence, and writing malicious letters to the king in regard to him.
+The great nobles, Arschot, Chimay, Berlaymont, Champagny, Arenberg, and
+the rest, were all bickering among themselves, and agreeing in nothing
+save in hatred to Farnese.
+
+A tight rein, a full exchequer, a well-ordered and well-paid army, and
+his own constant patience, were necessary, as Alexander too well knew,
+to make head against the republic, and to hold what was left of the
+Netherlands.  But with a monthly allowance, and a military force not
+equal to his own estimates for the Netherland work, he was ordered to go
+forth from the Netherlands to conquer France--and with it the dominion of
+the world--for the recluse of the Escorial.
+
+Very soon it was his duty to lay bare to his master, still more
+unequivocally than ever, the real heart of Mayenne. No one could surpass
+Alexander in this skilful vivisection of political characters; and he
+soon sent the information that the Duke was in reality very near closing
+his bargain with the Bearnese, while amusing Philip and drawing largely
+from his funds.
+
+Thus, while faithfully doing his master's work with sword and pen, with
+an adroitness such as no other man could have matched, it was a necessary
+consequence that Philip should suspect, should detest, should resolve to
+sacrifice him.  While assuring his nephew, as we have seen, that
+elaborate, slanderous reports and protocols concerning him, sent with
+such regularity by the chivalrous Moreo and the other spies, had been
+totally disregarded, even if they had ever met his eye, he was quietly
+preparing--in the midst of all these most strenuous efforts of Alexander,
+in the field at peril of his life, in the cabinet at the risk of his
+soul--to deprive him of his office, and to bring him, by stratagem if
+possible, but otherwise by main force, from the Netherlands to Spain.
+
+This project, once-resolved upon, the king proceeded to execute with
+that elaborate attention to detail, with that feline stealth which
+distinguished him above all kings or chiefs of police that have ever
+existed.  Had there been a murder at the end of the plot, as perhaps
+there was to be--Philip could not have enjoyed himself more.  Nothing
+surpassed the industry for mischief of this royal invalid.
+
+The first thing to be done was of course the inditing of a most
+affectionate epistle to his nephew.
+
+"Nephew," said he, "you know the confidence which I have always placed in
+you and all that I have put in your hands, and I know how much you are to
+me, and how earnestly you work in my service, and so, if I could have you
+at the same time in several places, it would be a great relief to me.
+Since this cannot be however, I wish to make use of your assistance,
+according to the times and occasions, in order that I may have some
+certainty as to the manner in which all this business is to be managed,
+may see why the settlement of affairs in France is thus delayed, and what
+the state of things in Christendom generally is, and may consult with,
+you about an army which I am getting levied here, and about certain
+schemes now on foot in regard to the remedy for all this; all which makes
+me desire your presence here for some time, even if a short time, in
+order to resolve upon and arrange with the aid of your advice and
+opinion, many affairs concerning the public good and facilitate their
+execution by means of your encouragement and presence, and to obtain the
+repose which I hope for in putting them into your hands.  And so I charge
+and command you that, if you desire to content me, you use all possible
+diligence to let me see you here as soon as possible, and that you start
+at once for Genoa."
+
+He was further directed to leave Count Mansfeld at the head of affairs
+during this temporary absence, as had been the case so often before,
+instructing him to make use of the Marquis of Cerralbo, who was already
+there, to lighten labours that might prove too much for a man of
+Mansfeld's advanced age.
+
+"I am writing to the marquis," continued the king, "telling him that he
+is to obey all your orders.  As to the reasons of your going away, you
+will give out that it is a decision of your own, founded on good cause,
+or that it is a summons of mine, but full of confidence and good will
+towards you, as you see that it is."
+
+The date of this letter was 20th February, 1592.
+
+The secret instructions to the man who was thus to obey all the duke's
+orders were explicit enough upon that point, although they were wrapped
+in the usual closely-twisted phraseology which distinguished Philip's
+style when his purpose was most direct.
+
+Cerralbo was entrusted with general directions as to the French matter,
+and as to peace negotiations with "the Islands;" but the main purport of
+his mission was to remove Alexander Farnese.  This was to be done by fair
+means, if possible; if not, he was to be deposed and sent home by force.
+
+This was to be the reward of all the toil and danger through which he had
+grown grey and broken in the king's service.
+
+"When you get to the Netherlands" (for the instructions were older than
+the letter to Alexander just cited), "you are," said the king, "to treat
+of the other two matters until the exact time arrives for the third,
+taking good care not to, cut the thread of good progress in the affairs
+of France if by chance they are going on well there.
+
+"When the time arrives to treat of commission number three," continued
+his Majesty, "you will take occasion of the arrival of the courier of
+20th February, and will give with much secrecy the letter of that date to
+the duke; showing him at the same time the first of the two which you
+will have received."
+
+If the duke showed the letter addressed to him by his uncle--which the
+reader has already seen--then the marquis was to discuss with him the
+details of the journey, and comment upon the benefits and increased
+reputation which would be the result of his return to Spain.
+
+"But if the duke should not show you the letter," proceeded Philip, "and
+you suspect that he means to conceal and equivocate about the particulars
+of it, you can show him your letter number two, in which it is stated
+that you have received a copy of the letter to the duke.  This will make
+the step easier."
+
+Should the duke declare himself ready to proceed to Spain on the ground
+indicated--that the king had need of his services--the marquis was then
+to hasten his departure as earnestly as possible.  Every pains were to be
+taken to overcome any objections that might be made by the duke on the
+score of ill health, while the great credit which attached to this
+summons to consult with the king in such arduous affairs was to be duly
+enlarged upon.  Should Count Mansfeld meantime die of old age, and should
+Farnese insist the more vehemently, on that account, upon leaving his son
+the Prince Ranuccio in his post as governor, the marquis was authorised
+to accept the proposition for the moment--although secretly instructed
+that such an appointment was really quite out of the question--if by so
+doing the father could be torn from the place immediately.
+
+But if all would not do, and if it should become certain that the duke
+would definitively refuse to take his departure, it would then become
+necessary to tell him clearly, but secretly, that no excuse would be
+accepted, but that go he must; and that if he did not depart voluntarily
+within a fixed time, he would be publicly deprived of office and
+conducted to Spain by force.
+
+But all these things were to be managed with the secrecy and mystery so
+dear to the heart of Philip.  The marquis was instructed to go first to
+the castle of Antwerp, as if upon financial business, and there begin his
+operations.  Should he find at last all his private negotiations and
+coaxings of no avail, he was then to make use of his secret letters from
+the king to the army commanders, the leading nobles of the country, and
+of the neighbouring princes, all of whom were to be undeceived in regard
+to the duke, and to be informed of the will of his majesty.
+
+The real successor of Farnese was to be the Archduke Albert, Cardinal of
+Austria, son of Archduke Ferdinand, and the letters on this subject were
+to be sent by a "decent and confidential person" so soon as it should
+become obvious that force would be necessary in order to compel the
+departure of Alexander.  For if it came to open rupture, it would be
+necessary to have the cardinal ready to take the place.  If the affair
+were arranged amicably, then the new governor might proceed more at
+leisure.  The marquis was especially enjoined, in case the duke should be
+in France, and even if it should be necessary for him to follow him there
+on account of commissions number one and two, not to say a word to him
+then of his recall, for fear of damaging matters in that kingdom.  He was
+to do his best to induce him to return to Flanders, and when they were
+both there, he was to begin his operations.
+
+Thus, with minute and artistic treachery, did Philip provide for the
+disgrace and ruin of the man who was his near blood relation, and who had
+served him most faithfully from earliest youth.  It was not possible to
+carry out the project immediately, for, as it has already been narrated,
+Farnese, after achieving, in spite of great obstacles due to the dulness
+of the king alone, an extraordinary triumph, had been dangerously
+wounded, and was unable for a brief interval to attend to public affairs.
+
+On the conclusion of his Rouen campaign he had returned to the
+Netherlands, almost immediately betaking himself to the waters of Spa.
+The Marquis de Cerralbo meanwhile had been superseded in his important
+secret mission by the Count of Fuentes, who received the same
+instructions as had been provided for the marquis.
+
+But ere long it seemed to become unnecessary to push matters to
+extremities.  Farnese, although nominally the governor, felt himself
+unequal to take the field against the vigorous young commander who was
+carrying everything before him in the north and east.  Upon the Mansfelds
+was the responsibility for saving Steenwyk and Coeworden, and to the
+Mansfelds did Verdugo send piteously, but in vain, for efficient help.
+For the Mansfelds and other leading personages in the obedient
+Netherlands were mainly occupied at that time in annoying Farnese,
+calumniating his actions, laying obstacles in the way of his
+administration, military and civil, and bringing him into contempt with
+the populace. When the weary soldier--broken in health, wounded and
+harassed with obtaining triumphs for his master such as no other living
+man could have gained with the means placed at his disposal--returned
+to drink the waters, previously to setting forth anew upon the task of
+achieving the impossible, he was made the mark of petty insults on the
+part of both the Mansfelds.  Neither of them paid their respects to him;
+ill as he was, until four days after his arrival.  When the duke
+subsequently called a council; Count Peter refused to attend it on
+account of having slept ill the night before.  Champagny; who was one of,
+the chief mischief-makers, had been banished by Parma to his house in
+Burgundy.  He became very much alarmed, and was afraid of losing his
+head.  He tried to conciliate the duke, but finding it difficult he
+resolved to turn monk, and so went to the convent of Capuchins, and
+begged hard to be admitted a member.  They refused him on account of his
+age and infirmities.  He tried a Franciscan monastery with not much
+better success, and then obeyed orders and went to his Burgundy mansion;
+having been assured by Farnese that he was not to lose his head.
+Alexander was satisfied with that arrangement, feeling sure, he said,
+that so soon as his back was turned Champagny would come out of his
+convent before the term of probation had expired, and begin to make
+mischief again.  A once valiant soldier, like Champagny, whose conduct in
+the famous "fury of Antwerp" was so memorable; and whose services both in
+field and-cabinet had, been so distinguished, fallen so low as to, be
+used as a tool by the Mansfelds against a man like Farnese; and to be
+rejected as unfit company by Flemish friars, is not a cheerful spectacle
+to contemplate.
+
+The walls of the Mansfeld house and gardens, too, were decorated by Count
+Charles with caricatures, intending to illustrate the indignities put
+upon his father: and himself.
+
+Among others, one picture represented Count Peter lying tied hand and
+foot, while people were throwing filth upon him; Count Charles being
+pourtrayed as meantime being kicked away from the command of a battery
+of cannon by, De la Motte.  It seemed strange that the Mansfelds should,
+make themselves thus elaborately ridiculous, in order to irritate
+Farnese; but thus it was.  There was so much stir, about these works of
+art that Alexander transmitted copies of them to the king, whereupon
+Charles Mansfeld, being somewhat alarmed, endeavoured to prove that they
+had been entirely misunderstood.  The venerable personage lying on the
+ground, he explained, was not his father, but Socrates.  He found it
+difficult however to account for the appearance of La Motte, with his one
+arm wanting and with artillery by his side, because, as Farnese justly
+remarked, artillery had not been invented in the time of Socrates, nor
+was it recorded that the sage had lost an arm.
+
+Thus passed the autumn of 1592, and Alexander, having as he supposed
+somewhat recruited his failing strength, prepared, according to his
+master's orders for a new campaign in France.  For with almost
+preterhuman malice Philip was employing the man whom he had doomed to
+disgrace, perhaps to death, and whom he kept under constant secret
+supervision, in those laborious efforts to conquer without an army and
+to purchase a kingdom with an empty purse, in which, as it was destined,
+the very last sands of Parma's life were to run away.
+
+Suffering from a badly healed wound, from water on the chest,
+degeneration of the heart, and gout in the limbs, dropsical, enfeebled,
+broken down into an old man before his time, Alexander still confronted
+disease and death with as heroic a front as he had ever manifested in the
+field to embattled Hollanders and Englishmen, or to the still more
+formidable array of learned pedants and diplomatists in the hall of
+negotiation.  This wreck of a man was still fitter to lead armies and
+guide councils than any soldier or statesman that Philip could call into
+his service, yet the king's cruel hand was ready to stab the dying man in
+the dark.
+
+Nothing could surpass the spirit with which the soldier was ready to do
+battle with his best friend, coming in the guise of an enemy.  To the
+last moment, lifted into the saddle, he attended personally as usual to
+the details of his new campaign, and was dead before he would confess
+himself mortal.  On the 3rd of December, 1592, in the city of Arran, he
+fainted after retiring at his usual hour to bed, and thus breathed his
+last.
+
+According to the instructions in his last will, he was laid out barefoot
+in the robe and cowl of a Capuchin monk.  Subsequently his remains were
+taken to Parma, and buried under the pavement of the little Franciscan
+church.  A pompous funeral, in which the Italians and Spaniards
+quarrelled and came to blows for precedence, was celebrated in Brussels,
+and a statue of the hero was erected in the capitol at Rome.
+
+The first soldier and most unscrupulous diplomatist of his age, he died
+when scarcely past his prime, a wearied; broken-hearted old man.  His
+triumphs, military and civil, have been recorded in these pages, and his
+character has been elaborately pourtrayed.  Were it possible to conceive
+of an Italian or Spaniard of illustrious birth in the sixteenth century,
+educated in the school of Machiavelli, at the feet of Philip, as anything
+but the supple slave of a master and the blind instrument of a Church,
+one might for a moment regret that so many gifts of genius and valour had
+been thrown away or at least lost to mankind.  Could the light of truth
+ever pierce the atmosphere in which such men have their being; could the
+sad music of humanity ever penetrate to their ears; could visions of a
+world--on this earth or beyond it--not exclusively the property of kings
+and high-priests be revealed to them, one might lament that one so
+eminent among the sons of women had not been a great man.  But it is a
+weakness to hanker for any possible connection between truth and Italian
+or Spanish statecraft of that day.  The truth was not in it nor in him,
+and high above his heroic achievements, his fortitude, his sagacity, his
+chivalrous self-sacrifice, shines forth the baleful light of his
+perpetual falsehood.
+
+     [I pass over, as beneath the level of history, a great variety of
+     censorious and probably calumnious reports as to the private
+     character of Farnese, with which the secret archives of the times
+     are filled.  Especially Champagny, the man by whom the duke was most
+     hated and feared, made himself busy in compiling the slanderous
+     chronicle in which the enemies of Farnese, both in Spain and the
+     Netherlands, took so much delight.  According to the secret history
+     thus prepared for the enlightenment of the king and his ministers,
+     the whole administration of the Netherlands--especially the
+     financial department, with the distribution of offices--was in the
+     hands of two favourites, a beardless secretary named Cosmo e Massi,
+     and a lady of easy virtue called Franceline, who seems to have had a
+     numerous host of relatives and friends to provide for at the public
+     expense.  Towards the latter end of the duke's life, it was even
+     said that the seal of the finance department was in the hands of his
+     valet-de-chambre, who, in his master's frequent absences, was in the
+     habit of issuing drafts upon the receiver-general.  As the valet-
+     dechambre was described as an idiot who did not know how to read, it
+     may be believed that the finances fell into confusion.  Certainly,
+     if such statements were to be accepted, it would be natural enough
+     that for every million dollars expended by the king in the
+     provinces, not more than one hundred thousand were laid out for the
+     public service; and this is the estimate made by Champagny, who, as
+     a distinguished financier and once chief of the treasury in the
+     provinces, might certainly be thought to know something of the
+     subject.  But Champagny was beside himself with rage, hatred.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+     Effect of the death of Farnese upon Philip's schemes--Priestly
+     flattery and counsel--Assembly of the States-General of France--
+     Meeting of the Leaguers at the Louvre--Conference at Surene between
+     the chiefs of the League and the "political" leaders--Henry convokes
+     an assembly of bishops, theologians, and others--Strong feeling on
+     all sides on the subject of the succession--Philip commands that the
+     Infanta and the Duke of Guise be elected King and Queen of France--
+     Manifesto of the Duke of Mayenne--Formal re-admission of Henry to
+     the Roman faith--The pope refuses to consent to his reconciliation
+     with the Church--His consecration with the sacred oil--Entry of the
+     king into Paris--Departure of the Spanish garrison from the capital
+     --Dissimulation of the Duke of Mayenne--He makes terms with Henry--
+     Grief of Queen Elizabeth on receipt of the communications from
+     France.
+
+During the past quarter of a century there had been tragic scenes enough
+in France, but now the only man who could have conducted Philip's schemes
+to a tragic if not a successful issue was gone.  Friendly death had been
+swifter than Philip, and had removed Alexander from the scene before his
+master had found fitting opportunity to inflict the disgrace on which he
+was resolved.  Meantime, Charles Mansfeld made a feeble attempt to lead
+an army from the Netherlands into France, to support the sinking fortunes
+of the League; but it was not for that general-of-artillery to attempt
+the well-graced part of the all-accomplished Farnese with much hope of
+success.  A considerable force of Spanish infantry, too, had been sent to
+Paris, where they had been received with much enthusiasm; a very violent
+and determined churchman, Sega, archbishop of Piacenza, and cardinal-
+legate, having arrived to check on the part of the holy father any
+attempt by the great wavering heretic to get himself readmitted into the
+fold of the faithful.
+
+The King of Spain considered it his duty, as well as his unquestionable
+right, to interfere in the affairs of France, and to save the cause of
+religion, civilization and humanity, in the manner so dear to the
+civilization-savers, by reducing that distracted country--utterly unable
+to govern itself--under his sceptre.  To achieve this noble end no
+bribery was too wholesale, no violence too brutal, no intrigue too
+paltry.  It was his sacred and special mission to save France from
+herself.  If he should fail, he could at least carve her in pieces, and
+distribute her among himself and friends.  Frenchmen might assist him in
+either of these arrangements, but it was absurd to doubt that on him
+devolved the work and the responsibility.  Yet among his advisers were
+some who doubted whether the purchase of the grandees of France was
+really the most judicious course to pursue.  There was a general and
+uneasy feeling that the grandees were making sport of the Spanish
+monarch, and that they would be inclined to remain his stipendiaries for
+an indefinite period, without doing their share of the work.  A keen
+Jesuit, who had been much in France, often whispered to Philip that he
+was going astray.  "Those who best understand the fit remedy for this
+unfortunate kingdom, and know the tastes and temper of the nation," said
+he, "doubt giving these vast presents and rewards in order that the
+nobles of France may affect your cause and further your schemes.  It is
+the greatest delusion, because they love nothing but their own interest,
+and for this reason wish for no king at all, but prefer that the kingdom
+should remain topsy-turvy in order that they may enjoy the Spanish
+doubloons, as they say themselves almost publicly, dancing and feasting;
+that they may take a castle to-day, and to-morrow a city, and the day,
+after a province, and so on indefinitely.  What matters it to them that
+blood flows, and that the miserable people are destroyed, who alone are
+good for anything?"
+
+"The immediate cause of the ruin of France," continued the Jesuit, "comes
+from two roots which must be torn up; the one is the extreme ignorance
+and scandalous life of the ecclesiastics, the other is the tyranny and
+the abominable life of the nobility, who with sacrilege and insatiable
+avarice have entered upon the property of the Church.  This nobility is
+divided into three factions.  The first, and not the least, is heretic;
+the second and the most pernicious is politic or atheist; the third and
+last is catholic.  All these, although they differ in opinion, are the
+same thing in corruption of life and manners, so that there is no choice
+among them."  He then proceeded to set forth how entirely, the salvation
+of France depended on the King of Spain.  "Morally speaking," he said,
+"it is impossible for any Frenchman to apply the remedy.  For this two
+things are wanting; intense zeal for the honour of God, and power.  I ask
+now what Frenchman: has both these, or either of them.  No one certainly
+that we know.  It is the King of Spain who alone in the world has the
+zeal and the power.  No man who knows the insolence and arrogance of the
+French nature will believe that even if a king should be elected out of
+France he would be obeyed by the others.  The first to oppose him would
+be Mayenne; even if a king were chosen from his family, unless everything
+should be given him that he asked; which would be impossible."
+
+Thus did the wily Priest instil into the ready ears of Philip additional
+reasons for believing himself the incarnate providence of God.  When were
+priestly flatterers ever wanting to pour this poison into the souls of
+tyrants?  It is in vain for us to ask why it is permitted that so much
+power for evil should be within the grasp of one wretched human creature,
+but it is at least always instructive to ponder the career of these
+crowned conspirators, and sometimes consoling to find its conclusion
+different from the goal intended.  So the Jesuit advised the king not to
+be throwing away his money upon particular individuals, but with the
+funds which they were so unprofitably consuming to form a jolly army
+('gallardo egercito') of fifteen thousand foot, and five thousand-horse,
+all Spaniards, under a Spanish general--not a Frenchman being admitted
+into it--and then to march forward, occupy all the chief towns, putting
+Spanish garrisons into them, but sparing the people, who now considered
+the war eternal, and who were eaten up by both armies.  In a short time
+the king might accomplish all he wished, for it was not in the power of
+the Bearnese to make considerable resistance for any length of time.
+
+This was the plan of Father Odo for putting Philip on the throne of
+France, and at the same time lifting up the downtrodden Church, whose
+priests, according to his statement, were so profligate, and whose tenets
+were rejected by all but a small minority of the governing classes of the
+country.  Certainly it did not lack precision, but it remained to be seen
+whether the Bearnese was to prove so very insignificant an antagonist as
+the sanguine priest supposed.
+
+For the third party--the moderate Catholics--had been making immense
+progress in France, while the diplomacy of Philip had thus far steadily
+counteracted their efforts at Rome.  In vain had the Marquis Pisani,
+envoy of the politicians' party, endeavoured to soften the heart of
+Clement towards Henry.  The pope lived in mortal fear of Spain, and the
+Duke of Sessa, Philip's ambassador to the holy see, denouncing all these
+attempts on the part of the heretic, and his friends, and urging that it
+was much better for Rome that the pernicious kingdom of France should be
+dismembered and subdivided, assured his holiness that Rome should be
+starved, occupied, annihilated, if such abominable schemes should be for
+an instant favoured.
+
+Clement took to his bed with sickness brought on by all this violence,
+but had nothing for it but to meet Pisani and other agents of the same
+cause with a peremptory denial, and send most, stringent messages to his
+legate in Paris, who needed no prompting.
+
+There had already been much issuing of bulls by the pope, and much
+burning of bulls by the hangman, according to decrees of the parliament
+of Chalons and other friendly tribunals, and burning of Chalons decrees
+by Paris hangmen, and edicts in favour of Protestants at Nantz and other
+places--measures the enactment, repeal, and reenactment of which were to
+mark the ebb and flow of the great tide of human opinion on the most
+important of subjects, and the traces of which were to be for a long time
+visible on the shores of time.
+
+Early in 1593 Mayenne, yielding to the pressure of the Spanish party,
+reluctantly consented to assemble the States-General of France, in order
+that a king might be chosen.  The duke, who came to be thoroughly known
+to Alexander Farnese before the death of that subtle Italian, relied on
+his capacity to outwit all the other champions of the League and agents
+of Philip now that the master-spirit had been removed.  As firmly opposed
+as ever to the election of any other candidate but himself, or possibly
+his son, according to a secret proposition which he had lately made to
+the pope,  he felt himself obliged to confront the army of Spanish
+diplomatists, Roman prelates, and learned doctors, by whom it was
+proposed to exclude the Prince of Bearne from his pretended rights.  But
+he did not, after all, deceive them as thoroughly as he imagined.  The
+Spaniards shrewdly suspected the French tactics, and the whole business
+was but a round game of deception, in which no one was much deceived, who
+ever might be destined ultimately, to pocket the stakes: "I know from a
+very good source," said Fuentes, "that Mayenne, Guise, and the rest of
+them are struggling hard in order not to submit to Bearne, and will
+suffer everything your Majesty may do to them, even if you kick them in
+the mouth, but still there is no conclusion on the road we are
+travelling, at least not the one which your Majesty desires. They will go
+on procrastinating and gaining time, making authority for themselves out
+of your Majesty's grandeur, until the condition of things comes which
+they are desiring.  Feria tells me that they are still taking your
+Majesty's money, but I warn your Majesty that it is only to fight off
+Bearne, and that they are only pursuing their own ends at your Majesty's
+expense."
+
+Perhaps Mayenne had already a sufficiently clear insight into the not
+far-distant future, but he still presented himself in Spanish cloak and
+most ultramontane physiognomy.  His pockets were indeed full of Spanish
+coin at that moment, for he had just claimed and received eighty-eight
+thousand-nine hundred dollars for back debts, together with one hundred
+and eighty, thousand dollars more to distribute among the deputies of the
+estates.  "All I can say about France," said Fuentes, "is that it is one
+great thirst for money.  The Duke of Feria believes in a good result, but
+I think that Mayenne is only trying to pocket as much money as he can."
+
+Thus fortified, the Duke of Mayenne issued the address to the States-
+General of the kingdom, to meet at an early day in order to make
+arrangements to secure religion and peace, and to throw off the possible
+yoke of the heretic pretender.  The great seal affixed to the document
+represented an empty throne, instead of the usual effigy of a king.
+
+The cardinal-legate issued a thundering manifesto at the same time
+sustaining Mayenne and virulently denouncing the Bearnese.
+
+The politicians' party now seized the opportunity to impress upon Henry
+that the decisive moment was come.
+
+The Spaniard, the priest; and the League, had heated the furnace.
+The iron was at a white heat.  Now was the time to strike.  Secretary
+of State Revol Gaspar de Schomberg, Jacques Auguste de Thou, the eminent
+historian, and other influential personages urged the king to give to
+the great question the only possible solution.
+
+Said the king with much meekness, "If I am in error, let those who attack
+me with so much fury instruct me, and show me the way of salvation.  I
+hate those who act against their conscience.  I pardon all those who are
+inspired by truly religious motives, and I am ready to receive all into
+favour whom the love of peace, not the chagrin of ill-will, has disgusted
+with the war."
+
+There was a great meeting of Leaguers at the Louvre, to listen to
+Mayenne, the cardinal-legate, Cardinal Pelleve, the Duke of Guise, and
+other chieftains.  The Duke of Feria made a long speech in Latin, setting
+forth the Spanish policy, veiled as usual, but already sufficiently well
+known, and assuring the assembly that the King of Spain desired nothing
+so much as the peace of France and of all the world, together with the
+supremacy of the Roman Church.  Whether these objects could best be
+attained by the election of Philip or of his daughter, as sovereign, with
+the Archduke Ernest as king-consort, or with perhaps the Duke of Guise
+or some other eligible husband, were fair subjects for discussion.
+No selfish motive influenced the king, and he placed all his wealth and
+all his armies at the disposal of the League to carry out these great
+projects.
+
+Then there was a conference at Surene between the chiefs the League and
+the "political" leaders; the Archbishop of Lyons, the cardinal-legate,
+Villars, Admiral of France and defender of Rouen, Belin, Governor of
+Paris, President Jeannin, and others upon one side; upon the other, the
+Archbishop of Bourges, Bellievre, Schomberg, Revol, and De Thou.
+
+The Archbishop of Lyons said that their party would do nothing either to
+frustrate or to support the mission of Pisani, and that the pope would,
+as ever, do all that could be done to maintain the interests of the true
+religion.
+
+The Archbishop of Bourges, knowing well the meaning of such fine phrases,
+replied that he had much respect for the holy father, but that popes had
+now, become the slaves and tools of the King of Spain, who, because he
+was powerful, held them subject to his caprice.
+
+At an adjourned meeting at the same place, the Archbishop of Lyons said
+that all questions had been asked and answered.  All now depended on the
+pope, whom the League would always obey.  If the pope would accept the
+reconciliation of the Prince of Bearne it was well.  He, hoped that his
+conversion would be sincere.
+
+The political archbishop (of Bourges) replied to the League's archbishop,
+that there was no time for delays, and for journeys by land and sea to
+Rome.  The least obstruction might prove fatal to both parties.  Let the
+Leaguers now show that the serenity of their faces was but the mirror of
+their minds.
+
+But the Leaguers' archbishop said that he could make no further advances.
+So ended the conference.'
+
+The chiefs of the politicians now went to the king and informed him that
+the decisive moment had arrived.
+
+Henry had preserved: his coolness throughout.  Amid all the hubbub of
+learned doctors of law, archbishops-Leaguer and political-Sorbonne
+pedants, solemn grandees from Spain with Latin orations in their pockets,
+intriguing Guises, huckstering Mayennes, wrathful Huguenots, sanguinary
+cardinal-legates, threatening world-monarchs--heralded by Spanish
+musketeers, Italian lancers, and German reiters--shrill screams of
+warning from the English queen, grim denunciations from Dutch Calvinists,
+scornful repulses from the holy father; he kept his temper and his eye-
+sight, as perfectly as he had ever done through the smoke and din of
+the wildest battle-field.  None knew better than he how to detect the
+weakness of the adversary, and to sound the charge upon his wavering
+line.
+
+He blew the blast--sure that loyal Catholics and Protestants alike would
+now follow him pell-mell.
+
+On the 16th, May, 1593, he gave notice that he consented to get himself
+instructed, and that he summoned an assembly at Mantes on the 15th July,
+of bishops, theologians, princes, lords, and courts of parliament to hold
+council, and to advise him what was best to do for religion and the
+State.
+
+Meantime he returned to the siege of Dreux, made an assault on the place,
+was repulsed, and then hung nine prisoners of war in full sight of the
+garrison as a punishment for their temerity in resisting him.  The place
+soon after capitulated (8th July, 1593).
+
+The interval between the summons and the assembling of the clerical and
+lay notables at Mantes was employed by the Leaguers in frantic and
+contradictory efforts to retrieve a game which the most sagacious knew to
+be lost.  But the politicians were equal to the occasion, and baffled
+them at every point.
+
+The Leaguers' archbishop inveighed bitterly against the abominable edicts
+recently issued in favour of the Protestants.
+
+The political archbishop (of Bourges) replied not by defending; but by
+warmly disapproving, those decrees of toleration, by excusing the king
+for having granted them for a temporary purpose, and by asserting
+positively that, so soon as the king should be converted, he would no
+longer countenance such measures.
+
+It is superfluous to observe that very different language was held on the
+part of Henry to the English and Dutch Protestants, and to the Huguenots
+of his own kingdom.
+
+And there were many meetings of the Leaguers in Paris, many belligerent
+speeches by the cardinal legate, proclaiming war to the knife rather
+than that the name of Henry the heretic should ever be heard of again as
+candidate for the throne, various propositions spasmodically made in full
+assembly by Feria, Ybarra, Tassis, the jurisconsult Mendoza, and other
+Spanish agents in favour of the Infanta as queen of France, with Archduke
+Ernest or the Duke of Guise, or any other eligible prince, for her
+husband.
+
+The League issued a formal and furious invective in answer to Henry's
+announcement; proving by copious citations from Jeremiah, St. Epiphany;
+St. Jerome, St. Cyprian, and St. Bernard, that it was easier for a
+leopard to change his spots or for a blackamoor to be washed white; than
+for a heretic to be converted, and that the king was thinking rather of
+the crown of France than of a heavenly crown, in his approaching
+conversion--an opinion which there were few to gainsay.
+
+And the Duke of Nemours wrote to his half-brother, the Duke of Mayenne;
+offering to use all his influence to bring about Mayenne's election as
+king on condition that if these efforts failed, Mayenne should do his
+best to procure the election of Nemours.
+
+And the Parliament of Paris formally and prospectively proclaimed any
+election of a foreigner null and void, and sent deputies to Mayenne
+urging him never to consent to the election of the Infanta.
+
+What help, said they, can the League expect from the old and broken
+Philip; from a king who in thirty years has not been able, with all the
+resources of his kingdoms, to subdue the revolted provinces of the
+Netherlands?  How can he hope to conquer France?  Pay no further heed
+to the legate, they said, who is laughing in his sleeve at the miseries
+and distractions of our country.  So spake the deputies of the League-
+Parliament to the great captain of the League, the Duke of Mayenne.
+It was obvious that the "great and holy confederacy" was becoming less
+confident of its invincibility.  Madame League was suddenly grown
+decrepit in the eyes of her adorers.
+
+Mayenne was angry at the action of the Parliament, and vehemently swore
+that he would annul their decree.  Parliament met his threats with
+dignity, and resolved to stand by the decree, even if they all died in
+their places.
+
+At the same time the Duke of Feria suddenly produced in full assembly
+of Leaguers a written order from Philip that the Duke of Guise and the
+Infanta should at once be elected king and queen.  Taken by surprise,
+Mayenne dissembled his rage in masterly-fashion, promised Feria to
+support the election, and at once began to higgle for conditions.  He
+stipulated that he should have for himself the governments of Champagne,
+Burgundy, and La Brie, and that they should be hereditary in his family:
+He furthermore demanded that Guise should cede to him the principality
+of Joinville, and that they should pay him on the spot in hard money two
+hundred thousand crowns in gold, six hundred thousand more in different
+payments, together with an annual payment of fifty thousand crowns.
+
+It was obvious that the duke did not undervalue himself; but he had after
+all no intention of falling into the trap set for him.  "He has made
+these promises (as above given) in writing," said the Duke of Savoy's
+envoy to his master, but he will never keep them.  The Duchess of Mayenne
+could not help telling me that her husband will never consent that the
+Duke of Guise should have the throne."  From this resolve he had never
+wavered, and was not likely to do so now.  Accordingly the man "of his
+word, of faith, and truth," whom even the astute Farnese had at times
+half believed in, and who had received millions of Philip's money, now
+thought it time to break with Philip.  He issued a manifesto, in which he
+observed that the States-General of France had desired that Philip should
+be elected King of France, and carry out his design of a universal
+monarchy, as the only-means of ensuring the safety of the Catholic
+religion and the pacification of the world.  It was feared, however, said
+Mayenne; that the king might come to the same misfortunes which befell
+his father, who, when it was supposed that he was inspired only by
+private ambition; and by the hope of placing a hereditary universal crown
+in his family, had excited the animosity of the princes of the empire.
+"If a mere suspicion had caused so great a misfortune in the empire,"
+continued the man of his word, "what will the princes of all Europe do
+when they find his Majesty elected king of France, and grown by increase
+of power so formidable to the world?  Can it be doubted that they will
+fly to arms at once, and give all their support to the King of Navarre,
+heretic though he be?  What motive had so many princes to traverse
+Philip's designs in the Netherlands, but desire to destroy the enormous
+power which they feared?  Therefore had the Queen, of England, although
+refusing the sovereignty, defended the independence of the Netherlands
+these fifteen years.
+
+"However desirable," continued Mayenne, "that this universal monarchy,
+for which the house of Austria has so long been working, should be
+established, yet the king is too prudent not to see the difficulties
+in his way.  Although he has conquered Portugal, he is prevented by the
+fleets of Holland and England from taking possession of the richest of
+the Portuguese possessions, the islands and the Indies.  He will find in
+France insuperable objections to his election as king, for he could in
+this case well reproach the Leaguers with having been changed from
+Frenchmen into Spaniards.  He must see that his case is hopeless in
+France, he who for thirty years has been in vain endeavouring to re-
+establish his authority in the Netherlands.  It would be impossible in
+the present position of affairs to become either the king or the
+protector of France.  The dignity of France allows it not."
+
+Mayenne then insisted on the necessity of a truce with the royalists or
+politicians, and, assembling the estates at the Louvre on the 4th July,
+he read a written paper declining for the moment to hold an election for
+king.
+
+John Baptist Tassis, next day, replied by declaring that in this case
+Philip would send no more succours of men or money; for that the only
+effectual counter-poison to the pretended conversion of the Prince of
+Bearne was the immediate election of a king.
+
+Thus did Mayenne escape from the snare in which the Spaniards thought to
+catch the man who, as they now knew, was changing every day, and was true
+to nothing save his own interests.
+
+And now the great day had come.  The conversion of Henry to the Roman
+faith, fixed long before for--the 23rd July,--1593, formally took place
+at the time appointed.
+
+From six in the morning till the stroke of noon did Henry listen to the
+exhortations and expoundings of the learned prelates and doctors whom he
+had convoked, the politic Archbishop of Bourges taking the lead in this
+long-expected instruction.  After six mortal hours had come to an end,
+the king rose from his knees, somewhat wearied, but entirely instructed
+and convinced.  He thanked the bishops for having taught him that of
+which he was before quite ignorant, and assured them that; after having
+invoked the light, of the Holy Ghost upon his musings, he should think
+seriously over what they had just taught him, in order to come to a
+resolution salutary to himself and to the State.
+
+Nothing could be more candid.  Next day, at eight in the morning, there
+was a great show in the cathedral of Saint Denis, and the population of
+Paris, notwithstanding the prohibition of the League authorities, rushed
+thither in immense crowds to witness the ceremony of the reconciliation
+of the king.  Henry went to the church, clothed as became a freshly
+purified heretic, in white satin doublet and hose, white silk stockings,
+and white silk shoes with white roses in them; but with a black hat and
+a black mantle.  There was a great procession with blare of trumpet and
+beat of drum.  The streets were strewn with flowers.
+
+As Henry entered the great portal of the church, he found the Archbishop
+of Bourges, seated in state, effulgent in mitre and chasuble, and
+surrounded by other magnificent prelates in gorgeous attire.
+
+"Who are you, and what do you want?"  said the arch-bishop.
+
+"I am the king," meekly replied Henry, "and I demand to be received into
+the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church."
+
+"Do you wish it sincerely?"  asked the prelate.
+
+"I wish it with all my heart," said the king.
+
+Then throwing himself on his knees, the Bearne--great champion of the
+Huguenots--protested before God that he would live and die in the
+Catholic faith, and that he renounced all heresy.  A passage was with
+difficulty opened through the crowd, and he was then led to the high
+altar, amid the acclamations of the people.  Here he knelt devoutly and
+repeated his protestations.  His unction and contrition were most
+impressive, and the people, of course, wept piteously.  The king, during
+the progress of the ceremony, with hands clasped together and adoring the
+Eucharist with his eyes, or, as the Host was elevated, smiting himself
+thrice upon the breast, was a model of passionate devotion.
+
+Afterwards he retired to a pavilion behind the altar, where the
+archbishop confessed and absolved him.  Then the Te Deum sounded,
+and high mass was celebrated by the Bishop of Nantes.  Then, amid
+acclamations and blessings, and with largess to the crowd, the king
+returned to the monastery of Saint Denis, where he dined amid a multitude
+of spectators, who thronged so thickly around him that his dinner-table
+was nearly overset.  These were the very Parisians, who, but three years
+before, had been feeding on rats and dogs and dead men's bones, and the
+bodies of their own children, rather than open their gates to this same
+Prince of Bearne.
+
+Now, although Mayenne had set strong guards at those gates, and had most
+strictly prohibited all egress, the city was emptied of its populace,
+which pressed in transports of adoration around the man so lately the
+object of their hate.  Yet few could seriously believe that much change
+had been effected in the inner soul of him, whom the legate, and the
+Spaniard, and the holy father at Rome still continued to denounce as the
+vilest of heretics and the most infamous of impostors.
+
+The comedy was admirably played out and was entirely successful.  It may
+be supposed that the chief actor was, however, somewhat wearied.  In
+private, he mocked at all this ecclesiastical mummery, and described
+himself as heartily sick of the business.  "I arrived here last evening,"
+he wrote to the beautiful Gabrielle, "and was importuned with 'God save
+you' till bed-time.  In regard to the Leaguers I am of the order of St.
+Thomas.  I am beginning to-morrow morning to talk to the bishops, besides
+those I told you about yesterday.  At this moment of writing I have a
+hundred of these importunates on my shoulders, who will make me hate
+Saint Denis as much as you hate Mantes.  'Tis to-morrow that I take the
+perilous leap.  I kiss a million times the beautiful hands of my angel
+and the mouth of my dear mistress."
+
+A truce--renewed at intervals--with the Leaguers lasted till the end of
+the year.  The Duke of Nevers was sent on special mission to Rome to
+procure the holy father's consent to the great heretic's reconciliation
+to the Church, and he was instructed to make the king's submission in
+terms so wholesale and so abject that even some of the life-long papists
+of France were disgusted, while every honest Protestant in Europe shrank
+into himself for shame.  But Clement, overawed by Philip and his
+ambassador, was deaf to all the representations of the French envoy.
+He protested that he would not believe in the sincerity of the Bearne's
+conversion unless an angel from Heaven should reveal it to him.  So
+Nevers left Rome, highly exasperated, and professing that he would rather
+have lost a leg, that he would rather have been sewn in a sack and tossed
+into the Tiber, than bear back such a message.  The pope ordered the
+prelates who had accompanied Nevers to remain in Rome and be tried by
+the Inquisition for misprision of heresy, but the duke placed them by
+his side and marched out of the Porta del Popolo with them, threatening
+to kill any man who should attempt to enforce the command.
+
+Meantime it became necessary to follow up the St. Denis comedy with a
+still more exhilarating popular spectacle.  The heretic had been
+purified, confessed, absolved.  It was time for a consecration.  But
+there was a difficulty.  Although the fever of loyalty to the ancient
+house of Bourbon, now redeemed from its worship of the false gods, was
+spreading contagiously through the provinces; although all the white silk
+in Lyons had been cut into scarves and banners to celebrate the
+reconciliation of the candid king with mother Church; although that
+ancient city was ablaze with bonfires and illuminations, while its
+streets ran red, with blood no longer, but with wine; and although Madam
+League, so lately the object of fondest adoration, was now publicly
+burned in the effigy of a grizzly hag; yet Paris still held for that
+decrepit beldame, and closed its gates to the Bearnese.
+
+The city of Rheims, too, had not acknowledged the former Huguenot,
+and it was at Rheims, in the church of St. Remy, that the Holy Bottle was
+preserved.  With what chrism, by what prelate, should the consecration of
+Henry be performed?  Five years before, the League had proposed in the
+estates of Blois to place among the fundamental laws of the kingdom that
+no king should be considered a legitimate sovereign whose head had not
+been anointed by the bishop at Rheims with oil from that holy bottle.
+But it was now decided that to ascribe a monopoly of sanctity to that
+prelate and to that bottle would be to make a schism in the Church.
+
+Moreover it was discovered that there was a chrism in existence still
+more efficacious than the famous oil of St. Remy.  One hundred and twelve
+years before the baptism of Clovis, St. Martin had accidentally tumbled
+down stairs, and lay desperately bruised and at the point of death.  But,
+according to Sulpicius Severus, an angel had straightway descended from
+heaven, and with a miraculous balsam had anointed the contusions of the
+saint, who next day felt no farther inconveniences from his fall.  The
+balsam had ever since been preserved in the church of Marmoutier near
+Tours.  Here, then, was the most potent of unguents brought directly from
+heaven.  To mix a portion thereof with the chrism of consecration was
+clearly more judicious than to make use of the holy bottle, especially as
+the holy bottle was not within reach.  The monks of Marmoutier consented
+to lend the sacred phial containing the famous oil of St. Martin for the
+grand occasion of the royal consecration.
+
+Accompanied by a strong military escort provided by Giles de Souvri,
+governor of Touraine, a deputation of friars brought the phial to
+Chartres, where the consecration was to take place.  Prayers were offered
+up, without ceasing, in the monastery during their absence that no mishap
+should befal the sacred treasure.  When the monks arrived at Chartres,
+four young barons of the first nobility were assigned to them as hostages
+for the safe restoration of the phial, which was then borne in triumph to
+the cathedral, the streets through which it was carried being covered
+with tapestry.  There was a great ceremony, a splendid consecration; six
+bishops, with mitres on their heads and in gala robes, officiating; after
+which the king knelt before the altar and took the customary oath.
+
+Thus the champion of the fierce Huguenots, the well-beloved of the dead
+La Noue and the living Duplessis Mornay, the devoted knight of the
+heretic Queen Elizabeth, the sworn ally of the stout Dutch Calvinists,
+was pompously reconciled to that Rome which was the object of their
+hatred and their fear.
+
+The admirably arranged spectacles of the instruction at St. Denis and the
+consecration at Chartres were followed on the day of the vernal equinox
+by a third and most conclusive ceremony:
+
+A secret arrangement had been made with De Cosse-Brissac, governor of
+Paris, by the king, according to which the gates of Paris were at last to
+be opened to him.  The governor obtained a high price for his services--
+three hundred thousand livres in hard cash, thirty thousand a year for
+his life, and the truncheon of marshal of France.   Thus purchased,
+Brissac made his preparations with remarkable secrecy and skill.  Envoy
+Ybarra, who had scented something suspicious in the air, had gone
+straight to the governor for information, but the keen Spaniard was
+thrown out by the governor's ingenuous protestations of ignorance.  The
+next morning, March 22nd, was stormy and rainy, and long before daylight
+Ybarra, still uneasy despite the statements of Brissac, was wandering
+about the streets of Paris when he became the involuntary witness of an
+extraordinary spectacle.
+
+Through the wind and the rain came trampling along the dark streets of
+the capital a body of four thousand troopers and lansquenettes.  Many
+torch-bearers attended on the procession, whose flambeaux threw a lurid
+light upon the scene.
+
+There, surrounded by the swart and grizzly bearded visages of these
+strange men-at-arms, who were discharging their arquebuses, as they
+advanced upon any bystanders likely to oppose their progress; in the very
+midst of this sea of helmed heads, the envoy was enabled to recognise the
+martial figure of the Prince of Bearne.  Armed to the teeth, with sword
+in hand and dagger at side, the hero of Ivry rode at last through the
+barriers which had so long kept him from his capital.  "'Twas like
+enchantment," said Ybarra.  The first Bourbon entered the city through
+the same gate out of which the last Valois had, five years before, so
+ignominiously fled.  It was a midnight surprise, although not fully
+accomplished until near the dawn of day.  It was not a triumphal
+entrance; nor did Henry come as the victorious standard-bearer of a great
+principle.  He had defeated the League in many battle-fields, but the
+League still hissed defiance at him from the very hearthstone of his
+ancestral palace.  He had now crept, in order to conquer, even lower
+than the League itself; and casting off his Huguenot skin at last,
+he had soared over the heads of all men, the presiding genius of the
+holy Catholic Church.
+
+Twenty-one years before, he had entered the same city on the conclusion
+of one of the truces which had varied the long monotony of the religious
+wars of France.  The youthful son of Antony Bourbon and Joan of Albret
+had then appeared as the champion and the idol of the Huguenots.  In the
+same year had come the fatal nuptials with the bride of St. Bartholomew,
+the first Catholic conversion of Henry and the massacre at which the
+world still shudders.
+
+Now he was chief of the "Politicians," and sworn supporter of the Council
+of Trent.  Earnest Huguenots were hanging their heads in despair.
+
+He represented the principle of national unity against national
+dismemberment by domestiv, treason and foreign violence.  Had that
+principle been his real inspiration, as it was in truth his sole support,
+history might judge him more leniently.  Had he relied upon it entirely
+it might have been strong enough to restore him to the throne of his
+ancestors, without the famous religious apostacy with which his name is
+for ever associated.  It is by no means certain that permanent religious
+toleration might not have been the result of his mounting the throne,
+only when he could do so without renouncing the faith of his fathers.
+A day of civilization may come perhaps, sooner or later, when it will be
+of no earthly cousequence to their fellow creatures to what creed, what
+Christian church, what religious dogma kings or humbler individuals may
+be partial; when the relations between man and his Maker shall be
+undefiled by political or social intrusion.  But the day will never
+come when it will be otherwise than damaging to public morality and
+humiliating to human dignity to forswear principle for a price, and to
+make the most awful of mysteries the subject of political legerdemain and
+theatrical buffoonery.
+
+The so-called conversion of the king marks an epoch in human history.
+It strengthened the Roman Church and gave it an indefinite renewal of
+life; but it sapped the foundations of religious faith.  The appearance
+of Henry the Huguenot as the champion of the Council of Trent was of
+itself too biting an epigram not to be extensively destructive.  Whether
+for good or ill, religion was fast ceasing to be the mainspring of
+political combinations, the motive of great wars and national
+convulsions.  The age of religion was to be succeeded by the
+age of commerce.
+
+But the king was now on his throne.  All Paris was in rapture.  There was
+Te Deum with high mass in Notre Dame, and the populace was howling itself
+hoarse with rapture in honour of him so lately the object of the general
+curse.  Even the Sorbonne declared in favour of the reclaimed heretic,
+and the decision of those sages had vast influence with less enlightened
+mortals.  There was nothing left for the Duke of Feria but to take
+himself off and make Latin orations in favour of the Infanta elsewhere,
+if fit audience elsewhere could be found.  A week after the entrance of
+Henry, the Spanish garrison accordingly was allowed to leave Paris with
+the honours of war.
+
+"We marched out at 2 P.M.," wrote the duke to his master, "with closed
+ranks, colours displayed, and drums beating.  First came the Italians and
+then the Spaniards, in the midst of whom was myself on horseback, with
+the Walloons marching near me.  The Prince of Bearne"--it was a solace to
+the duke's heart, of which he never could be deprived, to call the king
+by that title--"was at a window over the gate of St. Denis through which
+we took our departure.  He was dressed in light grey, with a black hat
+surmounted by a great white feather.  Our displayed standards rendered
+him no courteous salute as we passed."
+
+Here was another solace!
+
+Thus had the game been lost and won, but Philip as usual did not
+acknowledge himself beaten.  Mayenne, too, continued to make the most
+fervent promises to all that was left of the confederates.  He betook
+himself to Brussels, and by the king's orders was courteously received by
+the Spanish authorities in the Netherlands.  In the midst of the tempest
+now rapidly destroying all rational hopes, Philip still clung to Mayenne
+as to a spar in the shipwreck.  For the king ever possessed the virtue,
+if it be one, of continuing to believe himself invincible and infallible,
+when he had been defeated in every quarter, and when his calculations had
+all proved ridiculous mistakes.
+
+When his famous Armada had been shattered and sunk, have we not seen him
+peevishly requiring Alexander Farnese to construct a new one immediately
+and to proceed therewith to conquer England out of hand?  Was it to be
+expected that he would renounce his conquest of France, although the
+legitimate king had entered his capital, had reconciled himself to the
+Church, and was on the point of obtaining forgiveness of the pope?  If
+the Prince of Bearne had already destroyed the Holy League, why should
+not the Duke of Mayenne and Archduke Ernest make another for him,
+and so conquer France without further delay?
+
+But although it was still possible to deceive the king, who in the
+universality of his deceptive powers was so prone to delude himself,
+it was difficult even for so accomplished an intriguer as Mayenne to
+hoodwink much longer the shrewd Spaniards who were playing so losing a
+game against him.
+
+"Our affairs in France," said Ybarra, "are in such condition that
+we are losing money and character there, and are likely to lose all the
+provinces here, if things are not soon taken up in a large and energetic
+manner.  Money and troops are what is wanted on a great scale for France.
+The king's agents are mightily discontented with Mayenne, and with
+reason; but they are obliged to dissimulate and to hold their tongues.
+We can send them no assistance from these regions, unless from down
+yonder you send us the cloth and the scissors to cut it with."
+
+And the Archduke Ernest, although he invited Mayenne to confer with him
+at Brussels, under the impression that he could still keep him and the
+Duke of Guise from coming to an arrangement with Bearne, hardly felt more
+confidence in the man than did Feria or Ybarra.  "Since the loss of
+Paris," said Ernest, "I have had a letter from Mayenne, in which, deeply
+affected by that event, he makes me great offers, even to the last drop
+of his blood, vowing never to abandon the cause of the League.  But of
+the intentions and inner mind of this man I find such vague information,
+that I don't dare to expect more stability from him than may be founded
+upon his own interest."
+
+And so Mayenne came to Brussels and passed three days with the archduke.
+"He avows himself ready to die in our cause," said Ernest.  "If your
+Majesty will give men and money enough, he will undertake so to deal
+with Bearne that he shall not think himself safe in his own house."
+The archduke expressed his dissatisfaction to Mayenne that with the money
+he had already received, so little had been accomplished, but he still
+affected a confidence which he was far from feeling, "because," said he,
+"it is known that Mayenne is already treating with Bearne.  If he has not
+concluded those arrangements, it is because Bearne now offers him less
+money than before."  The amount of dissimulation, politely so-called,
+practised by the grandees of that age, to say nothing of their infinite
+capacity for pecuniary absorption, makes the brain reel and enlarges
+one's ideas of the human faculties as exerted in certain directions.  It
+is doubtful whether plain Hans Miller or Hans Baker could have risen to
+such level.
+
+Feria wrote a despatch to the king, denouncing Mayenne as false,
+pernicious to the cause of Spain and of catholicism, thoroughly self-
+seeking and vile, and as now most traitorous to the cause of the
+confederacy, engaged in surrendering its strong places to the enemy,
+and preparing to go over to the Prince of Bearne.
+
+"If," said he, "I were to recount all his base tricks, I should go on
+till midnight, and perhaps till to-morrow morning."
+
+This letter, being intercepted, was sent with great glee by Henry IV.,
+not to the royal hands for which it was destined, but to the Duke of
+Mayenne.  Great was the wrath of that injured personage as he read such
+libellous truths.  He forthwith fulminated a scathing reply, addressed
+to Philip II., in which he denounced the Duke of Feria as "a dirty
+ignoramus, an impudent coward, an impostor, and a blind thief;" adding,
+after many other unsavoury epithets, "but I will do him an honour which
+he has not merited, proving him a liar with my sword; and I humbly pray
+your Majesty to grant me this favour and to pardon my just grief, which
+causes me to depart from the respect due to your Majesty, when I speak of
+this impostor who has thus wickedly torn my reputation."
+
+His invectives were, however, much stronger than his arguments in defence
+of that tattered reputation.  The defiance to mortal combat went for
+nothing; and, in the course of the next year, the injured Mayenne turned
+his back on Philip and his Spaniards, and concluded his bargain with the
+Prince of Bearne.  He obtained good terms: the government of Burgundy,
+payment of his debts, and a hundred and twenty thousand crowns in hard
+cash.  It is not on record that the man of his word, of credit, and of
+truth, ever restored a penny of the vast sums which he had received from
+Philip to carry on the business of the League.
+
+Subsequently the duke came one very hot summer's-day to Monceaux to thank
+the king, as he expressed it, for "delivering him from Spanish arrogance
+and Italian wiles;" and having got with much difficulty upon his knees,
+was allowed to kiss the royal hand.  Henry then insisted upon walking
+about with him through the park at a prodigious rate, to show him all the
+improvements, while the duke panted, groaned, and perspired in his vain
+efforts to keep pace with his new sovereign.
+
+"If I keep this fat fellow walking about in the sun much longer,"
+whispered the king to De Bethune, who was third in the party, "I shall be
+sufficiently avenged for all the mischief he has done us."
+
+At last, when the duke was forced to admit himself to be on the point of
+expiring with fatigue, he was dismissed to the palace with orders to
+solace himself with a couple of bottles of excellent wine of Arbois,
+expressly provided for him by the king's direction.  And this was all the
+punishment ever inflicted by the good-humoured monarch on the corpulent
+conspirator.
+
+The Duke of Guise made his arrangements with the ex-Huguenot on even
+better terms and at a still earlier day; while Joyeuse and Mercoeur stood
+out a good while and higgled hard for conditions.  "These people put such
+a high price on themselves," said one of Henry's diplomatists, "that one
+loses almost more than one gains in buying them.  They strip and plunder
+us even in our nakedness, and we are obliged, in order to conciliate such
+harpies, to employ all that we can scrape out of our substance and our
+blood.  I think, however, that we ought to gain them by whatever means
+and at whatever price."
+
+Thus Henry IV., the man whom so many contemporary sages had for years
+been rebuking or ridiculing for his persistency in a hopeless attempt to
+save his country from dismemberment, to restore legitimate authority, and
+to resist the "holy confederacy" of domestic traitors, aided by foreign
+despots and sympathizers, was at last successful, and the fratricidal war
+in France was approaching its only possible conclusion.
+
+But, alas! the hopes of those who loved the reformed Church as well as
+they loved their country were sadly blasted by the apostasy of their
+leader.  From the most eminent leaders of the Huguenots there came a
+wail, which must have penetrated even to the well-steeled heart of the
+cheerful Gascon.  "It will be difficult," they said, "to efface very soon
+from your memory the names of the men whom the sentiment of a common
+religion, association in the same perils and persecutions, a common joy
+in the same deliverance, and the long experience of so many faithful
+services, have engraved there with a pencil of diamond.  The remembrance
+of these things pursues you and accompanies you everywhere; it interrupts
+your most important affairs, your most ardent pleasures, your most
+profound slumber, to represent to you, as in a picture, yourself to
+yourself: yourself not as you are to-day, but such as you were when,
+pursued to the death by the greatest princes of Europe, you went on
+conducting to the harbour of safety the little vessel against which so
+many tempests were beating."
+
+The States of the Dutch republic, where the affair of Henry's conversion
+was as much a matter of domestic personal interest as it could be in
+France--for religion up to that epoch was the true frontier between
+nation and nation--debated the question most earnestly while it was yet
+doubtful.  It was proposed to send a formal deputation to the king, in
+order to divert him, if possible, from the fatal step which he was about
+to take.  After ripe deliberation however, it was decided to leave the
+matter "in the hands of God Almighty, and to pray Him earnestly to guide
+the issue to His glory and the welfare of the Churches."
+
+The Queen of England was, as might be supposed, beside herself with
+indignation, and, in consequence of the great apostasy, and of her
+chronic dissatisfaction with the manner in which her contingent of
+troops had been handled in France, she determined to withdraw every
+English soldier from the support of Henry's cause.  The unfortunate
+French ambassador in London was at his wits' ends.  He vowed that he
+could not sleep of nights, and that the gout and the cholic, to which
+he was always a martyr, were nothing to the anguish which had now come
+upon his soul and brain, such as he had never suffered since the bloody
+day of St. Bartholomew.
+
+"Ah, my God!"  said he to Burghley, "is it possible that her just choler
+has so suddenly passed over the great glory which she has acquired by so
+many benefits and liberalities?"  But he persuaded himself that her
+majesty would after all not persist in her fell resolution.  To do so,
+he vowed, would only be boiling milk for the French papists, who would be
+sure to make the most of the occasion in order to precipitate the king
+into the, abyss, to the border of which they had already brought him.
+He so dreaded the ire of the queen that he protested he was trembling
+all over merely to see the pen of his secretary wagging as he dictated
+his despatches.  Nevertheless it was his terrible duty to face her in her
+wrath, and he implored the lord treasurer to accompany him and to shield
+him at the approaching interview.  "Protect me," he cried, "by your
+wisdom from the ire of this great princess; for by the living God,
+when I see her enraged against any person whatever I wish myself
+in Calcutta, fearing her anger like death itself."
+
+When all was over, Henry sent De Morlans as special envoy to communicate
+the issue to the Governments of England and of Holland.  But the queen,
+although no longer so violent, was less phlegmatic than the States-
+General, and refused to be comforted.  She subsequently receded,
+however, from her determination to withdraw her troops from France.
+
+"Ah! what grief; ah! what regrets; ah! what groans, have I felt in my
+soul," she wrote, "at the sound of the news brought to me by Morlans!
+My God! Is it possible that any wordly respect can efface the terror
+of Divine wrath?  Can we by reason even expect a good sequel to such
+iniquitous acts?  He who has maintained and preserved you by His mercy,
+can you imagine that he permits you to walk alone in your utmost need?
+'Tis bad to do evil that good may come of it.  Meantime I shall not cease
+to put you in the first rank of my devotions, in order that the hands of
+Esau may not spoil the blessings of Jacob.  As to your promises to me of
+friendship and fidelity, I confess to have dearly deserved them, nor do I
+repent, provided you do not change your Father--otherwise I shall be your
+bastard sister by the father's side--for I shall ever love a natural
+better than an adopted one.  I desire that God may guide you in a
+straight road and a better path.  Your most sincere sister in the old
+fashion.  As to the new, I have nothing to do with it.   ELIZABETH R."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+All fellow-worms together
+Continuing to believe himself invincible and infallible
+He spent more time at table than the Bearnese in sleep
+Henry the Huguenot as the champion of the Council of Trent
+Highest were not necessarily the least slimy
+His invectives were, however, much stronger than his arguments
+History is a continuous whole of which we see only fragments
+Infinite capacity for pecuniary absorption
+Leading motive with all was supposed to be religion
+Past was once the Present, and once the Future
+Sages of every generation, read the future like a printed scroll
+Sewers which have ever run beneath decorous Christendom
+Wrath of that injured personage as he read such libellous truths
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v65
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 66, 1594
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+     Prince Maurice lays siege to Gertruydenberg--Advantages of the new
+     system of warfare--Progress of the besieging operations--Superiority
+     of Maurice's manoeuvres--Adventure of Count Philip of Nassau--
+     Capitulation of Gertruydenberg--Mutiny among the Spanish troops--
+     Attempt of Verdugo to retake Coeworden--Suspicions of treason in the
+     English garrison at Ostend--Letter of Queen Elizabeth to Sir Edward
+     Norris on the subject--Second attempt on Coeworden--Assault on
+     Groningen by Maurice--Second adventure of Philip of Nassau--Narrow
+     escape of Prince Maurice--Surrender of Groningen--Particulars of the
+     siege--Question of religious toleration--Progress of the United
+     Netherlands--Condition of  the "obedient" Netherlands--Incompetency
+     of Peter Mansfeld as Governor--Archduke Ernest, the successor of
+     Farnese--Difficulties of his position--His unpopularity--Great
+     achievements of the republicans--Triumphal entry of Ernest into
+     Brussels and Antwerp--Magnificence of the spectacle--Disaffection of
+     the Spanish troops--Great military rebellion--Philip's proposal to
+     destroy the English fleet--His assassination plans--Plot to poison
+     Queen Elizabeth--Conspiracies against Prince  Maurice--Futile
+     attempts at negotiation--Proposal of a marriage between Henry and
+     the Infanta--Secret mission from Henry to the King of Spain--Special
+     dispatch to England and the Staten--Henry obtains further aid from
+     Queen Elizabeth and the States--Council--Anxiety of the Protestant
+     countries to bring about a war with Spain--Aspect of affairs at the
+     close of the year 1594.
+
+While Philip's world-empire seemed in one direction to be so rapidly
+fading into cloudland there were substantial possessions of the Spanish
+crown which had been neglected in Brabant and Friesland.
+
+Two very important cities still held for the King of Spain within the
+territories of what could now be fairly considered the United Dutch
+Republic--St. Gertruydenberg and Groningen.
+
+Early in the spring of 1593, Maurice had completed his preparations for a
+siege, and on the 24th March appeared before Gertruydenberg.
+
+It was a stately, ancient city, important for its wealth, its strength,
+and especially for its position.  For without its possession even the
+province of Holland could hardly consider itself mistress of its own
+little domains.  It was seated on the ancient Meuse, swollen as it
+approached the sea almost to the dimension of a gulf, while from the
+south another stream, called the Donge, very brief in its course, but
+with considerable depth of water, came to mingle itself with the Meuse,
+exactly under the walls of the city.
+
+The site of the place was so low that it was almost hidden and protected
+by its surrounding dykes.  These afforded means of fortification, which
+had been well improved.  Both by nature and art the city was one of the
+strongholds of the Netherlands.
+
+Maurice had given the world a lesson in the beleaguering science at the
+siege of Steenwyk, such as had never before been dreamt of; but he was
+resolved that the operations before Gertruydenberg should constitute a
+masterpiece.
+
+Nothing could be more beautiful as a production of military art, nothing,
+to the general reader, more insipid than its details.
+
+On the land side, Hohenlo's headquarters were at Ramsdonck, a village
+about a German mile to the east of Gertruydenberg.  Maurice himself was
+established on the west side of the city.  Two bridges constructed across
+the Donge facilitated the communications between the two camps, while
+great quantities of planks and brush were laid down across the swampy
+roads to make them passable for waggon-trains and artillery.  The first
+care of the young general, whose force was not more than twenty thousand
+men, was to protect himself rather than to assail the town.
+
+His lines extended many miles in a circuit around the place, and his
+forts, breastworks, and trenches were very numerous.
+
+The river was made use of as a natural and almost impassable ditch of
+defence, and windmills were freely employed to pump water into the
+shallows in one direction, while in others the outer fields, in quarters
+whence a relieving force might be expected, were turned into lakes by the
+same machinery.  Farther outside, a system of palisade work of caltrops
+and man-traps--sometimes in the slang of the day called Turkish
+ambassadors--made the country for miles around impenetrable or very
+disagreeable to cavally.  In a shorter interval than would have seemed
+possible, the battlements and fortifications of the besieging army had
+risen like an exhalation out of the morass.  The city of Gertruydenberg
+was encompassed by another city as extensive and apparently as
+impregnable as itself.  Then, for the first time in that age, men
+thoroughly learned the meaning of that potent implement the spade.
+
+Three thousand pioneers worked night and day with pickaxe and shovel.
+The soldiers liked the business; for every man so employed received his
+ten stivers a day additional wages, punctually paid, and felt moreover
+that every stioke was bringing the work nearer to its conclusion.
+
+The Spaniards no longer railed at Maurice as a hedger and ditcher.  When
+he had succeeded in bringing a hundred great guns to bear upon the
+beleaguered city they likewise ceased to sneer at heavy artillery.
+
+The Kartowen and half Kartowen were no longer considered "espanta
+vellacos."
+
+Meantime, from all the country round, the peasants flocked within the
+lines.  Nowhere in Europe were provisions so plentiful and cheap as in
+the Dutch camp.  Nowhere was a readier market for agricultural products,
+prompter payment, or more perfect security for the life and property of
+non-combatants.  Not so much as a hen's egg was taken unlawfully.  The
+country people found themselves more at ease within Maurice's lines than
+within any other part of the provinces, obedient or revolted.  They
+ploughed and sowed and reaped at their pleasure, and no more striking
+example was ever afforded of the humanizing effect of science upon the
+barbarism of war, than in this siege of Gertruydenberg.
+
+Certainly it was the intention of the prince to take his city, and when
+he fought the enemy it was his object to kill; but, as compared with the
+bloody work which Alva, and Romero, and Requesens, and so many others had
+done in those doomed provinces, such war-making as this seemed almost
+like an institution for beneficent and charitable purposes.
+
+Visitors from the neighbourhood, from other provinces, from foreign
+countries, came to witness the extraordinary spectacle, and foreign
+generals repaired to the camp of Maurice to take practical lessons in the
+new art of war.
+
+Old Peter Ernest Mansfeld, who was nominal governor of the Spanish
+Netherlands since the death of Farnese, rubbed his eyes and stared aghast
+when the completeness of the preparations for reducing the city at last
+broke in upon his mind.  Count Fuentes was the true and confidential
+regent however until the destined successor to Parma should arrive; but
+Fuentes, although he had considerable genius for assassination, as will
+hereafter appear, and was an experienced and able commander of the old-
+fashioned school, was no match for Maurice in the scientific combinations
+on which the new system was founded.
+
+In vain did the superannuated Peter call aloud upon his sofa and
+governor, Count Charles, to assist him in this dire dilemma.  That
+artillery general had gone with a handful of Germans, Walloons; and other
+obedient Netherlanders--too few to accomplish anything abroad, too many
+to be spared from the provinces--to besiege Noyon in France.  But what
+signified the winning or losing of such a place as Noyon at exactly the
+moment when the Prince of Bearne, assisted by the able generalship of the
+Archbishop of Bourges, had just executed those famous flanking movements
+in the churches of St. Denis and Chartres, by which the world-empire had
+been effectually shattered, and Philip and the Pope completely out-
+manoeuvred.
+
+Better that the five thousand fighters under Charles Mansfeld had been
+around Gertruydenberg.  His aged father did what he could.  As many men
+as could be spared from the garrison of Antwerp and its neighbourhood
+were collected; but the Spaniards were reluctant to march, except under
+old Mondragon.  That hero, who had done much of the hardest work, and had
+fought in most of the battles of the century, was nearly as old as the
+century.  Being now turned of ninety, he thought best to keep house in
+Antwerp Castle: Accordingly twelve thousand foot and three thousand horse
+took the field under the more youthful Peter Ernest?  But Peter Ernest,
+when his son was not there to superintend his operations, was nothing
+but a testy octogenarian, while the two together were not equal to the
+little finger of Farnese, whom Philip would have displaced, had he not
+fortunately died.
+
+"Nothing is to be expected out of this place but toads and poison,"
+wrote Ybarra in infinite disgust to the two secretaries of state at
+Madrid.  "I have done my best to induce Fuentes to accept that which the
+patent secured him, and Count Peter is complaining that Fuentes showed
+him the patent so late only to play him a trick.  There is a rascally
+pack of meddlers here, and the worst of them all are the women, whom I
+particularly give to the devil.  There is no end to the squabbles as to
+who shall take the lead in relieving Gertruydenberg."
+
+Mansfeld at last came ponderously up in the neighbourhood of Turnhout.
+There was a brilliant little skirmish, in the, neighbourhood of this
+place, in which a hundred and fifty Dutch cavalry under the famous
+brothers Bax defeated four hundred picked lancers of Spain and Italy.
+But Mansfeld could get nothing but skirmishes.  In vain he plunged
+about among the caltrops and man-traps.  In vain he knocked at the
+fortifications of Hohenlo on the east and of Maurice on the west.
+He found them impracticable, impregnable, obdurate.  It was Maurice's
+intention to take his town at as small sacrifice of life as possible.
+A trumpet was sent on some trifling business to Mansfeld, in reply to
+a communication made by the general to Maurice.
+
+"Why does your master," said the choleric veteran to the trumpeter, "why
+does Prince Maurice, being a lusty young commander as he is, not come out
+of his trenches into the open field and fight me like a man, where honour
+and fame await him?"
+
+"Because my master," answered the trumpeter, "means to live to be a lusty
+old commander like your excellency, and sees no reason to-day to give you
+an advantage."
+
+At this the bystanders laughed, rather at the expense of the veteran.
+
+Meantime there were not many incidents within the lines or within the
+city to vary the monotony of the scientific siege.
+
+On the land side, as has been seen, the city was enclosed and built out
+of human sight by another Gertruydenberg.  On the wide estuary of the
+Meuse, a chain of war ships encircled the sea-front, in shape of a half
+moon, lying so close to each other that it was scarcely possible even for
+a messenger to swim out of a dark night.
+
+The hardy adventurers who attempted that feat with tidings of despair
+were almost invariably captured.
+
+This blockading fleet took regular part in the daily cannonade; while, on
+the other hand, the artillery practice from the landbatteries of Maurice
+and Hohenlo was more perfect than anything ever known before in the
+Netherlands or France.
+
+And the result was that in the course of the cannonade which lasted
+nearly ninety days, not more than four houses in the city escaped injury.
+The approaches were brought, every hour, nearer and nearer to the walls.
+With subterranean lines converging in the form of the letter Y, the
+prince had gradually burrowed his way beneath the principal bastion.
+
+Hohenlo, representative of the older school of strategy, had on one
+occasion ventured to resist the authority of the commander-in-chief.  He
+had constructed a fort at Ramsdonck.  Maurice then commanded the erection
+of another, fifteen hundred yards farther back.  It was as much a part of
+his purpose to defend himself against the attempts of Mansfeld's
+relieving force, as to go forward against the city.  Hohenlo objected
+that it would be impossible to sustain himself against a sudden attack in
+so isolated a position.  Maurice insisted.  In the midst of the
+altercation Hohenlo called to the men engaged in throwing up the new
+fortifications: "Here, you captains and soldiers," he cried, "you are
+delivered up here to be butchered.  You may drop work and follow me to
+the old fort."
+
+"And I swear to you," said Maurice quietly, "that the first man who moves
+from this spot shall be hanged."
+
+No one moved.  The fort was completed and held to the and; Hohenlo
+sulkily acquiescing in the superiority which this stripling--his former
+pupil--had at last vindicated over all old-fashioned men-at-arms.
+
+From the same cause which was apt to render Hohenlo's services
+inefficient, the prince was apt to suffer inconvenience in the persons
+placed in still nearer relation to himself.  Count Philip of Nassau,
+brother of the wise and valiant Lewis William, had already done much
+brilliant campaigning against the Spaniards both in France and the
+provinces.  Unluckily, he was not only a desperate fighter but a mighty
+drinker, and one day, after a dinner-party and potent carouse at Colonel
+Brederode's quarters, he thought proper, in doublet and hose, without
+armour of any kind, to mount his horse, in order to take a solitary
+survey of the enemy's works.  Not satisfied with this piece of
+reconnoitering--which he effected with much tipsy gravity, but probably
+without deriving any information likely to be of value to the commanding
+general--he then proceeded to charge in person a distant battery.  The
+deed was not commendable in a military point of view.  A fire was opened
+upon him at long range so soon as he was discovered, and at the same time
+the sergeant-major of his regiment and an equerry of Prince Maurice
+started in pursuit, determined to bring him off if possible, before his
+life had been thus absurdly sacrificed.  Fortunately for him they came to
+the rescue in time, pulled him from his horse, and succeeded in bringing
+him away unharmed.  The sergeant-major, however, Sinisky by name, while
+thus occupied in preserving the count's life, was badly wounded in the
+leg by a musket-shot from the fort; which casualty was the only result of
+this after-dinner assault.
+
+As the siege proceeded, and as the hopes of relief died away, great
+confusion began to reign within the city.  The garrison, originally
+of a thousand veterans, besides burgher militia, had been much
+diminished.  Two commandants of the place, one after another, had lost
+their lives.  On the 1st of June, Governor De Masieres, Captain Mongyn,
+the father-confessor of the garrison, and two soldiers, being on the top
+of the great church tower taking observations, were all brought down with
+one cannon-shot.  Thus the uses of artillery were again proved to be
+something more than to scare cowards.
+
+The final result seemed to have been brought about almost by accident,
+if accident could be admitted as a factor in such accurate calculations
+as those of Maurice.  On the 24th June Captains Haen and Bievry were
+relieving watch in the trenches near the great north ravelin of the town
+--a bulwark which had already been much undermined from below and
+weakened above.  Being adventurous officers, it occurred to them suddenly
+to scale the wall of the fort and reconnoitre what was going on in the
+town.  It was hardly probable that they would come back alive from the
+expedition, but they nevertheless threw some planks across the ditch, and
+taking a few soldiers with them, climbed cautiously up.  Somewhat to his
+own surprise, still more to that of the Spanish sentinels, Bievry in a
+few minutes found himself within the ravelin.  He was closely followed by
+Captain Haen, Captain Kalf, and by half a company of soldiers.  The alarm
+was given.  There was a fierce hand-to-hand struggle.  Sixteen of the
+bold stormers fell, and nine of the garrison of the fort.  The rest fled
+into the city.  The governor of the place, Captain Gysant, rushing to the
+rescue without staying to put on his armour, was killed.  Count Solms, on
+the other hand, came from the besieging camp into the ravelin to
+investigate the sudden uproar.  To his profound astonishment he was met
+there, after a brief interval, by a deputation from the city, asking for
+terms of surrender.  The envoys had already been for some little time
+looking in vain for a responsible person with whom to treat.  When
+Maurice was informed of the propositions he thought it at first a trick;
+for he had known nothing of the little adventure of the three captains.
+Soon afterwards he came into a battery whither the deputies had been
+brought, and the terms of capitulation were soon agreed upon.
+
+Next day the garrison were allowed to go out with sidearms and personal
+baggage, and fifty waggons were lent them by the victor to bring their
+wounded men to Antwerp.
+
+Thus was Gertruydenberg surrendered in the very face of Peter Mansfeld,
+who only became aware of the fact by the salvos of artillery fired in
+honour of the triumph, and by the blaze of illumination which broke forth
+over camp and city.
+
+The sudden result was an illustration of the prince's perfect
+arrangements.  When Maurice rode into the town, he found it strong
+enough and sufficiently well provisioned to have held out many a long
+day.  But it had been demonstrated to the besieged that relief was
+impossible, and that the surrender on one day or another, after the siege
+operations should be brought to their close, was certain.  The inexorable
+genius of the commander--skilled in a science which to the coarser war-
+makers of that age seemed almost superhuman--hovered above them like a
+fate.  It was as well to succumb on the 24th June as to wait till the
+24th July.
+
+Moreover the great sustaining principle--resistance to the foreigner--
+which had inspired the deeds of daring, the wonders of endurance, in the
+Dutch cities beleaguered so remorselessly by the Spaniard twenty years
+earlier in the century, was wanting.
+
+In surrendering to the born Netherlander--the heroic chieftain of the
+illustrious house of Nassau--these Netherlanders were neither sullying
+their flag nor injuring their country.  Enough had been done for military
+honour in the gallant resistance, in which a large portion of the
+garrison had fallen.  Nor was that religious superstition so active
+within the city, which three years before had made miracles possible in
+Paris when a heretic sovereign was to be defied by his own subjects.  It
+was known that even if the public ceremonies of the Catholic Church were
+likely to be suspended for a time after the surrender, at least the
+rights of individual conscience and private worship within individual
+households would be tolerated, and there was no papal legate with fiery
+eloquence persuading a city full of heroic dupes that it was more
+virtuous for men or women to eat their own children than to forego one
+high mass, or to wink at a single conventicle.
+
+After all, it was no such bitter hardship for the citizens of
+Gertruydenberg to participate in the prosperity of the rising and
+thriving young republic, and to enjoy those municipal and national
+liberties which her sister cities had found so sweet.
+
+Nothing could be calmer or more reasonable than such a triumph, nothing
+less humiliating or less disastrous than such a surrender.
+
+The problem was solved, the demonstration was made.  To open their gates
+to the soldiers of the Union was not to admit the hordes of a Spanish
+commander with the avenging furies of murder, pillage, rape, which ever
+followed in their train over the breach of a captured city.
+
+To an enemy bated or dreaded to the uttermost mortal capacity, that well-
+fortified and opulent city might have held out for months, and only when
+the arms and the fraud of the foe without, and of famine within, had done
+their work, could it have bowed its head to the conqueror, and submitted
+to the ineffable tortures which would be the necessary punishment of its
+courage.
+
+Four thousand shots had been fired from the siege-guns upon the city, and
+three hundred upon the relieving force.
+
+The besieging army numbered in all nine thousand one hundred and fifty
+men of all arms, and they lost during the eighty-five days' siege three
+hundred killed and four hundred wounded.
+
+After the conclusion of these operations, and the thorough remodelling
+of the municipal government of the important city thus regained to the
+republic, Maurice occupied himself with recruiting and refreshing his
+somewhat exhausted little army.  On the other hand, old Count Mansfeld,
+dissatisfied with the impotent conclusion to his attempts, retired to
+Brussels to be much taunted by the insolent Fuentes.  He at least escaped
+very violent censure on the part of his son Charles, for that general,
+after his superfluous conquest of Noyon, while returning towards the
+Netherlands, far too tardily to succour Gertruydenberg, had been
+paralyzed in all his movements by a very extensive mutiny which broke out
+among the Spanish troops in the province of Artois.  The disorder went
+through all its regular forms.  A town was taken, an Eletto was
+appointed.  The country-side was black-mailed or plundered, and the
+rebellion lasted some thirteen months.  Before it was concluded there was
+another similar outbreak among the Italians, together with the Walloons
+and other obedient Netherlanders in Hainault, who obliged the city of
+Mons to collect nine hundred florins a day for them.  The consequence
+of these military rebellions was to render the Spanish crown almost
+powerless during the whole year, within the provinces nominally subject
+to its sway.  The cause--as always--was the non-payment of these
+veterans' wages, year after year.  It was impossible for Philip, with
+all the wealth of the Indies and Mexico pouring through the Danaid sieve
+of the Holy League in France, to find the necessary funds to save the
+bronzed and war-worn instruments of his crimes in the Netherlands from
+starving and from revolt.
+
+Meantime there was much desultory campaigning in Friesland.  Verdugo
+and Frederic van den Berg picked up a few cities, and strong places
+which had thrown off their allegiance September, to the king--Auerzyl,
+Schlochteren, Winschoten, Wedde, Ootmarzum--and invested the much more
+important town of Coeworden, which Maurice had so recently reduced to the
+authority of the Union.  Verdugo's force was insufficient, however, and
+he had neither munitions nor provisions for a long siege.  Winter was
+coming on; and the States, aware that he would soon be obliged to retire
+from before the well-garrisoned and fortified place, thought it
+unnecessary to interfere with him.  After a very brief demonstration
+the Portuguese veteran was obliged to raise the siege.
+
+There were also certain vague attempts made by the enemy to re-possess
+himself of those most important seaports which had been pledged to the
+English queen.  On a previous page the anxiety has been indicated with
+which Sir Robert Sydney regarded the withdrawal of the English troops in
+the Netherlands for the sake of assisting the French king.  This palpable
+breach of the treaty had necessarily weakened England's hold on the
+affections of the Netherlanders, and awakened dark suspicions that
+treason might be impending at Flushing or Ostend.  The suspicions were
+unjust--so far as the governors of those places were concerned--for
+Sydney and Norris were as loyal as they were intelligent and brave; but
+the trust in their characters was not more implicit than it had been in
+that of Sir William Stanley before the commission of his crime.  It was
+now believed that the enemy was preparing for a sudden assault upon
+Ostend, with the connivance, it was feared, of a certain portion of the
+English garrison.  The intelligence was at once conveyed to her Majesty's
+Government by Sir Edward Norris, and they determined to take a lesson
+from past experience.  Norris was at once informed that in view of the
+attack which he apprehended, his garrison should be strengthened by five
+hundred men under Sir Conyers Clifford from certain companies in
+Flushing, and that other reinforcements should be sent from the English
+troops in Normandy.  The governor was ordered to look well after his
+captains and soldiers, to remind them, in the queen's name, of their duty
+to herself and to the States, to bid all beware of sullying the English
+name, to make close investigations into any possible intrigues of the
+garrison with the enemy, and, should any culprits be found, to bring them
+at once to condign punishment.
+
+The queen, too, determined that there should be no blighting of English
+honour, if she could prevent it by her warnings, indited with her own
+hand a characteristic letter to Sir Edward Norris, to accompany the more
+formal despatch of Lord Burghley.  Thus it ran "Ned!--
+
+"Though you have some tainted sheep among your flock, let not that serve
+for excuse for the rest.  We trust you are so carefully regarded as
+nought shall be left for your excuses, but either ye lack heart or want
+will; for of fear we will not make mention, as that our soul abhors, and
+we assure ourselves you will never discern suspicion of it.  Now or never
+let for the honour of us and our nation, each man be so much of bolder
+heart as their cause is good, and their honour must be according,
+remembering the old goodness of our God, who never yet made us fail His
+needful help, who ever bless you as I with my prince's hand beseech Him."
+
+The warnings and preparations proved sufficiently effective, and the
+great schemes with which the new royal governor of the Netherlands was
+supposed to be full--a mere episode in which was the conquest of Ostend--
+seemed not so formidable as their shadows had indicated.  There was, in
+the not very distant future, to be a siege of Ostend, which the world
+would not soon forget, but perhaps the place would not yield to a sudden
+assault.  Its resistance, on the contrary, might prove more protracted
+than was then thought possible.  But the chronicle of events must not be
+anticipated.  For the present, Ostend was safe.
+
+Early in the following spring, Verdugo again appeared before Coeworden in
+force.  It was obvious that the great city of Groningen, the mistress of
+all the north-eastern provinces, would soon be attacked, and Coeworden
+was the necessary base of any operations against the place.  Fortunately
+for the States, William Lewis had in the preceding autumn occupied and
+fortified the only avenue through the Bourtange morass, so that when
+Verdugo sat down before Coeworden, it was possible for Maurice, by moving
+rapidly, to take the royal governor at a disadvantage.
+
+Verdugo had eight thousand picked troops, including two thousand Walloon
+cavalry, troopers who must have been very formidable, if they were to be
+judged by the prowess of one of their captains, Gaucier by name.  This
+obedient Netherlander was in the habit of boasting that he had slain four
+hundred and ten men with his own hand, including several prisoners and
+three preachers; but the rest of those warriors were not so famed for
+their martial achievements.
+
+The peril, however, was great, and Prince Maurice, trifling not a moment,
+threw himself with twelve thousand infantry, Germans, Frisians, Scotch,
+English, and Hollanders, and nearly two thousand horse, at once upon the
+road between the Vecht and the Bourtange morass.  On the 6th of May,
+Verdugo found the States' commander-in-chief trenched and impregnable,
+squarely established upon his line of communications.  He reconnoitred,
+called a council of war, and decided that to assail him were madness; to
+remain, destruction.  On the night of the 6th of May, he broke up his
+camp and stole away in the darkness, without sound of drum or trumpet,
+leaving all his fortifications and burning all his huts.
+
+Thus had Maurice, after showing the world how strong places were to be
+reduced, given a striking exhibition of the manner in which they were to
+be saved.
+
+Coeworden, after thirty-one weeks' investment, was relieved.
+
+The stadholder now marched upon Groningen.  This city was one of the most
+splendid and opulent of all the Netherland towns.  Certainly it should
+have been one of the most ancient in Europe, since it derived its name--
+according to that pains-taking banker, Francis Guicciardini--"from Grun,
+a Trojan gentleman," who, nevertheless, according to Munster, was "a
+Frenchman by birth."--"Both theories, however, might be true," added the
+conscientious Florentine, "as the French have always claimed to be
+descended from the relics of Troy."  A simpler-minded antiquary might
+have babbled of green fields, since 'groenighe,' or greenness, was a
+sufficiently natural appellation for a town surrounded as was Groningen
+on the east and west by the greenest and fattest of pastures.  In
+population it was only exceeded by Antwerp and Amsterdam.  Situate on
+the line where upper and nether Germany blend into one, the capital of
+a great province whose very name was synonymous with liberty, and whose
+hardy sons had clone fierce battle with despotism in every age, so long
+as there had been human record of despotism and of battles, Groningen had
+fallen into the hands of the foreign foe, not through the prowess of the
+Spaniard but the treason of the Netherlander.  The baseness of the
+brilliant, trusted, valiant, treacherous young Renneberg has been
+recorded on a previous page of these volumes.  For thirteen years long
+the republic had chafed at this acquisition of the hated enemy within
+its very heart.  And now the day had come when a blow should be struck
+for its deliverance by the ablest soldier that had ever shown himself
+in those regions, one whom the commonwealth had watched over from his
+cradle.
+
+For in Groningen there was still a considerable party in favour of the
+Union, although the treason of Renneberg had hitherto prevented both city
+and province from incorporating themselves in the body politic of the
+United Netherlands.  Within the precincts were five hundred of Verdugo's
+veterans under George Lanckema, stationed at a faubourg called
+Schuytendiess.  In the city there was, properly speaking, no garrison,
+for the citizens in the last few years had come to value themselves on
+their fidelity to church and king, and to take a sorry pride in being
+false to all that was noble in their past.  Their ancestors had wrested
+privilege after privilege at the sword's point from the mailed hands of
+dukes and emperors, until they were almost a self-governing republic;
+their courts of justice recognizing no appeal to higher powers, even
+under the despotic sway of Charles V.  And now, under the reign of his
+son, and in the feebler days of that reign, the capital of the free
+Frisians--the men whom their ancient pagan statutes had once declared to
+be "free so long as the wind blew out of the clouds"--relied upon the
+trained bands of her burghers enured to arms and well-provided with all.
+munitions of war to protect her, not against foreign tyranny nor domestic
+sedition, but against liberty and against law.
+
+For the representative of the most ancient of the princely houses of
+Europe, a youth whose ancestors had been emperors when the forefathers of
+Philip, long-descended as he was, were but country squires, was now
+knocking at their gates.  Not as a conqueror and a despot, but as the
+elected first magistrate and commander-in-chief of the freest
+commonwealth in the world, Maurice of Nassau, at the head of fifteen
+thousand Netherlanders, countrymen of their own, now summoned the
+inhabitants of the town and province to participate with their fellow
+citizens in all the privileges and duties of the prosperous republic.
+
+It seemed impossible that such an appeal could be resisted by force of
+arms.  Rather it would seem that the very walls should have fallen at his
+feet at the first blast of the trumpet; but there was military honour,
+there was religious hatred, there was the obstinacy of party.  More than
+all, there were half a dozen Jesuits within the town, and to those ablest
+of generals in times of civil war it was mainly owing that the siege of
+Groningen was protracted longer than under other circumstances would have
+been possible.
+
+It is not my purpose to describe in detail the scientific operations
+during the sixty-five days between the 20th May and the 24th July.  Again
+the commander-in-chief enlightened the world by an exhibition of a more
+artistic and humane style of warfare than previously to his appearance
+on the military stage had been known.  But the daily phenomena of the
+Leaguer--although they have been minutely preserved by most competent
+eyewitnesses--are hardly entitled to a place except in special military
+histories where, however, they should claim the foremost rank.
+
+The fortifications of the city were of the most splendid and substantial
+character known to the age.  The ditches, the ravelins, the curtains,
+the towers were as thoroughly constructed as the defences of any place
+in Europe.  It was therefore necessary that Maurice and his cousin Lewis
+should employ all their learning, all their skill, and their best
+artillery to reduce this great capital of the Eastern Netherlands.
+Again the scientific coil of approaches wound itself around and around
+the doomed stronghold; again were constructed the galleries, the covered
+ways, the hidden mines, where soldiers, transformed to gnomes, burrowed
+and fought within the bowels of the earth; again that fatal letter Y
+advanced slowly under ground, stretching its deadly prongs nearer and
+nearer up to the walls; and again the system of defences against a
+relieving force was so perfectly established that Verdugo or Mansfield,
+with what troops they could muster, seemed as powerless as the pewter
+soldiers with which Maurice in his boyhood--not yet so long passed away
+--was wont to puzzle over the problems which now practically engaged
+his early manhood.  Again, too, strangely enough, it is recorded that
+Philip Nassau, at almost the same period of the siege as in that of
+Gertruydenberg, signalized himself by a deed of drunken and superfluous
+daring.  This time the dinner party was at the quarters of Count Solms,
+in honour of the Prince of Anhalt, where, after potations pottle deep,
+Count Philip rushed from the dinner-table to the breach, not yet
+thoroughly practicable, of the north ravelin, and, entirely without
+armour, mounted pike in hand to the assault, proposing to carry the fort
+by his own unaided exertions.  Another officer, one Captain Vaillant,
+still more beside himself than was the count, inspired him to these deeds
+of valour by assuring him that the mine was to be sprung under the
+ravelin that afternoon, and that it was a plot on the part of the Holland
+boatmen to prevent the soldiers who had been working so hard and so long
+in the mines from taking part in the honours of the assault.  The count
+was with difficulty brought off with a whole skin and put to bed.  Yet
+despite these disgraceful pranks there is no doubt that a better and
+braver officer than he was hardly to be found even among the ten noble
+Nassaus who at that moment were fighting for the cause of Dutch liberty--
+fortunately with more sobriety than he at all times displayed.  On the
+following day, Prince Maurice, making a reconnoissance of the works with
+his usual calmness, yet with the habitual contempt of personal danger
+which made so singular a contrast with the cautious and painstaking
+characteristics of his strategy, very narrowly escaped death.  A shot
+from the fort struck so hard upon the buckler under cover of which he was
+taking his observations as to fell him to the ground.  Sir Francis Vere,
+who was with the prince under the same buckler, likewise measured his
+length in the trench, but both escaped serious injury.
+
+Pauli, one of the States commissioners present in the camp, wrote to
+Barneveld that it was to be hoped that the accident might prove a warning
+to his Excellency.  He had repeatedly remonstrated with him, he said,
+against his reckless exposure of himself to unnecessary danger, but he
+was so energetic and so full of courage that it was impossible to
+restrain him from being everywhere every day.
+
+Three days later, the letter Y did its work.  At ten o'clock 15 July, of
+the night of the 15th July, Prince Maurice ordered the mines to be
+sprung, when the north ravelin was blown into the air, and some forty of
+the garrison with it.  Two of them came flying into the besiegers' camp,
+and, strange to say, one was alive and sound.  The catastrophe finished
+the sixty-five days' siege, the breach was no longer defensible, the
+obstinacy of the burghers was exhausted, and capitulation followed.
+In truth, there had been a subterranean intrigue going on for many weeks,
+which was almost as effective as the mine.  A certain Jan to Boer had
+been going back and forth between camp and city, under various pretexts
+and safe-conducts, and it had at last appeared that the Jesuits and the
+five hundred of Verdugo's veterans were all that prevented Groningen from
+returning to the Union.  There had been severe fighting within the city
+itself, for the Jesuits had procured the transfer of the veterans from
+the faubourg to the town itself, and the result of all these operations,
+political, military, and jesuitical, was that on 22nd July articles of
+surrender were finally agreed upon between Maurice and a deputation from
+the magistrates, the guilds, and commander Lanckema.
+
+The city was to take its place thenceforth as a member of the Union.
+William Lewis, already stadholder of Friesland for the united States, was
+to be recognised as chief magistrate of the whole province, which was
+thus to retain all its ancient privileges, laws, and rights of self-
+government, while it exchanged its dependence on a distant, foreign, and
+decaying despotism for incorporation with a young and vigorous
+commonwealth.
+
+It was arranged that no religion but the reformed religion, as then
+practised in the united republic, should be publicly exercised in the
+province, but that no man should be questioned as to his faith, or
+troubled in his conscience: Cloisters and ecclesiastical property were to
+remain 'in statu quo,' until the States-General should come to a definite
+conclusion on these subjects.
+
+Universal amnesty was proclaimed for all offences and quarrels.  Every
+citizen or resident foreigner was free to remain in or to retire from the
+town or province, with full protection to his person and property, and it
+was expressly provided in the articles granted to Lanckema that his
+soldiers should depart with arms and baggage, leaving to Prince Maurice
+their colours only, while the prince furnished sufficient transportation
+for their women and their wounded.  The property of Verdugo, royal
+stadholder of the province, was to be respected, and to remain in the
+city, or to be taken thence under safe conduct, as might be preferred.
+
+Ten thousand cannon-shot had been fired against the city.  The cost of
+powder and shot consumed was estimated at a hundred thousand florins.
+Four hundred of the besiegers had been killed, and a much larger number
+wounded.  The army had been further weakened by sickness and numerous
+desertions.  Of the besieged, three hundred soldiers in all were killed,
+and a few citizens.
+
+Thirty-six cannon were taken, besides mortars, and it was said that eight
+hundred tons of powder, and plenty of other ammunition and provisions
+were found in the place.
+
+On the 23rd July Maurice and William Lewis entered the city.  Some of the
+soldiers were disappointed at the inexorable prohibition of pillage; but
+it was the purpose of Maurice, as of the States-General, to place the
+sister province at once in the unsullied possession of the liberty and
+the order for which the struggle with Spain had, been carried on so long.
+If the limitation of public religious worship seemed harsh, it should be
+remembered that Romanism in a city occupied by Spanish troops had come to
+mean unmitigated hostility to the republic.  In the midst of civil war,
+the hour for that religious liberty which was the necessary issue of the
+great conflict had not yet struck.  It was surely something gained for
+humanity that no man should be questioned at all as to his creed in
+countries where it was so recently the time-honoured practice to question
+him on the rack, and to burn him if the answer was objectionable to the
+inquirer.
+
+It was something that the holy Inquisition had been for ever suppressed
+in the land.  It must be admitted, likewise, that the terms of surrender
+and the spectacle of re-established law and order which succeeded the
+capture of Groningen furnished a wholesome contrast to the scenes of
+ineffable horror that had been displayed whenever a Dutch town had fallen
+into the hands of Philip.
+
+And thus the commonwealth of the United Netherlands, through the
+practical military genius and perseverance of Maurice and Lewis William,
+and the substantial statesmanship of Barneveld and his colleagues, had at
+last rounded itself into definite shape; while in all directions toward
+which men turned their eyes, world-empire, imposing and gorgeous as it
+had seemed for an interval, was vanishing before its votaries like a
+mirage.  The republic, placed on the solid foundations of civil liberty,
+self-government, and reasonable law, was steadily consolidating itself.
+
+No very prominent movements were undertaken by the forces of the Union
+during the remainder of the year.  According to the agreements with Henry
+IV. it had been necessary to provide that monarch with considerable
+assistance to carry on his new campaigns, and it was therefore difficult
+for Maurice to begin for the moment upon the larger schemes which he had
+contemplated.
+
+Meantime the condition of the obedient Netherlands demands a hasty
+glance.
+
+On the death of brother Alexander the Capuchin, Fuentes produced a patent
+by which Peter Ernest Mansfeld was provisionally appointed governor, in
+case the post should become vacant.  During the year which followed, that
+testy old campaigner had indulged himself in many petty feuds with all
+around him, but had effected, as we have seen, very little to maintain
+the king's authority either in the obedient or disobedient provinces.
+
+His utter incompetency soon became most painfully apparent.  His more
+than puerile dependence upon his son, and the more than paternal severity
+exercised over him by Count Charles, were made manifest to all the world.
+The son ruled the trembling but peevish old warrior with an iron rod, and
+endless was their wrangling with Fuentes and all the other Spaniards.
+Between the querulousness of the one and the ferocity of the other, poor
+Fuentes became sick of his life.
+
+"'Tis a diabolical genius, this count Charles," said Ybarra, "and so full
+of ambition that he insists on governing everybody just as he rules his
+father.  As for me, until the archduke comes I am a fish out of water."
+
+The true successor to Farnese was to be, the Archduke Ernest, one of the
+many candidates for the hand of the Infanta, and for the throne of that
+department of the Spanish dominions which was commonly called France.
+Should Philip not appropriate the throne without further scruple, in
+person, it was on the, whole decided that his favorite nephew should be
+the satrap of that outlying district of the Spanish empire.  In such case
+obedient France might be annexed to obedient Netherlands, and united
+under the sway of Archduke Ernest.
+
+But these dreams had proved in the cold air of reality but midsummer
+madness.  When the name of the archduke was presented to the estates as
+King Ernest I. of France, even the most unscrupulous and impassioned
+Leaguers of that country fairly hung their heads.  That a foreign prince,
+whose very name had never been before heard of by the vast bulk of the
+French population, should be deliberately placed upon the throne of St.
+Louis and Hugh Capet, was a humiliation hard to defend, profusely as
+Philip had scattered the Peruvian and Mexican dollars among the great
+ones of the nation, in order to accomplish his purpose.
+
+So Archduke Ernest, early in the year 1594, came to Brussels, but he
+came as a gloomy, disappointed man.  To be a bachelor-governor of the
+impoverished, exhausted, half-rebellious, and utterly forlorn little
+remnant of the Spanish Netherlands, was a different position from that
+of husband of Clara Isabella and king of France, on which his imagination
+had been feeding so long.
+
+For nearly the whole twelvemonth subsequent to the death of Farnese,
+the Spanish envoy to the Imperial court had been endeavouring to arrange
+for the departure of the archduke to his seat of government in the
+Netherlands.  The prince himself was willing enough, but there were many
+obstacles on the part of the emperor and his advisers.  "Especially there
+is one very great impossibility," said San Clemente, "and that is the
+poverty of his Highness, which is so great that my own is not greater in
+my estate.  So I don't see how he can stir a step without money.  Here
+they'll not furnish him with a penny, and for himself he possesses
+nothing but debts."  The emperor was so little pleased with the adventure
+that in truth, according to the same authority, he looked upon the new
+viceroy's embarrassments with considerable satisfaction, so that it was
+necessary for Philip to provide for his travelling expenses.
+
+Ernest was next brother of the Emperor Rudolph, and as intensely devoted
+to the interests of the Roman Church as was that potentate himself, or
+even his uncle Philip.
+
+He was gentle, weak, melancholy, addicted to pleasure, a martyr to the
+gout.  He brought no soldiers to the provinces, for the emperor,
+threatened with another world-empire on his pagan flank, had no funds nor
+troops to send to the assistance of his Christian brother-in-law and
+uncle.  Moreover, it may be imagined that Rudolph, despite the bonds of
+religion and consanguinity, was disposed to look coldly on the colossal
+projects of Philip.
+
+So Ernest brought no troops, but he brought six hundred and seventy
+gentlemen, pages, and cooks, and five hundred and thirty-four horses, not
+to charge upon the rebellious Dutchmen withal, but to draw coaches and
+six.
+
+There was trouble enough prepared for the new governor at his arrival.
+The great Flemish and Walloon nobles were quarrelling fiercely with the
+Spaniards and among themselves for office and for precedence.  Arschot
+and his brother Havre both desired the government of Flanders; so did
+Arenberg.  All three, as well as other gentlemen, were scrambling for
+the majordomo's office in Ernest's palace.  Havre wanted the finance
+department as well, but Ybarra, who was a financier, thought the public
+funds in his hands would be in a perilous condition, inasmuch as he was
+provinces was accounted the most covetous man in all the provinces.
+
+So soon as the archduke was known to be approaching the capital there was
+a most ludicrous race run by all these grandees, in order to be the first
+to greet his Highness.  While Mansfeld and Fuentes were squabbling, as
+usual, Arschot got the start of both, and arrived at Treves.  Then the
+decrepit Peter Ernest struggled as far as Luxembourg, while Fuentes
+posted on to Namur.  The archduke was much perplexed as to the arranging
+of all these personages on the day of his entrance into Brussels.  In the
+council of state it was still worse.  Arschot claimed the first place as
+duke and as senior member, Peter Ernest demanded it as late governor-
+general and because of his grey hairs.  Never was imperial highness more
+disturbed, never was clamour for loaves and fishes more deafening.  The
+caustic financier--whose mind was just then occupied with the graver
+matter of assassination on a considerable scale--looked with profound
+contempt at the spectacle thus presented to him.  "There has been the
+devil's own row," said he, "between these counts about offices, and also
+about going out to receive the most serene archduke.  I have had such
+work with them that by the salvation of my soul I swear if it were to
+last a fortnight longer I would go off afoot to Spain, even if I were
+sure of dying in jail after I got there.  I have reconciled the two
+counts (Fuentes and Mansfeld) with each other a hundred times, and
+another hundred times they have fallen out again, and behaved themselves
+with such vulgarity that I blushed for them.  They are both to blame,
+but at any rate we have now got the archduke housed, and he will get
+us out of this embarrassment."
+
+The archduke came with rather a prejudice against the Spaniards--
+the result doubtless of his disappointment in regard to France--and he
+manifested at first an extreme haughtiness to those of that nation with
+whom he came in contact.  A Castilian noble of high rank, having audience
+with him on one occasion, replaced his hat after salutation, as he had
+been accustomed to do--according to the manner of grandees of Spain--
+during the government of Farnese.  The hat was rudely struck from his
+head by the archduke's chamberlain, and he was himself ignominiously
+thrust out of the presence.  At another time an interview was granted to
+two Spanish gentlemen who had business to transact.  They made their
+appearance in magnificent national costume, splendidly embroidered in
+gold.  After a brief hearing they were dismissed, with appointment of
+another audience for a few days later.  When they again presented
+themselves they found the archduke with his court jester standing at his
+side, the buffoon being attired in a suit precisely similar to their own,
+which in the interval had been prepared by the court tailor.
+
+Such amenities as these did not increase the popularity of Ernest with
+the high-spirited Spaniards, nor was it palatable to them that it should
+be proposed to supersede the old fighting Portuguese, Verdugo, as
+governor and commander-in-chief for the king in Friesland, by Frederic
+van den Berg, a renegade Netherlander, unworthy cousin of the Nassaus,
+who had never shown either military or administrative genius.
+
+Nor did he succeed in conciliating the Flemings or the Germans by these
+measures.  In truth he was, almost without his own knowledge, under the
+controlling influence of Fuentes, the most unscrupulous and dangerous
+Spaniard of them all, while his every proceeding was closely watched not
+only by Diego and Stephen Ybarra, but even by Christoval de Moura, one
+of Philip's two secretaries of state who at this crisis made a visit
+to Brussels.
+
+These men were indignant at the imbecility of the course pursued in the
+obedient provinces.  They knew that the incapacity of the Government to
+relieve the sieges of Gertruydenberg and Groningen had excited the
+contempt of Europe, and was producing a most damaging effect an Spanish
+authority throughout Christendom.  They were especially irritated by the
+presence of the arch-intrigues, Mayenne, in Brussels, even after all his
+double dealings had been so completely exposed that a blind man could
+have read them.  Yet there was Mayenne, consorting with the archduke, and
+running up a great bill of sixteen thousand florins at the hotel, which
+the royal paymaster declined to settle for want of funds, notwithstanding
+Ernest's order to that effect, and there was no possibility of inducing
+the viceroy to arrest him, much as he had injured and defrauded the king.
+
+How severely Ybarra and Feria denounced Mayenne has been seen; but
+remonstrances about this and other grave mistakes of administration
+were lost upon Ernest, or made almost impossible by his peculiar temper.
+"If I speak of these things to his Highness," said Ybarra, "he will begin
+to cry, as he always does."
+
+Ybarra, however, thought it his duty secretly to give the king frequent
+information as to the blasted and forlorn condition of the provinces.
+"This sick man will die in our arms," he said, "without our wishing to
+kill him."  He also left no doubt in the royal mind as to the utter
+incompetency of the archduke for his office.  Although he had much
+Christianity, amiability, and good intentions, he was so unused to
+business, so slow and so lazy, so easily persuaded by those around him,
+as to be always falling into errors.  He was the servant of his own
+servants, particularly of those least disposed to the king's service
+and most attentive to their own interests.  He had endeavoured to make
+himself beloved by the natives of the country, while the very reverse
+of this had been the result.
+
+"As to his agility and the strength of his body," said the Spaniard, as
+if he were thinking of certain allegories which were to mark the
+archduke's triumphal entry, "they are so deficient as to leave him unfit
+for arms.  I consider him incapable of accompanying an army to the field,
+and we find him so new to all such affairs as constitute government and
+the conduct of warlike business, that he could not steer his way without
+some one to enlighten and direct him."
+
+It was sometimes complained of in those days--and the thought has even
+prolonged itself until later times--that those republicans of the United
+Netherlands had done and could do great things; but that, after all,
+there was no grandeur about them.  Certainly they had done great things.
+It was something to fight the Ocean for ages, and patiently and firmly to
+shut him out from his own domain.  It was something to extinguish the
+Spanish Inquisition--a still more cruel and devouring enemy than the sea.
+It was something that the fugitive spirit of civil and religious liberty
+had found at last its most substantial and steadfast home upon those
+storm-washed shoals and shifting sandbanks.
+
+It was something to come to the rescue of England in her great agony, and
+help to save her from invasion.  It was something to do more than any
+nation but England, and as much as she, to assist Henry the Huguenot to
+the throne of his ancestors and to preserve the national unity of France
+which its own great ones had imperilled.  It was something to found two
+magnificent universities, cherished abodes of science and of antique
+lore, in the midst of civil commotions and of resistance to foreign
+oppression.  It was something, at the same period, to lay the foundation
+of a systew of common schools--so cheap as to be nearly free--for rich
+and poor alike, which, in the words of one of the greatest benefactors
+to the young republic, "would be worth all the soldiers, arsenals,
+armouries, munitions, and alliances in the world."  It was something to
+make a revolution, as humane as it was effective, in military affairs,
+and to create an army whose camps were European academies.  It was
+something to organize, at the same critical period, on the most skilful
+and liberal scale, to carry out with unexampled daring, sagacity, and
+fortitude, great voyages of discovery to the polar regions, and to open
+new highways for commerce, new treasures for science.  Many things of
+this nature had been done by the new commonwealth; but, alas! she did not
+drape herself melodramatically, nor stalk about with heroic wreath and
+cothurn.  She was altogether without grandeur.
+
+When Alva had gained his signal victories, and followed them up by
+those prodigious massacres which, but for his own and other irrefragable
+testimony, would seem too monstrous for belief, he had erected a colossal
+statue to himself, attired in the most classical of costumes, and
+surrounded with the most mythological of attributes.  Here was grandeur.
+But William the Silent, after he had saved the republic, for which he had
+laboured during his whole lifetime and was destined to pour out his
+heart's blood, went about among the brewers and burghers with unbuttoned
+doublet and woollen bargeman's waistcoat.  It was justly objected to his
+clothes, by the euphuistic Fulke Greville, that a meanborn student of the
+Inns of Court would have been ashamed to walk about London streets in
+them.
+
+And now the engineering son of that shabbily-dressed personage had been
+giving the whole world lessons in the science of war, and was fairly
+perfecting the work which William and his great contemporaries had so
+well begun.  But if all this had been merely doing great things without
+greatness, there was one man in the Netherlands who knew what grandeur
+was.  He was not a citizen of the disobedient republic, however, but a
+loyal subject of the obedient provinces, and his name was John Baptist
+Houwaerts, an eminent schoolmaster of Brussels.  He was still more
+eminent as a votary of what was called "Rhetoric" and as an arranger of
+triumphal processions and living pictures.
+
+The arrival of Archduke Ernest at the seat of the provincial Government
+offered an opportunity, which had long been wanting, for a display of
+John Baptist's genius.  The new viceroy was in so shattered a condition
+of health, so crippled with the gout, as to be quite unable to stand, and
+it required the services of several lackeys to lift him into and out of
+his carriage.  A few days of repose therefore were indispensable to him
+before he could make his "joyous entrance" into the capital.  But the day
+came at last, and the exhibition was a masterpiece.
+
+It might have seemed that the abject condition of the Spanish provinces--
+desolate, mendicant, despairing--would render holiday making impossible.
+But although almost every vestige of the ancient institutions had
+vanished from the obedient Netherlands as a reward for their obedience;
+although to civil and religious liberty, law, order, and a thriving
+commercial and manufacturing existence, such as had been rarely witnessed
+in the world, had succeeded the absolute tyranny of Jesuits, universal
+beggary, and a perennial military mutiny--setting Government at defiance
+and plundering the people--there was one faithful never deserted Belgica,
+and that was Rhetoric.
+
+Neither the magnificence nor the pedantry of the spectacles by which the
+entry of the mild and inefficient Ernest into Brussels and Antwerp was
+now solemnized had ever been surpassed.  The town councils, stimulated by
+hopes absolutely without foundation as to great results to follow the
+advent of the emperor's brother, had voted large sums and consumed many
+days in anxious deliberation upon the manner in which they should be
+expended so as most to redound to the honour of Ernest and the reputation
+of the country.
+
+In place of the "bloody tragedies of burning, murdering, and ravishing,"
+of which the provinces had so long been the theatre, it was resolved
+that, "Rhetoric's sweet comedies, amorous jests, and farces," should
+gladden all eyes and hearts.  A stately procession of knights and
+burghers in historical and mythological costumes, followed by ships,
+dromedaries, elephants, whales, giants, dragons, and other wonders of
+the sea and shore, escorted the archduke into the city.  Every street and
+square was filled with triumphal arches, statues and platforms, on which
+the most ingenious and thoroughly classical living pictures were
+exhibited.  There was hardly an eminent deity of Olympus, or hero of
+ancient history, that was not revived and made visible to mortal eyes
+in the person of Ernestus of Austria.
+
+On a framework fifty-five feet high and thirty-three feet in breadth he
+was represented as Apollo hurling his darts at an enormous Python, under
+one of whose fore-paws struggled an unfortunate burgher, while the other
+clutched a whole city; Tellus, meantime, with her tower on her head,
+kneeling anxious and imploring at the feet of her deliverer.  On another
+stage Ernest assumed the shape of Perseus; Belgica that of the bound and
+despairing Andromeda.  On a third, the interior of Etna was revealed,
+when Vulcan was seen urging his Cyclops to forge for Ernest their most
+tremendous thunderbolts with which to smite the foes of the provinces,
+those enemies being of course the English and the Hollanders.  Venus, the
+while, timidly presented an arrow to her husband, which he was requested
+to sharpen, in order that when the wars were over Cupid, therewith might
+pierce the heart of some beautiful virgin, whose charms should reward
+Ernest--fortunately for the female world, still a bachelor--for his
+victories and his toils.
+
+The walls of every house were hung with classic emblems and inscribed
+with Latin verses.  All the pedagogues of Brussels and Antwerp had been
+at work for months, determined to amaze the world with their dithyrambics
+and acrostics, and they had outdone themselves.
+
+Moreover, in addition to all these theatrical spectacles and pompous
+processions--accompanied as they were by blazing tar-barrels, flying
+dragons, and leagues of flaring torches--John Baptist, who had been
+director-in-chief of all the shows successively arranged to welcome Don
+John of Austria, Archduke Matthias, Francis of Alengon, and even William
+of Orange, into the capital, had prepared a feast of a specially
+intellectual character for the new governor-general.
+
+The pedant, according to his own account, so soon as the approach of
+Ernest had been announced, fell straightway into a trance.  While he was
+in that condition, a beautiful female apparition floated before his eyes,
+and, on being questioned, announced her name to be Moralization.  John
+Baptist begged her to inform him whether it were true, as had been
+stated, that Jupiter had just sent Mercury to the Netherlands.  The
+phantom, correcting his mistake, observed that the king of gods and men
+had not sent Hermes but the Archduke Ernestus, beloved of the three
+Graces, favourite of the nine Muses, and, in addition to these
+advantages, nephew and brother-in-law of the King of Spain, to the relief
+of the suffering provinces.  The Netherlands, it was true, for their
+religious infidelity, had justly incurred great disasters and misery; but
+benignant Jove, who, to the imagination of this excited Fleming, seemed
+to have been converted to Catholicism while still governing the universe,
+had now sent them in mercy a deliverer.  The archduke would speedily
+relieve "bleeding Belgica" from her sufferings, bind up her wounds, and
+annihilate her enemies.  The spirit further informed the poet that the
+forests of the Low Countries--so long infested by brigands, wood-beggars,
+and malefactors of all kinds--would thenceforth swarm with "nymphs,
+rabbits, hares, and animals of that nature."
+
+A vision of the conquering Ernest, attended by "eight-and-twenty noble
+and pleasant females, marching two and two, half naked, each holding a
+torch in one hand and a laurel-wreath in the other," now swept before the
+dreamer's eyes."  He naturally requested the "discreet spirit" to mention
+the names of this bevy of imperfectly attired ladies thronging so
+lovingly around the fortunate archduke, and was told that "they were
+the eight-and-twenty virtues which chiefly characterized his serene
+Highness."  Prominent in this long list, and they were all faithfully
+enumerated, were Philosophy, Audacity, Acrimony, Virility, Equity, Piety,
+Velocity, and Alacrity."  The two last-mentioned qualities could hardly
+be attributed to the archduke in his decrepit condition, except in an
+intensely mythological sense.  Certainly, they would have been highly
+useful virtues to him at that moment.  The prince who had just taken
+Gertruydenberg, and was then besieging Groningen, was manifesting his
+share of audacity, velocity, and other good gifts on even a wider
+platform than that erected for Ernest by John Baptist Houwaerts; and
+there was an admirable opportunity for both to develope their respective
+characteristics for the world's judgment.
+
+Meantime the impersonation of the gentle and very gouty invalid as
+Apollo, as Perseus, as the feather-heeled Mercury, was highly applauded
+by the burghers of Brussels.
+
+And so the dreamer dreamed on, and the discreet nymph continued to
+discourse, until John Baptist, starting suddenly from his trance beheld
+that it was all a truth and no vision.  Ernest was really about to enter
+the Netherlands, and with him the millennium.  The pedant therefore
+proceeded to his desk, and straightway composed the very worst poem that
+had ever been written in any language, even Flemish.
+
+There were thousands of lines in it, and not a line without a god or a
+goddess.
+
+Mars, Nemesis, and Ate, Pluto, Rhadamanthus, and Minos, the Fates and
+the Furies, together with Charon, Calumnia, Bellona, and all such
+objectionable divinities, were requested to disappear for ever from the
+Low Countries; while in their stead were confidently invoked Jupiter,
+Apollo, Triptolemus, and last, though not least, Rhetorica.
+
+Enough has been said of this raree-show to weary the reader's patience,
+but not more than enough to show the docile and enervated nature of this
+portion of a people who had lost everything for which men cherish their
+fatherland, but who could still find relief--after thirty years of
+horrible civil war in painted pageantry, Latin versification, and the
+classical dictionary.
+
+Yet there was nothing much more important achieved by the archduke in the
+brief period for which his administration was destined to endure.
+Three phenomena chiefly marked his reign, but his own part in the three
+was rather a passive than an active one--mutiny, assassination, and
+negotiation--the two last attempted on a considerable scale but ending
+abortively.
+
+It is impossible to exaggerate the misery of the obedient provinces at
+this epoch.  The insane attempt of the King of Spain, with such utterly
+inadequate machinery, to conquer the world has been sufficiently dilated
+upon.  The Spanish and Italian and Walloon soldiers were starving in
+Brabant and Flanders in order that Spanish gold might be poured into the
+bottomless pit of the Holy League in France.
+
+The mutiny that had broken forth the preceding year in Artois and Hamault
+was now continued on a vast scale in Brabant.  Never had that national
+institution--a Spanish mutiny--been more thoroughly organized, more
+completely carried out in all its details.  All that was left of the
+famous Spanish discipline and military science in this their period of
+rapid decay, seemed monopolized by the mutineers.  Some two thousand
+choice troops (horse and foot), Italians and Spanish, took possession of
+two considerable cities, Sichem and Arschot, and ultimately concentrated
+themselves at Sichem, which they thoroughly fortified.  Having chosen
+their Eletto and other officers they proceeded regularly to business.
+To the rallying point came disaffected troops of all nations from far
+and near.  Never since the beginning of the great war had there been so
+extensive a military rebellion, nor one in which so many veteran
+officers, colonels, captains, and subalterns took part.  The army of
+Philip had at last grown more dangerous to himself than to the
+Hollanders.
+
+The council at Brussels deliberated anxiously upon the course to be
+pursued, and it was decided at last to negotiate with instead of
+attacking them.  But it was soon found that the mutineers were as hard
+to deal with as were the republicans on the other side the border.  They
+refused to hear of anything short of complete payment of the enormous
+arrears due to them, with thorough guarantees and hostages that any
+agreement made between themselves and the archduke should be punctually
+carried out.  Meanwhile they ravaged the country far and near, and levied
+their contributions on towns and villages, up to the very walls of
+Brussels, and before the very eyes of the viceroy.
+
+Moreover they entered into negotiation with Prince Maurice of Nassau, not
+offering to enlist under his flag, but asking for protection against the
+king in exchange for a pledge meanwhile not to serve his cause.  At last
+the archduke plucked up a heart and sent some troops against the rebels,
+who had constructed two forts on the river Demer near the city of Sichem.
+In vain Velasco, commander of the expedition, endeavoured to cut off the
+supplies for these redoubts.  The vigour and audacity of the rebel
+cavalry made the process impossible.  Velasco then attempted to storm the
+lesser stronghold of the two, but was repulsed with the loss of two
+hundred killed.  Among these were many officers, one of whom, Captain
+Porto Carrero, was a near relative of Fuentes.  After a siege, Velasco,
+who was a marshal of the camp of considerable distinction, succeeded in
+driving the mutineers out of the forts; who, finding their position
+thus weakened, renewed their negotiations with Maurice.  They at last
+obtained permission from the prince to remain under the protection of
+Gertruydenberg and Breda until they could ascertain what decision the
+archduke would take.  More they did not ask of Maurice, nor did he
+require more of them.
+
+The mutiny, thus described in a few lines, had occupied nearly a year,
+and had done much to paralyze for that period all the royal operations in
+the Netherlands.  In December the rebellious troops marched out of Sichem
+in perfect order, and came to Langstraet within the territory of the
+republic.
+
+The archduke now finding himself fairly obliged to treat with them sent
+an offer of the same terms which had been proposed to mutineers on
+previous occasions.  At first they flatly refused to negotiate at all,
+but at last, with the permission of Maurice, who conducted himself
+throughout with scrupulous delicacy, and made no attempts to induce them
+to violate their allegiance to the king, they received Count Belgioso,
+the envoy of the archduke.  They held out for payment of all their
+arrears up to the last farthing, and insisted on a hostage of rank until
+the debt should be discharged.  Full forgiveness of their rebellious
+proceedings was added as a matter of course.  Their terms were accepted,
+and Francisco Padiglia was assigned as a hostage.  They then established
+themselves, according to agreement, at Tirlemont, which they were allowed
+to fortify at the expense of the province and to hold until the money for
+their back wages could be scraped together.  Meantime they received daily
+wages and rations from the Government at Brussels, including thirty
+stivers a day for each horseman, thirteen crowns a day for the Eletto,
+and ten crowns a day for each counsellor, making in all five hundred
+crowns a day.  And here they remained, living exceedingly at their ease
+and enjoying a life of leisure for eighteen months, and until long after
+the death of the archduke, for it was not until the administration of
+Cardinal Albert that the funds, amounting to three hundred and sixty
+thousand crowns, could be collected.
+
+These were the chief military exploits of the podagric Perseus in behalf
+of the Flemish Andromeda.
+
+A very daring adventure was however proposed to the archduke.  Philip
+calmly suggested that an expedition should be rapidly fitted out in
+Dunkirk, which should cross the channel, ascend the Thames as far as
+Rochester, and burn the English fleet.  "I am informed by persons well
+acquainted with the English coast," said the king, "that it would be an
+easy matter for a few quick-sailing vessels to accomplish this.  Two or
+three thousand soldiers might be landed at Rochester who might burn or
+sink all the unarmed vessels they could find there, and the expedition
+could return and sail off again before the people of the country could
+collect in sufficient numbers to do them any damage."  The archduke was
+instructed to consult with Fuentes and Ybarra as to whether this little
+matter, thus parenthetically indicated, could be accomplished without too
+much risk and trouble.
+
+Certainly it would seem as if the king believed in the audacity,
+virility, velocity, alacrity, and the rest of the twenty-eight virtues
+of his governor-general, even more seriously than did John Baptist
+Houwaerts.  The unfortunate archduke would have needed to be, in all
+earnestness, a mythological demigod to do the work required of him.  With
+the best part of his army formally maintained by him in recognised
+mutiny, with the great cities of the Netherlands yielding themselves to
+the republic with hardly an attempt on the part of the royal forces to
+relieve them, and with the country which he was supposed to govern, the
+very centre of the obedient provinces, ruined, sacked, eaten up by the
+soldiers of Spain; villages, farmhouses, gentlemen's castles, churches
+plundered; the male population exposed to daily butchery, and the women
+to outrages worse than death; it seemed like the bitterest irony to
+propose that he should seize that moment to outwit the English and Dutch
+sea-kings who were perpetually cruising in the channel, and to undertake
+a "beard-singeing" expedition such as even the dare-devil Drake would
+hardly have attempted.
+
+Such madcap experiments might perhaps one day, in the distant future, be
+tried with reasonable success, but hardly at the beck of a Spanish king
+sitting in his easy chair a thousand miles off, nor indeed by the
+servants of any king whatever.
+
+The plots of murder arranged in Brussels during this administration were
+on a far more extensive scale than were the military plans.
+
+The Count of Fuentes, general superintendant of foreign affairs, was
+especially charged with the department of assassination.  This office was
+no sinecure; for it involved much correspondence, and required great
+personal attention to minute details.  Philip, a consummate artist in
+this branch of industry, had laid out a good deal of such work which he
+thought could best be carried out in and from the Netherlands.
+Especially it was desirable to take off, by poison or otherwise, Henry
+IV., Queen Elizabeth, Maurice of Nassau, Olden-Barneveld, St. Aldegonde,
+and other less conspicuous personages.
+
+Henry's physician-in-chief, De la Riviere, was at that time mainly
+occupied with devising antidotes to poison, which he well knew was
+offered to his master on frequent occasions, and in the most insidious
+ways.  Andrada, the famous Portuguese poisoner, amongst others is said,
+under direction of Fuentes and Ybarra, to have attempted his life by a
+nosegay of roses impregnated with so subtle a powder that its smell alone
+was relied upon to cause death, and De la Riviere was doing his best to
+search for a famous Saxon drug, called fable-powder, as a counter-poison.
+"The Turk alarms us, and well he may," said a diplomatic agent of Henry,
+"but the Spaniard allows us not to think of the Turk.  And what a strange
+manner is this to exercise one's enmities and vengeance by having
+recourse to such damnable artifices, after force and arms have not
+succeeded, and to attack the person of princes by poisonings and
+assassinations."
+
+A most elaborate attempt upon the life of Queen Elizabeth early in this
+year came near being successful.  A certain Portuguese Jew, Dr. Lopez,
+had for some time been her physician-in-ordinary.  He had first been
+received into her service on the recommendation of Don Antonio, the
+pretender, and had the reputation of great learning and skill.  With this
+man Count Fuentes and Stephen Ybarra, chief of the financial department
+at Brussels, had a secret understanding.  Their chief agent was Emanuel
+Andrada, who was also in close communication with Bernardino de Mendoza
+and other leading personages of the Spanish court.  Two years previously,
+Philip, by the hands of Andrada, had sent a very valuable ring of rubies
+and diamonds as a present to Lopez, and the doctor had bound himself to
+do any service for the king of Spain that might be required of him.
+Andrada accordingly wrote to Mendoza that he had gained over this eminent
+physician, but that as Lopez was poor and laden with debt, a high price
+would be required for his work.  Hereupon Fuentes received orders from
+the King of Spain to give the Jew all that he could in reason demand, if
+he would undertake to poison the queen.
+
+It now became necessary to handle the matter with great delicacy, and
+Fuentes and Ybarra entered accordingly into a correspondence, not with
+Lopez, but with a certain Ferrara de Gama.  These letters were entrusted
+to one Emanuel Lewis de Tinoco, secretly informed of the plot, for
+delivery to Ferrara.  Fuentes charged Tinoco to cause Ferrara to
+encourage Lopez to poison her Majesty of England, that they might all
+have "a merry Easter."  Lopez was likewise requested to inform the King
+of Spain when he thought he could accomplish the task.  The doctor
+ultimately agreed to do the deed for fifty thousand crowns, but as he had
+daughters and was an affectionate parent, he stipulated for a handsome
+provision in marriage for those young ladies.  The terms were accepted,
+but Lopez wished to be assured of the money first.
+
+"Having once undertaken the work," said Lord Burghley, if he it were, "he
+was so greedy to perform it that he would ask Ferrara every day, 'When
+will the money come?  I am ready to do the service if the answer were
+come out of Spain.'"
+
+But Philip, as has been often seen, was on principle averse to paying
+for work before it had been done.  Some delay occurring, and the secret,
+thus confided to so many, having floated as it were imperceptibly into
+the air, Tinoco was arrested on suspicion before he had been able to
+deliver the letters of Fuentes and Ybarra to Ferrara, for Ferrara, too,
+had been imprisoned before the arrival of Tinoco.  The whole
+correspondence was discovered, and both Ferrara and Tinoco confessed the
+plot.  Lopez, when first arrested, denied his guilt very stoutly, but
+being confronted with Ferrara, who told the whole story to his face in
+presence of the judges, he at last avowed the crime.
+
+They were all condemned, executed, and quartered at London in the spring
+of 1594.  The queen wished to send a special envoy to the archduke at
+Brussels, to complain that Secretary of State Cristoval de Moura, Count
+Fuentes, and Finance Minister Ybarra--all three then immediately about
+his person--were thus implicated in the plot against her life, to demand
+their punishment, or else, in case of refusals to convict the king and
+the archduke as accomplices in the crime.  Safe conduct was requested for
+such an envoy, which was refused by Ernest as an insulting proposition
+both to his uncle and himself.  The queen accordingly sent word to
+President Richardot by one of her council, that the whole story would be
+published, and this was accordingly done.
+
+Early in the spring of this same year, a certain Renichon, priest and
+schoolmaster of Namur, was summoned from his school to a private
+interview with Count Berlaymont.  That nobleman very secretly informed
+the priest that the King of, Spain wished to make use of him in an affair
+of great importance, and one which would be very profitable to himself.
+The pair then went together to Brussels, and proceeded straightway to the
+palace.  They were secretly admitted to the apartments of the archduke,
+but the priest, meaning to follow his conductor into the private chamber,
+where he pretended to recognize the person of Ernest, was refused
+admittance.  The door was, however, not entirely closed, and he heard, as
+he declared, the conversation between his Highness and Berlaymont, which
+was carried on partly in Latin and partly in Spanish.  He heard them
+discussing the question--so he stated--of the recompense to be awarded
+for the business about to be undertaken, and after a brief conversation,
+distinctly understood the archduke to say, as the count was approaching
+the door, "I will satisfy him abundantly and with interest."
+
+Berlaymont then invited his clerical guest to supper--so ran his
+statement--and, after that repast was finished, informed him that he was
+requested by the archduke to kill Prince Maurice of Nassau.  For this
+piece of work he was to receive one hundred Philip-dollars in hand, and
+fifteen thousand more, which were lying ready for him, so soon as the
+deed should be done.
+
+The schoolmaster at first objected to the enterprise, but ultimately
+yielded to the persuasions of the count.  He was informed that Maurice
+was a friendly, familiar gentleman, and that there would be opportunities
+enough for carrying out the project if he took his time.  He was to buy a
+good pair of pistols and remove to the Hague, where he was to set up a
+school, and wait for the arrival of his accomplices, of whom there were
+six.  Berlaymont then caused to be summoned and introduced to the
+pedagogue a man whom he described as one of the six.  The new comer,
+hearing that Renichon had agreed to the propositions made to him, hailed
+him cordially as comrade and promised to follow him very soon into
+Holland.  Berlaymont then observed that there were several personages to
+be made away with, besides Prince Maurice--especially Barneveld, and St.
+Aldegonde and that the six assassins had, since the time of the Duke of
+Parma, been kept in the pay of the King of Spain as nobles, to be
+employed as occasion should serve.
+
+His new comrade accompanied Renichon to the canal boat, conversing by the
+way, and informed him that they were both to be sent to Leyden in order
+to entice away and murder the young brother of Maurice, Frederic Henry,
+then at school at that place, even as Philip William, eldest of all the
+brothers, had been kidnapped five-and-twenty years before from the same
+town.
+
+Renichon then disguised himself as a soldier, proceeded to Antwerp, where
+he called himself Michael de Triviere, and thence made his way to Breda,
+provided with letters from Berlaymont.  He was, however, arrested on
+suspicion not long after his arrival there, and upon trial the whole plot
+was discovered.  Having unsuccessfully attempted to hang himself, he
+subsequently, without torture, made a full and minute confession, and was
+executed on the 3rd June, 1594.
+
+Later in the year, one Pierre du Four, who had been a soldier both in the
+States and the French service, was engaged by General La Motte and
+Counsellor Assonleville to attempt the assassination of Prince Maurice.
+La Motte took the man to the palace, and pretended at least to introduce
+him to the chamber of the archduke, who was said to be lying ill in bed.
+Du Four was advised to enrol himself in the body-guard at the Hague, and
+to seek an opportunity when the prince went hunting, or was mounting his
+horse, or was coming from church, or at some such unguarded moment, to
+take a shot at him.  "Will you do what I ask," demanded from the bed the
+voice of him who was said to be Ernest, "will you kill this tyrant?"--
+"I will," replied the soldier.  "Then my son," was the parting
+benediction of the supposed archduke, "you will go straight to paradise."
+
+Afterwards he received good advice from Assonleville, and was assured
+that if he would come and hear a mass in the royal chapel next morning,
+that religious ceremony would make him invisible when he should make his
+attempt on the life of Maurice, and while he should be effecting his
+escape.  The poor wretch accordingly came next morning to chapel, where
+this miraculous mass was duly performed, and he then received a certain
+portion of his promised reward in ready money.  He was also especially
+charged, in case he should be arrested, not to make a confession--as had
+been done by those previously employed in such work--as all complicity
+with him on part of his employers would certainly be denied.
+
+The miserable dupe was arrested, convicted, executed; and of course
+the denial was duly made on the part of the archduke, La Motte, and
+Assonleville.  It was also announced, on behalf of Ernest, that some
+one else, fraudulently impersonating his Highness, had lain in the bed
+to which the culprit had been taken, and every one must hope that the
+statement was a true one.
+
+Enough has been given to show the peculiar school of statesmanship
+according to the precepts of which the internal concerns and foreign
+affairs of the obedient Netherlands were now administered.  Poison and
+pistols in the hands of obscure priests and deserters were relied on to
+bring about great political triumphs, while the mutinous royal armies,
+entrenched and defiant, were extorting capitulations from their own
+generals and their own sovereign upon his own soil.
+
+Such a record as this seems rather like the exaggeration of a diseased
+fancy, seeking to pander to a corrupt public taste which feeds greedily
+upon horrors; but, unfortunately, it is derived from the register of
+high courts of justice, from diplomatic correspondence, and from the
+confessions, without torture or hope of free pardon, of criminals.  For a
+crowned king and his high functionaries and generals to devote so much of
+their time, their energies, and their money to the murder of brother and
+sister sovereigns, and other illustrious personages, was not to make
+after ages in love with the monarchic and aristocratic system, at least
+as thus administered.  Popular governments may be deficient in polish,
+but a system resting for its chief support upon bribery and murder cannot
+be considered lovely by any healthy mind.  And this is one of the lessons
+to be derived from the history of Philip II. and of the Holy League.
+
+But besides mutiny and assassination there were also some feeble attempts
+at negotiation to characterize the Ernestian epoch at Brussels.  The
+subject hardly needs more than a passing allusion.
+
+Two Flemish juris-consults, Otto Hertius and Jerome Comans, offered their
+services to the archduke in the peacemaking department.  Ernest accepted
+the proposition,--although it was strongly opposed by Fuentes, who relied
+upon the more practical agency of Dr. Lopez, Andrada, Renichon, and the
+rest--and the peace-makers accordingly made their appearance at the
+Hague, under safe conduct, and provided with very conciliatory letters
+from his Highness to the States-General.  In all ages and under all
+circumstances it is safe to enlarge, with whatever eloquence may be at
+command, upon the blessings of peace and upon the horrors of war; for
+the appeal is not difficult to make, and a response is certain in almost
+every human breast.  But it is another matter to descend from the general
+to the particular, and to demonstrate how the desirable may be attained
+and the horrible averted.  The letters of Ernest were full of benignity
+and affection, breathing a most ardent desire that the miserable war, now
+a quarter of a century old, should be then and there terminated.  But not
+one atom of concession was offered, no whisper breathed that the
+republic, if it should choose to lay down its victorious arms, and
+renounce its dearly gained independence, should share any different fate
+from that under which it saw the obedient provinces gasping before its
+eyes.  To renounce religious and political liberty and self-government,
+and to submit unconditionally to the authority of Philip II. as
+administered by Ernest and Fuentes, was hardly to be expected as the
+result of the three years' campaigns of Maurice of Nassau.
+
+The two doctors of law laid the affectionate common-places of the
+archduke before the States-General, each of them making, moreover,
+a long and flowery oration in which the same protestations of good will
+and hopes of future good-fellowship were distended to formidable
+dimensions by much windy rhetoric.  The accusations which had been made
+against the Government of Brussels of complicity in certain projects of
+assassination were repelled with virtuous indignation.
+
+The answer of the States-General was wrathful and decided.  They informed
+the commissioners that they had taken up arms for a good cause and meant
+to retain them in their hands.  They expressed their thanks for the
+expressions of good will which had been offered, but avowed their right
+to complain before God and the world of those who under pretext of peace
+were attempting to shed the innocent blood of Christians, and to procure
+the ruin and destruction of the Netherlands.  To this end the state-
+council of Spain was more than ever devoted, being guilty of the most
+cruel and infamous proceedings and projects.  They threw out a rapid and
+stinging summary of their wrongs; and denounced with scorn the various
+hollow attempts at negotiation during the preceding twenty-five years.
+Coming down to the famous years 1587 and 1588, they alluded in vehement
+terms to the fraudulent peace propositions which had been thrown as a
+veil over the Spanish invasion of England and the Armada; and they
+glanced at the mediation-projects of the emperor in 1591 at the desire of
+Spain, while armies were moving in force from Germany, Italy, and the
+Netherlands to crush the King of France, in order that Philip might
+establish his tyranny over all kings, princes, provinces, and republics.
+That the Spanish Government was secretly dealing with the emperor and
+other German potentates for the extension of his universal empire
+appeared from intercepted letters of the king--copies of which were
+communicated--from which it was sufficiently plain that the purpose of
+his Majesty was not to bestow peace and tranquillity upon the
+Netherlands.  The names of Fuentes, Clemente, Ybarra, were sufficient in
+themselves to destroy any such illusion.  They spoke in blunt terms of
+the attempt of Dr. Lopez to poison Queen Elizabeth, at the instigation of
+Count Fuentes for fifty thousand crowns to be paid by the King of Spain:
+they charged upon the same Fuentes and upon Ybarra that they had employed
+the same Andrada to murder the King of France with a nosegay of roses;
+and they alluded further to the revelations of Michael Renichon, who was
+to murder Maurice of Nassau and kidnap Frederic William, even as their
+father and brother had been already murdered and kidnapped.
+
+For such reasons the archduke might understand by what persons and what
+means the good people of the Netherlands were deceived, and how difficult
+it was for the States to forget such lessons, or to imagine anything
+honest in the present propositions.
+
+The States declared themselves, on the contrary, more called upon than
+ever before to be upon the watch against the stealthy proceedings of the
+Spanish council of state--bearing in mind the late execrable attempts at
+assassination, and the open war which was still carried on against the
+King of France.
+
+And although it was said that his Highness was displeased with such
+murderous and hostile proceedings, still it was necessary for the States
+to beware of the nefarious projects of the King of Spain and his council.
+
+After the conversion of Henry IV. to the Roman Church had been duly
+accomplished that monarch had sent a secret envoy to Spain.  The mission
+of this agent--De Varenne by name--excited intense anxiety and suspicion
+in England and Holland and among the Protestants of France and Germany.
+It was believed that Henry had not only made a proposition of a separate
+peace with Philip, but that he had formally but mysteriously demanded the
+hand of the Infanta in marriage.  Such a catastrophe as this seemed to
+the heated imaginations of the great body of Calvinists throughout
+Europe, who had so faithfully supported the King of Navarre up to the
+moment of his great apostasy, the most cruel and deadly treachery of all.
+That the princess with the many suitors should come to reign over France
+after all--not as the bride of her own father, not as the queen-consort
+of Ernest the Habsburger or of Guise the Lorrainer, but as the lawful
+wife of Henry the Huguenot--seemed almost too astounding for belief, even
+amid the chances and changes of that astonishing epoch.  Yet Duplessis
+Mornay avowed that the project was entertained, and that he had it from
+the very lips of the secret envoy who was to negotiate the marriage.
+"La Varenne is on his way to Spain," wrote Duplessis to the Duke of
+Bouillon, "in company with a gentleman of Don Bernardino de Mendoza, who
+brought the first overtures.  He is to bring back the portrait of the
+Infanta.  'Tis said that the marriage is to be on condition that the
+Queen and the Netherlands are comprised in the peace, but you know that
+this cannot be satisfactorily arranged for those two parties.  All this
+was once guess-work, but is now history."
+
+That eminent diplomatist and soldier Mendoza had already on his return
+from France given the King of Spain to understand that there were no
+hopes of his obtaining the French crown either for himself or for his
+daughter, that all the money lavished on the chiefs of the League was
+thrown away, and that all their promises were idle wind.  Mendoza in
+consequence had fallen into contempt at court, but Philip, observing
+apparently that there might have been something correct in his
+statements, had recently recalled him, and, notwithstanding his blindness
+and other infirmities, was disposed to make use of him in secret
+negotiations.  Mendoza had accordingly sent a confidential agent to Henry
+IV. offering his good offices, now that the king had returned to the
+bosom of the Church.
+
+This individual, whose name was Nunez, was admitted by De Bethune
+(afterwards the famous Due de Sully) to the presence of the king,
+but De Bethune, believing it probable that the Spaniard had been sent to
+assassinate Henry, held both the hands of the emissary during the whole
+interview, besides subjecting him to a strict personal visitation
+beforehand.  Nunez stated that he was authorized to propose to his
+Majesty a marriage with the Infanta Clara Isabella, and Henry, much to
+the discontent of De Bethune, listened eagerly to the suggestion, and
+promised to send a secret agent to Spain to confer on the subject with
+Mendoza.
+
+The choice he made of La Varenne, whose real name was Guillaume Fouquet,
+for this mission was still more offensive to De Bethune.  Fouquet had
+originally been a cook in the service of Madame Catherine, and was famous
+for his talent for larding poultry, but he had subsequently entered the
+household of Henry, where he had been employed in the most degrading
+service which one man can render to another.
+
+     ["La Varenne," said Madame Catherine on one occasion "tu as plus
+     gagne ti porter les poulets de men frere, qu'a piquer les miens."
+     Memoires de Sully, Liv. vi.  p. 296, note 6.  He accumulated a large
+     fortune in these dignified pursuits--having, according to Winwood,
+     landed estates to the annual amount of sixty thousand francs a-year
+     --and gave large dowries to his daughters, whom he married into
+     noblest families; "which is the more remarkable," adds Winwood,
+     "considering the services wherein he is employed about the king,
+     which is to be the Mezzano for his loves; the place from whence he
+     came, which is out of the kitchen of Madame the king's sister."--
+     Memorials, i. 380.]
+
+On his appointment to this offce of secret diplomacy he assumed all the
+airs of an ambassador, while Henry took great pains to contradict the
+reports which were spread as to the true nature of this mission to Spain.
+
+Duplessis was, in truth, not very far wrong in his conjectures, but,
+as might be supposed, Henry was most anxious to conceal these secret
+negotiations with his Catholic Majesty from the Huguenot chiefs whom he
+had so recently deserted.  "This is all done without the knowledge of
+the Duke of Bouillon," said Calvaert, "or at least under a very close
+disguise, as he, himself keenly feels and confesses to me."  The envoy
+of the republic, as well as the leaders of the Protestant party in
+France, were resolved if possible to break off these dark and dangerous
+intrigues, the nature of which they so shrewdly suspected, and to
+substitute for them an open rupture of Henry with the King of Spain,
+and a formal declaration of war against him.  None of the diplomatists
+or political personages engaged in these great affairs, in which the
+whole world was so deeply interested, manifested more sagacity and
+insight on this occasion than did the Dutch statesmen.  We have seen that
+even Sir Edward Stafford was deceived up to a very late moment, as to the
+rumoured intentions of Henry to enter the Catholic Church.  Envoy Edmonds
+was now equally and completely in the dark as to the mission of Varenne,
+and informed his Government that the only result of it was that the
+secret agent to Spain was favoured, through the kindness of Mendoza,
+with a distant view of Philip II. with his son and daughter at their
+devotions in the chapel of the Escorial.  This was the tale generally
+recounted and believed after the agent's return from Spain, so that
+Varenne was somewhat laughed at as having gone to Spain on a fool's
+errand, and as having got nothing from Mendoza but a disavowal of his
+former propositions.  But the shrewd Calvaert, who had entertained
+familiar relations with La Varenne, received from that personage after
+his return a very different account of his excursion to the Escorial from
+the one generally circulated.  "Coming from Monceaus to Paris in his
+company," wrote Calvaert in a secret despatch to the States, "I had the
+whole story from him.  The chief part of his negotiations with Don
+Bernardino de Mendoza was that if his Majesty (the French king) would
+abandon the Queen of England and your Highnesses (the States of the
+Netherlands), there were no conditions that would be refused the king,
+including the hand of the Infanta, together with a good recompense for
+the kingdom of Navarre.  La Varenne maintained that the King of Spain had
+caused these negotiations to be entered upon at this time with him in the
+certain hope and intention of a definite conclusion, alleging to me many
+pertinent reasons, and among others that he, having been lodged at
+Madrid, through the adroitness of Don Bernardino, among all the agents of
+the League, and hearing all their secrets and negotiations, had never
+been discovered, but had always been supposed to be one of the League
+himself.  He said also that he was well assured that the Infanta in her
+heart had an affection for the French king, and notwithstanding any
+resolutions that might be taken (to which I referred, meaning the
+projects for bestowing her on the house of Austria) that she with her
+father's consent or in case of his death would not fail to carry out
+this marriage.  You may from all this, even out of the proposal for
+compensation for the kingdom of Navarre (of which his Majesty also let
+out something to me inadvertently); collect the reasons why such feeble
+progress is made in so great an occasion as now presents itself for a
+declaration of war and an open alliance with your Highnesses.  I shall
+not fail to watch these events, even in case of the progress of the said
+resolutions, notwithstanding the effects of which it is my opinion that
+this secret intrigue is not to be abandoned.  To this end, besides the
+good intelligence which one gets by means of good friends, a continual
+and agreeable presentation of oneself to his Majesty, in order to see and
+hear everything, is necessary."
+
+Certainly, here were reasons more than sufficient why Henry should be
+making but feeble preparations for open war in alliance with England and
+the republic against Philip, as such a step was hardly compatible with
+the abandonment of England and the republic and the espousal of Philip's
+daughter--projects which Henry's commissioner had just been discussing
+with Philip's agent at Madrid and the Escorial.
+
+Truly it was well for the republican envoy to watch events as closely as
+possible, to make the most of intelligence from his good friends, and to
+present himself as frequently and as agreeably as possible to his
+Majesty, that he might hear and see everything.  There was much to see
+and to hear, and it needed adroitness and courage, not to slip or stumble
+in such dark ways where the very ground seemed often to be sliding from
+beneath the feet.
+
+To avoid the catastrophe of an alliance between Henry, Philip, and the
+Pope against Holland and England, it was a pressing necessity for Holland
+and England to force Henry into open war against Philip.  To this end the
+Dutch statesmen were bending all their energies.  Meantime Elizabeth
+regarded the campaign in Artois and Hainault with little favour.
+
+As he took leave on departing for France, La Varenne had requested
+Mendoza to write to King Henry, but the Spaniard excused himself--
+although professing the warmest friendship for his Majesty--on the ground
+of the impossibility of addressing him correctly.  "If I call him here
+King of Navarre, I might as well put my head on the block at once," he
+observed; "if I call him King of France, my master has not yet recognized
+him as such; if I call him anything else, he will himself be offended."
+
+And the vision of Philip in black on his knees, with his children about
+him, and a rapier at his side, passed with the contemporary world as the
+only phenomenon of this famous secret mission.
+
+But Henry, besides this demonstration towards Spain, lost no time in
+despatching a special minister to the republic and to England, who was
+instructed to make the most profuse, elaborate, and conciliatory
+explanations as to his recent conversion and as to his future intentions.
+Never would he make peace, he said, with Spain without the full consent
+of the States and of England; the dearest object of his heart in making
+his peace with Rome having been to restore peace to his own distracted
+realm, to bring all Christians into one brotherhood, and to make a united
+attack upon the grand Turk--a vision which the cheerful monarch hardly
+intended should ever go beyond the ivory gate of dreams, but which
+furnished substance enough for several well-rounded periods in the
+orations of De Morlans.
+
+That diplomatist, after making the strongest representations to Queen
+Elizabeth as to the faithful friendship of his master, and the necessity
+he was under of pecuniary and military assistance, had received generous
+promises of aid both in men and money--three thousand men besides the
+troops actually serving in Brittany--from that sagacious sovereign,
+notwithstanding the vehement language in which she had rebuked her royal
+brother's apostasy.   He now came for the same purpose to the Hague,
+where he made very eloquent harangues to the States-General,
+acknowledging that the republic had ever been the most upright, perfect,
+and undisguised friend to his master and to France in their darkest days
+and deepest affliction; that she had loved the king and kingdom for
+themselves, not merely hanging on to their prosperity, but, on the
+contrary, doing her best to produce that prosperity by her contributions
+in soldiers, ships, and subsidies.  "The king," said De Morlans, "is
+deeply grieved that he can prove his gratitude only in words for so many
+benefits conferred, which are absolutely without example, but he has
+commissioned me to declare that if God should ever give him the occasion,
+he will prove how highly he places your friendship."
+
+The envoy assured the States that all fears entertained by those of the
+reformed religion on account of the conversion of his Majesty were
+groundless.  Nothing was farther from the king's thoughts than to injure
+those noble spirits with whom his soul had lived so long, and whom he so
+much loved and honoured.  No man knew better than the king did, the
+character of those who professed the Religion, their virtue, valour,
+resolution, and patience in adversity.  Their numbers had increased in
+war, their virtues had been purified by affliction, they had never
+changed their position, whether battles had been won or lost.  Should
+ever an attempt be made to take up arms against them within his realms,
+and should there be but five hundred of them against ten thousand, the
+king, remembering their faithful and ancient services, would leave the
+greater number in order to die at the head of his old friends.  He was
+determined that they should participate in all the honours of the
+kingdom, and with regard to a peace with Spain, he would have as much
+care for the interests of the United Provinces as for his own.  But a
+peace was impossible with that monarch, whose object was to maintain his
+own realms in peace while he kept France in perpetual revolt against the
+king whom God had given her.  The King of Spain had trembled at Henry's
+cradle, at his youth, at the bloom of his manhood, and knew that he had
+inflicted too much injury upon him ever to be on friendly terms with him.
+The envoy was instructed to say that his master never expected to be in
+amity with one who had ruined his house confiscated his property, and
+caused so much misery to France; and he earnestly hoped--without
+presuming to dictate--that the States-General would in this critical
+emergency manifest their generosity.  If the king were not assisted now,
+both king and kingdom would perish.  If he were assisted, the succour
+would bear double fruit.
+
+The sentiments expressed on the part of Henry towards his faithful
+subjects of the Religion, the heretic Queen of England, and the stout
+Dutch Calvinists who had so long stood by him, were most noble.  It was
+pity that, at the same moment, he was proposing to espouse the Infanta,
+and to publish the Council of Trent.
+
+The reply of the States-General to these propositions of the French envoy
+was favourable, and it was agreed that a force of three thousand foot and
+five hundred horse should be sent to the assistance of the king.
+Moreover, the state-paper drawn up on this occasion was conceived with so
+much sagacity and expressed with so much eloquence, as particularly to
+charm the English queen when it was communicated to her Majesty.  She
+protested very loudly and vehemently to Noel de Caron, envoy from the
+provinces at London, that this response on the part of his Government to
+De Morlans was one of the wisest documents that she had ever seen.  "In
+all their actions," said she, "the States-General show their sagacity,
+and indeed, it is the wisest Government ever known among republics.  I
+would show you," she added to the gentlemen around her, "the whole of the
+paper if it were this moment at hand."
+
+After some delays, it was agreed between the French Government and that
+of the United Provinces, that the king should divide his army into three
+parts, and renew the military operations against Spain with the
+expiration of the truce at the end of the year (1593).
+
+One body, composed of the English contingent, together with three
+thousand French horse, three thousand Swiss, and four thousand French
+harquebus-men, were to be under his own immediate command, and were to
+act against the enemy wherever it should appear to his Majesty most
+advantageous.  A second, army was to expel the rebels and their foreign
+allies from Normandy and reduce Rouen to obedience.  A third was to make
+a campaign in the provinces of Artois and Hainault, under the Duke of
+Bouillon (more commonly called the Viscount Turenne), in conjunction with
+the forces to be supplied by the republic.  "Any treaty of peace on our
+part with the King of Spain," said the States-General, "is our certain
+ruin.  This is an axiom.  That monarch's object is to incorporate into
+his own realms not only all the states and possessions of neighbouring
+kings, principalities, and powers, but also all Christendom, aye, the
+whole world, were it possible.  We joyfully concur then in your Majesty's
+resolution to carry on the war in Artois and Hainault, and agree to your
+suggestion of diversions on our part by sieges and succour by
+contingents."
+
+Balagny, meantime, who had so long led an independent existence at
+Cambray, now agreed to recognise Henry's authority, in consideration of
+sixty-seven thousand crowns yearly pension and the dignity of Marshal of
+France.
+
+Towards the end of the year 1594, Buzanval, the regular French envoy at
+the Hague, began to insist more warmly than seemed becoming that the
+campaign in Artois and Hainault--so often the base of military operations
+on the part of Spain against France--should begin.  Further achievements
+on the part of Maurice after the fall of Groningen were therefore
+renounced for that year, and his troops went into garrison and winter-
+quarters.  The States-General, who had also been sending supplies,
+troops, and ships to Brittany to assist the king, now, after soundly
+rebuking Buzanval for his intemperate language, entrusted their
+contingent for the proposed frontier campaign to Count Philip Nassau,
+who accordingly took the field toward the end of the year at the head of
+twenty-eight companies of foot and five squadrons of cavalry.  He made
+his junction with Turenne-Bouillon, but the duke, although provided with
+a tremendous proclamation, was but indifferently supplied with troops.
+The German levies, long-expected, were slow in moving, and on the whole
+it seemed that the operations might have been continued by Maurice with
+more effect, according to his original plan, than in this rather
+desultory fashion.  The late winter campaign on the border was feeble and
+a failure.
+
+The bonds of alliance, however, were becoming very close between Henry
+and the republic.  Despite the change in religion on the part of the
+king, and the pangs which it had occasioned in the hearts of leading
+Netherlanders, there was still the traditional attraction between France
+and the States, which had been so remarkably manifested during the
+administration of William the Silent.  The republic was more restive than
+ever under the imperious and exacting friendship of Elizabeth, and,
+feeling more and more its own strength, was making itself more and more
+liable to the charge of ingratitude; so constantly hurled in its face by
+the queen.  And Henry, now that he felt himself really king of France,
+was not slow to manifest a similar ingratitude or an equal love of
+independence.  Both monarch and republic, chafing under the protection of
+Elizabeth, were drawn into so close a union as to excite her anger and
+jealousy--sentiments which in succeeding years were to become yet more
+apparent.  And now; while Henry still retained the chivalrous and flowery
+phraseology, so sweet to her ears, in his personal communications to the
+queen, his ministers were in the habit of using much plainer language.
+"Mr. de Sancy said to me," wrote the Netherland minister in France,
+Calvaert, "that his Majesty and your Highnesses (the States-General)
+must without long delay conclude an alliance offensive and defensive.
+In regard to England, which perhaps might look askance at this matter,
+he told me it would be invited also by his Majesty into the same
+alliance; but if, according to custom, it shilly-shallied, and without
+coming to deeds or to succour should put him off with words, he should in
+that case proceed with our alliance without England, not doubting that
+many other potentates in Italy and Germany would join in it likewise.
+He said too, that he, the day before the departure of the English
+ambassador, had said these words to him in the presence of his Majesty;
+namely, that England had entertained his Majesty sixteen months long with
+far-fetched and often-repeated questions and discontents, that one had
+submitted to this sort of thing so long as his Majesty was only king of
+Mantes, Dieppe, and Louviers, but that his Majesty being now king of
+Paris would be no longer a servant of those who should advise him to
+suffer it any longer or accept it as good payment; that England must
+treat his Majesty according to his quality, and with deeds, not words.
+He added that the ambassador had very anxiously made answer to these
+words, and had promised that when he got back to England he would so
+arrange that his Majesty should be fully satisfied, insisting to the last
+on the alliance then proposed."
+
+In Germany, meanwhile, there was much protocolling, and more hard
+drinking, at the Diet of Ratisbon.  The Protestant princes did little
+for their cause against the new designs of Spain and the moribund League,
+while the Catholics did less to assist Philip.  In truth, the holy Roman
+Empire, threatened with a Turkish invasion, had neither power nor
+inclination to help the new universal empire of the west into existence.
+So the princes and grandees of Germany, while Amurath was knocking at the
+imperial gates, busied themselves with banquetting and other diplomatic
+work, but sent few reiters either to the east or west.
+
+Philip's envoys were indignant at the apathy displayed towards the great
+Catholic cause, and felt humbled at the imbecility exhibited by Spain in
+its efforts against the Netherlands and France.  San Clemente, who was
+attending the Diet at Ratisbon, was shocked at the scenes he witnessed.
+"In less than three months," said that temperate Spaniard, "they have
+drunk more than five million florins' worth of wine, at a time when the
+Turk has invaded the frontiers of Germany; and among those who have done
+the most of this consumption of wine, there is not one who is going to
+give any assistance on the frontier.  In consequence of these disorders
+my purse is drained so low, that unless the king helps me I am ruined.
+You must tell our master that the reputation of his grandeur and strength
+has never been so low as it is now in Germany.  The events in France and
+those which followed in the Netherlands have thrown such impediments in
+the negotiations here, that not only our enemies make sport of Marquis
+Havre and myself, but even our friends--who are very few--dare not go
+to public feasts, weddings, and dinners, because they are obliged to
+apologize for us."
+
+Truly the world-empire was beginning to crumble.  "The emperor has been
+desiring twenty times," continued the envoy, "to get back to Prague from
+the Diet, but the people hold him fast like a steer.  As I think over all
+that passes, I lose all judgment, for I have no money, nor influence, nor
+reputation.  Meantime, I see this rump of an empire keeping itself with
+difficulty upon its legs.  'Tis full of wrangling and discord about
+religion, and yet there is the Turk with two hundred thousand men
+besieging a place forty miles from Vienna, which is the last outpost.
+God grant it may last!"
+
+Such was the aspect of the Christian world at the close of the year 1594
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Beneficent and charitable purposes (War)
+Chronicle of events must not be anticipated
+Eat their own children than to forego one high mass
+Humanizing effect of science upon the barbarism of war
+Slain four hundred and ten men with his own hand
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v66
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 67, 1595
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+     Formal declaration of war against Spain--Marriage festivities--Death
+     of Archduke Ernest--His year of government--Fuentes declared
+     governor-general--Disaffection of the Duke of Arschot and Count
+     Arenberg--Death of the Duke of Arschot----Fuentes besieges Le
+     Catelet--The fortress of Ham, sold to the Spanish by De Gomeron,
+     besieged and taken by the Duke of Bouillon--Execution of De
+     Gomeron--Death of Colonel Verdugo--Siege of Dourlens by Fuentes--
+     Death of La Motte--Death of Charles Mansfeld--Total defeat of the
+     French--Murder of Admiral De Pillars--Dourlens captured, and the
+     garrison and citizens put to the sword--Military operations in
+     eastern Netherlands and on the Rhine--Maurice lays siege to Groento
+     --Mondragon hastening to its relief, Prince Maurice raises the
+     siege--Skirmish between Maurice and Mondragon--Death of Philip of
+     Nassau--Death of Mondragon--Bombardment and surrender of Weerd
+     Castle--Maurice retires into winter quarters--Campaign of Henry Iv.-
+     --He besieges Dijon--Surrender of Dijon--Absolution granted to Henry
+     by the pope--Career of Balagny at Cambray--Progress of the siege--
+     Capitulation of the town--Suicide of the Princess of Cambray, wife
+     of Balagny
+
+The year 1595 Opened with a formal declaration of war by the King of
+France against the King of Spain.  It would be difficult to say for
+exactly how many years the war now declared had already been waged,
+but it was a considerable advantage to the United Netherlands that the
+manifesto had been at last regularly issued.  And the manifesto was
+certainly not deficient in bitterness.  Not often in Christian history
+has a monarch been solemnly and officially accused by a brother sovereign
+of suborning assassins against his life.  Bribery, stratagem, and murder,
+were, however, so entirely the commonplace machinery of Philip's
+administration as to make an allusion to the late attempt of Chastel
+appear quite natural in Henry's declaration of war.  The king further
+stigmatized in energetic language the long succession of intrigues by
+which the monarch of Spain, as chief of the Holy League, had been making
+war upon him by means of his own subjects, for the last half dozcn years.
+Certainly there was hardly need of an elaborate statement of grievances.
+The deeds of Philip required no herald, unless Henry was prepared to
+abdicate his hardly-earned title to the throne of France.
+
+Nevertheless the politic Gascon subsequently regretted the fierce style
+in which he had fulminated his challenge.  He was accustomed to observe
+that no state paper required so much careful pondering as a declaration
+of war, and that it was scarcely possible to draw up such a document
+without committing many errors in the phraseology.  The man who never
+knew fear, despondency, nor resentment, was already instinctively acting
+on the principle that a king should deal with his enemy as if sure to
+become his friend, and with his friends as if they might easily change
+to foes.
+
+The answer to the declaration was delayed for two months.  When the
+reply came it of course breathed nothing but the most benignant
+sentiments in regard to France, while it expressed regret that it was
+necessary to carry fire and sword through that country in order to avert
+the unutterable woe which the crimes of the heretic Prince of Bearne were
+bringing upon all mankind.
+
+It was a solace for Philip to call the legitimate king by the title
+borne by him when heir-presumptive, and to persist in denying to him that
+absolution which, as the whole world was aware, the Vicar of Christ was
+at that very moment in the most solemn manner about to bestow upon him.
+
+More devoted to the welfare of France than were the French themselves,
+he was determined that a foreign prince himself, his daughter, or one of
+his nephews--should supplant the descendant of St. Louis on the French
+throne.  More catholic than the pope he could not permit the heretic,
+whom his Holiness was just washing whiter than snow, to intrude himself
+into the society of Christian sovereigns.
+
+The winter movements by Bouillon in Luxembourg, sustained by Philip
+Nassau campaigning with a meagre force on the French frontier, were not
+very brilliant.  The Netherland regiments quartered at Yssoire, La Ferte,
+and in the neighbourhood accomplished very little, and their numbers were
+sadly thinned by dysentery.  A sudden and successful stroke, too, by
+which that daring soldier Heraugiere, who had been the chief captor of
+Breda, obtained possession of the town, and castle of Huy, produced no
+permanent advantage.  This place, belonging to the Bishop of Liege, with
+its stone bridge over the Meuse, was an advantageous position from which
+to aid the operations of Bouillon in Luxembourg.  Heraugiere was,
+however, not sufficiently reinforced, and Huy was a month later
+recaptured by La Motte.  The campaigning was languid during that winter
+in the United Netherlands, but the merry-making was energetic.  The
+nuptials of Hohenlo with Mary, eldest daughter of William the Silent and
+own sister of the captive Philip William; of the Duke of Bouillon with
+Elizabeth, one of the daughters of the same illustrious prince by his
+third wife, Charlotte of Bourbon; and of Count Everard Solms, the famous
+general of the Zeeland troops, with Sabina, daughter of the unfortunate
+Lamoral Egmont, were celebrated with much pomp during the months of
+February and March.  The States of Holland and of Zeeland made
+magnificent presents of diamonds to the brides; the Countess Hohenlo
+receiving besides a yearly income of three thousand florins for the lives
+of herself and her husband.
+
+In the midst of these merry marriage bells at the Hague a funeral knell
+was sounding in Brussels.  On the 20th February, the governor-general of
+the obedient Netherlands, Archduke Ernest, breathed his last.  His career
+had not been so illustrious as the promises of the Spanish king and the
+allegories of schoolmaster Houwaerts had led him to expect.  He had not
+espoused the Infanta nor been crowned King of France.  He had not blasted
+the rebellious Netherlands with Cyclopean thunderbolts, nor unbound the
+Belgic Andromeda from the rock of doom.  His brief year of government
+had really been as dismal as, according to the announcement of his
+sycophants, it should have been amazing.  He had accomplished nothing,
+and all that was left him was to die at the age of forty-two, over head
+and ears in debt, a disappointed, melancholy man.  He was very indolent,
+enormously fat, very chaste, very expensive, fond of fine liveries and
+fine clothes, so solemn and stately as never to be known to laugh, but
+utterly without capacity either as a statesman or a soldier.  He would
+have shone as a portly abbot ruling over peaceful friars, but he was not
+born to ride a revolutionary whirlwind, nor to evoke order out of chaos.
+Past and Present were contending with each other in fierce elemental
+strife within his domain.  A world was in dying agony, another world was
+coming, full-armed, into existence within the hand-breadth of time and of
+space where he played his little part, but he dreamed not of it.  He
+passed away like a shadow, and was soon forgotten.
+
+An effort was made, during the last illness of Ernest, to procure from
+him the appointment of the elector of Cologne as temporary successor to
+tho government, but Count Fuentes was on the spot and was a man of
+action.  He produced a power in the French language from Philip, with a
+blank for the name.  This had been intended for the case of Peter Ernest
+Mansfeld's possible death during his provisional administration, and
+Fuentes now claimed the right of inserting his own name.
+
+The dying Ernest consented, and upon his death Fuentes was declared
+governor-general until the king's further pleasure should be known.
+
+Pedro de Guzman, Count of Fuentes, a Spaniard of the hard and antique
+type, was now in his sixty-fourth year.  The pupil and near relative of
+the Duke of Alva, he was already as odious to the Netherlanders as might
+have been inferred from such education and such kin.  A dark, grizzled,
+baldish man, with high steep forehead, long, haggard, leathern visage,
+sweeping beard, and large, stern, commanding, menacing eyes, with his
+Brussels ruff of point lace and his Milan coat of proof, he was in
+personal appearance not unlike the terrible duke whom men never named
+without a shudder, although a quarter of a century had passed since he
+had ceased to curse the Netherlands with his presence.  Elizabeth of
+England was accustomed to sneer at Fuentes because he had retreated
+before Essex in that daring commander's famous foray into Portugal.
+The queen called the Spanish general a timid old woman.  If her gibe
+were true, it was fortunate for her, for Henry of France, and for the
+republic, that there were not many more such old women to come from
+Spain to take the place of the veteran chieftains who were destined to
+disappear so rapidly during this year in Flanders.  He was a soldier of
+fortune, loved fighting, not only for the fighting's sake, but for the
+prize-money which was to be accumulated by campaigning, and he was wont
+to say that he meant to enter Paradise sword in hand.
+
+Meantime his appointment excited the wrath of the provincial magnates.
+The Duke of Arschot was beside himself with frenzy, and swore that he
+would never serve under Fuentes nor sit at his council-board.  The duke's
+brother, Marquis Havre, and his son-in-law, Count Arenberg, shared in the
+hatred, although they tried to mitigate the vehemence of its expression.
+But Arschot swore that no man had the right to take precedence of him in
+the council of state, and that the appointment of this or any Spaniard
+was a violation of the charters of the provinces and of the promises of
+his Majesty.  As if it were for the nobles of the obedient provinces to
+prate of charters and of oaths!  Their brethren under the banner of the
+republic had been teaching Philip for a whole generation how they could
+deal with the privileges of freemen and with the perjury of tyrants.
+It was late in the day for the obedient Netherlanders to remember their
+rights.  Havre and Arenberg, dissembling their own wrath, were abused and
+insulted by the duke when they tried to pacify him.  They proposed a
+compromise, according to which Arschot should be allowed to preside in
+the council of state while Fuentes should content himself with the
+absolute control of the army.  This would be putting a bit of fat in
+the duke's mouth, they said.  Fuentes would hear of no such arrangement.
+After much talk and daily attempts to pacify this great Netherlander, his
+relatives at last persuaded him to go home to his country place.  He even
+promised Arenberg and his wife that he would go to Italy, in pursuance of
+a vow made to our lady of Loretto.  Arenberg privately intimated to
+Stephen Ybarra that there was a certain oil, very apt to be efficacious
+in similar cases of irritation, which might be applied with prospect of
+success.  If his father-in-law could only receive some ten thousand
+florins which he claimed as due to him from Government, this would do
+more to quiet him than a regiment of soldiers could.  He also suggested
+that Fuentes should call upon the duke, while Secretary Ybarra should
+excuse himself by sickness for not having already paid his respects.
+This was done.  Fuentes called.  The duke returned the call, and the two
+conversed amicably about the death of the archduke, but entered into no
+political discussion.
+
+Arschot then invited the whole council of state, except John Baptist
+Tassis, to a great dinner.  He had prepared a paper to read to them in
+which he represented the great dangers likely to ensue from such an
+appointment as this of Fuentes, but declared that he washed his hands of
+the consequences, and that he had determined to leave a country where he
+was of so little account.  He would then close his eyes and ears to
+everything that might occur, and thus escape the infamy of remaining in a
+country where so little account was made of him.  He was urged to refrain
+from reading this paper and to invite Tassis.  After a time he consented
+to suppress the document, but he manfully refused to bid the
+objectionable diplomatist to his banquet.
+
+The dinner took place and passed off pleasantly enough.  Arschot did not
+read his manifesto, but, as he warmed with wine, he talked a great deal
+of nonsense which, according to Stephen Ybarra, much resembled it, and he
+vowed that thenceforth he would be blind and dumb to all that might
+occur.  A few days later, he paid a visit to the new governor-general,
+and took a peaceful farewell of him.  "Your Majesty knows very well what
+he is," wrote Fuentes: "he is nothing but talk."  Before leaving the
+country he sent a bitter complaint to Ybarra, to the effect that the king
+had entirely forgotten him, and imploring that financier's influence
+to procure for him some gratuity from his Majesty.  He was in such
+necessity, he said, that it was no longer possible for him to maintain
+his household.
+
+And with this petition the grandee of the obedient provinces shook the
+dust from his shoes, and left his natal soil for ever.  He died on the
+11th December of the same year in Venice.
+
+His son the Prince of Chimay, his brother, and son-inlaw, and the other
+obedient nobles, soon accommodated themselves to the new administration,
+much as they had been inclined to bluster at first about their
+privileges.  The governor soon reported that matters were proceeding
+very, smoothly.  There was a general return to the former docility now
+that such a disciplinarian as Fuentes held the reins.
+
+The opening scenes of the campaign between the Spanish governor and
+France were, as usual, in Picardy.  The Marquis of Varambon made a
+demonstration in the neighbourhood of Dourlens--a fortified town on the
+river Authie, lying in an open plain, very deep in that province--while
+Fuentes took the field with eight thousand men, and laid siege to Le
+Catelet.  He had his eye, however, upon Ham.  That important stronghold
+was in the hands of a certain nobleman called De Gomeron, who had been
+an energetic Leaguer, and was now disposed, for a handsome consideration,
+to sell himself to the King of Spain.  In the auction of governors and
+generals then going on in every part of France it had been generally
+found that Henry's money was more to be depended upon in the long run,
+although Philip's bids were often very high, and, for a considerable
+period, the payments regular.  Gomeron's upset price for himself was
+twenty-five thousand crowns in cash, and a pension of eight thousand a
+year.  Upon these terms he agreed to receive a Spanish garrison into the
+town, and to cause the French in the citadel to be sworn into the service
+of the Spanish king.  Fuentes agreed to the bargain and paid the adroit
+tradesman, who knew so well how to turn a penny for himself, a large
+portion of the twenty-five thousand crowns upon the nail.
+
+De Gomeron was to proceed to Brussels to receive the residue.  His
+brother-in-law, M. d'Orville, commanded in the citadel, and so soon as
+the Spanish troops had taken possession of the town its governor claimed
+full payment of his services.
+
+But difficulties awaited him in Brussels.  He was informed that a French
+garrison could not be depended upon for securing the fortress, but that
+town and citadel must both be placed in Spanish hands.  De Gomeron loudly
+protesting that this was not according to contract, was calmly assured,
+by command of Fuentes, that unless the citadel were at once evacuated and
+surrendered, he would not receive the balance of his twenty-five thousand
+crowns, and that he should instantly lose his head.  Here was more than
+De Gomeron had bargained for; but this particular branch of commerce
+in revolutionary times, although lucrative, has always its risks.
+De Gomeron, thus driven to the wall, sent a letter by a Spanish messenger
+to his brother-in-law, ordering him to surrender the fortress.
+D'Orville--who meantime had been making his little arrangements with
+the other party--protested that the note had been written under duress,
+and refused to comply with its directions.
+
+Time was pressing, for the Duke of Bouillon and the Count of St. Pol lay
+with a considerable force in the neighbourhood, obviously menacing Ham.
+
+Fuentes accordingly sent that distinguished soldier and historian, Don
+Carlos Coloma, with a detachment of soldiers to Brussels, with orders
+to bring Gomeron into camp.  He was found seated at supper with his two
+young brothers, aged respectively sixteen and eighteen years, and was
+just putting a cherry into his mouth as Coloma entered the room.  He
+remained absorbed in thought, trifling with the cherry without eating it,
+which Don Carlos set down as a proof of guilt: The three brothers were at
+once put in a coach, together with their sister, a nun of the age of
+twenty, and conveyed to the head-quarters of Fuentes, who lay before Le
+Catelet, but six leagues from Ham.
+
+Meantime D'Orville had completed his negotiations with Bouillon, and had
+agreed to surrender the fortress so soon as the Spanish troops should be
+driven from the town.  The duke knowing that there was no time to lose,
+came with three thousand men before the place.  His summons to surrender
+was answered by a volley of cannon-shot from the town defences.  An
+assault was made and repulsed, D'Humieres, a most gallant officer and a
+favourite of King Henry, being killed, besides at least two hundred
+soldiers.  The next attack was successful, the town was carried, and the
+Spanish garrison put to the sword.
+
+D'Orville then, before giving up the citadel, demanded three hostages for
+the lives of his three brothers-in-law.
+
+The hostages availed him little.  Fuentes had already sent word to
+Gomeron's mother, that if the bargain were not fulfilled he would send
+her the heads of her three sons on three separate dishes.  The distracted
+woman made her way, to D'Orville, and fell at his feet with tears and
+entreaties.  It was too late, and D'Orville, unable to bear her
+lamentations, suddenly rushed from the castle, and nearly fell into
+the hands of the Spaniards as he fled from the scene.  Two of the four
+cuirassiers, who alone of the whole garrison accompanied him, were taken
+prisoners.  The governor escaped to unknown regions.  Madame de Gomeron
+then appeared before Fuentes, and tried in vain to soften him.  De
+Gomeron was at once beheaded in the sight of the whole camp.  The two
+younger sons were retained in prison, but ultimately set at liberty.
+The town and citadel were thus permanently acquired by their lawful king,
+who was said to be more afflicted at the death of D'Humieres than
+rejoiced at the capture of Ham.
+
+Meantime Colonel Verdugo, royal governor of Friesland, whose occupation
+in those provinces, now so nearly recovered by the republic, was gone,
+had led a force of six thousand foot, and twelve hundred horse across the
+French border, and was besieging La Ferte on the Cher.  The siege was
+relieved by Bouillon on the 26th May, and the Spanish veteran was then
+ordered to take command in Burgundy.  But his days were numbered.  He had
+been sick of dysentery at Luxembourg during the summer, but after
+apparent recovery died suddenly on the 2nd September, and of course was
+supposed to have been poisoned.  He was identified with the whole history
+of the Netherland wars.  Born at Talavera de la Reyna, of noble
+parentage, as he asserted--although his mother was said to have sold
+dogs' meat, and he himself when a youth was a private soldier--he rose
+by steady conduct and hard fighting to considerable eminence in his
+profession.  He was governor of Harlem after the famous siege, and
+exerted himself with some success to mitigate the ferocity of the
+Spaniards towards the Netherlanders at that epoch.  He was marshal-
+general of the camp under Don John of Austria, and distinguished himself
+at the battle of Gemblours.  He succeeded Count Renneberg as governor of
+Friesland and Groningen, and bore a manful part in most of the rough
+business that had been going on for a generation of mankind among those
+blood-stained wolds and morasses.  He was often victorious, and quite as
+often soundly defeated; but he enjoyed campaigning, and was a glutton of
+work.  He cared little for parade and ceremony, but was fond of recalling
+with pleasure the days when he was a soldier at four crowns a month, with
+an undivided fourth of one cloak, which he and three companions wore by
+turns on holidays.  Although accused of having attempted to procure the
+assassination of William Lewis Nassau, he was not considered ill-natured,
+and he possessed much admiration for Prince Maurice.  An iron-clad man,
+who had scarcely taken harness from his back all his life, he was a type
+of the Spanish commanders who had implanted international hatred deeply
+in the Netherland soul, and who, now that this result and no other had
+been accomplished, were rapidly passing away.  He had been baptised
+Franco, and his family appellation of Verdugo meant executioner.  Punning
+on these names he was wont to say, that he was frank for all good people,
+but a hangman for heretics; and he acted up to his gibe.
+
+Foiled at Ham, Fuentes had returned to the siege of Catelet, and had soon
+reduced the place.  He then turned his attention again to Dourlens, and
+invested that city.  During the preliminary operations, another veteran
+commander in these wars, Valentin Pardieu de la Motte, recently created
+Count of Everbecque by Philip, who had been for a long time general-in-
+chief of the artillery, and was one of the most famous and experienced
+officers in the Spanish service, went out one fine moonlight night to
+reconnoitre the enemy, and to superintend the erection of batteries.  As
+he was usually rather careless of his personal safety, and rarely known
+to put on his armour when going for such purposes into the trenches, it
+was remarked with some surprise, on this occasion, that he ordered his
+page to bring his, accoutrements, and that he armed himself cap-a pie
+before leaving his quarters.  Nevertheless, before he had reached the
+redoubt, a bullet from the town struck him between the fold of his morion
+and the edge of his buckler and he fell dead without uttering a sound.
+
+Here again was a great loss to the king's service.  La Motte, of a noble
+family in Burgundy, had been educated in the old fierce traditions of the
+Spanish system of warfare in the Netherlands, and had been one of the
+very hardest instruments that the despot could use for his bloody work.
+He had commanded a company of horse at the famous battle of St. Quintin,
+and since that opening event in Philip's reign he had been unceasingly--
+engaged in the Flemish wars.  Alva made him a colonel of a Walloon
+regiment; the grand commander Requesena appointed him governor of
+Gravelines.  On the whole he had been tolerably faithful to his colours;
+having changed sides but twice.  After the pacification of Ghent he swore
+allegiance to the States-General, and assisted in the bombardment of the
+citadel of that place.  Soon afterwards he went over to Don John of
+Austria, and surrendered to him the town and fortress of Gravelines, of
+which he then continued governor in the name of the king.  He was
+fortunate in the accumulation of office and of money; rather unlucky in
+his campaigning.  He was often wounded in action, and usually defeated
+when commanding in chief.  He lost an arm at the siege of Sluy's, and had
+now lost his life almost by an accident.  Although twice married he left
+no children to inherit his great estates, while the civil and military
+offices left vacant by his death were sufficient to satisfy the claims of
+five aspiring individuals.  The Count of Varax succeeded him as general
+of artillery; but it was difficult to find a man to replace La Motte,
+possessing exactly the qualities which had made that warrior so valuable
+to his king.  The type was rapidly disappearing, and most fortunately
+for humanity, if half the stories told of him by grave chroniclers,
+accustomed to discriminate between history and gossip, are to be
+believed.  He had committed more than one cool homicide.  Although not
+rejoicing in the same patronymic as his Spanish colleague of Friesland,
+he too was ready on occasion to perform hangman's work.  When sergeant-
+major in Flanders, he had himself volunteered--so ran the chronicle--
+to do execution on a poor wretch found guilty of professing the faith of
+Calvin; and, with his own hands, had prepared a fire of straw, tied his
+victim to the stake, and burned him to cinders.  Another Netherlander
+for the name crime of heresy had been condemned to be torn to death by
+horses.  No one could be found to carry out the sentence.  The soldiers
+under La Motte's command broke into mutiny rather than permit themselves
+to be used for such foul purposes; but the ardent young sergeant-major
+came forward, tied the culprit by the arms and legs to two horses, and
+himself whipped them to their work till it was duly accomplished.  Was it
+strange that in Philip's reign such energy should be rewarded by wealth,
+rank, and honour?  Was not such a labourer in the vineyard worthy of his
+hire?
+
+Still another eminent chieftain in the king's service disappeared at this
+time--one who, although unscrupulous and mischievous enough in his day,
+was however not stained by any suspicion of crimes like these.  Count
+Charles Mansfeld, tired of governing his decrepit parent Peter Ernest,
+who, since the appointment of Fuentes, had lost all further chance of
+governing the Netherlands, had now left Philip's service and gone to the
+Turkish wars.  For Amurath III., who had died in the early days of the
+year, had been succeeded by a sultan as warlike as himself.  Mahomet
+III., having strangled his nineteen brothers on his accession, handsomely
+buried them in cypress coffins by the side of their father, and having
+subsequently sacked and drowned ten infant princes posthumously born to
+Amurath, was at leisure to carry the war through Transylvania and
+Hungary, up to the gates of Vienna, with renewed energy.  The Turk,
+who could enforce the strenuous rules of despotism by which all
+secundogenitures and collateral claimants in the Ottoman family were
+thus provided for, was a foe to be dealt with seriously.  The power of
+the Moslems at that day was a full match for the holy Roman Empire.  The
+days were far distant when the grim Turk's head was to become a mockery
+and a show; and when a pagan empire, born of carnage and barbarism, was
+to be kept alive in Europe when it was ready to die, by the collective
+efforts of Christian princes.  Charles Mansfeld had been received with
+great enthusiasm at the court of Rudolph, where he was created a prince
+of the Empire, and appointed to the chief command of the Imperial armies
+under the Archduke Matthias.  But his warfare was over.  At the siege of
+Gran he was stricken with sickness and removed to Comorn, where he
+lingered some weeks.  There, on the 24th August, as he lay half-dozing on
+his couch, he was told that the siege was at last successful; upon which
+he called for a goblet of wine, drained it eagerly, and then lay resting
+his head on his hand, like one absorbed in thought.  When they came to
+arouse him from his reverie they found that he was dead.  His father
+still remained superfluous in the Netherlands, hating and hated by
+Fuentes; but no longer able to give that governor so much annoyance as
+during his son's life-time the two had been able to create for Alexander
+Farnese.  The octogenarian was past work and past mischief now; but there
+was one older soldier than he still left upon the stage, the grandest
+veteran in Philip's service, and now the last survivor, except the
+decrepit Peter Ernest, of the grim commanders of Alva's school.
+Christopher Mondragon--that miracle of human endurance, who had been
+an old man when the great duke arrived in the Netherlands--was still
+governor of Antwerp citadel, and men were to speak of him yet once
+more before he passed from the stage.
+
+I return from this digression to the siege of Dourlens.  The death of La
+Motte made no difference in the plans of Fuentes.  He was determined to
+reduce the place preparatively to more important operations.  Bouillon
+was disposed to relieve it, and to that end had assembled a force of
+eight thousand men within the city of Amiens.  By midsummer the Spaniards
+had advanced with their mines and galleries close to the walls of the
+city.  Meantime Admiral Villars, who had gained so much renown by
+defending Rouen against Henry IV., and who had subsequently made such an
+excellent bargain with that monarch before entering his service, arrived
+at Amiens.  On the 24th July an expedition was sent from that city
+towards Dourlens.  Bouillon and St. Pol commanded in person a force of
+six hundred picked cavalry.  Pillars and Sanseval each led half as many,
+and there was a supporting body of twelve hundred musketeers.  This
+little army convoyed a train of wagons, containing ammunition and other
+supplies for the beleaguered town.  But Fuentes, having sufficiently
+strengthened his works, sallied forth with two thousand infantry, and a
+flying squadron of Spanish horse, to intercept them.  It was the eve of
+St. James, the patron saint of Spain, at the sound, of whose name as a
+war-cry so many battle-fields had been won in the Netherlands, so many
+cities sacked, so many wholesale massacres perpetrated.  Fuentes rode in
+the midst of his troops with the royal standard of Spain floating above
+him. On the other hand Yillars, glittering in magnificent armour and
+mounted on a superbly caparisoned charger came on, with his three hundred
+troopers, as if about to ride a course in a tournament.  The battle which
+ensued was one of the most bloody for the numbers engaged, and the
+victory one of the most decisive recorded in this war.  Villars charged
+prematurely, furiously, foolishly.  He seemed jealous of Bouillon, and
+disposed to show the sovereign to whom he had so recently given his
+allegiance that an ancient Leaguer and Papist was a better soldier for
+his purpose than the most grizzled Huguenot in his army.  On the other
+hand the friends of Villars accused the duke of faintheartedness, or at
+least of an excessive desire to save himself and his own command.  The
+first impetuous onset of the admiral was successful, and he drove half-
+a-dozen companies of Spaniards before him.  But he had ventured too far
+from his supports.  Bouillon had only intended a feint, instead of a
+desperate charge; the Spaniards were rallied, and the day was saved by
+that cool and ready soldier, Carlos Coloma.  In less than an hour the
+French were utterly defeated and cut to pieces.  Bouillon escaped to
+Amiens with five hundred men; this was all that was left of the
+expedition.  The horse of Villars was shot under him and the admiral's
+leg was broken as he fell.  He was then taken prisoner by two lieutenants
+of Carlos Coloma; but while these warriors were enjoying,
+by anticipation, the enormous ransom they should derive from so
+illustrious a captive, two other lieutenants in the service of Marshal de
+Rosnes came up and claimed their share in the prize.  While the four were
+wrangling, the admiral called out to them in excellent Spanish not to
+dispute, for he had money enough to satisfy them all.  Meantime the
+Spanish commissary--general of cavalry, Contreras, came up, rebuked this
+unseemly dispute before the enemy had been fairly routed, and, in order
+to arrange the quarrel impartially, ordered his page to despatch De
+Villars on the spot.  The page, without a word, placed his arquebus to
+the admiral's forehead and shot him dead.
+
+So perished a bold and brilliant soldier, and a most unscrupulous
+politician.  Whether the cause of his murder was mere envy on the part
+of the commissary at having lost a splendid opportunity for prize-money,
+or hatred to an ancient Leaguer thus turned renegade, it is fruitless
+now to enquire.
+
+Villars would have paid two hundred thousand crowns for his ransom, so
+that the assassination was bad as a mercantile speculation; but it was
+pretended by the friends of Contreras that rescue was at hand.  It is
+certain, however, that nothing was attempted by the French to redeem
+their total overthrow.  Count Belin was wounded and fell into the hands
+of Coloma.  Sanseval was killed; and a long list of some of the most
+brilliant nobles in France was published by the Spaniards as having
+perished on that bloody field.  This did not prevent a large number of
+these victims, however, from enjoying excellent health for many long
+years afterwards, although their deaths have been duly recorded in
+chronicle from that day to our own times.
+
+But Villars and Sanseval were certainly slain, and Fuentes sent their
+bodies, with a courteous letter, to the Duke of Nevers, at Amiens, who
+honoured them with a stately funeral.
+
+There was much censure cast on both Bouillon and Villars respectively
+by the antagonists of each chieftain; and the contest as to the cause of
+the defeat was almost as animated as the skirmish itself.  Bouillon was
+censured for grudging a victory to the Catholics, and thus leaving the
+admiral to his fate.  Yet it is certain that the Huguenot duke himself
+commanded a squadron composed almost entirely of papists.  Villars, on
+the other hand, was censured for rashness, obstinacy, and greediness for
+distinction; yet it is probable that Fuentes might have been defeated had
+the charges of Bouillon been as determined and frequent as were those of
+his colleague.  Savigny de Rosnes, too, the ancient Leaguer, who
+commanded under Fuentes, was accused of not having sufficiently followed
+up the victory, because unwilling that his Spanish friends should
+entirely trample upon his own countrymen.  Yet there is no doubt whatever
+that De Rosnes was as bitter an enemy to his own country as the most
+ferocious Spaniard of them all.  It has rarely been found in civil war
+that the man who draws his sword against his fatherland, under the banner
+of the foreigner, is actuated by any lingering tenderness for the nation
+he betrays; and the renegade Frenchman was in truth the animating spirit
+of Fuentes during the whole of his brilliant campaign.  The Spaniard's
+victories were, indeed, mainly attributable to the experience, the
+genius, and the rancour of De Rosnes.
+
+But debates over a lost battle are apt to be barren.  Meantime Fuentes,
+losing no time in controversy, advanced upon the city of Dourlens, was
+repulsed twice, and carried it on the third assault, exactly one week
+after the action just recounted.  The Spaniards and Leaguers, howling
+"Remember Ham!"  butchered without mercy the garrison and all the
+citizens, save a small number of prisoners likely to be lucrative.  Six
+hundred of the townspeople and two thousand five hundred French soldiers
+were killed within a few hours.  Well had Fuentes profited by the
+relationship and tuition of Alva!
+
+The Count of Dinant and his brother De Ronsoy were both slain, and two or
+three hundred thousand florins were paid in ransom by those who escaped
+with life.  The victims were all buried outside of the town in one vast
+trench, and the effluvia bred a fever which carried off most of the
+surviving inhabitants.  Dourlens became for the time a desert.
+
+Fuentes now received deputies with congratulations from the obedient
+provinces, especially from Hainault, Artois, and Lille.  He was also
+strongly urged to attempt the immediate reduction of Cambray, to which
+end those envoys were empowered to offer contributions of four hundred
+and fifty thousand florins and a contingent of seven thousand infantry.
+Berlaymont, too, bishop of Tournay and archbishop of Cambray, was ready
+to advance forty thousand florins in the same cause.
+
+Fuentes, in the highest possible spirits at his success, and having just
+been reinforced by Count Bucquoy with a fresh Walloon regiment of fifteen
+hundred foot and with eight hundred and fifty of the mutineers from
+Tirlemont and Chapelle, who were among the choicest of Spanish veterans,
+was not disposed to let the grass grow under his feet.  Within four days
+after the sack of Dourlens he broke up his camp, and came before Cambray
+with an army of twelve thousand foot and nearly four thousand horse.  But
+before narrating the further movements of the vigorous new governor-
+general, it is necessary to glance at the military operations in the
+eastern part of the Netherlands and upon the Rhine.
+
+The States-General had reclaimed to their authority nearly all that
+important region lying beyond the Yssel--the solid Frisian bulwark of the
+republic--but there were certain points nearer the line where Upper and
+Nether Germany almost blend into one, which yet acknowledged the name of
+the king.  The city of Groenlo, or Grol, not a place of much interest or
+importance in itself, but close to the frontier, and to that destined
+land of debate, the duchies of Cleves, Juliers, and Berg, still retained
+its Spanish garrison.  On the 14th July Prince Maurice of Nassau came
+before the city with six thousand infantry, some companies of cavalry,
+and sixteen pieces of artillery.  He made his approaches in form, and
+after a week's operations he fired three volleys, according to his
+custom, and summoned the place to capitulate.  Governor Jan van Stirum
+replied stoutly that he would hold the place for God and the king to the
+last drop of his blood.  Meantime there was hope of help from the
+outside.
+
+Maurice was a vigorous young commander, but there was a man to be dealt
+with who had been called the "good old Mondragon" when the prince was in
+his cradle; and who still governed the citadel of Antwerp, and was still
+ready for an active campaign.
+
+Christopher Mondragon was now ninety-two years old.  Not often in the
+world's history has a man of that age been capable of personal,
+participation in the joys of the battlefield, whatever natural reluctance
+veterans are apt to manifest at relinquishing high military control.
+
+But Mondragon looked not with envy but with admiration on the growing
+fame of the Nassau chieftain, and was disposed, before he himself left
+the stage, to match himself with the young champion.
+
+So soon as he heard of the intended demonstration of Maurice against
+Grol, the ancient governor of Antwerp collected a little army by throwing
+together all the troops that could be spared from the various garrisons
+within his command.  With two Spanish regiments, two thousand Swiss, the
+Walloon troops of De Grisons, and the Irish regiment of Stanley--in all
+seven thousand foot and thirteen hundred horse--Mondragon marched
+straight across Brabant and Gelderland to the Rhine.  At Kaiserworth he
+reviewed his forces, and announced his intention of immediately crossing
+the river.  There was a murmur of disapprobation among officers and men
+at what they considered the foolhardy scheme of mad old Mondragon.  But
+the general had not campaigned a generation before, at the age of sixty-
+nine, in the bottom of the sea, and waded chin-deep for six hours long of
+an October night, in the face of a rising tide from the German Ocean and
+of an army of Zeelanders, to be frightened now at the summer aspect of
+the peaceful Rhine.
+
+The wizened little old man, walking with difficulty by the aid of a
+staff, but armed in proof, with plumes waving gallantly from his iron
+headpiece, and with his rapier at his side, ordered a chair to be brought
+to the river's edge.  Then calmly seating himself in the presence of his
+host, he stated that he should not rise from that chair until the last
+man had crossed the river.  Furthermore, he observed that it was not only
+his purpose to relieve the city of Grol, but to bring Maurice to an
+action, and to defeat him, unless he retired.  The soldiers ceased to
+murmur, the pontoons were laid, the, river was passed, and on the 25th
+July, Maurice, hearing of the veteran's approach, and not feeling safe
+in his position, raised the siege of the city.  Burning his camp and
+everything that could not be taken with him on his march, the prince came
+in perfect order to Borkelo, two Dutch miles from Grol.  Here he occupied
+himself for some time in clearing the country of brigands who in the
+guise of soldiers infested that region and made the little cities of
+Deutecom, Anholt, and Heerenberg unsafe.  He ordered the inhabitants of
+these places to send out detachments to beat the bushes for his cavalry,
+while Hohenlo was ordered to hunt the heaths and wolds thoroughly with
+packs of bloodhounds until every man and beast to be found lurking in
+those wild regions should be extirpated.  By these vigorous and cruel,
+but perhaps necessary, measures the brigands were at last extirpated, and
+honest people began to sleep in their beds.
+
+On the 18th August Maurice took up a strong position at Bislich, not
+far from Wesel, where the River Lippe empties itself into the Rhine.
+Mondragon, with his army strengthened by reinforcements from garrisons
+in Gelderland, and by four hundred men brought by Frederic, van den Berg
+from Grol, had advanced to a place called Walston in den Ham, in the
+neighbourhood of Wesel.  The Lippe flowed between the two hostile forces.
+Although he had broken up his siege, the prince was not disposed to
+renounce his whole campaign before trying conclusions with his veteran
+antagonist.  He accordingly arranged an ambush with much skill, by means
+of which he hoped to bring on a general engagement and destroy Mondragon
+and his little army.
+
+His cousin and favourite lieutenant, Philip Nassau, was entrusted with
+the preliminaries.  That adventurous commander, with a picked force of
+seven hundred cavalry, moved quietly from the camp on the evening of the
+1st September.  He took with him his two younger brothers, Ernest and
+Lewis Gunther, who, as has been seen, had received the promise of the
+eldest brother of the family, William Lewis, that they should be employed
+from time to time in any practical work that might be going, forward.
+Besides these young gentlemen, several of the most famous English and
+Dutch commanders were on, the expedition; the brothers Paul and Marcellus
+Bax, Captains Parker, Cutler, and Robert Vere, brother of Sir Francis,
+among the number.
+
+Early in the morning of the 2nd September the force crossed the Lippe,
+according to orders, keeping a pontoon across the stream to secure their
+retreat.
+
+They had instructions thus to feel the enemy at early dawn, and, as he
+was known to have foraging parties out every morning along the margin of
+the river, to make a sudden descent upon their pickets, and to capture
+those companies before they could effect their escape or be reinforced.
+Afterwards they were to retreat across the Lippe, followed, as it was
+hoped would be the case, by the troops: of Mondragon, anxious to punish
+this piece of audacity.  Meantime Maurice with five thousand infantry,
+the rest of his cavalry, and several pieces of artillery, awaited their
+coming, posted behind some hills in the neighbourhood of Wesel.
+
+The plot of the young commander was an excellent one, but the ancient
+campaigner on the other side of the river had not come all the way from
+his comfortable quarters in Antwerp to be caught napping on that
+September morning.  Mondragon had received accurate information from his
+scouts as to what was going on in the enemy's camp; and as to the exact
+position of Maurice.  He was up long before daybreak--"the good old
+Christopher"--and himself personally arranged a counter-ambush.  In the
+fields lying a little back from the immediate neighbourhood of, the Lippe
+he posted the mass of his cavalry, supported by a well-concealed force of
+infantry.  The pickets on the stream and the foraging companies were left
+to do their usual work as if nothing were likely to happen.
+
+Philip Nassau galloped cheerfully forward; according to the well-
+concerted plan, sending Cutler and Marcellus Bax with a handful of
+troopers to pounce upon the enemy's pickets.  When those officers got to
+the usual foraging ground they, came upon a much larger cavalry force
+than they had looked for; and, suspecting something wrong; dashed back--
+again to give information to Count Philip.  That impatient commander,
+feeling sure of his game unless this foolish delay should give the
+foraging companies time to, escape; ordered an immediate advance with his
+whole cavalry force: The sheriff of Zallant was ordered to lead the way.
+He objected that the pass, leading through a narrow lane and opening by a
+gate into an open field, was impassable for more than two troopers
+abreast; and that the enemy was in force beyond.  Philips scorning these
+words of caution, and exclaiming that seventy-five lancers were enough to
+put fifty carabineers to rout; put on his casque, drew his sword; and
+sending his brother Lewis to summon Kinski and Donck; dashed into the
+pass, accompanied by the two counts and, a couple of other nobles. The
+sheriff, seeing this, followed him at full gallop; and after him came the
+troopers of Barchon, of Du Bois, and of Paul Bax; riding single file but
+in much disorder.  When they had all entered inextricably into the lane,
+with the foremost of the lancers already passing through the gate, they
+discovered the enemy's cavalry and infantry drawn up in force upon the
+watery, heathery pastures beyond.  There was at once a scene of
+confusion.   To use lances was impossible, while they were all struggling
+together through the narrow passage offering themselves an easy prey to
+the enemy as they slowly emerged into the gelds.  The foremost defended
+themselves with sabre and pistol as well as they could.  The hindmost did
+their best to escape, and rode for their lives to the other side of the
+river.  All trampled upon each other and impeded each other's movements.
+There was a brief engagement, bloody, desperate, hand to hand, and many
+Spaniards fell before the entrapped Netherlanders.  But there could not
+be a moment's doubt as to the issue.  Count Philip went down in the
+beginning of the action, shot through the body by an arquebus, discharged
+so close to him that his clothes were set on fire.  As there was no water
+within reach the flames could be extinguished at last only by rolling him
+over, and over, wounded as he was, among the sand and heather.  Count
+Ernest Solms was desperately wounded at the same time.  For a moment both
+gentlemen attempted to effect their escape by mounting on one horse, but
+both fell to the ground exhausted and were taken prisoners.  Ernest
+Nassau was also captured.  His young brother, Lewis Gunther, saved
+himself by swimming the river.  Count Kinski was mortally wounded.
+Robert Vere, too, fell into the enemy's hands, and was afterwards
+murdered in cold blood.  Marcellus Bax, who had returned to the field by
+a circuitous path, still under the delusion that he was about handsomely
+to cut off the retreat of the foraging companies, saved himself and a
+handful of cavalry by a rapid flight, so soon as he discovered the enemy
+drawn up in line of battle.  Cutler and Parker were equally fortunate.
+There was less than a hundred of the States' troops killed, and it is
+probable that a larger number of the Spaniards fell.  But the loss of
+Philip Nassau, despite the debauched life and somewhat reckless valour.
+of that soldier, was a very severe one to the army and to his family.
+He was conveyed to Rheinberg, where his wounds were dressed.  As he lay
+dying he was courteously visited by Mondragon, and by many other Spanish
+officers, anxious to pay their respects to so distinguished and warlike a
+member of an illustrious house.  He received them with dignity, and
+concealed his physical agony so as to respond to their conversation as
+became a Nassau.  His cousin, Frederic van den Berg, who was among the
+visitors, indecently taunted him with his position; asking him what he
+had expected by serving the cause of the Beggars.  Philip turned from him
+with impatience and bade him hold his peace.  At midnight he died.
+
+William of Orange and his three brethren had already laid down their
+lives for the republic, and now his eldest brother's son had died in the
+same cause.  "He has carried the name of Nassau with honour into the
+grave," said his brother Lewis William, to their father.  Ten others of
+the house, besides many collateral relations, were still in arms for
+their adopted country.  Rarely in history has a single noble race so
+entirely identified itself with a nation's record in its most heroic
+epoch as did that of Orange-Nassau with the liberation of Holland.
+
+Young Ernest Solms, brother of Count Everard, lay in the same chamber
+with Philip Nassau, and died on the following day.  Their bodies were
+sent by Mondragon with a courteous letter to Maurice at Bisslich.  Ernest
+Nassau was subsequently ransomed for ten thousand florins.
+
+This skirmish on the Lippe has no special significance in a military
+point of view, but it derives more than a passing interest, not only from
+the death of many a brave and distinguished soldier, but for the
+illustration of human vigour triumphing, both physically and mentally,
+over the infirmities of old age, given by the achievement of Christopher
+Mondragon.  Alone he had planned his expedition across the country from
+Antwerp, alone he had insisted on crossing the Rhine, while younger
+soldiers hesitated; alone, with his own active brain and busy hands, he
+had outwitted the famous young chieftain of the Netherlands, counteracted
+his subtle policy, and set the counter-ambush by which his choicest
+cavalry were cut to pieces, and one of his bravest generals slain.  So
+far could the icy blood of ninety-two prevail against the vigour of
+twenty-eight.
+
+The two armies lay over against each other, with the river between them,
+for some days longer, but it was obvious that nothing further would be
+attempted on either side.  Mondragon had accomplished the object for
+which he had marched from Brabant.  He had, spoiled the autumn campaign
+of Maurice, and, was, now disposed to return before winter to, his own
+quarters.  He sent a trumpet accordingly to his antagonist, begging him,
+half in jest, to have more consideration for his infirmities than to keep
+him out in his old age in such foul weather, but to allow him the
+military honour of being last to break up camp.  Should Maurice consent
+to move away, Mondragon was ready to pledge himself not to pursue him,
+and within three days to leave his own entrenchments.
+
+The proposition was not granted, and very soon afterwards the Spaniard,
+deciding to retire, crossed the Rhine on the 11th October.  Maurice made
+a slight attempt at pursuit, sending Count William Lewis with some
+cavalry, who succeeded in cutting off a few wagons.  The army, however,
+returned safely, to be dispersed into various garrisons.
+
+This was Mondragon's last feat of, arms.  Less than three months
+afterwards, in Antwerp citadel, as the veteran was washing his hands
+previously to going to the dinner-table, he sat down and died.  Strange
+to say, this man--who had spent almost a century on the battlefield, who
+had been a soldier in nearly every war that had been waged in any part of
+Europe during that most belligerent age, who had come an old man to the
+Netherlands before Alva's arrival, and had ever since been constantly and
+personally engaged in the vast Flemish tragedy which had now lasted well
+nigh thirty years--had never himself lost a drop of blood.  His battle-
+fields had been on land and water, on ice, in fire, and at the bottom of
+the sea, but he had never received a wound.  Nay, more; he had been blown
+up in a fortress--the castle of Danvilliers in Luxembourg, of which he
+was governor--where all perished save his wife and himself, and, when
+they came to dig among the ruins, they excavated at last the ancient
+couple, protected by the framework of a window in the embrasure of which
+they had been seated, without a scratch or a bruise.  He was a Biscayan
+by descent, but born in Medina del Campo.  A strict disciplinarian, very
+resolute and pertinacious, he had the good fortune to be beloved by his
+inferiors, his equals, and his superiors.  He was called the father of
+his soldiers, the good Mondragon, and his name was unstained by any of
+those deeds of ferocity which make the chronicles of the time resemble
+rather the history of wolves than of men.  To a married daughter, mother
+of several children, he left a considerable fortune.
+
+Maurice broke up his camp soon after the departure of his antagonist, and
+paused for a few days at Arnheim to give honourable burial to his cousin
+Philip and Count Solms.  Meantime Sir Francis Vere was detached, with
+three regiments, which were to winter in Overyssel, towards Weerd castle,
+situate at a league's distance from Ysselsburg, and defended by a
+garrison of twenty-six men under Captain Pruys.  That doughty commandant,
+on being summoned to surrender, obstinately refused.  Vere, according to
+Maurice's orders, then opened with his artillery against the place, which
+soon capitulated in great panic and confusion.  The captain demanded the
+honours of war.  Vere told him in reply that the honours of war were
+halters for the garrison who had dared to defend such a hovel against
+artillery.  The twenty-six were accordingly ordered to draw black and
+white straws.  This was done, and the twelve drawing white straws were
+immediately hanged; the thirteenth receiving his life on consenting to
+act as executioner for his comrades.  The commandant was despatched first
+of all.  The rope broke, but the English soldiers held him under the
+water of the ditch until he was drowned.  The castle was then thoroughly
+sacked, the women being sent unharmed to Ysselsburg.
+
+Maurice then shipped the remainder of his troops along the Rhine and Waal
+to their winter quarters and returned to the Hague.  It was the feeblest
+year's work yet done by the stadholder.
+
+Meantime his great ally, the Huguenot-Catholic Prince of Bearne, was
+making a dashing, and, on the whole, successful campaign in the heart of
+his own kingdom.  The constable of Castile, Don Ferdinando de Velasco,
+one of Spain's richest grandees and poorest generals, had been sent with
+an army of ten thousand men to take the field in Burgundy against the man
+with whom the great Farnese had been measuring swords so lately, and with
+not unmingled success, in Picardy.  Biron, with a sudden sweep, took
+possession of Aussone, Autun, and Beaune, but on one adventurous day
+found himself so deeply engaged with a superior force of the enemy in the
+neighbourhood of Fontaine Francaise, or St. Seine, where France's great
+river takes its rise, as to be nearly cut off and captured.  But Henry
+himself was already in the field, and by one of those mad, reckless
+impulses which made him so adorable as a soldier and yet so profoundly
+censurable as a commander-in-chief, he flung himself, like a young
+lieutenant, with a mere handful of cavalry, into the midst of the fight,
+and at the imminent peril of his own life succeeded in rescuing the
+marshal and getting off again unscathed.  On other occasions Henry said
+he had fought for victory, but on that for dear life; and, even as in the
+famous and foolish skirmish at Aumale three years before, it was absence
+of enterprise or lack of cordiality on the part of his antagonists, that
+alone prevented a captive king from being exhibited as a trophy of
+triumph for the expiring League.
+
+But the constable of Castile was not born to cheer the heart of his
+prudent master with such a magnificent spectacle.  Velasco fell back to
+Gray and obstinately refused to stir from his entrenchments, while Henry
+before his eyes laid siege to Dijon.  On the 28th June the capital of
+Burgundy surrendered to its sovereign, but no temptations could induce
+the constable to try the chance of a battle.  Henry's movements in the
+interior were more successful than were the operations nearer the
+frontier, but while the monarch was thus cheerfully fighting for his
+crown in France, his envoys were winning a still more decisive campaign
+for him in Rome.
+
+D'Ossat and Perron had accomplished their diplomatic task with consummate
+ability, and, notwithstanding the efforts and the threats of the Spanish
+ambassador and the intrigues of his master, the absolution was granted.
+The pope arose early on the morning of the 5th August, and walked
+barefoot from his palace of Mount Cavallo to the church of Maria
+Maggiore, with his eyes fixed on the ground, weeping loudly and praying
+fervently.  He celebrated mass in the church, and then returned as he
+went, saluting no one on the road and shutting himself up in his palace
+afterwards.  The same ceremony was performed ten days later on the
+festival of our Lady's Ascension.  In vain, however, had been the
+struggle on the part of his Holiness to procure from the ambassador the
+deposition of the crown of France in his hands, in order that the king
+might receive it back again as a free gift and concession from the chief
+pontiff.  Such a triumph was not for Rome, nor could even the publication
+of the Council of Trent in France be conceded except with a saving clause
+"as to matters which could not be put into operation without troubling
+the repose of the kingdom."  And to obtain this clause the envoys
+declared "that they had been obliged to sweat blood and water."
+
+On the 17th day of September the absolution was proclaimed with great
+pomp and circumstance from the gallery of St. Peter's, the holy father
+seated on the highest throne of majesty, with his triple crown on has
+head, and all his cardinals and bishops about him in their most effulgent
+robes.
+
+The silver trumpets were blown, while artillery roared from the castle
+of St. Angelo, and for two successive nights Rome was in a blaze of
+bonfires and illumination, in a whirl of bell-ringing, feasting, and
+singing of hosannaha.  There had not been such a merry-making in the
+eternal city since the pope had celebrated solemn thanksgiving for the
+massacre of St. Bartholomew.  The king was almost beside himself with
+rapture when the great news reached him, and he straightway wrote
+letters, overflowing with gratitude and religious enthusiasm, to the
+pontiff and expressed his regret that military operations did not allow
+him to proceed at once to Rome in person to kiss the holy father's feet.
+
+
+The narrative returns to Fuentes, who was left before the walls of
+Cambray.
+
+That venerable ecclesiastical city; pleasantly seated amid gardens,
+orchards, and green pastures, watered, by the winding Scheld, was well
+fortified after the old manner, but it was especially defended and
+dominated by a splendid pentagonal citadel built by Charles V.  It was
+filled with fine churches, among which the magnificent cathedral was
+pre-eminent, and with many other stately edifices.  The population was
+thrifty, active, and turbulent, like that of all those Flemish and
+Walloon cities which the spirit of mediaeval industry had warmed for a
+time into vehement little republics.
+
+But, as has already been depicted in these pages, the Celtic element had
+been more apt to receive than consistent to retain the generous impress
+which had once been stamped on all the Netherlands.  The Walloon
+provinces had fallen away from their Flemish sisters and seemed likely to
+accept a permanent yoke, while in the territory of the united States, as
+John Baptist Tassis was at that very moment pathetically observing in a
+private letter to Philip, "with the coming up of a new generation
+educated as heretics from childhood, who had never heard what the word
+king means, it was likely to happen at last that the king's memory, being
+wholly forgotten nothing would remain in the land but heresy alone."
+From this sad fate Cambray had been saved.  Gavre d'Inchy had seventeen
+years before surrendered the city to the Duke of Alencon during that
+unlucky personage's brief and base career in the Netherlands, all, that
+was left of his visit being the semi-sovereignty which the notorious
+Balagny had since that time enjoyed, in the archiepiscopal city.  This
+personage, a natural son of Monluc, Bishop of Valence, and nephew of the,
+distinguished Marshal Monluci was one of the most fortunate and the most
+ignoble of all the soldiers of fortune who had played their part at this
+epoch in the Netherlands.  A poor creature himself, he had a heroine for
+a wife.  Renee, the sister of Bussy d'Amboise, had vowed to unite herself
+to a man who would avenge the assassination of her brother by the Count
+Montsoreau?  Balagny readily agreed to perform the deed, and accordingly
+espoused the high-born dame, but it does not appear that he ever wreaked
+her vengeance on the murderer.  He had now governed Cambray until the
+citizens and the whole countryside were galled and exhausted by his
+grinding tyranny, his inordinate pride, and his infamous extortions.
+His latest achievement had been to force upon his subjects a copper
+currency bearing the nominal value of silver, with the same blasting
+effects which such experiments in political economy are apt to produce
+on princes and peoples.  He had been a Royalist, a Guisist, a Leaguer,
+a Dutch republican, by turns, and had betrayed all the parties, at whose
+expense he had alternately filled his coffers.  During the past year he
+had made up his mind--like most of the conspicuous politicians and
+campaigners of France--that the moribund League was only fit to be
+trampled upon by its recent worshippers, and he had made accordingly one
+of the very best bargains with Henry IV. that had yet been made, even at
+that epoch of self-vending grandees.
+
+Henry, by treaty ratified in August, 1594, had created him Prince of
+Cambray and Marshal of France, so that the man who had been receiving
+up to that very moment a monthly subsidy of seven thousand two hundred
+dollars from the King of Spain was now gratified with a pension to about
+the same yearly amount by the King of France.  During the autumn Henry
+had visited Cambray, and the new prince had made wondrous exhibitions of
+loyalty to the sovereign whom he had done his best all his life to
+exclude from his kingdom.  There had been a ceaseless round of
+tournaments, festivals, and masquerades in the city in honour of the
+Huguenot chieftain, now changed into the most orthodox and most
+legitimate of monarchs, but it was not until midsummer of the present
+year that Balagny was called on to defend his old possessions and his new
+principality against a well-seasoned army and a vigorous commander.
+Meanwhile his new patron was so warmly occupied in other directions that
+it might be difficult for him to send assistance to the beleaguered city.
+
+On the 14th August Fuentes began his siege operations.  Before the
+investment had been completed the young Prince of Rhetelois, only fifteen
+years of age, son of the Duke of Nevers, made his entrance into the city
+attended by thirty of his father's archers.  De Vich, too, an experienced
+and faithful commander, succeeded in bringing four or five hundred
+dragoons through the enemy's lines.  These meagre reinforcements were all
+that reached the place; for, although the States-General sent two or
+three thousand Scotchmen and Zeelanders, under Justinus of Nassau, to
+Henry, that he might be the better enabled to relieve this important
+frontier city, the king's movements were not sufficiently prompt to turn
+the force to good account Balagny was left with a garrison of three
+thousand French and Walloons in the city, besides five hundred French in
+the fortress.
+
+After six weeks steady drawing of parallels and digging of mines Fuentes
+was ready to open his batteries.  On the 26th September, the news, very
+much exaggerated, of Mondragon's brilliant victory near Wessel, and of
+the deaths of Philip Nassau and Ernest Solms, reached the Spanish camp.
+Immense was the rejoicing.  Triumphant salutes from eighty-seven cannon
+and many thousand muskets shook the earth and excited bewilderment and
+anxiety within the walls of the city.  Almost immediately afterwards a
+tremendous cannonade was begun and so vigorously sustained that the
+burghers, and part of the garrison, already half rebellious with hatred
+to Balagny, began loudly to murmur as the balls came flying into their
+streets.  A few days later an insurrection broke out.  Three thousand
+citizens, with red flags flying, and armed to the teeth were discovered
+at daylight drawn up in the market place.  Balagny came down from the
+citadel and endeavoured to calm the tumult, but was received with
+execrations.  They had been promised, shouted the insurgents, that
+every road about Cambray was to swarm with French soldiers under their
+formidable king, kicking the heads of the Spaniards in all directions.
+And what had they got? a child with thirty archers, sent by his father,
+and half a man at the head of four hundred dragoons.  To stand a siege
+under such circumstances against an army of fifteen thousand Spaniards,
+and to take Balagny's copper as if it were gold, was more than could be
+asked of respectable burghers.
+
+The allusion to the young prince Rhetelois and to De Vich, who had lost a
+leg in the wars, was received with much enthusiasm.  Balagny, appalled at
+the fury of the people, whom he had so long been trampling upon while
+their docility lasted, shrank back before their scornful denunciations
+into the citadel.
+
+But his wife was not appalled.  This princess had from the beginning of
+the siege showed a courage and an energy worthy of her race.  Night and
+day she had gone the rounds of the ramparts, encouraging and directing
+the efforts of the garrison.  She had pointed batteries against the
+enemy's works, and, with her own hands, had fired the cannon.  She now
+made her appearance in the market-place, after her husband had fled, and
+did her best to assuage the tumult, and to arouse the mutineers to a
+sense of duty or of shame.  She plucked  from her bosom whole handfuls
+of gold which she threw among the bystanders, and she was followed by a
+number of carts filled with sacks of coin ready to be exchanged for the
+debased currency.
+
+Expressing contempt for the progress made by the besieging army, and for
+the, slight impression so far produced upon the defences of the city, she
+snatched a pike from a soldier and offered in person to lead the garrison
+to the breach.  Her audience knew full well that this was no theatrical
+display, but that the princess was ready as the boldest warrior to lead
+a forlorn hope or to repel the bloodiest assault.  Nor, from a military
+point of view, was their situation desperate.  But their hatred and scorn
+for Balagny could not be overcome by any passing sentiment of admiration
+for his valiant though imperious wife.  No one followed her to the
+breach.  Exclaiming that she at least would never surrender, and that
+she would die a sovereign princess rather than live a subject, Renee de
+Balagny retained to the citadel.
+
+The town soon afterwards capitulated, and as the Spanish soldiers, on
+entering, observed the slight damage that had been caused by their
+batteries, they were most grateful to the faint-hearted or mutinous
+condition by which they had been spared the expense of an assault.
+
+The citadel was now summoned to surrender; and Balagny agreed, in case he
+should not be relieved within six days, to accept what was considered
+honourable terms.  It proved too late to expect succour from Henry, and
+Balagny, but lately a reigning prince, was fain to go forth on the
+appointed day and salute his conqueror.  But the princess kept her vow.
+She had done her best to defend her dominions and to live a sovereign,
+and now there was nothing left her but to die.  With bitter reproaches on
+her husband's pusillanimity, with tears and sobs of rage and shame, she
+refused food, spurned the idea of capitulation, and expired before the
+9th of October.
+
+On that day a procession moved out of the citadel gates.  Balagny,
+with a son of eleven years of age, the Prince of Rhetelois, the Commander
+De Vich; and many other distinguished personages, all magnificently
+attired, came forth at the head of what remained of the garrison.  The
+soldiers, numbering thirteen hundred foot and two hundred and forty
+horse, marched with colours flying, drums beating, bullet in mouth, and
+all the other recognised palliatives of military disaster.  Last of all
+came a hearse, bearing the coffin of the Princess of Cambray.  Fuentes
+saluted the living leaders of the procession, and the dead heroine; with
+stately courtesy, and ordered an escort as far as Peronne.
+
+Balagny met with a cool reception from Henry at St. Quintin, but
+subsequently made his peace, and espoused the sister of the king's
+mistress, Gabrielle d'Estrees.  The body of Gavre d'Inchy, which had been
+buried for years, was dug up and thrown into a gutter.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Deal with his enemy as if sure to become his friend
+Mondragon was now ninety-two years old
+More catholic than the pope
+Octogenarian was past work and past mischief
+Sacked and drowned ten infant princes
+Strangled his nineteen brothers on his accession
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v67
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 68, 1595-1596
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+     Archduke Cardinal Albert appointed governor of the Netherlands--
+     Return of Philip William from captivity--His adherence to the King
+     of Spain--Notice of the Marquis of Varambon, Count Varax, and other
+     new officers--Henry's communications with Queen Elizabeth--Madame de
+     Monceaux--Conversation of Henry with the English ambassador--
+     Marseilles secured by the Duke of Guise--The fort of Rysbank taken
+     by De Roane Calais in the hands of the Spanish--Assistance from
+     England solicited by Henry--Unhandsome conditions proposed by
+     Elizabeth--Annexation of Calais to the obedient provinces--Pirates
+     of Dunkirk--Uneasiness of the Netherlanders with regard to the
+     designs of Elizabeth--Her protestations of sincerity--Expedition of
+     Dutch and English forces to Spain--Attack on the Spanish war-ships--
+     Victory of the allies--Flag of the Republic planted on the fortress
+     of Cadiz--Capitulation of the city--Letter of Elizabeth to the Dutch
+     Admirals--State of affairs in France--Proposition of the Duke of
+     Montpensier for the division of the kingdom--Successes of the
+     Cardinal Archduke in Normandy--He proceeds to Flanders--Siege and
+     capture of Hulat--Projected alliance against Spain--Interview of De
+     Sancy with Lord Burghley--Diplomatic conference at Greenwich--
+     Formation of a league against Spain--Duplicity of the treaty--
+     Affairs in Germany--Battle between the Emperor and the Grand Turk--
+     Endeavours of Philip to counteract the influence of the league--His
+     interference in the affairs of Germany--Secret intrigue of Henry
+     with Spain--Philip's second attempt at the conquest of England.
+
+Another governor-general arrived in the early days of the year 1596, to
+take charge of the obedient provinces.  It had been rumoured for many
+months that Philip's choice was at last fixed upon the Archduke Cardinal
+Albert, Archbishop of Toledo, youngest of the three surviving brothers,
+of the Emperor Rudolph, as the candidate for many honours.  He was to
+espouse the Infanta, he was to govern the Netherlands, and, as it was
+supposed, there were wider and wilder schemes for the aggrandizement of
+this fortunate ecclesiastic brooding in the mind of Philip than yet had
+seen the light.
+
+Meantime the cardinal's first care was to unfrock himself.  He had also
+been obliged to lay down the most lucrative episcopate in Christendom,
+that of Toledo, the revenues of which amounted to the enormous sum of
+three hundred thousand dollars a year.  Of this annual income, however,
+he prudently reserved to himself fifty thousand dollars, by contract with
+his destined successor.
+
+The cardinal reached the Netherlands before the end of January.  He
+brought with him three thousand Spanish infantry, and some companies of
+cavalry, while his personal baggage was transported on three hundred and
+fifty mules.  Of course there was a triumphal procession when, on the
+11th February, the new satrap entered the obedient Netherlands, and there
+was the usual amount of bell-ringing, cannon-firing, trumpet-blowing,
+with torch-light processions, blazing tar-barrels, and bedizened
+platforms, where Allegory, in an advanced state of lunacy, performed its
+wonderful antics.  It was scarcely possible for human creatures to bestow
+more adulation, or to abase themselves more thoroughly, than the honest
+citizens of Brussels had so recently done in honour of the gentle, gouty
+Ernest, but they did their best.  That mythological conqueror and demigod
+had sunk into an unhonoured grave, despite the loud hosannaha sung to him
+on his arrival in Belgica, and the same nobles, pedants, and burghers
+were now ready and happy to grovel at the feet of Albert.  But as it
+proved as impossible to surpass the glories of the holiday which had been
+culled out for his brother, so it would be superfluous now to recall the
+pageant which thus again delighted the capital.
+
+But there was one personage who graced this joyous entrance whose
+presence excited perhaps more interest than did that of the archduke
+himself.  The procession was headed by three grandees riding abreast.
+There was the Duke of Aumale, pensionary of Philip, and one of the last
+of the Leaguers, who had just been condemned to death and executed in
+effigy at Paris, as a traitor to his king and country; there was the
+Prince of Chimay, now since the recent death of his father at Venice
+become Duke of Arschot; and between the two rode a gentleman forty-two
+years of age, whose grave; melancholy features--although wearing a
+painful expression of habitual restraint and distrust suggested, more
+than did those of the rest of his family, the physiognomy of William
+the Silent to all who remembered that illustrious rebel.
+
+It was the eldest son of the great founder of the Dutch republic.  Philip
+William, Prince of Orange, had at last, after twenty-eight years of
+captivity in Spain, returned to the Netherlands, whence he had been
+kidnapped while a school boy at Louvain, by order of the Duke of Alva.
+Rarely has there been a more dreary fate, a more broken existence than
+his.  His almost life-long confinement, not close nor cruel, but strict
+and inexorable, together with the devilish arts of the Jesuits, had
+produced nearly as blighting an effect upon his moral nature as a closer
+dungeon might have done on his physical constitution.  Although under
+perpetual arrest in Madrid, he had been allowed to ride and to hunt, to
+go to mass, and to enjoy many of the pleasures of youth.  But he had been
+always a prisoner, and his soul--a hopeless captive--could no longer be
+liberated now that the tyrant, in order to further his own secret
+purposes; had at last released his body from gaol.  Although the eldest-
+born of his father, and the inheritor of the great estates of Orange and
+of Buren, he was no longer a Nassau except in name.  The change wrought
+by the pressure of the Spanish atmosphere was complete.  All that was
+left of his youthful self was a passionate reverence for his father's
+memory, strangely combined with a total indifference to all that his
+father held dear, all for which his father had laboured his whole
+lifetime, and for which his heart's blood had been shed.  On being at
+last set free from bondage he had been taken to the Escorial, and
+permitted to kiss the hand of the king--that hand still reeking with his
+father's murder.  He had been well received by the Infante and the
+Infanta, and by the empress-mother, daughter of Charles V., while the
+artistic treasures of the palace and cloister were benignantly pointed
+out to him.  It was also signified to him that he was to receive the
+order of the Golden Fleece, and to enter into possession of his paternal
+and maternal estates.  And Philip William had accepted these conditions
+as if a born loyal subject of his Most Catholic Majesty.
+
+Could better proof be wanting that in that age religion was the only
+fatherland, and that a true papist could sustain no injury at the hands
+of his Most Catholic Majesty.  If to be kidnapped in boyhood, to be
+imprisoned during a whole generation of mankind, to be deprived of vast
+estates, and to be made orphan by the foulest of assassinations, could
+not engender resentment against, the royal, perpetrator of these crimes
+in the bosom of his victim, was it strange that Philip should deem
+himself, something far, more than man, and should placidly accept the
+worship rendered to him by inferior beings, as to the holy impersonation
+of Almighty Wrath?
+
+Yet there is no doubt that the prince had a sincere respect for his
+father, and had bitterly sorrowed at his death.  When a Spanish officer,
+playing chess with him, in prison, had ventured to speak lightly of that
+father, Philip William had seized him bodily, thrown him from the window,
+and thus killed him on the spot.  And when on his arrival in Brussels it
+was suggested to him by President Riehardat that it was the king's
+intention to reinstate him in the possession of his estates, but that a
+rent-charge of eighteen thousand florins a year was still to be paid from
+them; to the heirs of Balthazar Gerard, his father's assassin, he flamed
+into a violent rage, drew his poniard, and would have stabbed the
+president; had not the bystanders forcibly inteferred.  In consequence of
+this refusal--called magnanimous by contemporary writers--to accept his
+property under such conditions, the estates were detained from him for a
+considerable time longer.  During the period of his captivity he had been
+allowed an income of fifteen thousand livres; but after his restoration
+his household, gentlemen, and servants alone cost him eighty thousand
+livres annually.  It was supposed that the name of Orange-Nassau might
+now be of service to the king's designs in the Netherlands.  Philip
+William had come by way of Rome, where he had been allowed to kiss the
+pope's feet and had received many demonstrations of favour, and it was
+fondly thought that he would now prove an instrument with which king and
+pontiff might pipe back the rebellious republic to its ancient
+allegiance.  But the Dutchmen and Frisians were deaf.  They had tasted
+liberty too long, they had dealt too many hard blows on the head of regal
+and sacerdotal despotism, to be deceived by coarse artifices.  Especially
+the king thought that something might be done with Count Hohenlo.  That
+turbulent personage having recently married the full sister of Philip
+William, and being already at variance with Count Maurice, both for
+military and political causes, and on account of family and pecuniary
+disputes, might, it was thought, be purchased by the king, and perhaps
+a few towns and castles in the united Netherlands might be thrown into
+the bargain.  In that huckstering age, when the loftiest and most valiant
+nobles of Europe were the most shameless sellers of themselves, the most
+cynical mendicants for alms and the most infinite absorbers of bribes in
+exchange for their temporary fealty; when Mayenne, Mercoeur, Guise,
+Pillars, Egmont, and innumerable other possessors of ancient and
+illustrious names alternately and even simultaneously drew pensions from
+both sides in the great European conflict, it was not wonderful that
+Philip should think that the boisterous Hohenlo might be bought as well
+as another.  The prudent king, however, gave his usual order that nothing
+was to be paid beforehand, but that the service was to be rendered first;
+and the price received afterwards.
+
+The cardinal applied himself to the task on his first arrival, but was
+soon obliged to report that he could make but little progress in the
+negotiation.
+
+The king thought, too, that Heraugiere, who had commanded the memorable
+expedition against Breda, and who was now governor of that stronghold,
+might be purchased, and he accordingly instructed the cardinal to make
+use of the Prince of Orange in the negotiations to be made for that
+purpose.  The cardinal, in effect, received an offer from Heraugiere in
+the course of a few months not only to surrender Breda, without previous
+recompense, but likewise to place Gertruydenberg, the governor of which
+city was his relative, in the king's possession.  But the cardinal was
+afraid of a trick, for Heraugiere was known to be as artful as he was
+brave, and there can be little doubt that the Netherlander was only
+disposed to lay an ambush for the governor-general.
+
+And thus the son of William the Silent made his reappearance in the
+streets of Brussels, after twenty-eight years of imprisonment, riding in
+the procession of the new viceroy.  The cardinal-archduke came next, with
+Fuentes riding at his left hand.  That vigorous soldier and politician
+soon afterwards left the Netherlands to assume the government of Milan.
+
+There was a correspondence between the Prince of Orange and the States-
+General, in which the republican authorities after expressing themselves
+towards him with great propriety, and affectionate respect, gave him
+plainly but delicately to understand that his presence at that time in
+the United Provinces would neither be desirable, nor, without their
+passports, possible.  They were quite aware of the uses to which the king
+was hoping to turn their reverence for the memory and the family of the
+great martyr, and were determined to foil such idle projects on the
+threshold.
+
+The Archduke Albert, born on 3rd of November, 1560, was now in his
+thirty-sixth year.  A small, thin, pale-faced man, with fair hair, and
+beard, commonplace features, and the hereditary underhanging Burgundian
+jaw prominently developed, he was not without a certain nobility of
+presence.  His manners were distant to haughtiness and grave to
+solemnity.  He spoke very little and very slowly.  He had resided long in
+Spain, where he had been a favourite with his uncle--as much as any man
+could be a favourite with Philip--and he had carefully formed himself on
+that royal model.  He looked upon the King of Spain as the greatest,
+wisest, and best of created beings, as the most illustrious specimen of
+kingcraft ever yet vouchsafed to the world.  He did his best to look
+sombre and Spanish, to turn his visage into a mask; to conceal his
+thoughts and emotions, not only by the expression of his features but by
+direct misstatements of his tongue, and in all things to present to the
+obedient Flemings as elaborate a reproduction of his great prototype as
+copy can ever recall inimitable original.  Old men in the Netherlands;
+who remembered in how short a time Philip had succeeded, by the baleful
+effect of his personal presence, in lighting up a hatred which not the
+previous twenty years of his father's burnings, hangings, and butcherings
+in those provinces had been able to excite, and which forty subsequent
+years of bloodshed had not begun to allay, might well shake their heads
+when they saw this new representative of Spanish authority.  It would
+have been wiser--so many astute politicians thought--for Albert to take
+the Emperor Charles for his model, who had always the power of making his
+tyranny acceptable to the Flemings, through the adroitness with which he
+seemed to be entirely a Fleming himself.
+
+But Albert, although a German, valued himself on appearing like a
+Spaniard.  He was industrious, regular in his habits, moderate in eating
+and drinking, fond of giving audiences on business.  He spoke German,
+Spanish, and Latin, and understood French and Italian.  He had at times
+been a student, and, especially, had some knowledge of mathematics.  He
+was disposed to do his duty--so far as a man can do his duty, who
+imagines himself so entirely lifted above his fellow creatures as to owe
+no obligation except to exact their obedience and to personify to them
+the will of the Almighty.  To Philip and the Pope he was ever faithful.
+He was not without pretensions to military talents, but his gravity,
+slowness, and silence made him fitter to shine in the cabinet than in the
+field.  Henry IV., who loved his jests whether at his own expense or that
+of friend or foe, was wont to observe that there were three things which
+nobody would ever believe, and which yet were very true; that Queen
+Elizabeth deserved her title of the, throned vestal, that he was himself
+a good Catholic, and that Cardinal Albert was a good general.  It is
+probable that the assertions were all equally accurate.
+
+The new governor did not find a very able group of generals or statesmen
+assembled about him to assist in the difficult task which he had
+undertaken.  There were plenty of fine gentlemen, with ancient names and
+lofty pretensions, but the working men in field or council had mostly
+disappeared.  Mondragon, La Motte, Charles Mansfeld, Frank Verdugo were
+all dead.  Fuentes was just taking his departure for Italy.  Old Peter
+Ernest was a cipher; and his son's place was filled by the Marquis of
+Varambon; as principal commander in active military operations.  This was
+a Burgundian of considerable military ability, but with an inordinate
+opinion of himself and of his family.  "Accept the fact that his lineage
+is the highest possible, and that he has better connections than those of
+anybody else in the whole world, and he will be perfectly contented,"
+said a sharp, splenetic Spaniard in the cardinal's confidence.  "'Tis a
+faithful and loyal cavalier, but full of impertinences."  The brother of
+Varambon, Count Varax, had succeeded la Motte as general of artillery,
+and of his doings there was a, tale ere long to be told.  On the whole,
+the best soldier in the archduke's service for the moment was the
+Frenchman Savigny de Rosne, an ancient Leaguer, and a passionate hater of
+the Bearnese, of heretics, and of France as then constituted.  He had
+once made a contract with Henry by which he bound himself to his service;
+but after occasioning a good deal of injury by his deceitful attitude,
+he had accepted a large amount of Spanish dollars, and had then thrown
+off the mask and proclaimed himself the deadliest foe of his lawful
+sovereign.  "He was foremost," said Carlos Coloma, "among those who were
+successfully angled for by the Commander Moreo with golden hooks."
+Although prodigiously fat, this renegade was an active and experienced
+campaigner; while his personal knowledge of his own country made his
+assistance of much value to those who were attempting its destruction.
+
+The other great nobles, who were pressing themselves about the new
+viceroy with enthusiastic words of welcome, were as like to give him
+embarrassment as support.  All wanted office, emoluments, distinctions,
+nor could, much dependence be placed on the ability or the character of
+any of them.  The new duke of Arschot had in times past, as prince of
+Chimay, fought against the king, and had even imagined himself a
+Calvinist, while his wife was still a determined heretic.  It is true
+that she was separated from her husband.  He was a man of more quickness
+and acuteness than his father had been, but if possible more mischievous
+both to friend and foe; being subtle, restless, intriguing, fickle;
+ambitious, and deceitful.  The Prince of Orange was considered a man of
+very ordinary intelligence, not more than half witted, according to Queen
+Elizabeth, and it was probable that the peculiar circumstances of his
+life would extinguish any influence that he might otherwise have attained
+with either party.  He was likely to affect a neutral position and, in
+times of civil war, to be neutral is to be nothing.
+
+Arenberg, unlike the great general on the Catholic side who had made
+the name illustrious in the opening scenes of the mighty contest, was
+disposed to quiet obscurity so far as was compatible with his rank.
+Having inherited neither fortune nor talent with his ancient name, he
+was chiefly occupied with providing for the wants of his numerous family.
+A good papist, well-inclined and docile, he was strongly recommended for
+the post of admiral, not because he had naval acquirements, but because
+he had a great many children.  The Marquis of Havre, uncle to the Duke of
+Arschot, had played in his time many prominent parts in the long
+Netherland tragedy.  Although older than he was when Requesens and Don
+John of Austria had been governors, he was not much wiser, being to the
+full as vociferous, as false, as insolent, as self-seeking, and as
+mischievous as in his youth.  Alternately making appeals to popular
+passions in his capacity of high-born demagogue, or seeking crumbs of
+bounty as the supple slave of his sovereign, he was not more likely to
+acquire the confidence of the cardinal than he had done that of his
+predecessors.
+
+The most important and opulent grandee of all the provinces was the Count
+de Ligne, who had become by marriage or inheritance Prince of Espinay,
+Seneschal of Hainault, and Viscount of Ghent.  But it was only his
+enormous estates that gave him consideration, for he was not thought
+capable of either good or bad intentions.  He had, however, in times
+past, succeeded in the chief object of his ambition, which was to keep
+out of trouble, and to preserve his estates from confiscation.  His wife,
+who governed him, and had thus far guided him safely, hoped to do so to
+the end.  The cardinal was informed that the Golden Fleece would be all-
+sufficient to keep him upon the right track.
+
+Of the Egmonts, one had died on the famous field of Ivry, another was an
+outlaw, and had been accused of participation in plots of assassination
+against William of Orange; the third was now about the archduke's court,
+and was supposed, to be as dull a man--as Ligne, but likely to be
+serviceable so long as he could keep his elder brother out of his
+inheritance.  Thus devoted to Church and King were the sons of the man
+whose head Philip had taken off on a senseless charge of treason.  The
+two Counts Van den Berg--Frederic and Herman--sons of the sister of
+William the Silent, were, on the whole, as brave, efficient, and
+trustworthy servants of the king and cardinal as were to be found in the
+obedient, provinces.
+
+The new governor had come well provided with funds, being supplied for
+the first three-quarters of the year with a monthly: allowance of
+1,100,000 florins.  For reasons soon to appear, it was not probable that
+the States-General would be able very, soon to make a vigorous campaign,
+and it was thought best for the cardinal to turn his immediate attention
+to France.
+
+The negotiations for, effecting an alliance offensive and defensive,
+between the three powers most interested in opposing the projects of
+Spain for universal empire, were not yet begun, and will be reserved for
+a subsequent chapter.  Meantime there had been much informal discussion
+and diplomatic trifling between France and England for the purpose of
+bringing about a sincere co-operation of the two crowns against the Fifth
+Monarchy--as it was much the fashion to denominate Philip's proposed
+dominion.
+
+Henry had suggested at different times to Sir Robert Sidney, during his
+frequent presence in France as special envoy for the queen, the necessity
+of such a step, but had not always found a hearty sympathy.  But as the
+king began to cool in his hatred to Spain, after his declaration of war
+against that power, it seemed desirable to Elizabeth to fan his
+resentment afresh, and to revert to those propositions which had been so
+coolly received when made.  Sir Harry Umton, ambassador from her Majesty,
+was accordingly provided with especial letters on the subject from the
+queen's own hand, and presented them early in the year at Coucy (Feb.
+13, 1596).  No man in the world knew better the tone to adopt in his
+communications with Elizabeth than did the chivalrous king.  No man knew
+better than he how impossible it was to invent terms of adulation too
+gross for her to accept as spontaneous and natural effusions, of the
+heart.  He received the letters from the hands of Sir Henry, read them
+with rapture, heaved a deep sigh, and exclaimed.  "Ah!  Mr. Ambassador,
+what shall I say to you?  This letter of the queen, my sister, is full of
+sweetness and affection.  I see that she loves me, while that I love her
+is not to be doubted.  Yet your commission shows me the contrary, and
+this proceeds from her, ministers.  How else can these obliquities stand
+with her professions of love?  I am forced, as a king, to take a course
+which, as Henry, her loving brother, I could never adopt."
+
+They then walked out into the park, and the king fell into frivolous
+discourse, on purpose to keep the envoy from the important subject which
+had been discussed in the cabinet.  Sir Henry brought him back to
+business, and insisted that there was no disagreement between her Majesty
+and her counsellors, all being anxious to do what she wished.  The envoy,
+who shared in the prevailing suspicions that Henry was about to make a
+truce with Spain, vehemently protested against such a step, complaining
+that his ministers, whose minds were distempered with jealousy,
+were inducing him to sacrifice her friendship to a false and hollow
+reconciliation with Spain.  Henry protested that his preference would be
+for England's amity, but regretted that the English delays were so great,
+and that such dangers were ever impending over his head, as to make it
+impossible for him, as a king, to follow the inclinations of his heart.
+
+They then met Madame de Monceaux, the beautiful Gabrielle, who was
+invited to join in the walk, the king saying that she was no meddler in
+politics, but of a tractable spirit.
+
+This remark, in Sir Henry's opinion, was just, for, said he to Burghley,
+she is thought incapable of affairs, and, very simple.
+
+The duchess unmasked very graciously as the ambassador was presented;
+but, said the splenetic diplomatist, "I took no pleasure in it, nor held
+it any grace at all."  "She was attired in a plain satin gown," he
+continued, "with a velvet hood to keep her from the weather, which became
+her very ill.  In my opinion, she is altered very much for the worse, and
+was very grossly painted."  The three walked together discoursing of
+trifles, much to the annoyance of Umton.  At last, a shower forced the
+lady into the house, and the king soon afterwards took the ambassador to
+his cabinet.  "He asked me how I liked his mistress," wrote Sir Henry to
+Burghley, "and I answered sparingly in her praise, and told him that if
+without offence I might speak it, I had the picture of a far more
+excellent mistress, and yet did her picture come far from the perfection
+of her beauty."
+
+"As you love me," cried the king, "show it me, if you have it about you!"
+
+"I made some difficulty," continued Sir Henry, "yet upon his importunity
+I offered it to his view very secretly, still holding it in my hand.  He
+beheld it with passion and admiration, saying that I was in the right."
+"I give in," said the king, "Je me rends."
+
+Then, protesting that he had never seen such beauty all his life, he
+kissed it reverently twice or thrice, Sir Henry still holding the
+miniature firmly in his hand.
+
+The king then insisted upon seizing the picture, and there was a charming
+struggle between the two, ending in his Majesty's triumph.  He then told
+Sir Henry that he might take his leave of the portrait, for he would
+never give it up again for any treasure, and that to possess the favour
+of the original he would forsake all the world.  He fell into many more
+such passionate and incoherent expressions of rhapsody, as of one
+suddenly smitten and spell-bound with hapless love, bitterly reproaching
+the ambassador for never having brought him any answers to the many
+affectionate letters which he had written to the queen, whose silence had
+made him so wretched.  Sir Henry, perhaps somewhat confounded at being
+beaten at his own fantastic game, answered as well as he could, "but I
+found," said he, "that the dumb picture did draw on more speech and
+affection from him than all my best arguments and eloquence.  This was
+the effect of our conference, and, if infiniteness of vows and outward
+professions be a strong argument of inward affection, there is good
+likelihood of the king's continuance of amity with her Majesty; only I
+fear lest his necessities may inconsiderately draw him into some
+hazardous treaty with Spain, which I hope confidently it is yet in the
+power of her Majesty to prevent."
+
+The king, while performing these apish tricks about the picture of a lady
+with beady black eyes, a hooked nose, black teeth, and a red wig, who was
+now in the sixty-fourth year of her age, knew very well that the whole
+scene would be at once repeated to the fair object of his passion by her
+faithful envoy; but what must have been the opinion entertained of
+Elizabeth by contemporary sovereigns and statesmen when such fantastic
+folly could be rehearsed and related every day in the year!
+
+And the king knew, after all, and was destined very soon to acquire proof
+of it which there was no gainsaying, that the beautiful Elizabeth had
+exactly as much affection for him as he had for her, and was as capable
+of sacrificing his interests for her own, or of taking advantage of his
+direct necessities as cynically and as remorselessly, as the King of
+Spain, or the Duke of Mayenne, or the Pope had ever done.
+
+Henry had made considerable progress in re-establishing his authority
+over a large portion of the howling wilderness to which forty years of
+civil war had reduced his hereditary kingdom.  There was still great
+danger, however, at its two opposite extremities.  Calais, key to the
+Norman gate of France, was feebly held; while Marseilles, seated in such
+dangerous proximity to Spain on the one side, and to the Republic of
+Genoa, that alert vassal of Spain, on the other, was still in the
+possession of the League.  A concerted action was undertaken by means of
+John Andrew Doria, with a Spanish fleet from Genoa on the outside and a
+well-organised conspiracy from within, to carry the city bodily over to
+Philip.  Had it succeeded, this great Mediterranean seaport would have
+become as much a Spanish 'possession as Barcelona or Naples, and infinite
+might have been the damage to Henry's future prospects in consequence.
+But there was a man in Marseilles; Petrus Libertas by name, whose
+ancestors had gained this wholesome family appellation by a successful
+effort once made by them to rescue the little town of Calvi, in Corsica,
+from the tyranny of Genoa.  Peter Liberty needed no prompting to
+vindicate, on a fitting occasion, his right to his patronymic.  In
+conjunction with men in Marseilles who hated oppression, whether of
+kings, priests, or renegade republics, as much as he did, and with a
+secret and well-arranged understanding with the Duke of Guise, who was
+burning with ambition to render a signal benefit to the cause which he
+had just espoused, this bold tribune of the people succeeded in stirring
+the population to mutiny at exactly the right moment, and in opening the
+gates of Marseilles to the Duke of Guise and his forces before it was
+possible for the Leaguers to admit the fleet of Doria into its harbour.
+Thus was the capital of Mediterranean France lost and won.  Guise gained
+great favour in Henry's eyes; and with reason; for the son of the great
+Balafre, who was himself the League, had now given the League the stroke
+of mercy.  Peter Liberty became consul of Marseilles, and received a
+patent of nobility.  It was difficult, however, for any diploma to confer
+anything more noble upon him than the name which he hade inherited, and
+to which he had so well established his right.
+
+But while Henry's cause had thus been so well served in the south,
+there was danger impending in the north.  The king had been besieging,
+since autumn, the town of La Fere, an important military and strategic
+position, which had been Farnese's basis of operations during his
+memorable campaigns in France, and which had ever since remained in
+the hands of the League.
+
+The cardinal had taken the field with an army of fifteen thousand foot
+and three thousand horse, assembled at Valenciennes, and after hesitating
+some time whether, or not he should attempt to relieve La Fere, he
+decided instead on a diversion.  In the second week of April; De Rosne
+was detached at the head of four thousand men, and suddenly appeared
+before Calais.  The city had been long governed by De Gordan, but this
+wary and experienced commander had unfortunately been for two years dead.
+Still more unfortunately, it had been in his power to bequeath, not
+only his fortune, which was very large, but the government of Calais,
+considered the most valuable command in France, to his nephew,
+De Vidosan.  He had, however, not bequeathed to him his administrative
+and military genius.
+
+The fortress called the Risban, or Rysbank, which entirely governed the
+harbour, and the possession of which made Calais nearly impregnable, as
+inexhaustible supplies could thus be poured into it by sea, had fallen
+into comparative decay.  De Gordan had been occupied in strengthening
+the work, but since his death the nephew had entirely neglected the task.
+On the land side, the bridge of Nivelet was the key to the place.  The
+faubourg was held by two Dutch companies, under Captains Le Gros and
+Dominique, who undertook to prevent the entrance of the archduke's
+forces.  Vidosan, however; ordered these faithful auxiliaries into the
+citadel.
+
+De Rosne, acting with great promptness; seized both the bridge of Nivelet
+and the fort of Rysbank by a sudden and well-concerted movement.  This
+having been accomplished, the city was in his power, and, after
+sustaining a brief cannonade, it surrendered.  Vidosan, with his
+garrison, however, retired into the citadel, and it was agreed between,
+himself and De Rosne that unless succour should be received from the
+French king before the expiration of six days; the citadel should also
+be-evacuated.
+
+Meantime Henry, who was at Boulogne, much disgusted at this unexpected
+disaster, had sent couriers to the Netherlands, demanding assistance of
+the States-General and of the stadholder.  Maurice had speedily responded
+to the appeal.  Proceeding himself to Zeeland, he had shipped fifteen
+companies of picked troops from Middelburg, together with a flotilla
+laden with munitions and provisions enough to withstand a siege of
+several weeks.  When the arrangements were completed, he went himself on
+board of a ship of war to take command of the expedition in person.  On
+the 17th of April he arrived with his succours off the harbour of Calais,
+and found to his infinite disappointment that the Rysbank fort was in the
+hands of the enemy.  As not a vessel could pass the bar without almost
+touching that fortress, the entrance to Calais was now impossible.  Had
+the incompetent Vidosan heeded the advice of his brave Dutch officers;
+the place might still have been saved, for it had surrendered in a panic
+on the very day when the fleet of Maurice arrived off the port.
+
+Henry had lost no time in sending, also, to his English allies for
+succour.  The possession of Calais by the Spaniards might well seem
+alarming to Elizabeth, who could not well forget that up to the time of
+her sister this important position had been for two centuries an English
+stronghold.  The defeat of the Spanish husband of an English queen had
+torn from England the last trophies of the Black Prince, and now the
+prize had again fallen into the hands of Spain; but of Spain no longer
+in alliance, but at war, with England.  Obviously it was most dangerous
+to the interests and to the safety of the English realm, that this
+threatening position, so near the gates of London, should be in the hands
+of the most powerful potentate in the world and the dire enemy of
+England.  In response to Henry's appeal, the Earl of Essex was despatched
+with a force of six thousand men--raised by express command of the queen
+on Sunday when the people were all at church--to Dover, where shipping
+was in readiness to transport the troops at once across the Channel.  At
+the same time, the politic queen and some of her counsellors thought the
+opening a good one to profit by the calamity of their dear ally,
+Certainly it was desirable to prevent Calais from falling into the grasp
+of Philip.  But it was perhaps equally desirable, now that the place
+without the assistance of Elizabeth could no longer be preserved by
+Henry, that Elizabeth, and not Henry, should henceforth be its possessor.
+To make this proposition as clear to the French king as it seemed to the
+English queen, Sir Robert Sidney was despatched in all haste to Boulogne,
+even while the guns of De Rosne were pointed at Calais citadel, and while
+Maurice's fleet, baffled by the cowardly surrender of the Risban, was on
+its retreat from the harbour.
+
+At two o'clock in the afternoon of the 21st of April, Sidney landed at
+Boulogne.  Henry, who had been intensely impatient to hear from England,
+and who suspected that the delay was boding no good to his cause, went
+down to the strand to meet the envoy, with whom then and there he engaged
+instantly in the most animated discourse.
+
+As there was little time to be lost, and as Sidney on getting out of the
+vessel found himself thus confronted with the soldier-king in person, he
+at once made the demand which he had been sent across the Channel to
+make.  He requested the king to deliver up the town and citadel of Calais
+to the Queen of England as soon as, with her assistance, he should
+succeed in recovering the place.  He assigned as her Majesty's reasons
+for this peremptory summons that she would on no other terms find it in
+her power to furnish the required succour.  Her subjects, she said, would
+never consent to it except on these conditions.  It was perhaps not very
+common with the queen to exhibit so much deference to the popular will,
+but on this occasion the supposed inclinations of the nation furnished
+her with an excellent pretext for carrying out her own.  Sidney urged
+moreover that her Majesty felt certain of being obliged--in case she did
+not take Calais into her own safe-keeping and protection--to come to the
+rescue again within four or six months to prevent it once more from being
+besieged, conquered, and sacked by the enemy.
+
+The king had feared some such proposition as this, and had intimated as
+much to the States' envoy, Calvaert, who had walked with him down to the
+strand, and had left him when the conference began.  Henry was not easily
+thrown from his equanimity nor wont to exhibit passion on any occasion,
+least of all in his discussions with the ambassadors of England, but the
+cool and insolent egotism of this communication was too much for him.
+
+He could never have believed, he said in reply, that after the repeated
+assurances of her Majesty's affection for him which he had received from
+the late Sir Henry Umton in their recent negotiations, her Majesty would
+now so discourteously seek to make her profit out of his misery.  He had
+come to Boulogne, he continued, on the pledge given by the Earl of Essex
+to assist him with seven or eight thousand men in the recovery of Calais.
+If this after all should fail him--although his own reputation would be
+more injured by the capture of the place thus before his eyes than if it
+had happened in his absence--he would rather a hundred times endure the
+loss of the place than have it succoured with such injurious and
+dishonourable conditions.  After all, he said, the loss of Calais was
+substantially of more importance to the queen than to himself.  To him
+the chief detriment would be in the breaking up of his easy and regular
+communications with his neighbours through this position, and especially
+with her Majesty.  But as her affection for him was now proved to be so
+slender as to allow her to seek a profit from his misfortune and
+dishonour, it would be better for him to dispense with her friendship
+altogether and to strengthen his connections with truer and more
+honourable friends.  Should the worst come to the worst, he doubted not
+that he should be able, being what he was and much more than he was of
+old, to make a satisfactory arrangement with, the King of Spain.  He was
+ready to save Calais at the peril of his life, to conquer it in person,
+and not by the hands of any of his lieutenants; but having done so, he
+was not willing--at so great a loss of reputation without and at so much
+peril within--to deliver it to her Majesty or to any-one else.  He would
+far rather see it fall into the hands of the Spaniards.
+
+Thus warmly and frankly did Henry denounce the unhandsome proposition
+made in the name of the queen, while, during his vehement expostulations,
+Sidney grew red with shame, and did not venture to look the king for one
+moment in the face.  He then sought to mitigate the effect of his demand
+by intimating, with much embarrassment of demeanour, that perhaps her
+Majesty would be satisfied with the possession of Calais for her own
+life-time, and--as this was at once plumply refused--by the suggestion of
+a pledge of it for the term of one year.  But the king only grew the more
+indignant as the bargaining became more paltry, and he continued to heap
+bitter reproaches upon the queen, who, without having any children or
+known inheritor of her possessions, should nevertheless, be so desirous
+of compassing his eternal disgrace and of exciting the discontent of his
+subjects for the sake of an evanescent gain for herself.  At such a
+price, he avowed, he had no wish to purchase her Majesty'a friendship.
+
+After this explosion the conference became more amicable.  The English
+envoy assured the king that there could be, at all events, no doubt of
+the arrival of Essex with eight thousand men on the following Thursday
+to assist in the relief of the citadel; notwithstanding the answer which,
+he had received to the demand of her Majesty.
+
+He furthermore expressed the strong desire which he felt that the king
+might be induced to make a personal visit to the queen at Dover, whither
+she would gladly come to receive him, so soon as Calais should have been
+saved.  To this the king replied with gallantry, that it was one of the
+things in the world that he had most at heart.  The envoy rejoined that
+her Majesty would consider such a visit a special honour and favour.  She
+had said that she could leave this world more cheerfully, when God should
+ordain, after she had enjoyed two hours' conversation with his Majesty.
+
+Sidney on taking his departure repeated the assurance that the troops
+under Essex would arrive before Calais by Thursday, and that they were
+fast marching to the English coast; forgetting, apparently, that, at the
+beginning of the interview, he had stated, according to the queen's
+instructions, that the troops had been forbidden to march until a
+favourable answer had been returned by the king to her proposal.
+
+Henry then retired to his headquarters for the purpose of drawing up
+information for his minister in England, De Saucy, who had not yet been
+received by the queen, and who had been kept in complete ignorance of
+this mission of Sidney and of its purport.
+
+While the king was thus occupied, the English envoy was left in the
+company of Calvaert, who endeavoured, without much success, to obtain
+from him the result of the conference which had just taken place.
+Sidney was not to be pumped by the Dutch diplomatist, adroit as he
+unquestionably was, but, so soon as the queen's ambassador was fairly
+afloat again on his homeward track--which was the case within three hours
+after his arrival at Boulogne--Calvaert received from the king a minute
+account of the whole conversation.
+
+Henry expressed unbounded gratitude to the States-General of the republic
+for their prompt and liberal assistance, and he eagerly contrasted the
+conduct of Prince Maurice--sailing forth in person so chivalrously to
+his rescue--with the sharp bargainings and shortcomings of the queen.
+He despatched a special messenger to convey his thanks to the prince,
+and he expressed his hope to Calvaert that the States might be willing
+that their troops should return to the besieged place under the command
+of Maurice, whose, presence alone, as he loudly and publicly protested,
+was worth four thousand men.
+
+But it was too late.  The six days were rapidly passing, away.  The
+governor of Boulogne, Campagnolo, succeeded, by Henry's command, in
+bringing a small reinforcement of two or three hundred men into the
+citadel of Calais during the night of the 22nd of April.  This devoted
+little band made their way, when the tide was low, along the flats which
+stretched between the fort of Rysbank and the sea.  Sometimes wading up
+to the neck in water, sometimes swimming for their lives, and during a
+greater part of their perilous, march clinging so close to the hostile
+fortress as almost to touch its guns, the gallant adventurers succeeded
+in getting into the citadel in time to be butchered with the rest of the
+garrison on the following day.  For so soon as the handful of men had
+gained admittance to the gates--although otherwise the aspect of affairs
+was quite unchanged--the rash and weak De Vidosan proclaimed that the
+reinforcements stipulated in his conditional capitulation having arrived,
+he should now resume hostilities.  Whereupon he opened fire, upon the
+town, and a sentry was killed.  De Rosne, furious, at what he considered
+a breach of faith, directed a severe cannonade against the not very
+formidable walls of the castle.  During the artillery engagement which
+ensued the Prince of Orange, who had accompanied De Rosne to the siege,
+had a very narrow escape.  A cannon-ball from the town took off the heads
+of two Spaniards standing near him, bespattering him with their blood and
+brains.  He was urged to retire, but assured those about him that he came
+of too good a house to be afraid.  His courage was commendable, but it
+seems not to have occurred to him that the place for his father's son was
+not by the aide of the general who was doing the work of his father's
+murderer.  While his brother Maurice with a fleet of twenty Dutch war-
+ships was attempting in vain to rescue Calais from the grasp of the
+Spanish king, Philip William of Nassau was looking on, a pleased and
+passive spectator of the desperate and unsuccessful efforts at defence.
+The assault was then ordered?  The-first storm was repulsed, mainly by
+the Dutch companies, who fought in the breach until most of their numbers
+were killed or wounded, their captains Dominique and Le Gros having both
+fallen.  The next attack was successful, the citadel was carried; and the
+whole garrison, with exception of what remained of the Hollanders and
+Zeelanders, put to the sword.  De Vidosan himself perished.  Thus Calais
+was once more a Spanish city, and was re-annexed to the obedient
+provinces of Flanders.  Of five thousand persons, soldiers and citizens,
+who had taken refuge in the castle, all were killed or reduced to
+captivity.'
+
+The conversion of this important naval position into a Spanish-Flemish
+station was almost as disastrous to the republic as it was mortifying to
+France and dangerous to England.  The neighbouring Dunkirk had long been
+a nest of pirates, whence small, fast-sailing vessels issued, daily and
+nightly, to prey indiscriminately upon the commerce of all nations.
+These corsairs neither gave nor took quarter, and were in the habit,
+after they had plundered their prizes, of setting them adrift, with the
+sailors nailed to the deck or chained to the rigging; while the dfficers
+were held for ransom.  In case the vessels themselves were wanted, the
+crews were indiscriminately tossed overboard; while, on the ether hand,
+the buccaneers rarely hesitated to blow up their own ships, when unable
+to escape from superior force.  Capture was followed by speedy execution,
+and it was but recently that one of these freebooters having been brought
+into Rotterdam, the whole crew, forty-four in number, were hanged on the
+day of their arrival, while some five and twenty merchant-captains held
+for ransom by the pirates thus obtained their liberty.
+
+And now Calais was likely to become a second and more dangerous sea-
+robbers' cave than even Dunkirk had been.
+
+Notwithstanding this unlucky beginning of the campaign for the three
+allies, it was determined to proceed with a considerable undertaking
+which had been arranged between England and the republic.  For the time,
+therefore, the importunate demands of the queen for repayments by the
+States of her disbursements during the past ten years were suspended.
+It had, indeed, never been more difficult than at that moment for the
+republic to furnish extraordinary sums of money.  The year 1595 had not
+been prosperous.  Although the general advance in commerce, manufactures,
+and in every department of national development had been very remark
+able, yet there had recently been, for exceptional causes, an apparent
+falling off; while, on the other hand, there had been a bad harvest in
+the north of Europe.  In Holland, where no grain was grown, and which yet
+was the granary of the world, the prices were trebled.  One hundred and
+eight bushels (a last) of rye, which ordinarily was worth fifty florins,
+now sold for one hundred and fifty florins, and other objects of
+consumption were equally enhanced in value.  On the other hand, the
+expenses of the war were steadily increasing, and were fixed for this
+year at five millions of florins.  The republic, and especially the
+States of Holland, never hesitated to tax heroically.  The commonwealth
+had no income except that which the several provinces chose to impose
+upon themselves in order to fill the quota assigned to them by the
+States-General; but this defect in their political organization was not
+sensibly felt so long as the enthusiasm for the war continued in full
+force.  The people of the Netherlands knew full well that there was no
+liberty for them without fighting, no fighting without an army, no army
+without wages, and no wages without taxation; and although by the end of
+the century the imposts had become so high that, in the language of that
+keen observer, Cardinal Bentivoglio; nuncio at Brussels, they could
+scarcely be imagined higher, yet, according to the same authority, they
+were laid unflinchingly and paid by the people without a murmur.  During
+this year and the next the States of Holland, whose proportion often
+amounted to fifty per cent. of the whole contribution of the United
+Provinces, and who ever set a wholesome example in taxation, raised the
+duty on imports and all internal taxes by one-eighth, and laid a fresh
+impost on such articles of luxury as velvets and satins, pleas and
+processes.  Starch, too, became a source of considerable revenue.
+With the fast-rising prosperity of the country luxury had risen likewise,
+and, as in all ages and countries of the world of which there is record,
+woman's dress signalized itself by extravagant and very often tasteless
+conceptions.  In a country where, before the doctrine of popular
+sovereignty had been broached in any part of the world by the most
+speculative theorists, very vigorous and practical examples of democracy
+had been afforded to Europe; in a country where, ages before the science
+of political economy had been dreamed of, lessons of free trade on the
+largest scale had been taught to mankind by republican traders
+instinctively breaking in many directions through the nets by which
+monarchs and oligarchs, guilds and corporations, had hampered the
+movements of commerce; it was natural that fashion should instinctively
+rebel against restraint.  The honest burgher's vrow of Middelburg or
+Enkhuyzen claimed the right to make herself as grotesque as Queen
+Elizabeth in all her glory.  Sumptuary laws were an unwholesome part of
+feudal tyranny, and, as such, were naturally dropping into oblivion on
+the free soil of the Netherlands.  It was the complaint therefore of
+moralists that unproductive consumption was alarmingly increasing.
+Formerly starch had been made of the refuse parts of corn, but now the
+manufacturers of that article made use of the bloom of the wheat and
+consumed as much of it as would have fed great cities.  In the little
+village of Wormer the starch-makers used between three and four thousand
+bushels a week.  Thus a substantial gentlewoman in fashionable array
+might bear the food of a parish upon her ample bosom.  A single
+manufacturer in Amsterdam required four hundred weekly bushels.  Such was
+the demand for the stiffening of the vast ruffs, the wonderful head-gear,
+the elaborate lace-work, stomachers and streamers, without which no lady
+who respected herself could possibly go abroad to make her daily
+purchases of eggs and poultry in the market-place.
+
+"May God preserve us," exclaimed a contemporary chronicler, unreasonably
+excited on the starch question, "from farther luxury and wantonness, and
+abuse of His blessings and good gifts, that the punishment of Jeroboam,
+which followed upon Solomon's fortunate reign and the gold-ships of Ophir
+may not come upon us."
+
+The States of Holland not confounding--as so often has been the case--
+the precepts of moral philosophy with those of political economy, did
+not, out of fear for the doom of Jeroboam, forbid the use of starch.
+They simply laid a tax of a stiver a pound on the commodity, or about six
+per cent, ad valorem; and this was a more wholesome way of serving the
+State than by abridging the liberty of the people in the choice of
+personal attire.  Meantime the preachers were left to thunder from their
+pulpits upon the sinfulness of starched rues and ornamental top-knots,
+and to threaten their fair hearers with the wrath to come, with as much
+success as usually attends such eloquence.
+
+There had been uneasiness in the provinces in regard to the designs of
+the queen, especially since the States had expressed their inability to
+comply in full with her demands for repayment.  Spanish emissaries had
+been busily circulating calumnious reports that her Majesty was on the
+eve of concluding a secret peace with Philip, and that it was her
+intention to deliver the cautionary towns to the king.  The Government
+attached little credence to such statements, but it was natural that
+Envoy Caron should be anxious at their perpetual recurrence both in
+England and in the provinces.  So, one day, he had a long conversation
+with the Earl of Essex on the subject; for it will be recollected that
+Lord Leicester had strenuously attempted at an earlier day to get
+complete possession, not only of the pledged cities but of Leyden also,
+in order to control the whole country.  Essex was aflame with indignation
+at once, and, expressed himself with his customary recklessness.
+He swore that if her Majesty were so far forsaken of God and so forgetful
+of her own glory, as through evil counsel to think of making any treaty
+with Spain without the knowledge of the States-General and in order to
+cheat them, he would himself make the matter as public as it was possible
+to do, and would place himself in direct opposition to such a measure, so
+as to show the whole world that his heart and soul were foreign at least
+to any vile counsel of the kind that might have been given to his
+Sovereign.  Caron and Essex conversed much in this vein, and although the
+envoy, especially requested him not to do so, the earl, who was not
+distinguished, for his powers of dissimulation, and who suspected
+Burleigh of again tampering, as he had often before tampered, with secret
+agents of Philip, went straight to the queen with the story.  Next day,
+Essex invited Caron to dine and to go with him after dinner to the queen.
+This was done, and, so soon as the States' envoy was admitted to the
+royal presence, her Majesty at once opened the subject.  She had heard,
+she said, that the reports in question had been spread through the
+provinces, and she expressed much indignation in regard to them.  She
+swore very vehemently, as usual, and protested that she had better never
+have been born than prove so miserable a princess as these tales would
+make her.  The histories of England, she said, should never describe her
+as guilty of such falsehood.  She could find a more honourable and
+fitting means of making peace than by delivering up cities and
+strongholds so sincerely and confidingly placed in her hands.  She hoped
+to restore them as faithfully as they had loyally been entrusted to her
+keeping.  She begged Caron to acquaint the States-General with these
+asseverations; declaring that never since she had sent troops to the
+Netherlands had she lent her ear to those who had made such underhand
+propositions.  She was aware that Cardinal Albert had propositions to
+make, and that he was desirous of inducing both the French king and,
+herself to consent to a peace with Spain: but she promised, the States'
+envoy solemnly before God to apprise him of any such overtures, so soon
+as they should be made known to herself.
+
+Much more in this strain, with her usual vehemence and mighty oaths, did
+the great queen aver, and the republican envoy, to whom she was on this
+occasion very gracious, was fain to believe in her sincerity.  Yet the
+remembrance of the amazing negotiations between the queen's ministers and
+the agents of Alexander Farnese, by which the invasion of the Armada had
+been masked; could not but have left an uneasy feeling in the mind of
+every Dutch statesman.  "I trust in God," said Caron, "that He may never
+so abandon her as to permit her to do the reverse of what she now
+protests with so much passion.  Should it be otherwise--which God forbid
+--I should think that He would send such chastisement upon her and her
+people that other princes would see their fate therein as in a mirror,
+should they make and break such oaths and promises.  I tell you these
+things as they occur, because, as I often feel uneasiness myself, I
+imagine that my friends on the other side the water may be subject to the
+same anxiety.  Nevertheless, beat the bush as I may, I can obtain no
+better information than this which I am now sending you."
+
+It had been agreed that for a time the queen should desist from her
+demands for repayment--which, according to the Treaty of 1585, was to be
+made only after conclusion of peace between Spain and the provinces, but
+which Elizabeth was frequently urging on the ground that the States could
+now make that peace when they chose--and in return for such remission the
+republic promised to furnish twenty-four ships of war and four tenders
+for a naval expedition which was now projected against the Spanish coast.
+These war-ships were to be of four hundred, three hundred, and two
+hundred tons-eight of each dimension--and the estimated expense of their
+fitting out for five months was 512,796 florins.
+
+Before the end of April, notwithstanding the disappointment occasioned
+in the Netherlands by the loss of Calais, which the States had so
+energetically striven to prevent, the fleet under Admiral John of
+Duvenwoord, Seigneur of Warmond, and Vice-Admirals Jan Gerbrantz and
+Cornelius Leusen, had arrived at Plymouth, ready to sail with their
+English allies.  There were three thousand sailors of Holland and Zeeland
+on board, the best mariners in the world, and two thousand two hundred
+picked veterans from the garrisons of the Netherlands.  These land-troops
+were English, but they belonged to the States' army, which was composed
+of Dutch, German, Walloon, Scotch, and Irish soldiers, and it was a
+liberal concession on the part of the republican Government to allow them
+to serve on the present expedition.  By the terms of the treaty the queen
+had no more power to send these companies to invade Spain than to
+campaign against Tyr Owen in Ireland, while at a moment when the cardinal
+archduke had a stronger and better-appointed army in Flanders than had
+been seen for many years in the provinces, it was a most hazardous
+experiment for the States to send so considerable a portion of their land
+and naval forces upon a distant adventure.  It was also a serious blow to
+them to be deprived for the whole season of that valiant and experienced
+commander, Sir Francis Vere, the most valuable lieutenant, save Lewis
+William, that Maurice had at his disposition.  Yet Vere was to take
+command of this contingent thus sent to the coast of Spain, at the very
+moment when the republican army ought to issue from their winter quarters
+and begin active operations in the field.  The consequence of this
+diminution of their strength and drain upon their resources was that the
+States were unable to put an army in the field during the current year,
+or make any attempt at a campaign.
+
+The queen wrote a warm letter of thanks to Admiral Warmond for the
+promptness and efficiency with which he had brought his fleet to the
+place of rendezvous, and now all was bustle and preparation in the
+English ports for the exciting expedition resolved upon.  Never during
+Philip's life-time, nor for several years before his birth, had a hostile
+foot trod the soil of Spain, except during the brief landing at Corunna
+in 1590, and, although the king's beard had been well singed ten years
+previously by Sir Francis Drake, and although the coast of Portugal had
+still more recently been invaded by Essex and Vere, yet the present
+adventure was on a larger scale, and held out brighter prospects of
+success than any preceding expedition had done.  In an age when the line
+between the land and sea service, between regular campaigners and
+volunteers, between public and private warfare, between chivalrous
+knights-errant and buccaneers, was not very distinctly drawn, there could
+be nothing more exciting to adventurous spirits, more tempting to the
+imagination of those who hated the Pope and Philip, who loved fighting,
+prize-money, and the queen, than a foray into Spain.
+
+It was time to return the visit of the Armada.  Some of the sea-kings
+were gone.  Those magnificent freebooters, Drake and Hawkins, had just
+died in the West Indies, and doughty Sir Roger Williams had left the
+world in which he had bustled so effectively, bequeathing to posterity a
+classic memorial of near a half century of hard fighting, written, one
+might almost imagine, in his demi-pique saddle.  But that most genial,
+valiant, impracticable, reckless, fascinating hero of romance, the Earl
+of Essex--still a youth although a veteran in service--was in the spring-
+tide of favour and glory, and was to command the land-forces now
+assembled at Plymouth.  That other "corsair"--as the Spaniards called
+him--that other charming and heroic shape in England's chequered
+chronicle of chivalry and crime--famous in arts and arms, politics,
+science, literature, endowed with so many of the gifts by which men
+confer lustre on their age and country, whose name was already a part of
+England's eternal glory, whose tragic destiny was to be her undying
+shame--Raleigh, the soldier, sailor, scholar, statesman, poet, historian,
+geographical discoverer, planter of empires yet unborn--was also present,
+helping to organize the somewhat chaotic elements of which the chief
+Anglo-Dutch enterprise for this year against--the Spanish world-dominion
+was compounded.
+
+And, again, it is not superfluous to recal the comparatively slender
+materials, both in bulk and numbers, over which the vivid intelligence
+and restless energy of the two leading Protestant powers, the Kingdom and
+the Republic, disposed.  Their contest against the overshadowing empire,
+which was so obstinately striving to become the fifth-monarchy of
+history, was waged by land: and naval forces, which in their aggregate
+numbers would scarce make a startling list of killed and wounded in a
+single modern battle; by ships such that a whole fleet of them might be
+swept out of existence with half-a-dozen modern broadsides; by weapons
+which would seem to modern eyes like clumsy toys for children.  Such was
+the machinery by which the world was to be lost and won, less than three
+centuries ago.  Could science; which even in that age had made gigantic
+strides out of the preceding darkness, have revealed its later miracles,
+and have presented its terrible powers to the despotism which was seeking
+to crush all Christendom beneath its feet, the possible result might have
+been most tragical to humanity.  While there are few inventions in
+morals, the demon Intellect is ever at his work, knowing no fatigue and
+scorning contentment in his restless demands upon the infinite Unknown.
+Yet moral truth remains unchanged, gradually through the ages extending
+its influence, and it is only by conformity to its simple and, eternal
+dictates that nations, like individuals, can preserve a healthful
+existence.  In the unending warfare between right and wrong, between
+liberty and despotism; Evil has the advantage of rapidly assuming many
+shapes.  It has been well said that constant vigilance is the price of
+liberty.  The tendency of our own times, stimulated by scientific
+discoveries and their practical application, is to political
+consolidation, to the absorption of lesser communities in greater; just
+as disintegration was the leading characteristic of the darker ages.  The
+scheme of Charlemagne to organize Europe into a single despotism was a
+brilliant failure because the forces which were driving human society
+into local and gradual reconstruction around various centres of
+crystallization: were irresistible to any countervailing enginry which
+the emperor had at his disposal.  The attempt of Philip, eight centuries
+later, at universal monarchy, was frivolous, although he could dispose of
+material agencies which in the hands of Charlemagne might have made the
+dreams of Charlemagne possible.  It was frivolous because the rising
+instinct of the age was for religious, political, and commercial freedom
+in a far intenser degree than those who lived in that age were themselves
+aware.  A considerable republic had been evolved as it were involuntarily
+out of the necessities of the time almost without self-consciousness that
+it was a republic, and even against the desire of many who were guiding
+its destinies.  And it found itself in constant combination with two
+monarchs, despotic at heart and of enigmatical or indifferent religious
+convictions, who yet reigned over peoples, largely influenced by
+enthusiasm for freedom.  Thus liberty was preserved for the world; but,
+as the law of human progress would seem to be ever by a spiral movement,
+it; seems strange to the superficial observer not prone to generalizing,
+that Calvinism, which unquestionably was the hard receptacle in which the
+germ of human freedom was preserved in various countries and at different
+epochs, should have so often degenerated into tyranny.  Yet
+notwithstanding the burning of Servetus at Geneva, and the hanging of
+Mary Dyer at Boston, it is certain that France, England, the Netherlands,
+and America, owe a large share of such political liberty as they have
+enjoyed to Calvinism.  It may be possible for large masses of humanity to
+accept for ages the idea of one infallible Church, however tyrannical but
+the idea once admitted that there may be many churches; that what is
+called the State can be separated from what is called the Church; the
+plea of infallibility and of authority soon becomes ridiculous--a mere
+fiction of political or fashionable quackery to impose upon the
+uneducated or the unreflecting.
+
+And now Essex, Raleigh and Howard, Vere, Warmond and Nassau were about to
+invade the shores of the despot who sat in his study plotting to annex
+England, Scotland, Ireland, France, the Dutch republic, and the German
+empire to the realms of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Milan, and the Eastern
+and Western Indies, over which he already reigned.
+
+The fleet consisted of fifty-seven ships of war, of which twenty-four
+were Dutch vessels under Admiral Warmond, with three thousand sailors of
+Holland and Zeeland.  Besides the sailors, there was a force of six
+thousand foot soldiers, including the English veterans from the
+Netherlands under Sir Francis Vere.  There were also fifty transports
+laden with ammunition and stores.  The expedition was under the joint
+command of Lord High Admiral Howard and of the Earl of Essex.  Many noble
+and knightly volunteers, both from England and the republic, were on
+board, including, besides those already mentioned, Lord Thomas Howard,
+son of the Duke of Norfolk, Sir John Wingfield, who had commanded at
+Gertruydenburg, when it had been so treacherously surrendered to Farnese;
+Count Lewis Gunther of Nassau, who had so recently escaped from the
+disastrous fight with Mondragon in the Lippe, and was now continuing his
+education according to the plan laid down for him by his elder brother
+Lewis William; Nicolas Meetkerk, Peter Regesmortes, Don Christopher of
+Portugal, son of Don Antonio, and a host of other adventurers.
+
+On the last day of June the expedition arrived off Cadiz.  Next morning
+they found a splendid Spanish fleet in the harbour of that city,
+including four of the famous apostolic great galleons, St. Philip, St.
+Matthew, St. Thomas, and St. Andrew, with twenty or thirty great war-
+ships besides, and fifty-seven well-armed Indiamen, which were to be
+convoyed on their outward voyage, with a cargo estimated at twelve
+millions of ducats.
+
+The St. Philip was the phenomenon of naval architecture of that day,
+larger and stronger than any ship before known.  She was two thousand
+tons burthen, carried eighty-two bronze cannon, and had a crew of twelve
+hundred men.  The other three apostles carried each fifty guns and four
+hundred men.  The armament of the other war-ships varied from fifty-two
+to eighteen guns each.  The presence of such a formidable force might
+have seemed a motive for discouragement, or at least of caution.  On the
+contrary, the adventurers dashed at once upon their prey; thus finding a
+larger booty than they had dared to expect.  There was but a brief
+engagement.  At the outset a Dutch ship accidentally blew up, and gave
+much encouragement to the Spaniards.  Their joy was but short-lived.  Two
+of the great galleons were soon captured, the other two, the St. Philip
+and the St. Thomas, were run aground and burned.  The rest of the war-
+ships were driven within the harbour, but were unable to prevent a
+landing of the enemy's forces.  In the eagerness of the allies to seize
+the city, they unluckily allowed many of the Indiamen to effect their
+escape through the puente del Zuazzo, which had not been supposed a
+navigable passage for ships of such burthen.  Nine hundred soldiers under
+Essex, and four hundred noble volunteers under Lewis Gunther of Nassau,
+now sprang on shore, and drove some eleven hundred Spanish skirmishers
+back within the gates of the city, or into a bastion recently raised to
+fortify the point when the troops had landed.  Young Nassau stormed the
+bulwark sword in hand, carried it at the first assault, and planted his
+colours on its battlement.  It was the flag of William the Silent; for
+the republican banner was composed of the family colours of the founder
+of the new commonwealth.  The blazonry of the proscribed and assassinated
+rebel waved at last defiantly over one of the chief cities of Spain.
+Essex and Nassau and all the rest then entered the city.  There was
+little fighting.  Twenty-five English and Hollanders were killed, and
+about as many Spaniards.  Essex knighted about fifty gentlemen,
+Englishmen and Hollanders, in the square of Cadiz for their gallantry.
+Among the number were Lewis Gunther of Nassau, Admiral Warmond, and Peter
+Regesmortes.  Colonel Nicolas Meetkerke was killed in the brief action,
+and Sir John Wingfield, who insisted in prancing about on horseback
+without his armour, defying the townspeople and neglecting the urgent
+appeal of Sir Francis Vere, was also slain.  The Spanish soldiers,
+discouraged by the defeat of the ships on which they had relied for
+protection of the town, retreated with a great portion of the inhabitants
+into the citadel.  Next morning the citadel capitulated without striking
+a blow, although there, were six thousand able-bodied, well-armed men
+within its walls.  It was one of the most astonishing panics ever
+recorded.  The great fleet, making a third of the king's navy, the city
+of Cadiz and its fortress, were surrendered to this audacious little
+force, which had only arrived off the harbour thirty-six hours before.
+The invaders had, however, committed a great mistake.  They had routed,
+and, as it were, captured the Spanish galleons, but they had not taken
+possession of them, such had been their eagerness to enter the city.  It
+was now agreed that the fleet should be ransomed for two million ducats,
+but the proud Duke of Medina Sidonia, who had already witnessed the
+destruction of one mighty armada, preferred that these splendid ships
+too should perish rather than that they should pay tribute to the enemy.
+Scorning the capitulation of the commandant of the citadel, he ordered
+the fleet to be set on fire.  Thirty-two ships, most of them vessels of
+war of the highest class, were burned, with all their equipments.  Twelve
+hundred cannon sunk at once to the bottom of the Bay of Cadiz, besides
+arms for five or six thousand men.  At least one-third of Philip's
+effective navy was thus destroyed.
+
+The victors now sacked the city very thoroughly, but the results
+were disappointing.  A large portion of the portable wealth of the
+inhabitants, their gold and their jewelry, had been so cunningly
+concealed that, although half a dozen persons were tortured till they
+should reveal hidden treasures, not more than five hundred thousand
+ducats worth of-plunder was obtained.  Another sum of equal amount
+having been levied upon the citizens; forty notable personages; among
+them eighteen ecclesiastical dignitaries, were carried off as hostages
+for its payment.  The city was now set on fire by command of Essex in
+four different quarters.  Especially the cathedral and other churches,
+the convents and the hospitals, were burned.  It was perhaps not
+unnatural: that both Englishmen and Hollanders should be disposed to
+wreak a barbarous vengeance on everything representative of the Church
+which they abhorred, and from which such endless misery had issued to
+the, uttermost corners of their own countries.  But it is at any rate
+refreshing to record amid these acts of pillage and destruction, in
+which, as must ever be the case, the innocent and the lowly were made
+to suffer for the crimes of crowned and mitred culprits, that not many
+special acts of cruelty were committed upon individuals:
+
+No man was murdered in cold blood, no woman was outraged.  The beautiful
+city was left a desolate and blackened ruin, and a general levy of spoil
+was made for the benefit of the victors, but there was no infringement
+of the theory and practice of the laws of war as understood in that day
+or in later ages.  It is even recorded that Essex ordered one of his
+soldiers, who was found stealing a woman's gown, to be hanged on the
+spot, but that, wearied by the intercession of an ecclesiastic of Cadiz,
+the canon Quesada, he consented at last to pardon the marauder.
+
+It was the earnest desire of Essex to hold Cadiz instead of destroying
+it.  With three thousand men, and with temporary supplies from the fleet,
+the place could be maintained against all comers; Holland and England
+together commanding the seas.  Admiral Warmond and all the Netherlanders
+seconded the scheme, and offered at once to put ashore from their vessels
+food and munitions enough to serve two thousand men for two months.  If
+the English admiral would do as much, the place might be afterwards
+supplied without limit and held till doomsday, a perpetual thorn in
+Philip's side.  Sir Francis Vere was likewise warmly in favour of the
+project, but he stood alone.  All the other Englishmen opposed it as
+hazardous, extravagant, and in direct contravention of the minute
+instructions of the queen.  With a sigh or a curse for what he considered
+the superfluous caution of his royal mistress, and the exaggerated
+docility of Lord High Admiral Howard, Essex was fain to content himself
+with the sack and the conflagration, and the allied fleet sailed away
+from Cadiz.
+
+On their way towards Lisbon they anchored off Faro, and landed a force,
+chiefly of Netherlanders, who expeditiously burned and plundered the
+place.  When they reached the neighbourhood of Lisbon, they received
+information that a great fleet of Indiamen, richly laden, were daily
+expected from the Flemish islands, as the Azores were then denominated.
+Again Essex was vehemently disposed to steer at once for that station,
+in order to grasp so tempting a prize; again he was strenuously supported
+by the Dutch admiral and Yere, and again Lord Howard peremptorily
+interdicted the plan.  It was contrary to his instructions and to his
+ideas of duty, he said, to risk so valuable a portion of her Majesty's
+fleet on so doubtful a venture.  His ships were not fitted for a winter's
+cruise, he urged.  Thus, although it was the very heart of midsummer,
+the fleet was ordered to sail homeward.  The usual result of a divided
+command was made manifest, and it proved in the sequel that, had they
+sailed for the islands, they would have pounced at exactly the right
+moment upon an unprotected fleet of merchantmen, with cargoes valued at
+seven millions of ducats.  Essex, not being willing to undertake the
+foray to the Azores with the Dutch ships alone, was obliged to digest
+his spleen as: best he could.  Meantime the English fleet bore away for
+England, leaving Essex in his own ship, together with the two captured
+Spanish galleons, to his fate.  That fate might, have been a disastrous
+one, for his prizes were not fully manned, his own vessel was far from
+powerful, and there were many rovers and cruisers upon the seas.  The
+Dutch admiral, with all his ships, however, remained in company, and
+safely convoyed him to Plymouth, where they arrived only a day or two
+later than Howard and his fleet.  Warmond, who had been disposed to sail
+up the Thames in order to pay his respects to the queen, was informed
+that his presence would not be desirable but rather an embarrassment.
+He, however, received the following letter from the hand of Elizabeth.
+
+MONSIEUR DUYENWOORD,--The report made to me by the generals of our
+fleet, just happily arrived from the coast of Spain, of the devoirs of
+those who have been partakers in so, famous a victory, ascribes so much
+of it to the valour, skill, and readiness exhibited by yourself and our
+other friends from the Netherlands under your command, during the whole
+course of the expedition, as to fill our mind with special joy and
+satisfaction, and, with a desire to impart these feelings to you.  No
+other means presenting themselves at this moment than that of a letter
+(in some sense darkening the picture of the conceptions of our soul), we
+are willing to make use of it while waiting for means more effectual.
+Wishing thus to disburthen ourselves we find ourselves confused, not-
+knowing where to begin, the greatness of each part exceeding the merit
+of the other.  For, the vigour and promptness with which my lords the
+States-General stepped into the enterprise, made us acknowledge that the
+good favour, which we have always borne the United Provinces and the
+proofs thereof which we have given in the benefits conferred by us upon
+them, had not been ill-bestowed.  The valour, skill, and discipline
+manifested by you in this enterprise show that you and your, whole nation
+are worthy the favour and protection of princes against those who wish to
+tyrannize over you.  But the honourableness and the valour shown by you,
+Sir Admiral, towards our cousin the Earl of Essex on his return, when he
+unfortunately was cut off from the fleet, and deep in the night was
+deprived of all support, when you kept company with him and gave him
+escort into the harbour of Plymouth, demonstrate on the one hand your
+foresight in providing thus by your pains and patience against all
+disasters, which through an accident falling upon one of the chiefs of
+our armada might have darkened the great victory; and on the other hand
+the fervour and fire of the affection which you bear us, increasing thus,
+through a double bond, the obligations we are owing you, which is so
+great in our hearts that we have felt bound to discharge a part of it by
+means of this writing, which we beg you to communicate to the whole
+company of our friends under your command; saying to them besides, that
+they may feel assured that even as we have before given proof of our
+goodwill to their fatherland, so henceforth--incited by their devoirs and
+merits--we are ready to extend our bounty and affection in all ways which
+may become a princess recompensing the virtues and gratitude of a nation
+so worthy as yours.
+                                        "ELIZABETH R.
+
+"14th August, 1596."
+
+This letter was transmitted by the admiral to the States-General; who,
+furnished him with a copy of it, but enrolled the original in their
+archives; recording as it did, in the hand of the great English queen,
+so striking a testimony to the valour and the good conduct of
+Netherlanders.
+
+The results of this expedition were considerable, for the king's navy was
+crippled, a great city was destroyed, and some millions of plunder had
+been obtained.  But the permanent possession of Cadiz, which, in such
+case, Essex hoped to exchange for Calais, and the destruction of the
+fleet at the Azores--possible achievements both, and unwisely neglected
+--would have been far more profitable, at least to England.  It was also
+matter of deep regret that there was much quarrelling between the
+Netherlanders and the Englishmen as to their respective share of the
+spoils; the Netherlanders complaining loudly that they had been
+defrauded.  Moreover the merchants of Middelburg, Amsterdam, and other
+commercial cities of Holland and Zeeland were, as it proved, the real
+owners of a large portion of the property destroyed or pillaged at Cadiz;
+so that a loss estimated as high as three hundred thousand florins fell
+upon those unfortunate traders through this triumph of the allies.
+
+The internal consequences of the fall of Calais had threatened at the
+first moment to be as disastrous as the international results of that
+misfortune had already proved.  The hour for the definite dismemberment
+and partition of the French kingdom, not by foreign conquerors but among
+its own self-seeking and disloyal grandees, seemed to have struck.  The
+indomitable Henry, ever most buoyant when most pressed by misfortune, was
+on the way to his camp at La Fere, encouraging the faint-hearted, and
+providing as well as he could for the safety of the places most menaced,
+when he was met at St. Quentin by a solemn deputation of the principal
+nobles, military commanders, and provincial governors of France.  The
+Duke of Montpensier was spokesman of the assembly, and, in an harangue
+carefully prepared for the occasion, made an elaborate proposition to the
+king that the provinces, districts, cities, castles; and other strong-
+holds throughout the kingdom should now be formally bestowed upon the
+actual governors and commandants thereof in perpetuity, and as hereditary
+property, on condition of rendering a certain military service to the
+king and his descendants.  It seemed so amazing that this temporary
+disaster to the national arms should be used as a pretext for parcelling
+out France, and converting a great empire into a number of insignificant
+duchies and petty principalities; that this movement should be made, not
+by the partisans of Spain, but by the adherents of the king; and that its
+leader should be his own near relative, a prince of the blood, and a
+possible successor to the crown, that Henry was struck absolutely dumb.
+Misinterpreting his silence, the duke proceeded very confidently with his
+well-conned harangue; and was eloquently demonstrating that, under such a
+system, Henry, as principal feudal chief, would have greater military
+forces at his disposal whenever he chose to summon his faithful vassals
+to the field than could be the case while the mere shadow of royal power
+or dignity was allowed to remain; when the king, finding at last a
+tongue, rebuked his cousin; not angrily, but with a grave melancholy
+which was more impressive than wrath.
+
+He expressed his pity for the duke that designing intriguers should have
+thus taken advantage of his facility of character to cause him to enact
+a part so entirely unworthy a Frenchman, a gentleman, and a prince of the
+blood.  He had himself, at the outset of his career, been much farther
+from the throne than Montpensier was at that moment; but at no period of
+his life would he have consented to disgrace himself by attempting the
+dismemberment of the realm.  So far from entering for a moment into the
+subject-matter of the duke's discourse, he gave him and all his
+colleagues distinctly to understand that he would rather die a thousand
+deaths than listen to suggestions which would cover his family and the
+royal dignity with infamy.
+
+Rarely has political cynicism been displayed in more revolting shape than
+in this deliberate demonstration by the leading patricians and generals
+of France, to whom patriotism seemed an unimaginable idea.  Thus signally
+was their greediness to convert a national disaster into personal profit
+rebuked by the king.  Henry was no respecter of the People, which he
+regarded as something immeasurably below his feet.  On the contrary, he
+was the most sublime self-seeker of them all; but his courage, his
+intelligent ambition, his breadth and strength of purpose, never
+permitted him to doubt that his own greatness was inseparable from the
+greatness of France.  Thus he represented a distinct and wholesome
+principle--the national integrity of a great homogeneous people at a
+period when that integrity seemed, through domestic treason and foreign
+hatred, to be hopelessly lost.  Hence it is not unnatural that he should
+hold his place in the national chronicle as Henry the Great.
+
+Meantime, while the military events just recorded had been occurring in
+the southern peninsula, the progress of the archduke and his lieutenants
+in the north against the king and against the republic had been
+gratifying to the ambition of that martial ecclesiastic.  Soon after the
+fall of Calais, De Rosne had seized the castles of Guynes and Hames,
+while De Mexia laid siege to the important stronghold of Ardres.  The
+garrison, commanded by Count Belin, was sufficiently numerous and well
+supplied to maintain the place until Henry, whose triumph at La Fere
+could hardly be much longer delayed, should come to its relief.  To the
+king's infinite dissatisfaction, however, precisely as Don Alvario de
+Osorio was surrendering La Fere to him, after a seven months' siege,
+Ardres was capitulating to De Mexia.  The reproaches upon Belin for
+cowardice, imbecility, and bad faith, were bitter and general.  All his
+officers had vehemently protested against the surrender, and Henry at
+first talked of cutting off his head.  It was hardly probable, however--
+had the surrender been really the result of treachery--that the governor
+would have put himself, as he did at once in the king's power; for the
+garrison marched out of Ardres with the commandant at their head, banners
+displayed, drums beating, matches lighted and bullet in mouth, twelve
+hundred fighting men strong, besides invalids.  Belin was possessed of
+too much influence, and had the means of rendering too many pieces of
+service to the politic king, whose rancour against Spain was perhaps not
+really so intense as was commonly supposed, to meet with the condign
+punishment which might have been the fate of humbler knaves.
+
+These successes having been obtained in Normandy, the cardinal with a
+force of nearly fifteen thousand men now took the field in Flanders;
+and, after hesitating for a time whether he should attack Breda, Bergen,
+Ostend, or Gertruydenburg,--and after making occasional feints in various
+directions, came, towards the end of June, before Hulst.  This rather
+insignificant place, with a population of but one thousand inhabitants,
+was defended by a strong garrison under command of that eminent and
+experienced officer Count Everard Solms.  Its defences were made more
+complete by a system of sluices, through which the country around could
+be laid under water; and Maurice, whose capture of the town in the year
+1591 had been one of his earliest military achievements, was disposed to
+hold it at all hazards.  He came in person to inspect the fortifications,
+and appeared to be so eager on the subject, and so likely to encounter
+unnecessary hazards, that the States of Holland passed a resolution
+imploring him "that he would not, in his heroic enthusiasm and laudable
+personal service, expose a life on which the country so much depended to
+manifest dangers."  The place was soon thoroughly invested, and the usual
+series of minings and counter-minings, assaults, and sorties followed,
+in the course of which that courageous and corpulent renegade, De Rosne,
+had his head taken off by a cannon-ball, while his son, a lad of sixteen,
+was fighting by his side.  On the 16th August the cardinal formally
+demanded the surrender of the place, and received the magnanimous reply
+that Hulst would be defended to the death.  This did not, however,
+prevent the opening of negotiations the very same day.  All the officers,
+save one, united in urging Solms to capitulate; and Solms, for somewhat
+mysterious reasons, and, as was stated, in much confusion, gave his
+consent.  The single malcontent was the well-named Matthew Held, whose
+family name meant Hero, and who had been one of the chief actors in the
+far-famed capture of Breda.  He was soon afterwards killed in an
+unsuccessful attack made by Maurice upon Venlo.
+
+Hulst capitulated on the 18th August.  The terms were honourable; but the
+indignation throughout the country against Count Solms was very great.
+The States of Zeeland, of whose regiment he had been commander ever,
+since the death of Sir Philip Sidney, dismissed him from their service,
+while a torrent of wrath flowed upon him from every part of the country.
+Members of the States-General refused to salute him in the streets;
+eminent person, ages turned their backs upon him, and for a time there
+was no one willing to listen to a word in his defence.  The usual
+reaction in such cases followed; Maurice sustained the commander, who had
+doubtless committed a grave error, but who had often rendered honourable
+service to the republic, and the States-General gave him a command as
+important as that of which he had been relieved by the Zeeland States.
+It was mainly on account of the tempest thus created within the
+Netherlands, that an affair of such slight importance came to occupy so
+large a space in contemporary history.  The defenders of Solmstold wild
+stories about the losses of the besieging army.  The cardinal, who was
+thought prodigal of blood, and who was often quoted as saying "his
+soldiers' lives belonged to God and their bodies to the king," had
+sacrificed, it, was ridiculously said, according to the statement of the
+Spaniards themselves, five thousand soldiers before the walls of Hulst.
+It was very logically deduced therefrom that the capture of a few more
+towns of a thousand inhabitants each would cost him his whole army.
+People told each other, too, that the conqueror had refused a triumph
+which the burghers of Brussels wished to prepare for him on his entrance
+into the capital, and that he had administered the very proper rebuke
+that, if they had more money than they knew what to do with, they should
+expend it in aid of the wounded and of the families of the fallen, rather
+than in velvets and satins and triumphal arches.  The humanity of the
+suggestion hardly tallied with the blood-thirstiness of which he was at
+the same time so unjustly accused--although it might well be doubted
+whether the commander-in-chief, even if he could witness unflinchingly
+the destruction of five thousand soldiers on the battle-field, would dare
+to confront a new demonstration of schoolmaster Houwaerts and his
+fellowpedants.
+
+The fact was, however, that the list of casualties in the cardinal's camp
+during the six weeks' siege amounted to six hundred, while the losses
+within the city were at least as many.  There was no attempt to relieve
+the place; for the States, as before observed, had been too much cramped
+by the strain upon their resources and by the removal of so many veterans
+for the expedition against Cadiz to be able to muster any considerable
+forces in the field during the whole of this year.
+
+For a vast war in which the four leading powers of the earth were
+engaged, the events, to modern eyes, of the campaign of 1596 seem
+sufficiently meagre.  Meantime, during all this campaigning by land and
+sea in the west, there had been great but profitless bloodshed in the
+east.  With difficulty did the holy Roman Empire withstand the terrible,
+ever-renewed assaults of the unholy realm of Ottoman--then in the full
+flush of its power--but the two empires still counterbalanced each other,
+and contended with each'other at the gates of Vienna.
+
+As the fighting became more languid, however, in the western part of
+Christendom, the negotiations and intrigues grew only the more active.
+It was most desirable for the republic to effect, if possible, a formal
+alliance offensive and defensive with France and England against Spain.
+The diplomacy of the Netherlands had been very efficient in bringing
+about the declaration of war by Henry against Philip, by which the
+current year had opened, after Henry and Philip had been doing their best
+to destroy each other and each other's subjects during the half-dozen
+previous years.  Elizabeth, too, although she had seen her shores invaded
+by Philip with the most tremendous armaments that had ever floated on the
+seas, and although she had herself just been sending fire and sword into
+the heart of Spain, had very recently made the observation that she and
+Philip were not formally at war with each other.  It seemed, therefore,
+desirable to the States-General that this very practical warfare should
+be, as it were, reduced to a theorem.  In this case the position of the
+republic to both powers and to Spain itself might perhaps be more
+accurately defined.
+
+Calvaert, the States' envoy--to use his own words--haunted Henry like his
+perpetual shadow, and was ever doing his best to persuade him of the
+necessity of this alliance.  De Saucy, as we have seen, had just arrived
+in England, when the cool proposition of the queen to rescue Calais from
+Philip on condition of keeping it for herself had been brought to
+Boulogne by Sidney.  Notwithstanding the indignation of the king, he had
+been induced directly afterwards to send an additional embassy to
+Elizabeth, with the Duke of Bouillon at its head; and he had insisted
+upon Calvaert's accompanying the mission.  He had, as he frequently
+observed, no secrets from the States-General, or from Calvaert, who had
+been negotiating upon these affairs for two years past and was so well
+acquainted with all their bearings.  The Dutch envoy was reluctant to go,
+for he was seriously ill and very poor in purse, but Henry urged the
+point so vehemently, that Calvaert found himself on board ship within six
+hours of the making of the proposition.  The incident shows of how much
+account the republican diplomatist was held by so keen a judge of mankind
+as the Bearnese; but it will subsequently appear that the candour of the
+king towards the States-General and their representative was by no means
+without certain convenient limitations.
+
+De Sancy had arrived just as--without his knowledge--Sidney had been
+despatched across the channel with the brief mission already mentioned.
+When he was presented to the queen, the next day, she excused herself for
+the propositions by which Henry had been so much enraged, by assuring the
+envoy that it had been her intention only to keep Calais out of the
+enemy's hand, so long as the king's forces were too much occupied at a
+distance to provide for its safety.  As diplomatic conferences were about
+to begin in which--even more than in that age, at least, was usually the
+case--the object of the two conferring powers was to deceive each other,
+and at the same time still more decidedly to defraud other states, Sancy
+accepted the royal explanation, although Henry's special messenger,
+Lomenie, had just brought him from the camp at Boulogne a minute account
+of the propositions of Sidney.
+
+The envoy had, immediately afterwards, an interview with Lord Burghley,
+and at once perceived that he was no friend to his master.  Cecil
+observed that the queen had formerly been much bound to the king for
+religion's sake.  As this tie no longer existed, there was nothing now to
+unite them save the proximity of the two States to each other and their
+ancient alliances, a bond purely of interest which existed only so long
+as princes found therein a special advantage.
+
+De Sancy replied that the safety of the two crowns depended upon their
+close alliance against a very powerful foe who was equally menacing to
+them both.  Cecil rejoined that he considered the Spaniards deserving of
+the very highest praise for having been able to plan so important an
+enterprise, and to have so well deceived the King of France by the
+promptness and the secrecy of their operations as to allow him to
+conceive no suspicion as to their designs.
+
+To this not very friendly sarcasm the envoy, indignant that France should
+thus be insulted in her misfortunes, exclaimed that he prayed to God that
+the affairs of Englishmen might never be reduced to such a point as to
+induce the world to judge by the result merely, as to the sagacity of
+their counsels.  He added that there were many passages through which to
+enter France, and that it was difficult to be present everywhere, in
+order to defend them all against the enemy.
+
+A few days afterwards the Duke of Bouillon arrived in London.  He had
+seen Lord Essex at Dover as he passed, and had endeavoured without
+success to dissuade him from his expedition against the Spanish coast.
+The conferences opened on the 7th May, at Greenwich, between Burghley,
+Cobham, the Lord Chamberlain, and one or two other commissioners on the
+part of the queen, and Bouillon, Sancy, Du Yair, and Ancel, as
+plenipotentiaries of Henry.
+
+There was the usual indispensable series of feints at the outset, as if
+it were impossible for statesmen to meet around a green table except as
+fencers in the field or pugilists in the ring.
+
+"We have nothing to do," said Burghley, "except to listen to such
+propositions as may be made on the part of the king, and to repeat them
+to her Highness the queen."
+
+"You cannot be ignorant," replied Bouillon, "of the purpose for which we
+have been sent hither by his Very Christian Majesty.  You know very well
+that it is to conclude a league with England.  'Tis necessary, therefore,
+for the English to begin by declaring whether they are disposed to enter
+into such an alliance.  This point once settled, the French can make
+their propositions, but it would be idle to dispute about the conditions
+of a treaty, if there is after all no treaty to be made."
+
+To this Cecil rejoined, that, if the king were reduced to the necessity
+of asking succour from the queen, and of begging for her alliance, it was
+necessary for them, on the other hand, to see what he was ready to do for
+the queen in return, and to learn what advantage she could expect from
+the league.
+
+The duke said that the English statesmen were perfectly aware of the
+French intention of proposing a league against the common enemy of both
+nations, and that it would be unquestionably for the advantage of both
+to unite their forces for a vigorous attack upon Spain, in which case it
+would be more difficult for the Spanish to resist them than if each were
+acting separately.  It was no secret that the Spaniards would rather
+attack England than France, because their war against England, being
+coloured by a religious motive, would be much less odious, and would even
+have a specious pretext.  Moreover the conquest of England would give
+them an excellent vantage ground to recover what they had lost in the
+Netherlands.  If, on the contrary, the enemy should throw himself with
+his whole force upon France, the king, who would perhaps lose many places
+at once, and might hardly be able to maintain himself single-handed
+against domestic treason and a concentrated effort on the part of Spain,
+would probably find it necessary to make a peace with that power.
+Nothing could be more desirable for Spain than such a result, for she
+would then be free to attack England and Holland, undisturbed by any fear
+of France.  This was a piece of advice, the duke said, which the king
+offered, in the most friendly spirit, and as a proof of his affection,
+to her Majesty's earnest consideration.
+
+Burghley replied that all this seemed to him no reason for making a
+league.  "What more can the queen do," he observed, "than she is already
+doing?  She has invaded Spain by land and sea, she has sent troops to
+Spain, France, and the Netherlands; she has lent the king fifteen hundred
+thousand crowns in gold.  In short, the envoys ought rather to be
+studying how to repay her Majesty for her former benefits than to be
+soliciting fresh assistance."  He added that the king was so much
+stronger by the recent gain of Marseilles as to be easily able to bear
+the loss of places of far less importance, while Ireland, on the
+contrary, was a constant danger to the queen.  The country was already
+in a blaze, on account of the recent landing effected there by the
+Spaniards, and it was a very ancient proverb among the English, that to
+attack England it was necessary to take the road of Ireland.
+
+Bouillon replied that in this war there was much difference between the
+position of France and that of England.  The queen, notwithstanding
+hostilities, obtained her annual revenue as usual, while the king was cut
+off from his resources and obliged to ruin his kingdom in order to wage
+war.  Sancy added, that it must be obvious to the English ministers that
+the peril of Holland was likewise the peril of England and of France, but
+that at the same time they could plainly see that the king, if not
+succoured, would be forced to a peace with Spain.  All his counsellors
+were urging him to this, and it was the interest of all his neighbours
+to prevent such a step.  Moreover, the proposed league could not but be
+advantageous to the English; whether by restraining the Spaniards from
+entering England, or by facilitating a combined attack upon the common
+enemy.  The queen might invade any portion of the Flemish coast at her
+pleasure, while the king's fleet could sail with troops from his ports to
+prevent any attack upon her realms.
+
+At this Burghley turned to his colleagues and said, in English, "The
+French are acting according to the proverb; they wish to sell us the
+bear-skin before they have killed the bear."  Sancy, who understood
+English, rejoined, "We have no bear-skin to sell, but we are giving you
+a very good and salutary piece of advice.  It is for you to profit by it
+as you may."
+
+"Where are these ships of war, of which you were speaking?" asked
+Burghley.
+
+"They are at Rochelle, at Bordeaux, and at St. Malo," replied de Sancy.
+
+"And these ports are not in the king's possession," said the Lord
+Treasurer.
+
+The discussion was growing warm.  The Duke of Bouillon, in order to, put
+an end to it, said that what England had most to fear was a descent by
+Spain upon her coasts, and that the true way to prevent this was to give
+occupation to Philip's army in Flanders.  The soldiers in the fleet then
+preparing were raw levies with which he would not venture to assail her
+kingdom.  The veterans in Flanders were the men on whom he relied for
+that purpose.  Moreover the queen, who had great influence with the
+States-General, would procure from them a prohibition of all commerce
+between the provinces and Spain; all the Netherlands would be lost to
+Philip, his armies would disperse of their own accord; the princes of
+Italy, to whom the power of Spain was a perpetual menace, would secretly
+supply funds to the allied powers, and the Germans, declared enemies of
+Philip, would furnish troops.
+
+Burghley asserted confidently that this could never be obtained from the
+Hollanders, who lived by commerce alone.  Upon which Saucy, wearied with
+all these difficulties, interrupted the Lord Treasurer by exclaiming,
+"If the king is to expect neither an alliance nor any succour on your
+part, he will be very much obliged to the queen if she will be good
+enough to inform him of the decision taken by her, in order that he may,
+upon his side, take the steps most suitable to the present position of
+his affairs."
+
+The session then terminated.  Two days afterwards, in another conference,
+Burghley offered three thousand men on the part of the queen, on
+condition that they should be raised at the king's expense, and that
+they should not leave England until they had received a month's pay
+in advance.
+
+The Duke of Bouillon said this was far from being what had been expected
+of the generosity of her Majesty, that if the king had money he would
+find no difficulty in raising troops in Switzerland and Germany, and that
+there was a very great difference between hired princes and allies.  The
+English ministers having answered that this was all the queen could do,
+the duke and Saucy rose in much excitement, saying that they had then no
+further business than to ask for an audience of leave, and to return to
+France as fast as possible.
+
+Before they bade farewell to the queen, however, the envoys sent a memoir
+to her Majesty, in which they set forth that the first proposition as to
+a league had been made by Sir Henry Umton, and that now, when the king
+had sent commissioners to treat concerning an alliance, already
+recommended by the queen's ambassador in France, they had been received
+in such a way as to indicate a desire to mock them rather than to treat
+with them.  They could not believe, they said, that it was her Majesty's
+desire to use such language as had been addressed to them, and they
+therefore implored her plainly to declare her intentions, in order that
+they might waste no more time unnecessarily, especially as the high
+offices with which their sovereign had honoured them did not allow them
+to remain for a long time absent from France.
+
+The effect of this memoir upon the queen was, that fresh conferences were
+suggested, which took place at intervals between the 11th and the 26th
+of May.  They were characterized by the same mutual complaints of
+overreachings and of shortcomings by which all the previous discussions
+had been distinguished.  On the 17th May the French envoys even insisted
+on taking formal farewell of the queen, and were received by her Majesty
+for that purpose at a final audience.  After they had left the presence--
+the preparations for their homeward journey being already made--the queen
+sent Sir Robert Cecil, Henry Brooke, son of Lord Cobham, and La Fontaine,
+minister of a French church in England, to say to them how very much
+mortified she was that the state of her affairs did not permit her to
+give the king as much assistance as he desired, and to express her wish
+to speak to them once more before their departure.
+
+The result of the audience given accordingly to the envoys, two days
+later, was the communication of her decision to enter into the league
+proposed, but without definitely concluding the treaty until it should be
+ratified by the king.
+
+On the 26th May articles were finally agreed upon, by which the king and
+queen agreed to defend each other's dominions, to unite in attacking the
+common enemy, and to invite other princes and states equally interested
+with themselves in resisting the ambitious projects of Spain, to join in
+the league.  It was arranged that an army should be put in the field as
+soon as possible, at the expense of the king and queen, and of such other
+powers as should associate themselves in the proposed alliance; that this
+army should invade the dominions of the Spanish monarch, that the king
+and queen were never, without each other's consent, to make peace or
+truce with Philip; that the queen should immediately raise four thousand
+infantry to serve six months of every year in Picardy and Normandy, with
+the condition that they were never to be sent to a distance of more than
+fifty leaguas from Boulogna; that when the troubles of Ireland should be
+over the queen should be at liberty to add new troops to the four
+thousand men thus promised by her to the league; that the queen was to
+furnish to these four thousand men six months' pay in advance before they
+should leave England, and that the king should agree to repay the amount
+six months afterwards, sending meanwhile four nobles to England as
+hostages.  If the dominions of the queen should be attacked it was
+stipulated that, at two months' notice, the king should raise four
+thousand men at the expense of the queen and send them to her assistance,
+and that they were to serve for six months at her charge, but were not to
+be sent to a distance of more than fifty leagues from the coasts of
+France.
+
+The English were not willing that the States-General should be
+comprehended among the powers to be invited to join the league, because
+being under the protection of the Queen of England they were supposed to
+have no will but hers.  Burghley insisted accordingly that, in speaking
+of those who were thus to be asked, no mention was to be made of peoples
+nor of states, for fear lest the States-General might be included under
+those terms.  The queen was, however, brought at last to yield the point,
+and consented, in order to satisfy the French envoys, that to the word
+princes should be added the general expression orders or estates.  The
+obstacle thus interposed to the formation of the league by the hatred of
+the queen and of the privileged classes of England to popular liberty,
+and by the secret desire entertained of regaining that sovereignty over
+the provinces which had been refused ten years before by Elizabeth, was
+at length set aside.  The republic, which might have been stifled at its
+birth, was now a formidable fact, and could neither be annexed to the
+English dominions nor deprived of its existence as a new member of the
+European family.
+
+It being no longer possible to gainsay the presence of the young
+commonwealth among the nations, the next best thing--so it was thought--
+was to defraud her in the treaty to which she was now invited to accede.
+This, as it will presently appear, the King of France and the Queen of
+England succeeded in doing very thoroughly, and they accomplished it
+notwithstanding the astuteness and the diligence of the States' envoy,
+who at Henry's urgent request had accompanied the French mission to
+England.  Calvaert had been very active in bringing about the
+arrangement, to assist in which he had, as we have seen, risen from a
+sick bed and made the journey to England: "The proposition for an
+offensive and defensive alliance was agreed to by her Majesty's Council,
+but under intolerable and impracticable conditions," said he, "and, as
+such, rejected by the duke and Sancy, so that they took leave of her
+Majesty.  At last, after some negotiation in which, without boasting, I
+may say that I did some service, it was again taken in hand, and at last,
+thank God, although with much difficulty, the league has been concluded."
+
+When the task was finished the French envoys departed to obtain their
+master's ratification of the treaty.  Elizabeth expressed herself warmly
+in regard to her royal brother, inviting him earnestly to pay her a
+visit, in which case she said she would gladly meet him half way; for a
+sight of him would be her only consolation in the midst of her adversity
+and annoyance.  "He may see other princesses of a more lovely
+appearance," she added, "but he will never make a visit to a more
+faithful friend."
+
+But the treaty thus concluded was for the public.  The real agreement
+between France and England was made by a few days later, and reduced the
+ostensible arrangement to a sham, a mere decoy to foreign nations,
+especially to the Dutch republic, to induce them to imitate England in
+joining the league, and to emulate her likewise in affording that
+substantial assistance to the league which in reality England was very
+far from giving.
+
+"Two contracts were made," said Secretary of State Villeroy; "the one
+public, to give credit and reputation to the said league, the other
+secret, which destroyed the effects and the promises of the first.  By
+the first his Majesty was to be succoured by four thousand infantry,
+which number was limited by the second contract to two thousand, who were
+to reside and to serve only in the cities of Boulogne and Montreuil,
+assisted by an equal number of French, and not otherwise, and on
+condition of not being removed from those towns unless his Majesty should
+be personally present in Picardy with an army, in which case they might
+serve in Picardy, but nowhere else."
+
+An English garrison in a couple of French seaports, over against the
+English coast, would hardly have seemed a sufficient inducement to other
+princes and states to put large armies in the field to sustain the
+Protestant league, had they known that this was the meagre result of the
+protocolling and disputations that had been going on all the summer at
+Greenwich.
+
+Nevertheless the decoy did its work, The envoys returned to France, and
+it was not until three months later that the Duke of Bouillon again made
+his appearance in England, bringing the treaty duly ratified by Henry.
+The league was then solemnized, on, the 26th August, by the queen with
+much pomp and ceremony.  Three peers of the realm waited upon the French
+ambassador at his lodgings, and escorted him and his suite in seventeen
+royal coaches to the Tower.  Seven splendid barges then conveyed them
+along the Thames to Greenwich.  On the pier the ambassador was received
+by the Earl of Derby at the head of a great suite of nobles and high
+functionaries, and conducted to the palace of Nonesuch.
+
+There was a religious ceremony in the royal chapel, where a special
+pavilion had been constructed.  Standing, within this sanctuary, the
+queen; with her hand on her breast, swore faithfully to maintain the
+league just concluded.  She then gave her hand to the Duke of Bouillon,
+who held it in both his own, while psalms were sung and the organ
+resounded through the chapel.  Afterwards there was a splendid banquet in
+the palace, the duke sitting in solitary grandeur at the royal table,
+being placed at a respectful distance from her Majesty, and the dishes
+being placed on the board by the highest nobles of the realm, who, upon
+their knees, served the queen with wine.  No one save the ambassador sat
+at Elizabeth's table, but in the same hall was spread another, at which
+the Earl of Essex entertained many distinguished guests, young Count
+Lewis Gunther of Nassau among the number.
+
+In the midsummer twilight the brilliantly decorated barges were again
+floating on the historic river, the gaily-coloured lanterns lighting the
+sweep of the oars, and the sound of lute and viol floating merrily across
+the water.  As the ambassador came into the courtyard of his house, he
+found a crowd of several thousand people assembled, who shouted welcome
+to the representative of Henry, and invoked blessings on the head of
+Queen Elizabeth and of her royal brother of France.  Meanwhile all the
+bells of London were ringing, artillery was thundering, and bonfires were
+blazing, until the night was half spent.
+
+Such was the holiday-making by which the league between the great
+Protestant queen and the ex-chief of the Huguenots of France was
+celebrated within a year after the pope had received him, a repentant
+sinner, into the fold of the Church.  Truly it might be said that
+religion was rapidly ceasing to be the line of demarcation among the
+nations, as had been the case for the two last generations of mankind.
+
+The Duke of Bouillon soon afterwards departed for the Netherlands, where
+the regular envoy to the commonwealth, Paul Chouart Seigneur de Buzanval,
+had already been preparing the States-General for their entrance into the
+league.  Of course it was duly impressed upon those republicans that they
+should think themselves highly honoured by the privilege of associating
+themselves with so august an alliance.  The queen wrote an earnest letter
+to the States, urging them to join the league.  "Especially should you do
+so," she said, "on account of the reputation which you will thereby gain
+for your affairs with the people who are under you, seeing you thus
+sustained (besides the certainty which you have of our favour) by the
+friendship of other confederated princes, and particularly by that of the
+most Christian king."
+
+On the 31st October the articles of agreement under which the republic
+acceded to the new confederation were signed at the Hague.  Of course
+it was not the exact counterpart of the famous Catholic association.
+Madam League, after struggling feebly for the past few years, a decrepit
+beldame, was at last dead and buried.  But there had been a time when she
+was filled with exuberant and terrible life.  She, at least, had known
+the object of her creation, and never, so long as life was in her, had
+she faltered in her dread purpose.  To extirpate Protestantism, to murder
+Protestants, to burn, hang, butcher, bury them alive, to dethrone every
+Protestant sovereign in Europe, especially to assassinate the Queen of
+England, the Prince of Orange, with all his race, and Henry of Navarre,
+and to unite in the accomplishment of these simple purposes all the
+powers of Christendom under the universal monarchy of Philip of Spain--
+for all this, blood was shed in torrents, and the precious metals of the
+"Indies" squandered as fast as the poor savages, who were thus taking
+their first lessons in the doctrines of Jesus of Nazareth, could dig it
+from the mines.  For this America had been summoned, as it were by
+almighty fiat, out of previous darkness, in order that it might furnish
+money with which to massacre all the heretics of the earth.  For this
+great purpose was the sublime discovery of the Genoese sailor to be
+turned to account.  These aims were intelligible, and had in part been
+attained.  William of Orange had fallen, and a patent of nobility, with a
+handsome fortune, had been bestowed upon his assassin.  Elizabeth's life
+had been frequently attempted.  So had those of Henry, of Maurice, of
+Olden-Barneveld.  Divine providence might perhaps guide the hand of
+future murderers with greater accuracy, for even if Madam League were
+dead, her ghost still walked among the Jesuits and summoned them to
+complete the crimes left yet unfinished.
+
+But what was the design of the new confederacy?  It was not a Protestant
+league.  Henry of Navarre could no longer be the chief of such an
+association, although it was to Protestant powers only that he could turn
+for assistance.  It was to the commonwealth of the Netherlands, to the
+northern potentates and to the Calvinist and Lutheran princes of Germany,
+that the king and queen could alone appeal in their designs against
+Philip of Spain.
+
+The position of Henry was essentially a false one from the beginning.
+He felt it to be so, and the ink was scarce dry with which he signed the
+new treaty before he was secretly casting about him to, make peace with
+that power with which he was apparently summoning all the nations of the
+earth to do battle.  Even the cautious Elizabeth was deceived by the
+crafty Bearnese, while both united to hoodwink the other states and
+princes.
+
+On the 31st October, accordingly, the States-General agreed to go into
+the league with England and France; "in order to resist the enterprises
+and ambitious designs of the King of Spain against all the princes and
+potentates of Christendom."  As the queen had engaged--according to the
+public treaty or decoy--to furnish four thousand infantry to the league,
+the States now agreed to raise and pay for another four thousand to be
+maintained in the king's service at a cost of four hundred and fifty
+thousand florins annually, to be paid by the month.  The king promised,
+in case the Netherlands should be invaded by the enemy with the greater
+part of his force, that these four thousand soldiers should return to the
+Netherlands.  The king further bound himself to carry on a sharp
+offensive war in Artois and Hainault.
+
+The States-General would have liked a condition inserted in the treaty
+that no peace should be made with Spain by England or France without the
+consent of the provinces; but this was peremptorily refused.
+
+Perhaps the republic had no special reason to be grateful for the
+grudging and almost contemptuous manner in which it had thus been
+virtually admitted into the community of sovereigns; but the men who
+directed its affairs were far too enlightened not to see how great a step
+was taken when their political position, now conceded to them, had been
+secured.  In good faith they intended to carry out the provisions of the
+new treaty, and they immediately turned their attention to the vital
+matters of making new levies and of imposing new taxes, by means of which
+they might render themselves useful to their new allies.
+
+Meantime Ancel was deputed by Henry to visit the various courts of
+Germany and the north in order to obtain, if possible, new members for
+the league?  But Germany was difficult to rouse.  The dissensions among
+Protestants were ever inviting the assaults of the Papists.  Its
+multitude of sovereigns were passing their leisure moments in wrangling
+among themselves as usual on abstruse points of theology, and devoting
+their serious hours to banquetting, deep drinking, and the pleasures of
+the chase.  The jeremiads of old John of Nassau grew louder than ever,
+but his voice was of one crying in the wilderness.  The wrath to come of
+that horrible Thirty Years' War, which he was not to witness seemed to
+inspire all his prophetic diatribes.  But there were few to heed them.
+Two great dangers seemed ever impending over Christendom, and it is
+difficult to decide which fate would have been the more terrible, the
+establishment of the universal monarchy of Philip II., or the conquest of
+Germany by the Grand Turk.  But when Ancel and other emissaries sought to
+obtain succour against the danger from the south-west, he was answered by
+the clash of arms and the shrieks of horror which came daily from the
+south-east.  In vain was it urged, and urged with truth, that the Alcoran
+was less cruel than the Inquisition, that the soil of Europe might be
+overrun by Turks and Tartars, and the crescent planted triumphantly in
+every village, with less disaster to the human race, and with better hope
+that the germs of civilization and the precepts of Christianity might
+survive the invasion, than if the system of Philip, of Torquemada, and of
+Alva, should become the universal law.  But the Turk was a frank enemy of
+Christianity, while Philip murdered Christians in the name of Christ.
+The distinction imposed upon the multitudes, with whom words were things.
+Moreover, the danger from the young and enterprising Mahomet seemed more
+appalling to the imagination than the menace, from which experience had
+taken something of its terrors, of the old and decrepit Philip.
+
+The Ottoman empire, in its exact discipline, in its terrible
+concentration of purpose, in its contempt for all arts and sciences, and
+all human occupation save the trade of war and the pursuit of military
+dominion, offered a strong contrast to the distracted condition of
+the holy Roman empire, where an intellectual and industrious people,
+distracted by half a century of religious controversy and groaning under
+one of the most elaborately perverse of all the political systems ever
+invented by man, seemed to offer itself an easy prey to any conqueror.
+The Turkish power was in the fulness of its aggressive strength, and
+seemed far more formidable than it would have done had there been clearer
+perceptions of what constitutes the strength and the wealth of nations.
+Could the simple truth have been thoroughly, comprehended that a realm
+founded upon such principles was the grossest of absurdities, the Eastern
+might have seemed less terrible than the Western danger.
+
+But a great campaign, at no considerable distance from the walls of
+Vienna, had occupied the attention of Germany during the autumn.  Mahomet
+had taken the field in person with a hundred thousand men, and the
+emperor's brother, Maximilian, in conjunction with the Prince of
+Transylvania, at the head of a force of equal magnitude, had gone forth
+to give him battle.  Between the Theiss and the Danube, at Keveste, not
+far from the city of Erlau, on the 26th October, the terrible encounter
+on which the fate of Christendom seemed to hang at last took place, and
+Europe held its breath in awful suspense until its fate should be
+decided.  When the result at last became known, a horrible blending of
+the comic and the tragic, such as has rarely been presented in history,
+startled the world.  Seventy thousand human beings--Moslems and
+Christians--were lying dead or wounded on the banks of a nameless little
+stream which flows into the Theisa, and the commanders-in-chief of both
+armies were running away as fast as horses could carry them.  Each army
+believed itself hopelessly defeated, and abandoning tents, baggage,
+artillery, ammunition, the remnants of each, betook themselves to panic-
+stricken flight.  Generalissimo Maximilian never looked behind him as he
+fled, until he had taken refuge in Kaschan, and had thence made his way,
+deeply mortified and despondent, to Vienna.  The Prince of Transylvania
+retreated into the depths of his own principality.  Mahomet, with his
+principal officers, shut himself up in Buda, after which he returned to
+Constantinople and abandoned himself for a time to a voluptuous ease,
+inconsistent with the Ottoman projects of conquering the world.  The
+Turks, less prone to desperation than the Christians, had been utterly
+overthrown in the early part of the action, but when the victors were,
+as usual, greedily bent upon plunder before the victory had been fairly
+secured, the tide of battle was turned by the famous Italian renegade
+Cicala.  The Turks, too, had the good sense to send two days afterwards
+and recover their artillery, trains, and other property, which ever since
+the battle had been left at the mercy of the first comers.
+
+So ended the Turkish campaign of the year 1596.  Ancel, accordingly,
+fared ill in his negotiations with Germany.  On the other hand Mendoza,
+Admiral of Arragon, had been industriously but secretly canvassing the
+same regions as the representative of the Spanish king. It was important
+for Philip, who put more faith in the league of the three powers than
+Henry himself did, to lose no time in counteracting its influence.  The
+condition of the holy Roman empire had for some time occupied his most
+serious thoughts.  It seemed plain that Rudolph would never marry.
+Certainly he would never marry the Infanta, although he was very angry
+that his brother should aspire to the hand which he himself rejected.
+In case of his death without children, Philip thought it possible that
+there might be a Protestant revolution in Germany, and that the house of
+Habsburg might lose the imperial crown altogether.  It was even said that
+the emperor himself was of that opinion, and preferred that the empire
+should end with his own life."  Philip considered that neither Matthias
+nor Maximilian was fit to succeed their brother, being both of them
+lukewarm in the Catholic faith."  In other words, he chose that his
+destined son-in-law, the Cardinal Albert, should supersede them, and he
+was anxious to have him appointed as soon as possible King of the Romans.
+
+"His Holiness the Pope and the King of Spain," said the Admiral of
+Arragon, "think it necessary to apply most stringent measures to the
+emperor to compel him to appoint a successor, because, in case of his
+death without one, the administration during the vacancy would fall to
+the elector palatine,--a most perverse Calvinistic heretic, and as great
+an enemy of the house of Austria and of our holy religion as the Turk
+himself--as sufficiently appears in those diabolical laws of his
+published in the palatinate a few months since.  A vacancy is so
+dreadful, that in the north of Germany the world would come to an end;
+yet the emperor, being of rather a timid nature than otherwise, is
+inclined to quiet, and shrinks from the discussions and conflicts likely
+to be caused by an appointment.  Therefore his Holiness and his Catholic
+Majesty, not choosing that we should all live in danger of the world's
+falling in ruins, have resolved to provide the remedy.  They are to
+permit the electors to use the faculty which they possess of suspending
+the emperor and depriving him of his power; there being examples of this
+in other times against emperors who governed ill."
+
+The Admiral farther alluded to the great effort made two years before to
+elect the King of Denmark emperor, reminding Philip that in Hamburg they
+had erected triumphal arches, and made other preparations to receive him.
+This year, he observed, the Protestants were renewing their schemes.  On
+the occasion of the baptism of the child of the elector palatine, the
+English envoy being present, and Queen Elizabeth being god-mother, they
+had agreed upon nine articles of faith much more hostile to the Catholic
+creed than anything ever yet professed.  In case of the death of the
+emperor, this elector palatine would of course make much trouble, and
+the emperor should therefore be induced, by fair means if possible, on
+account of the great inconvenience of forcing him, but not without a hint
+of compulsion, to acquiesce in the necessary measures.  Philip was
+represented as willing to assist the empire with considerable force
+against the Turk--as there could be no doubt that Hungary was in great
+danger--but in recompense it was necessary to elect a King of the Romans
+in all respects satisfactory to him.  There were three objections to the
+election of Albert, whose recent victories and great abilities entitled
+him in Philip's opinion to the crown.  Firstly, there was a doubt whether
+the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia were elective or hereditary, and it
+was very important that the King of the Romans should succeed to those
+two crowns, because the electors and other princes having fiefs within
+those kingdoms would be unwilling to swear fealty to two suzerains, and
+as Albert was younger than his brothers he could scarcely expect to take
+by inheritance.
+
+Secondly, Albert had no property of his own, but the Admiral suggested
+that the emperor might be made to abandon to him the income of the Tyrol.
+
+Thirdly, it was undesirable for Albert to leave the Netherlands at that
+juncture.  Nevertheless, it was suggested by the easy-going Admiral, with
+the same tranquil insolence which marked all his proposed arrangements,
+that as Rudolph would retire from the government altogether, Albert, as
+King of the Romans and acting emperor, could very well take care of the
+Netherlands as part of his whole realm.  Albert being moreover about to
+marry the Infanta, the handsome dowry which he would receive with her
+from the king would enable him to sustain his dignity.
+
+Thus did Philip who had been so industrious during the many past years
+in his endeavours to expel the heretic Queen of England and the Huguenot
+Henry from the realms of their ancestors, and to seat himself or his
+daughter, or one or another of his nephews, in their places, now busy
+himself with schemes to discrown Rudolph of Habsburg, and to place the
+ubiquitous Infanta and her future husband on his throne.  Time would show
+the result.
+
+Meantime, while the Protestant Ancel and other agents of the new league
+against Philip were travelling about from one court of Europe to another
+to gain adherents to their cause, the great founder of the confederacy
+was already secretly intriguing for a peace with that monarch.  The ink
+was scarce dry on the treaty to which he had affixed his signature before
+he was closeted with the agents of the Archduke Albert, and receiving
+affectionate messages and splendid presents from that military
+ecclesiastic.
+
+In November, 1596, La Balvena, formerly a gentleman of the Count de la
+Fera, came to Rouen.  He had a very secret interview with Henry IV. at
+three o'clock one morning, and soon afterwards at a very late hour in the
+night.  The king asked him why the archduke was not willing to make a
+general peace, including England and Holland.  Balvena replied that he
+had no authority to treat on that subject; it being well known, however,
+that the King of Spain would never consent to a peace with the rebels,
+except on the ground of the exclusive maintenance of the Catholic
+religion.
+
+He is taking the very course to destroy that religion, said Henry.  The
+king then avowed himself in favour of peace for the sake of the poor
+afflicted people of all countries.  He was not tired of arms, he said,
+which were so familiar to him, but his wish was to join in a general
+crusade against the Turk.  This would be better for the Catholic religion
+than the present occupations of all parties.  He avowed that the Queen of
+England was his very good friend, and said he had never yet broken his
+faith with her, and never would do so.  She had sent him the Garter, and
+he had accepted it, as his brother Henry III. had done before him, and he
+would negotiate no peace which did not include her.  The not very distant
+future was to show how much these stout professions of sincerity were
+worth.  Meantime Henry charged Balvena to keep their interviews a
+profound secret, especially from every one in France.  The king expressed
+great anxiety lest the Huguenots should hear of it, and the agent
+observed that any suspicion of peace negotiations would make great
+disturbance among the heretics, as one of the conditions of the king's
+absolution by the pope was supposed to be that he should make war upon
+his Protestant subjects.  On his return from Rouen the emissary made a
+visit to Monlevet, marshal of the camp to Henry IV. and a Calvinist.
+There was much conversation about peace, in the course of which Monlevet
+observed, "We are much afraid of you in negotiation, for we know that you
+Spaniards far surpass us in astuteness."
+
+"Nay," said Balvena, "I will only repeat the words of the Emperor Charles
+V.--'The Spaniards seem wise, and are madmen; the French seem madmen, and
+are wise.'"
+
+A few weeks later the archduke sent Balvena again to Rouen.  He had
+another interview with the king, at which not only Villeroy and other
+Catholics were present, but Monlevet also.  This proved a great obstacle
+to freedom of conversation.  The result was the same as before.
+
+There were strong professions of a desire on the part of the king for a
+peace but it was for a general peace; nothing further.
+
+On the 4th December Balvena was sent for by the king before daylight,
+just as he was mounting his horse for the chase.
+
+"Tell his Highness," said Henry, "that I am all frankness, and incapable
+of dissimulation, and that I believe him too much a man of honour to wish
+to deceive me.  Go tell him that I am most anxious for peace, and that I
+deeply regret the defeat that has been sustained against the Turk.  Had I
+been there I would have come out dead or victorious.  Let him arrange an
+agreement between us, so that presto he may see me there with my brave
+nobles, with infantry and with plenty of Switzers.  Tell him that I am
+his friend: Begone.  Be diligent."
+
+On the last day but two of the year, the archduke, having heard this
+faithful report of Henry's affectionate sentiments, sent him a suit of
+splendid armour, such as was then made better in Antwerp than anywhere
+else, magnificently burnished of a blue colour, according to an entirely
+new fashion.
+
+With such secret courtesies between his most Catholic Majesty's
+vicegerent and himself was Henry's league with the two Protestant
+powers accompanied.
+
+Exactly at the same epoch Philip was again preparing an invasion of the
+queen's dominions.  An armada of a hundred and twenty-eight ships, with a
+force of fourteen thousand infantry and three thousand horse, had been
+assembled during the autumn of this year at Lisbon, notwithstanding the
+almost crushing blow that the English and Hollanders had dealt the king's
+navy so recently at Cadiz.  This new expedition was intended for Ireland,
+where it was supposed that the Catholics would be easily roused.  It was
+also hoped that the King of Scots might be induced to embrace this
+opportunity of wreaking vengeance on his mother's destroyer.  "He was on
+the watch the last time that my armada went forth against the English,"
+said Philip, "and he has now no reason to do the contrary, especially if
+he remembers that here is a chance to requite the cruelty which was
+practised on his mother."
+
+The fleet sailed on the 5th October under the command of the Count Santa
+Gadea.  Its immediate destination was the coast of Ireland, where they
+were to find some favourable point for disembarking the troops.  Having
+accomplished this, the ships, with the exception of a few light vessels,
+were to take their departure and pass the winter in Ferrol.  In case the
+fleet should be forced by stress of weather on the English coast, the
+port of Milford Haven in Wales was to be seized, "because," said Philip,
+"there are a great many Catholics there well affected to our cause, and
+who have a special enmity to the English."  In case the English fleet
+should come forth to give battle, Philip sent directions that it was to
+be conquered at once, and that after the victory Milford Haven was to be
+firmly held.
+
+This was easily said.  But it was not fated that this expedition should
+be more triumphant than that of the unconquerable armada which had been
+so signally conquered eight years before.  Scarcely had the fleet put to
+sea when it was overtaken by a tremendous storm, in which forty ships
+foundered with five thousand men.  The shattered remnants took refuge in
+Ferrol.  There the ships were to refit, and in the spring the attempt was
+to be renewed.  Thus it was ever with the King of Spain.  There was a
+placid unconsciousness on his part of defeat which sycophants thought
+sublime.  And such insensibility might have been sublimity had the
+monarch been in person on the deck of a frigate in the howling tempest,
+seeing ship after ship go down before his eyes; and exerting himself with
+tranquil energy and skill to encourage his followers, and to preserve
+what remained afloat from destruction.  Certainly such exhibitions of
+human superiority to the elements are in the highest degree inspiring.
+His father had shown himself on more than one occasion the master of his
+fate.  The King of France, too, bare-headed, in his iron corslet, leading
+a forlorn hope, and, by the personal charm of his valour, changing
+fugitives into heroes and defeat into victory, had afforded many examples
+of sublime unconsciousness of disaster, such as must ever thrill the
+souls of mankind.  But it is more difficult to be calm in battle and
+shipwreck than at the writing desk; nor is that the highest degree of
+fortitude which enables a monarch--himself in safety--to endure without
+flinching the destruction of his fellow creatures.
+
+No sooner, however, was the remnant of the tempest-tost fleet safe in
+Ferrol than the king requested the cardinal to collect an army at Calais
+and forthwith to invade England.  He asked his nephew whether he could
+not manage to send his troops across the channel in vessels of light
+draught, such as he already had at command, together with some others
+which might be furnished him from Spain.  In this way he was directed to
+gain a foot-hold in England, and he was to state immediately whether he
+could accomplish this with his own resources or should require the
+assistance of the fleet at Ferrol.  The king further suggested that the
+enemy, encouraged by his success at Cadiz the previous summer, might be
+preparing a fresh expedition against Spain, in which case the invasion of
+England would be easier to accomplish.
+
+Thus on the last day of 1596, Philip, whose fleet sent forth for the
+conquest of Ireland and England had been too crippled to prosecute the
+adventure, was proposing to his nephew to conquer England without any
+fleet at all.  He had given the same advice to Alexander Farnese so soon
+as he heard of the destruction of the invincible armada.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Allow her to seek a profit from his misfortune
+Burning of Servetus at Geneva
+Constant vigilance is the price of liberty
+Evil has the advantage of rapidly assuming many shapes
+French seem madmen, and are wise
+Hanging of Mary Dyer at Boston
+Imposed upon the multitudes, with whom words were things
+Impossible it was to invent terms of adulation too gross
+In times of civil war, to be neutral is to be nothing
+Meet around a green table except as fencers in the field
+One-third of Philip's effective navy was thus destroyed
+Patriotism seemed an unimaginable idea
+Placid unconsciousness on his part of defeat
+Plea of infallibility and of authority soon becomes ridiculous
+Religion was rapidly ceasing to be the line of demarcation
+So often degenerated into tyranny (Calvinism)
+Spaniards seem wise, and are madmen
+The Alcoran was less cruel than the Inquisition
+There are few inventions in morals
+To attack England it was necessary to take the road of Ireland
+Tranquil insolence
+Unproductive consumption was alarmingly increasing
+Upon their knees, served the queen with wine
+Wish to sell us the bear-skin before they have killed the bear
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v68
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 69, 1597-1598
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+     Straggle of the Netherlands against Spain--March to Turnhout--
+     Retreat of the Spanish commander--Pursuit and attack--Demolition of
+     the Spanish army--Surrender of the garrison of Turnhout--Improved
+     military science--Moral effect of the battle--The campaign in
+     France--Attack on Amiens by the Spaniards--Sack and burning of the
+     city--De Rosny's plan for reorganization of the finances--Jobbery
+     and speculation--Philip's repudiation of his debts--Effects of the
+     measure--Renewal of persecution by the Jesuits--Contention between
+     Turk and Christian--Envoy from the King of Poland to the Hague to
+     plead for reconciliation with Philip--His subsequent presentation to
+     Queen Elizabeth--Military events Recovery of Amiens--Feeble
+     operations of the confederate powers against Spain--Marriage of the
+     Princess Emilia, sister of Maurice--Reduction of the castle and town
+     of Alphen--Surrender of Rheinberg--Capitulation of Meurs--Surrender
+     of Grol--Storming and taking of Brevoort Capitulation of Enschede,
+     Ootmaxsum, Oldenzaal, and Lingen--Rebellion of the Spanish garrisons
+     in Antwerp and Ghent--Progress of the peace movement between Henry
+     and Philip--Relations of the three confederate powers--Henry's
+     scheme for reconciliation with Spain--His acceptance of Philip's
+     offer of peace announced to Elizabeth--Endeavours for a general
+     peace.
+
+The old year had closed with an abortive attempt of Philip to fulfil his
+favourite dream--the conquest of England.  The new year opened with a
+spirited effort of Prince Maurice to measure himself in the open field
+with the veteran legions of Spain.
+
+Turnhout, in Brabant, was an open village--the largest in all the
+Netherlands lying about twenty-five English miles in almost a direct line
+south from Gertruydenburg.  It was nearly as far distant in an easterly
+direction from Antwerp, and was about five miles nearer Breda than it was
+to Gertruydenberg.
+
+At this place the cardinal-archduke had gathered a considerable force,
+numbering at least four thousand of his best infantry, with several
+squadrons of cavalry, the whole under-command of the general-in-chief of
+artillery, Count Varax.  People in the neighbourhood were growing uneasy,
+for it was uncertain in what direction it might be intended to use this
+formidable force.  It was perhaps the cardinal's intention to make a
+sudden assault upon Breda, the governor of which seemed not inclined to
+carry out his proposition to transfer that important city to the king,
+or it was thought that he might take advantage of a hard frost and cross
+the frozen morasses and estuaries into the land of Ter Tholen, where he
+might overmaster some of the important strongholds of Zeeland.
+
+Marcellus Bax, that boldest and most brilliant of Holland's cavalry
+officers, had come to Maurice early in January with an urgent suggestion
+that no time might be lost in making an attack upon the force of
+Turnhout, before they should succeed in doing any mischief.  The prince
+pondered the proposition, for a little time, by himself, and then
+conferred very privately upon the subject with the state-council.  On the
+14th January it was agreed with that body that the enterprise should be
+attempted, but with the utmost secrecy.  A week later the council sent
+an express messenger to Maurice urging him not to expose his own life to
+peril, but to apprise them as soon as possible as to the results of the
+adventure.
+
+Meantime, patents had been sent to the various garrisons for fifty
+companies of foot and sixteen squadrons of horse.  On the 22nd January
+Maurice came to Gertruydenberg, the place of rendezvous, attended by Sir
+Francis Vere and Count Solms.  Colonel Kloetingen was already there with
+the transports of ammunition and a few pieces of artillery from Zeeland,
+and in the course of the day the whole infantry force had assembled.
+Nothing could have been managed with greater promptness or secrecy.
+
+Next day, before dawn, the march began.  The battalia was led by Van der
+Noot, with six companies of Hollanders.  Then came Vere, with eight
+companies of the reserve, Dockray with eight companies of Englishmen,
+Murray with eight companies of Scotch, and Kloetingen and
+La Corde with twelve companies of Dutch and Zeelanders.  In front of the
+last troop under La Corde marched the commander of the artillery, with
+two demi-cannon and two field-pieces, followed by the ammunition and,
+baggage trains.  Hohenlo arrived just as the march was beginning, to whom
+the stadholder, notwithstanding their frequent differences, communicated
+his plans, and entrusted the general command of the cavalry.  That force
+met the expedition at Osterhout, a league's distance from Gertruydenberg,
+and consisted of the best mounted companies, English and Dutch, from the
+garrisons of Breda, Bergen, Nymegen, and the Zutphen districts.
+
+It was a dismal, drizzly, foggy morning; the weather changing to steady
+rain as the expedition advanced.  There had been alternate frost and thaw
+for the few previous weeks, and had that condition of the atmosphere
+continued the adventure could not have been attempted.  It had now turned
+completely to thaw.  The roads were all under water, and the march was
+sufficiently difficult.  Nevertheless, it was possible; so the stout
+Hollanders, Zeelanders, and Englishmen struggled on manfully, shoulder to
+shoulder, through the mist and the mire.  By nightfall the expedition had
+reached Ravels, at less than a league's distance from Turnhout, having
+accomplished, under the circumstances, a very remarkable march of over
+twenty miles.  A stream of water, the Neethe, one of the tributaries of
+the Scheld, separated Ravels from Turnhout, and was crossed by a stone
+bridge.  It was an anxious moment.  Maurice discovered by his scouts that
+he was almost within cannon-shot of several of the most famous regiments
+in the Spanish army lying fresh, securely posted, and capable of making
+an attack at any moment.  He instantly threw forward Marcellus Bax with
+four squadrons of Bergen cavalry, who, jaded as they were by their day's
+work, were to watch the bridge that night, and to hold it against all
+comers and at every hazard.
+
+The Spanish commander, on his part, had reconnoitred the advancing, foe,
+for it was impossible for the movement to have been so secret or so swift
+over those inundated roads as to be shrouded to the last moment in
+complete mystery.  It was naturally to be expected therefore that those
+splendid legions--the famous Neapolitan tercio of Trevico, the veteran
+troops of Sultz and Hachicourt, the picked Epirote and Spanish cavalry of
+Nicolas Basta and Guzman--would be hurled upon the wearied, benumbed,
+bemired soldiers of the republic, as they came slowly along after their
+long march through the cold winter's rain.
+
+Varax took no such heroic resolution.  Had he done so that January
+afternoon, the career of Maurice of Nassau might have been brought to a
+sudden close, despite the affectionate warning of the state-council.
+Certainly it was difficult for any commander to be placed in a more
+perilous position than that in which the stadholder found himself.  He
+remained awake and afoot the whole night, perfecting his arrangements for
+the morning, and watching every indication of a possible advance on the
+part of the enemy.  Marcellus Bax and his troopers remained at the bridge
+till morning, and were so near the Spaniards that they heard the voices
+of their pickets, and could even distinguish in the distance the various
+movements in their camp.
+
+But no attack was made, and the little army of Maurice was allowed
+to sleep off its fatigue.  With the dawn of the 24th January,
+a reconnoitring party, sent out from the republican camp, discovered that
+Varax, having no stomach for an encounter, had given his enemies the
+slip.  Long before daylight his baggage and ammunition trains had been
+sent off in a southerly direction, and his whole force had already left
+the village of Turnhout.  It was the intention of the commander to take
+refuge in the fortified city of Herenthals, and there await the attack of
+Maurice.  Accordingly, when the stadholder arrived on the fields beyond
+the immediate precincts of the village, he saw the last of the enemy's
+rearguard just disappearing from view.  The situation was a very peculiar
+one.
+
+The rain and thaw, following upon frosty weather, had converted the fenny
+country in many directions into a shallow lake.  The little river which
+flowed by the village had risen above its almost level banks, and could
+with difficulty be traversed at any point, while there was no permanent
+bridge, such as there was at Ravels.  The retreating Spaniards had made
+their way through a narrow passage, where a roughly-constructed causeway
+of planks had enabled the infantry to cross the waters almost in single
+file, while the cavalry had floundered through as best they might.  Those
+who were acquainted with the country reported that beyond this defile
+there was an upland heath, a league in extent, full of furze and
+thickets, where it would be easy enough for Varax to draw up his army in
+battle array, and conceal it from view.  Maurice's scouts, too, brought
+information that the Spanish commander had left a force of musketeers to
+guard the passage at the farther end.
+
+This looked very like an ambush.  In the opinion of Hohenlo, of Solms,
+and of Sidney, an advance was not to be thought of; and if the adventure
+seemed perilous to such hardy and experienced campaigners as these three,
+the stadholder might well hesitate.  Nevertheless, Maurice had made up
+his mind.  Sir Francis Vere and Marcellus Bax confirmed him in his
+determination, and spoke fiercely of the disgrace which would come upon
+the arms of the republic if now, after having made a day's march to meet
+the enemy, they should turn their backs upon him just as he was doing his
+best to escape.
+
+On leave obtained from the prince, these two champions, the Englishman
+and the Hollander, spurred their horses through the narrow pass, with the
+waters up to the saddle-bow, at the head of a mere handful of troopers,
+not more than a dozen men in all.  Two hundred musketeers followed,
+picking their way across the planks.  As they emerged into the open
+country beyond, the Spanish soldiers guarding the passage fled without
+firing a shot.  Such was already the discouraging effect produced upon
+veterans by the unexpected order given that morning to retreat.  Vere and
+Bax sent word for all the cavalry to advance at once, and meantime
+hovered about the rearguard of the retreating enemy, ready to charge
+upon him so soon as they should be strong enough.
+
+Maurice lost no time in plunging with his whole mounted force through the
+watery defile; directing the infantry to follow as fast as practicable.
+When the commander-in-chief with his eight hundred horsemen, Englishmen,
+Zeelanders, Hollanders, and Germans, came upon the heath, the position
+and purpose of the enemy were plainly visible.  He was not drawn up in
+battle order, waiting to sweep down upon his rash assailants so soon as,
+after struggling through the difficult pass, they should be delivered
+into his hands.  On the contrary, it was obvious at a glance that his
+object was still to escape.  The heath of Tiel, on which Spaniards,
+Italians, Walloons, Germans, Dutchmen, English; Scotch, and Irishmen now
+all found themselves together, was a ridgy, spongy expanse of country,
+bordered on one side by the swollen river, here flowing again through
+steeper banks which were overgrown with alders and pollard willows.
+Along the left of the Spanish army, as they moved in the direction of
+Herenthals, was a continuous fringe of scrub-oaks, intermixed with tall
+beeches, skirting the heath, and forming a leafless but almost impervious
+screen for the movements of small detachments of troops.  Quite at the
+termination of the open apace, these thickets becoming closely crowded,
+overhung another extremely narrow passage, which formed the only outlet
+from the plain.  Thus the heath of Tiel, upon that winter's morning, had
+but a single entrance and a single exit, each very dangerous or very
+fortunate for those capable of taking or neglecting the advantages
+offered by the position.
+
+The whole force of Varax, at least five thousand strong, was advancing in
+close marching order towards the narrow passage by which only they could
+emerge from the heath.  Should they reach this point in time, and thus
+effect their escape, it would be useless to attempt to follow them, for,
+as was the case with the first defile, it was not possible for two
+abreast to go through, while beyond was a swampy-country in which
+military operations were impossible.  Yet there remained less than half
+a league's space for the retreating soldiers to traverse, while not a
+single foot-soldier Of Maurice's army had thus far made his appearance on
+the heath.  All were still wallowing and struggling, single file, in the
+marshy entrance, through which only the cavalry had forced their way.
+Here was a dilemma.  Should Maurice look calmly on while the enemy, whom
+he had made so painful a forced march to meet, moved off out of reach
+before his eyes?  Yet certainly this was no slight triumph in itself.
+There sat the stadholder on his horse at the head of eight hundred
+carabineers, and there marched four of Philip's best infantry regiments,
+garnished with some of his most renowned cavalry squadrons, anxious not
+to seek but to avoid a combat.  First came the Germans of Count Sultz,
+the musketeers in front, and the spearsmen, of which the bulk of this and
+of all the regiments was composed, marching in closely serried squares,
+with the company standards waving over each.  Next, arranged in the same
+manner, came the Walloon regiments of Hachicourt and of La Barlotte.
+Fourth and last came the famous Neapolitans of Marquis Trevico.  The
+cavalry squadrons rode on the left of the infantry, and were commanded by
+Nicolas Basta, a man who had been trampling upon the Netherlanders ever
+since the days of Alva, with whom he had first come to the country.
+
+And these were the legions--these very men or their immediate
+predecessors--these Italians, Spaniards, Germans, and Walloons, who
+during so many terrible years had stormed and sacked almost every city
+of the Netherlands, and swept over the whole breadth of those little
+provinces as with the besom of destruction.
+
+Both infantry and cavalry, that picked little army of Varax was of the
+very best that had shared in the devil's work which had been the chief
+industry practised for so long in the obedient Netherlands.  Was it not
+madness for the stadholder, at the head of eight hundred horsemen, to
+assail such an army as this?  Was it not to invoke upon his head the
+swift vengeance of Heaven?  Nevertheless, the painstaking, cautious
+Maurice did not hesitate.  He ordered Hohenlo, with all the Brabantine
+cavalry, to ride as rapidly as their horses could carry them along the
+edge of the plain, and behind the tangled woodland, by which the movement
+would be concealed.  He was at all hazards to intercept the enemy's
+vanguard before it should reach the fatal pass.  Vere and Marcellus Bax
+meanwhile, supported now by Edmont with the Nymegen squadrons, were to
+threaten the Spanish rear.  A company of two under Laurentz was kept by
+Maurice near his person in reserve.
+
+The Spaniards steadily continued their march, but as they became aware of
+certain slight and indefinite movements on their left, their cavalry,
+changing their position, were transferred from the right to the left of
+the line of march, and now rode between the infantry and the belt of
+woods.
+
+In a few minutes after the orders given to Hohenlo, that dashing soldier
+had circumvented the Spaniards, and emerged upon the plain between them
+and the entrance to the defile, The next instant the trumpets sounded a
+charge, and Hohenlo fell upon the foremost regiment, that of Sultz, while
+the rearguard, consisting of Trevico's Neapolitan regiment, was assailed
+by Du Bois, Donck, Rysoir, Marcellus Bax, and Sir Francis Vere.  The
+effect seemed almost supernatural.  The Spanish cavalry--those far-famed
+squadrons of Guzman and Basta--broke at the first onset and galloped off
+for the pass as if they had been riding a race.  Most of them escaped
+through the hollow into the morass beyond.  The musketeers of Sultz's
+regiment hardly fired a shot, and fell back in confusion upon the thickly
+clustered pikemen.  The assailants, every one of them in complete armour,
+on powerful horses, and armed not with lances but with carbines, trampled
+over the panic-struck and struggling masses of leather jerkined pikemen
+and shot them at arm's length.  The charge upon Trevico's men at the same
+moment was just as decisive.  In less time than it took afterwards to
+describe the scene, those renowned veterans were broken into a helpless
+mass of dying, wounded, or fugitive creatures, incapable of striking a
+blow.
+
+Thus the Germans in the front and the Neapolitans in the rear had been
+simultaneously shattered, and rolled together upon the two other
+regiments, those of Hachicourt and La Barlotte, which were placed between
+them.  Nor did these troops offer any better resistance, but were
+paralysed and hurled out of existence like the rest.  In less than an
+hour the Spanish army was demolished.  Varax himself lay dead upon the
+field, too fortunate not to survive his disgrace.  It was hardly more
+than daylight on that dull January morning; nine o'clock had scarce
+chimed from the old brick steeples of Turnhout, yet two thousand
+Spaniards had fallen before the blows of eight hundred Netherlanders, and
+there were five hundred prisoners beside.  Of Maurice's army not more
+than nine or ten were slain.  The story sounds like a wild legend.  It
+was as if the arm of each Netherlander had been nerved by the memory of
+fifty years of outrage, as if the spectre of their half-century of crime
+had appalled the soul of every Spaniard.  Like a thunderbolt the son of
+William the Silent smote that army of Philip, and in an instant it lay
+blasted on the heath of Tiel.  At least it could hardly be called
+sagacious generalship on the part of the stadholder.  The chances were
+all against him, and if instead of Varax those legions had been commanded
+that morning by old Christopher Mondragon, there might perhaps have been
+another tale to tell.  Even as it was, there had been a supreme moment
+when the Spanish disaster had nearly been changed to victory.  The fight
+was almost done, when a small party of Staten' cavalry, who at the
+beginning of the action had followed the enemy's horse in its sudden
+retreat through the gap, came whirling back over the plain in wild
+confusion, pursued by about forty of the enemy's lancers.  They swept by
+the spot where Maurice, with not more than ten horsemen around him, was
+directing and watching the battle, and in vain the prince threw himself
+in front of them and strove to check their flight.  They were panic-
+struck, and Maurice would himself have been swept off the field, had not
+Marcellus Bax and Edmont, with half a dozen heavy troopers, come to
+the rescue.  A grave error had been committed by Parker, who, upon being
+ordered by Maurice to cause Louis Laurentz to charge, had himself charged
+with the whole reserve and left the stadholder almost alone upon the
+field.  Thus the culprits--who after pursuing the Spanish cavalry through
+the pass had been plundering the enemy's baggage until they were set upon
+by the handful left to guard it, and had become fugitives in their turn--
+might possibly have caused the lose of the day after the victory had been
+won, had there been a man on the Spanish side to take in the situation at
+a glance.  But it is probable that the rout had been too absolute to
+allow of any such sudden turning to account of the serious errors of the
+victors.  The cavalry, except this handful, had long disappeared, at
+least half the infantry lay dead or wounded in the field, while the
+remainder, throwing away pipe and matchlock, were running helter-skelter
+for their lives.
+
+Besides Prince Maurice himself, to whom the chief credit of the whole
+expedition justly belonged, nearly all the commanders engaged obtained
+great distinction by their skill and valour.  Sir Francis Vere, as usual,
+was ever foremost in the thickest of the fray, and had a horse killed
+under him.  Parker erred by too much readiness to engage, but bore
+himself manfully throughout the battle.  Hohenlo, Solma, Sidney, Louis
+Laurentz, Du Bois, all displayed their usual prowess; but the real hero
+of the hour, the personal embodiment of the fortunate madness which
+prompted and won the battle, was undoubtedly Marcellus Bax.
+
+Maurice remained an hour or two on the field of battle, and then,
+returning towards the village of Turnhout, summoned its stronghold.  The
+garrison of sixty, under Captain Van der Delf, instantly surrendered.
+The victor allowed these troops to go off scot free, saying that there
+had been blood enough shed that day.  Every standard borne by the
+Spaniards in the battle-thirty-eight in number--was taken, besides nearly
+all their arms.  The banners were sent to the Hague to be hung up in the
+great hall of the castle.  The dead body of Varax was sent to the
+archduke with a courteous letter, in which, however, a categorical
+explanation was demanded as to a statement in circulation that Albert
+had decided to give the soldiers of the republic no quarter.
+
+No answer being immediately returned, Maurice ordered the five hundred
+prisoners to be hanged or drowned unless ransomed within twenty days, and
+this horrible decree appears from official documents to be consistent
+with the military usages of the period.  The arrival of the letter from
+the cardinal-archduke, who levied the money for the ransom on the
+villagers of Brabant, prevented, however, the execution of the menace,
+which could hardly have been seriously intended.
+
+Within a week from the time of his departure from the Hague to engage
+in this daring adventure, the stadholder had returned to that little
+capital, having achieved a complete success.  The enthusiastic
+demonstrations throughout the land on account of so signal a victory
+can easily be imagined.  Nothing like this had ever before been recorded
+in the archives of the young commonwealth.  There had been glorious
+defences of beleaguered cities, where scenes of heroic endurance and
+self-sacrifice had been enacted, such as never can be forgotten so long
+as the history of human liberty shall endure, but a victory won in the
+open field over the most famous legions of Spain and against overwhelming
+numbers, was an achievement entirely without example.  It is beyond all
+doubt that the force under Varax was at least four times as large as that
+portion of the States' army which alone was engaged; for Maurice had not
+a foot-soldier on the field until the battle was over, save the handful
+of musketeers who had followed Vere and Bax at the beginning of the
+action.
+
+Therefore it is that this remarkable action merits a much more attentive
+consideration than it might deserve, regarded purely as a military
+exploit.  To the military student a mere cavalry affair, fought out upon
+an obscure Brabantine heath between a party of Dutch carabineers and
+Spanish pikemen, may seem of little account--a subject fitted by
+picturesque costume and animated action for the pencil of a Wouvermanns
+or a Terburg, but conveying little instruction.  As illustrating a period
+of transition in which heavy armoured troopers--each one a human iron-
+clad fortress moving at speed and furnished with the most formidable
+portable artillery then known--could overcome the resistance of almost
+any number of foot-soldiers in light marching gear and armed with the
+antiquated pike, the affair may be worthy of a moment's attention; and
+for this improvement--itself now as obsolete as the slings and
+cataphracts of Roman legions--the world was indebted to Maurice.  But the
+shock of mighty armies, the manoeuvring of vast masses in one magnificent
+combination, by which the fate of empires, the happiness or the misery of
+the peoples for generations, may perhaps be decided in a few hours,
+undoubtedly require a higher constructive genius than could be displayed
+in any such hand-to-hand encounter as that of Turnhout, scientifically
+managed as it unquestionably was.  The true and abiding interest of the
+battle is derived from is moral effect, from its influence on the people
+of the Netherlands.  And this could scarcely be exaggerated.  The nation
+was electrified, transformed in an instant.  Who now should henceforth
+dare to say that one Spanish fighting-man was equal to five or ten
+Hollanders?  At last the days of Jemmingen and Mooker-heath needed no
+longer to be remembered by every patriot with a shudder of shame.  Here
+at least in the open field a Spanish army, after in vain refusing a
+combat and endeavouring to escape, had literally bitten the dust before
+one fourth of its own number.  And this effect was a permanent one.
+Thenceforth for foreign powers to talk of mediation between the republic
+and the ancient master, to suggest schemes of reconciliation and of a
+return to obedience, was to offer gratuitous and trivial insult, and we
+shall very soon have occasion to mark the simple eloquence with which the
+thirty-eight Spanish standards of Turnhout, hung up in the old hall of
+the Hague, were made to reply to the pompous rhetoric of an interfering
+ambassador.
+
+This brief episode was not immediately followed by other military events
+of importance in the provinces during what remained of the winter.  Very
+early in the spring, however, it was probable that the campaign might
+open simultaneously in France and on the frontiers of Flanders.  Of all
+the cities in the north of France there was none, after Rouen, so
+important, so populous, so wealthy as Amiens.  Situate in fertile fields,
+within three days march of Paris, with no intervening forests or other
+impediments of a physical nature to free communication, it was the key to
+the gates of the capital.  It had no garrison, for the population
+numbered fifteen thousand men able to bear arms, and the inhabitants
+valued themselves on the prowess of their trained militiamen, five
+thousand of whom they boasted to be able to bring into the field at an
+hour's notice--and they were perfectly loyal to Henry.
+
+One morning in March there came a party of peasants, fifteen or twenty in
+number, laden with sacks of chestnuts and walnuts, to the northernmost
+gate of the town.  They offered them for sale, as usual, to the soldiers
+at the guard-house, and chaffered and jested--as boors and soldiers are
+wont to do--over their wares.  It so happened that in the course of the
+bargaining one of the bags became untied, and its contents, much to the
+dissatisfaction of the proprietor, were emptied on the ground.  There was
+a scramble for the walnuts, and much shouting, kicking, and squabbling
+ensued, growing almost into a quarrel between the burgher-soldiers and
+the peasants.  As the altercation was at its height a heavy wagon, laden
+with long planks, came towards the gate for the use of carpenters and
+architects within the town.  The portcullis was drawn up to admit this
+lumbering vehicle, but in the confusion caused by the chance medley going
+on at the guard-house, the gate dropped again before the wagon had fairly
+got through the passage, and remained resting upon the timber with which
+it was piled.
+
+At that instant a shrill whistle was heard; and as if by magic the twenty
+chestnut-selling peasants were suddenly transformed to Spanish and
+Walloon soldiers.  armed to the teeth, who were presently reinforced by
+as many more of their comrades, who sprang from beneath the plank-work by
+which the real contents of the wagon had thus been screened.  Captain
+Dognano, his brother the sergeant-major, Captain d'Arco, and other
+officers of a Walloon regiment stationed in Dourlans, were the leaders of
+the little party, and while they were busily occupied in putting the
+soldiers of the watch, thus taken unawares, to death, the master-spirit
+of the whole adventure suddenly made his appearance and entered the city
+at the head of fifteen hundred men.  This was an extremely small, yellow,
+dried up, energetic Spanish captain, with a long red beard, Hernan Tello
+de Porto Carrero by came, governor of the neighbouring city of Dourlens,
+who had conceived this plan for obtaining possession of Amiens.  Having
+sent these disguised soldiers on before him, he had passed the night with
+his men in ambush until the signal should sound.  The burghers of the
+town were mostly in church; none were dreaming of an attack, as men
+rarely do--for otherwise how should they ever be surprised--and in half
+an hour Amiens was the property of Philip of Spain.  There were not very
+many lives lost, for the resistance was small, but great numbers were
+tortured for ransom and few women escaped outrage.  The sack was famous,
+for the city was rich and the captors were few in number, so that each
+soldier had two or three houses to plunder for his own profit.
+
+When the work was done, the faubourgs were all destroyed, for it was the
+intention of the conquerors to occupy the place, which would be a most
+convenient basis of operations for any attack upon Paris, and it was
+desirable to contract the limits to be defended.  Fifteen hundred houses,
+many of them beautiful villas surrounded with orchards and pleasure
+gardens,--were soon in flames, and afterwards razed to the ground.  The
+governor of the place, Count St. Pol, managed to effect his escape.  His
+place was now supplied by the Marquis of Montenegro, an Italian in the
+service of the Spanish king.  Such was the fate of Amiens in the month of
+March, 1597; such the result of the refusal by the citizens to accept the
+garrison urged upon them by Henry.
+
+It would be impossible to exaggerate the consternation produced.
+throughout France by this astounding and altogether unlooked for event.
+"It seemed," said President De Thou, "as if it had extinguished in a
+moment the royal majesty and the French name."  A few nights later than
+the date of this occurrence, Maximilian de Bethune (afterwards Duke of
+Sully, but then called Marquis de Rosny) was asleep in his bed in Paris.
+He had returned, at past two o'clock in the morning, from a magnificent
+ball given by the Constable of France.  The capital had been uncommonly
+brilliant during the winter with banquets and dances, tourneys and
+masquerades, as if to cast a lurid glare over the unutterable misery of
+the people and the complete desolation of the country; but this
+entertainment--given by Montmorency in honour of a fair dame with whom he
+supposed himself desperately in love, the young bride of a very ancient
+courtier--surpassed in splendour every festival that had been heard of
+for years.  De Bethune had hardly lost himself in slumber when he was
+startled by Beringen, who, on drawing his curtains in this dead hour of
+the night, presented such a ghastly visage that the faithful friend of
+Henry instantly imagined some personal disaster to his well-beloved
+sovereign.  "Is the King dead?" he cried.
+
+Being re-assured as to, this point and told to hasten to the Louvre,
+Rosny instantly complied with the command.  When he reached the palace he
+was admitted at once to the royal bed-chamber, where he found the king in
+the most unsophisticated of costumes, striding up and down the room, with
+his hands clasped together behind his head, and with an expression of
+agony upon his face: Many courtiers were assembled there, stuck all of
+them like images against the wall, staring before them in helpless
+perplexity.
+
+Henry rushed forward as Rosny entered, and wringing him by the hand,
+exclaimed, "Ah, my friend, what a misfortune, Amiens is taken!"
+
+"Very well," replied the financier, with unperturbed visage; "I have just
+completed a plan which will restore to your Majesty not only Amiens but
+many other places."
+
+The king drew a great sigh of relief and asked for his project.
+Rosny, saying that he would instantly go and fetch his papers, left
+the apartment for an interval, in order to give vent to the horrible
+agitation which he had been enduring and so bravely concealing ever since
+the fatal words had been spoken.  That a city so important, the key to
+Paris, without a moment's warning, without the semblance of a siege,
+should thus fall into the hands of the enemy, was a blow as directly to
+the heart of De Bethune as it could have been to any other of Henry's
+adherents.  But while they had been distracting the king by unavailing
+curses or wailings, Henry, who had received the intelligence just as he
+was getting into bed, had sent for support and consolation to the tried
+friend of years, and he now reproachfully contrasted their pusillanimity
+with De Rosny's fortitude.
+
+A great plan for reorganising the finances of the kingdom was that very
+night submitted by Rosny to the king, and it was wrought upon day by day
+thereafter until it was carried into effect.
+
+It must be confessed that the crudities and immoralities which the
+project revealed do not inspire the political student of modern days with
+so high a conception of the financial genius of the great minister as his
+calm and heroic deportment on trying occasions, whether on the battle-
+field or in the council-chamber, does of his natural authority over his
+fellow-men.  The scheme was devised to put money in the king's coffers,
+which at that moment were completely empty.  Its chief features were to
+create a great many new offices in the various courts of justice and
+tribunals of administration, all to be disposed of by sale to the highest
+bidder; to extort a considerable loan from the chief courtiers and from
+the richest burghers in the principal towns; to compel all the leading
+peculators--whose name in the public service was legion--to disgorge a
+portion of their ill-gotten gains, on being released from prosecution;
+and to increase the tax upon salt.
+
+Such a project hardly seems a masterpiece of ethics or political economy,
+but it was hailed with rapture by the needy monarch.  At once there was
+a wild excitement amongst the jobbers and speculators in places.  The
+creation of an indefinite number of new judgeships and magistracies, to
+be disposed of at auction, was a tempting opportunity even in that age of
+corruption.  One of the most notorious traders in the judicial ermine,
+limping Robin de Tours by name, at once made a private visit to Madame de
+Rosny and offered seventy-two thousand crowns for the exclusive right to
+distribute these new offices.  If this could be managed to his
+satisfaction, he promised to give her a diamond worth two thousand
+crowns, and another, worth six thousand, to her husband.  The wife of the
+great minister, who did not comprehend the whole amount of the insult,
+presented Robin to her husband.  She was enlightened, however, as to the
+barefaced iniquity of the offer, when she heard De Bethune's indignant.
+reply, and saw the jobber limp away, crest-fallen and amazed.  That a
+financier or a magistrate should decline a bribe or interfere with the
+private sale of places, which were after all objects of merchandise, was
+to him incomprehensible.  The industrious Robin, accordingly, recovering
+from his discomfiture, went straightway to the chancellor, and concluded
+the same bargain in the council chamber which had been rejected by De
+Bethune, with the slight difference that the distribution of the places.
+was assigned to the speculator for seventy-five thousand instead of
+seventy-two thousand crowns.  It was with great difficulty
+that De Bethune, who went at once to the king with complaints and
+insinuations as to the cleanness of the chancellor's hands, was able to
+cancel the operation.  The day was fast approaching when the universal
+impoverishment of the great nobles and landholders--the result of the
+long, hideous, senseless massacres called the wars of religion--was to
+open the way for the labouring classes to acquire a property in the soil.
+Thus that famous fowl in every pot was to make its appearance, which
+vulgar tradition ascribes to the bounty of a king who hated everything
+like popular rights, and loved nothing but his own glory and his own
+amusement.  It was not until the days of his grandchildren and great-
+grandchildren that Privilege could renew those horrible outrages on the
+People, which were to be avenged by a dread series of wars, massacres,
+and crimes, compared to which even the religious conflicts of the
+sixteenth century grow pale.
+
+Meantime De Bethune comforted his master with these financial plans,
+and assured him in the spirit of prophecy that the King of Spain, now
+tottering as it was thought to his grave, would soon be glad to make a
+favourable peace with France even if he felt obliged to restore not only
+Amiens but every other city or stronghold that he had ever conquered in
+that kingdom.  Time would soon show whether this prediction were correct
+or delusive; but while the secret negotiations between Henry and the Pope
+were vigorously proceeding for that peace with Spain which the world in
+general and the commonwealth of the Netherlands in particular thought to
+be farthest from the warlike king's wishes, it was necessary to set about
+the siege of Amiens.
+
+Henry assembled a force of some twelve or fifteen thousand men for that
+purpose, while the cardinal-archduke, upon his part, did his best to put
+an army in the field in order to relieve the threatened city so recently
+acquired by a coarse but successful artifice.
+
+But Albert was in even a worse plight than that in which his great
+antagonist found himself.  When he had first arrived in the provinces,
+his exchequer was overflowing, and he was even supposed to devote a
+considerable portion of the military funds to defray the expenses of his
+magnificent housekeeping at Brussels.  But those halcyon days were over.
+A gigantic fraud, just perpetrated by Philip; had descended like a
+thunderbolt upon the provinces and upon all commercial Europe, and had
+utterly blasted the unfortunate viceroy.  In the latter days of the
+preceding year the king had issued a general repudiation of his debts.
+
+He did it solemnly, too, and with great religious unction, for it was a
+peculiarity of this remarkable sovereign that he was ever wont to
+accomplish his darkest crimes, whether murders or stratagems, as if they
+were acts of virtue.  Perhaps he really believed them to be such, for a
+man, before whom so many millions of his fellow worms had been writhing
+for half a century in the dust, might well imagine himself a deity.
+
+So the king, on the 20th November, 1596, had publicly revoked all the
+assignments, mortgages, and other deeds by which the royal domains;
+revenues, taxes, and other public property had been transferred or
+pledged for moneys already advanced to merchants, banker, and other
+companies or individuals, and formally took them again into his own
+possession, on the ground that his exertions in carrying on this long
+war to save Christianity from destruction had reduced him to beggary,
+while the money-lenders, by charging him exorbitant interest, had all
+grown rich at his expense.
+
+This was perfectly simple.  There was no attempt to disguise the villany
+of the transaction.  The massacre of so many millions of Protestants,
+the gigantic but puerile attempts to subjugate the Dutch republic, and to
+annex France, England, and the German empire to his hereditary dominions,
+had been attended with more expense than Philip had calculated upon.
+The enormous wealth which a long series of marriages, inheritances,
+conquests, and maritime discoveries had heaped upon Spain had been
+exhausted by the insane ambition of the king to exterminate heresy
+throughout the world, and to make himself the sovereign of one undivided,
+universal, catholic monarchy.  All the gold and silver of America had not
+sufficed for this purpose, and he had seen, with an ever rising
+indignation, those very precious metals which, in his ignorance of the
+laws of trade, he considered his exclusive property flowing speedily into
+the coffers of the merchants of Europe, especially those of the hated
+commonwealth of the rebellious Netherlands.
+
+Therefore he solemnly renounced all his contracts, and took God to
+witness that it was to serve His Divine will.  How else could he hope to
+continue his massacre of the Protestants?
+
+The effect of the promulgation of this measure was instantaneous.  Two
+millions and a half of bills of exchange sold by the Cardinal Albert came
+back in one day protested.  The chief merchants and bankers of Europe
+suspended payment.  Their creditors became bankrupt.  At the Frankfort
+fair there were more failures in one day than there had ever been in all
+the years since Frankfort existed.  In Genoa alone a million dollars of
+interest were confiscated.  It was no better in Antwerp; but Antwerp was
+already ruined.  There was a general howl of indignation and despair upon
+every exchange, in every counting-room, in every palace, in every cottage
+of Christendom.  Such a tremendous repudiation of national debts was
+never heard of before.  There had been debasements of the currency, petty
+frauds by kings upon their unfortunate peoples, but such a crime as this
+had never been conceived by human heart before.
+
+The archduke was fain to pawn his jewelry, his plate, his furniture, to
+support the daily expenses of his household.  Meantime he was to set an
+army in the field to relieve a city, beleaguered by the most warlike
+monarch in Christendom.  Fortunately for him, that prince was in very
+similar straits, for the pressure upon the public swindlers and the
+auction sales of judicial ermine throughout his kingdom were not as
+rapidly productive as had been hoped.
+
+It was precisely at this moment, too, that an incident of another nature
+occurred in Antwerp, which did not tend to make the believers in the
+possibility of religious or political freedom more in love with the
+system of Spain and Rome.  Those blood-dripping edicts against heresy
+in the Netherlands, of which enough has been said in previous volumes
+of this history, and which had caused the deaths, by axe, faggot, halter,
+or burial alive, of at least fifty thousand human creatures--however
+historical scepticism may shut its eyes to evidence--had now been,
+dormant for twenty years.  Their activity had ceased with the
+pacification of Ghent; but the devilish spirit which had inspired them
+still lived in the persons of the Jesuits, and there were now more
+Jesuits in the obedient provinces than there had been for years.
+We have seen that Champagny's remedy for the ills the country was
+enduring was "more Jesuits."  And this, too, was Albert's recipe.  Always
+"more Jesuits."  And now the time had come when the Jesuits thought that
+they might step openly with their works into the daylight again.  Of late
+years they had shrouded themselves in comparative mystery, but from their
+seminaries and colleges had gone forth a plentiful company of assassins
+against Elizabeth and Henry, Nassau, Barneveld, and others who, whether
+avowedly or involuntarily, were prominent in the party of human progress.
+Some important murders had already been accomplished, and the prospect
+was fair that still others might follow, if the Jesuits persevered.
+Meantime those ecclesiastics thought that a wholesome example might
+be by the spectacle of a public execution.
+
+Two maiden ladies lived on the north rampart of Antwerp.  They had
+formerly professed the Protestant religion, and had been thrown into
+prison for that crime; but the fear of further persecution, human
+weakness, or perhaps sincere conviction, had caused them to renounce
+the error of their ways, and they now went to mass.  But they had a
+maidservant, forty years of age, Anna van den Hove by name, who was
+staunch in that reformed faith in which she had been born and bred.
+The Jesuits denounced this maid-servant to the civil authority, and
+claimed her condemnation and execution under the edicts of 1540, decrees
+which every one had supposed as obsolete as the statutes of Draco, which
+they had so entirely put to shame.
+
+The sentence having been obtained from the docile and priest-ridden
+magistrates, Anna van den Hove was brought to Brussels and informed that
+she was at once to be buried alive.  At the same time, the Jesuits told
+her that by converting herself to the Church she might escape punishment.
+
+When King Henry IV. was summoned to renounce that same Huguenot faith,
+of which he was the political embodiment and the military champion, the
+candid man answered by the simple demand to be instructed.  When the
+proper moment came, the instruction was accomplished by an archbishop
+with the rapidity of magic.  Half an hour undid the work of half a life-
+time.  Thus expeditiously could religious conversion be effected when an
+earthly crown was its guerdon.  The poor serving-maid was less open to
+conviction.  In her simple fanaticism she too talked of a crown, and saw
+it descending from Heaven on her poor forlorn head as the reward, not of
+apostasy, but of steadfastness.  She asked her tormentors how they could
+expect her to abandon her religion for fear of death.  She had read her
+Bible every day, she said, and had found nothing there of the pope or
+purgatory, masses, invocation of saints, or the absolution of sins except
+through the blood of the blessed Redeemer.  She interfered with no one
+who thought differently; she quarrelled with no one's religious belief.
+She had prayed for enlightenment from Him, if she were in error, and the
+result was that she felt strengthened in her simplicty, and resolved to
+do nothing against her conscience.  Rather than add this sin to the
+manifold ones committed by her, she preferred, she said, to die the
+death.  So Anna van den Hove was led, one fine midsummer morning, to the
+hayfield outside of Brussels, between two Jesuits, followed by a number
+of a peculiar kind of monks called love-brothers.  Those holy men goaded
+her as she went, telling her that she was the devil's carrion, and
+calling on her to repent at the last moment, and thus save her life and
+escape eternal damnation beside.  But the poor soul had no ear for them,
+and cried out that, like Stephen, she saw the heavens opening, and the
+angels stooping down to conduct her far away from the power of the evil
+one.  When they came to the hay-field they found the pit already dug, and
+the maid-servant was ordered to descend into it.  The executioner then
+covered her with earth up to the waist, and a last summons was made to
+her to renounce her errors.  She refused, and then the earth was piled
+upon her, and the hangman jumped upon the grave till it was flattened and
+firm.
+
+Of all the religious murders done in that hideous sixteenth century in
+the Netherlands; the burial of the Antwerp servantmaid was the last and
+the worst.  The worst, because it was a cynical and deliberate attempt to
+revive the demon whose thirst for blood had been at last allayed, and who
+had sunk into repose.  And it was a spasmodic revival only, for, in the
+provinces at least, that demon had finished his work.
+
+Still, on the eastern borders of what was called civilization, Turk and
+Christian were contending for the mastery.  The great battle of Kovesd
+had decided nothing, and the crescent still shone over the fortified and
+most important Hungarian stronghold of Raab, within arm's length of
+Vienna.  How rapidly might that fatal and menacing emblem fill its horns,
+should it once be planted on the walls of the Imperial capital!  It was
+not wonderful that a sincere impatience should be felt by all the
+frontier States for the termination of the insurrection of the
+Netherlands.  Would that rebellious and heretical republic only consent
+to go out of existence, again bow its stubborn knee to Philip and the
+Pope, what a magnificent campaign might be made against Mahomet!  The
+King of Spain was the only potentate at all comparable in power to the
+grand Turk.  The King of France, most warlike of men, desired nothing
+better, as he avowed, than to lead his brave nobles into Hungary to smite
+the unbelievers.  Even Prince Maurice, it was fondly hoped, might be
+induced to accept a high command in the united armies of Christendom,
+and seek for glory by campaigning, in alliance with Philip; Rudolph, and
+Henry, against the Ottoman, rather than against his natural sovereign.
+Such were the sagacity, the insight, the power of forecasting the future
+possessed in those days by monarchs, statesmen, and diplomatists who were
+imagining that they held the world's destiny in their hands.
+
+There was this summer a solemn embassy from the emperor to the States-
+General proposing mediation referring in the usual conventional
+phraseology to the right of kings to command, and to the duty of the
+people to submit, and urging the gentle-mindedness and readiness to
+forgive which characterised the sovereign of the Netherlands and of
+Spain.
+
+And the statesmen of the republic had answered as they always did,
+showing with courteous language, irresistible logic, and at, unmerciful
+length, that there never had been kings in the Netherlands at all, and
+that the gentle-mindedness of Philip had been exhibited in the massacre
+of a hundred thousand Netherlanders in various sieges and battles, and in
+the murder, under the Duke of Alva alone, of twenty thousand human beings
+by the hangman.
+
+They liked not such divine right nor such gentle-mindedness.  They
+recognised no duty on their part to consent to such a system.  Even the
+friendly King of Denmark sent a legation for a similar purpose, which was
+respectfully but very decidedly allowed to return as it came; but the
+most persistent in schemes of interference for the purpose of putting an
+end to the effusion of blood in the Netherlands was Sigismund of Poland.
+This monarch, who occupied two very incompatible positions, being
+sovereign at once of fanatically Protestant Sweden and of orthodox
+Poland, and who was, moreover, son-in-law of Archduke Charles of Styria
+whose other daughter was soon to be espoused by the Prince of Spain--was
+personally and geographically interested in liberating Philip from the
+inconvenience of his Netherland war.  Only thus could he hope to bring
+the Spanish power to the rescue of Christendom against the Turk.
+Troubles enough were in store for Sigismund in his hereditary northern
+realms, and he was to learn that his intermarriage with the great
+Catholic and Imperial house did not enable him to trample out
+Protestantism in those hardy Scandinavian and Flemish regions where it
+had taken secure root.  Meantime he despatched, in solemn mission to the
+republic and to the heretic queen, a diplomatist whose name and whose
+oratorical efforts have by a caprice of history been allowed to endure to
+our times.
+
+Paul Dialyn was solemnly received at the Hague on the 21st July.
+A pragmatical fop, attired in a long, magnificent Polish robe, covered
+with diamonds and other jewels, he was yet recognised by some of those
+present as having been several years before a student at Leyden under a
+different name, and with far less gorgeous surroundings.  He took up his
+position in the council-chamber, in the presence of the stadholder and
+the leading members of the States-General, and pronounced a long Latin
+oration, in the manner, as it was said, of a monk delivering a sermon
+from the pulpit.  He kept his eyes steadily fixed on the ceiling, never
+once looking at the men whom he was addressing, and speaking in a loud,
+nasal, dictatorial tone, not at all agreeable to the audience.  He dwelt
+in terms of extravagant eulogy on the benignity and gentleness of the
+King of Spain--qualities in which he asserted that no prince on earth
+could be compared to him--and he said this to the very face of Maurice of
+Nassau.  That the benignant and gentle king had caused the stadholder's
+father to be assassinated, and that he had rewarded the murderer's family
+with a patent of nobility, and with an ample revenue taken from the
+murdered man's property, appeared of no account to the envoy in the full
+sweep of his rhetoric.  Yet the reminiscence caused a shudder of disgust
+in all who heard him.
+
+He then stated the wish of his master the Polish king to be that, in
+regard to the Turk, the provinces might reconcile themselves to their
+natural master, who was the most powerful monarch in Christendom, and the
+only one able to make head against the common foe.  They were solemnly
+warned of the enormous power and resources of the great king, with whom
+it was hopeless for them to protract a struggle sure to end at last in
+their uttermost destruction.  It was for kings to issue commands; he
+said, and for the people to obey; but Philip was full of sweetness, and
+would accord them full forgiveness for their manifold sins against him.
+The wish to come to the rescue of Christendom, in this extreme peril from
+the Turk, was with him paramount to all other considerations.
+
+Such; in brief, was the substance of the long Latin harangue by which it
+was thought possible to induce those sturdy republicans and Calvinists to
+renounce their vigorous national existence and to fal on their knees
+before the most Catholic king.  This was understood to be mediation,
+statesmanship, diplomacy, in deference to which the world was to pause
+and the course of events to flow backwards.  Truly, despots and their
+lackeys were destined to learn some rude lessons from that vigorous
+little commonwealth in the North Sea, before it should have accomplished
+its mission on earth.
+
+The States-General dissembled their disgust, however, for it was not
+desirable to make open enemies of Sigismund or Rudolph.  They refused to
+accept a copy of the oration, but they promised to send him a categorical
+answer to it in writing.  Meantime the envoy had the honour of walking
+about the castle with the stadholder, and, in the course of their
+promenade, Maurice pointed to the thirty-eight standards taken at the
+battle of Turnhout, which hung from the cedarn rafters of the ancient
+banquetting hall.  The mute eloquence of those tattered banners seemed a
+not illogical reply to the diplomatic Paul's rhetoric in regard to the
+hopelessness of a contest with Spanish armies.
+
+Next, Van der Werken--pensionary of Leyden, and a classical scholar--
+waited upon the envoy with a Latin reply to his harangue, together
+with a courteous letter for Sigismund.  Both documents were scathing
+denunciations of the policy pursued by the King of Spain and by all his
+aiders and abettors, and a distinct but polished refusal to listen to a
+single word in favour of mediation or of peace.
+
+Paul Dialyn then received a courteous permission to leave the territory
+of the republic, and was subsequently forwarded in a States' vessel of
+war to England.
+
+His reception, about a month later, by Queen Elizabeth is an event on
+which all English historians are fond of dwelling.  The pedant, on being
+presented to that imperious and accomplished sovereign, deported himself
+with the same ludicrous arrogance which had characterised him at the
+Hague.  His Latin oration, which had been duly drawn up for him by the
+Chancellor of Sweden, was quite as impertinent as his harangue to the
+States-General had been, and was delivered with the same conceited air.
+The queen replied on the instant in the same tongue.  She was somewhat in
+a passion, but spoke with majestic moderation?
+
+"Oh, how I have been deceived!"  she exclaimed.  "I expected an
+ambassador, and behold a herald!  In all my life I never heard of such
+an oration.  Your boldness and unadvised temerity I cannot sufficiently
+admire.  But if the king your master has given you any such thing in
+charge--which I much doubt--I believe it is because, being but a young
+man, and lately advanced to the crown, not by ordinary succession of
+blood, but by election, he understandeth not yet the way of such
+affairs."  And so on--for several minutes longer.
+
+Never did envoy receive such a setting down from sovereign.
+
+"God's death, my lords!"  said the queen to her ministers; as she
+concluded, "I have been enforced this day to scour up my old Latin that
+hath lain long in rusting."
+
+This combination of ready wit, high spirit, and good Latin, justly
+excited the enthusiasm of the queen's subjects, and endeared her still
+more to every English heart.  It may, however, be doubted whether the
+famous reply was in reality so entirely extemporaneous as it has usually
+been considered.  The States-General had lost no time in forwarding to
+England a minute account of the proceedings of Paul Dialyn at the Hague,
+together with a sketch of his harangue and of the reply on behalf of the
+States.  Her Majesty and her counsellors therefore, knowing that the same
+envoy was on his way to England with a similar errand, may be supposed to
+have had leisure to prepare the famous impromptu.  Moreover, it is
+difficult to understand, on the presumption that these classic utterances
+were purely extemporaneous, how they have kept their place in all
+chronicles and histories from that day to the present, without change of
+a word in the text.  Surely there was no stenographer present to take
+down the queen's words as they fell from her lips.
+
+The military events of the year did not testify to a much more successful
+activity on the part of the new league in the field than it had displayed
+in the sphere of diplomacy.  In vain did the envoy of the republic urge
+Henry and his counsellors to follow up the crushing blow dealt to the
+cardinal at Turnhout by vigorous operations in conjunction with the
+States' forces in Artois and Hainault.  For Amiens had meantime been
+taken, and it was now necessary for the king to employ all his energy and
+all his resources to recover that important city.  So much damage to the
+cause of the republic and of the new league had the little yellow Spanish
+captain inflicted in an hour, with his bags of chestnuts and walnuts.
+The siege of Amiens lasted nearly six months, and was the main event of
+the campaign, so far as Henry was concerned.  It is true--as the reader
+has already seen, and as will soon be more clearly developed--that
+Henry's heart had been fixed on peace from the moment that he consented
+in conjunction with the republic to declare war, and that he had entered
+into secret and separate negotiations for that purpose with the agents of
+Philip so soon as he had bound himself by solemn covenant with Elizabeth
+to have no negotiations whatever with him except with her full knowledge
+and consent.
+
+The siege of Amiens, however, was considered a military masterpiece, and
+its whole progress showed the revolution which the stadholder of Holland
+had already effected in European warfare.  Henry IV. beleaguered Amiens
+as if he were a pupil of Maurice, and contemporaries were enthusiastic
+over the science, the patience, the inventive ingenuity which were at
+last crowned with success.  The heroic Hernan Tello de Porto Carrero was
+killed in a sortie during the defence of the place which he had so
+gallantly won, and when the city was surrendered to the king on the 19th
+of September it was stipulated in the first article of the capitulation
+that the tomb, epitaph, and trophies, by which his memory was honoured in
+the principal church, should not be disturbed, and that his body might be
+removed whenever and whither it seemed good to his sovereign.  In vain
+the cardinal had taken the field with an army of eighteen thousand foot
+and fifteen hundred light cavalry.  The king had learned so well to
+entrench himself and to moderate his ardour for inopportune pitched
+battles, that the relieving force could find, no occasion to effect its
+purpose.  The archduke retired.  He came to Amiens like a soldier, said
+Henry, but he went back like a priest.  Moreover, he was obliged to
+renounce, besides the city, a most tempting prize which he thought that
+he had secured within the city.  Alexander Farnese, in his last French
+campaign, had procured and sent to his uncle the foot of St. Philip and
+the head of St. Lawrence; but what was Albert's delight when he learned
+that in Amiens cathedral there was a large piece of the head of John the
+Baptist!  "There will be a great scandal about it in this kingdom," he
+wrote to Philip, "if I undertake to transport it out of the country, but
+I will try to contrive it as your Majesty desires."
+
+But the military events of the year prevented the cardinal from
+gratifying the king in regard to these choice curiosities.
+
+After the reduction of the city Henry went a considerable distance with
+his army towards the frontier of Flanders, in order to return, as he
+said, "his cousin's visit."  But the recovery of Amiens had placed too
+winning a card in the secret game which he was then playing to allow him
+to push his nominal adversary to extremities.
+
+The result, suspected very early in the year by the statesmen of the
+republic, was already very plainly foreshadowing itself as the winter
+advanced.
+
+Nor had the other two members of the league affected much in the field.
+Again an expedition had been fitted forth under Essex against the Spanish
+coast to return the compliment which Philip had intended with the unlucky
+armada under Santa Gadea; and again Sir Francis Vere, with two thousand
+veterans from the Netherlands, and the Dutch admirals, with ten ships of
+war and a large number of tenders and transports, had faithfully taken
+part in the adventure.
+
+The fleet was tempest-tossed for ten days, during which it reached the
+threatened coast and was blown off again.  It returned at last into the
+English ports, having accomplished nothing, and having expended
+superfluously a considerable amount of money and trouble.  Essex, with a
+few of the vessels, subsequently made a cruise towards the Azores, but,
+beyond the capture of a Spanish merchantman or two, gained no glory and
+inflicted no damage.
+
+Nothing could be feebler than the military operations of the three
+confederated powers ever since they had so solemnly confederated
+themselves.
+
+Sick at heart with the political intrigues of his allies which had--
+brought a paralysis upon his arms which the blows of the enemy could
+hardly have effected, Maurice took the field in August: for an autumnal
+campaign on the eastern frontier of the republic.  Foiled in his efforts
+for a combined attack by the whole force of the league upon Philip's
+power in the west, he thought it at least expedient to liberate the
+Rhine, to secure the important provinces of Zutphen, Gelderland, and
+Overyssel from attack, and to provide against the dangerous intrigues and
+concealed warfare carried on by Spain in the territories of the mad Duke
+of Juliers, Clever and Berg.  For the seeds of the Thirty Years' War of
+Germany were already sown broadcast in those fatal duchies, and it was
+the determination of the agents of Spain to acquire the mastery of that
+most eligible military position, that excellent 'sedes belli,' whenever
+Protestantism was to be assailed in England, the Netherlands, or Germany.
+
+Meantime the Hispaniolated counsellors of Duke John had strangled--as it
+was strongly suspected--his duchess, who having gone to bed in perfect
+health one evening was found dead in her bed next morning, with an ugly
+mark on her throat; and it was now the purpose of these statesmen to
+find a new bride for their insane sovereign in the ever ready and ever
+orthodox house of Lorrain.  And the Protestant brothers-in-law and
+nephews and nieces were making every possible combination in order to
+check such dark designs, and to save these important territories from
+the ubiquitous power of Spain.
+
+The stadholder had also family troubles at this period.  His sister
+Emilia had conceived a desperate passion for Don Emmanuel, the pauper
+son of the forlorn pretender to Portugal, Don Antonio, who had at last
+departed this life.  Maurice was indignant that a Catholic, an outcast,
+and, as it was supposed, a bastard, should dare to mate with the daughter
+of William of Orange-Nassau; and there were many scenes of tenderness,
+reproaches, recriminations, and 'hysterica passio,' in which not only the
+lovers, the stadholder and his family, but also the high and mighty
+States-General, were obliged to enact their parts.  The chronicles are
+filled with the incidents, which, however, never turned to tragedy, nor
+even to romance, but ended, without a catastrophe, in a rather insipid
+marriage.  The Princess Emilia remained true both to her religion and her
+husband during a somewhat obscure wedded life, and after her death Don
+Emmanuel found means to reconcile himself with the King of Spain and to
+espouse, in second nuptials, a Spanish lady.  On the 4th of August,
+Maurice arrived at Arnhem with a force of seven thousand foot and twelve
+hundred horse.  Hohenlo was with him, and William Lewis, and there was
+yet another of the illustrious house of Nassau in the camp, Frederick
+Henry, a boy in his thirteenth year, the youngest born of William the
+Silent, the grandson of Admiral de Coligny, now about; in this his first
+campaign, to take the first step in a long and noble career.
+
+Having reduced the town and castle of Alphen, the stadholder came before
+Rheinberg, which he very expeditiously invested.  During a preliminary
+skirmish William Lewis received a wound in the leg, while during the
+brief siege Maurice had a narrow escape from death, a cannon-ball passing
+through his tent and over his head as he lay taking a brief repose upon
+his couch.
+
+On the 19th, Rheinberg, the key to that portion of the river,
+surrendered.  On the 31st the stadholder opened his batteries upon the
+city of Meurs, which capitulated on the 2nd of September; the commandant,
+Andrew Miranda, stipulating that he should carry off an old fifty-
+pounder, the only piece of cannon in the place.  Maurice gave his
+permission with a laugh, begging Miranda not to batter down any cities
+with his big gun.
+
+On the 8th September the stadholdet threw a bridge over the Rhine, and
+crossing that river and the Lippe, came on the 11th before Grol.  There
+was no Christopher Mondragon now in his path to check his progress and
+spoil his campaign, so that in seventeen days the city, being completely
+surrounded with galleries and covered ways up to its walls, surrendered.
+Count van Stirum, royal governor of the place, dined with the stadholder
+on that day, and the garrison, from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred
+strong; together with such of the townsfolk as chose to be subjects of
+Philip rather than citizens of the republic, were permitted to depart in
+peace.
+
+On the 9th October the town and castle of Brevoort were taken by storm
+and the town was burned.
+
+On the 18th October, Maurice having summoned Enschede, the commandant
+requested permission to examine the artillery by which it was proposed to
+reduce the city.  Leave being granted, two captains were deputed
+accordingly as inspectors, who reported that resistance was useless.
+The place accordingly capitulated at once.
+
+Here, again, was an improvement on the heroic practice of Alva and
+Romero.
+
+On the 21st and 22nd October, Ootmarsum and Oldenzaal were taken, and on
+the 28th the little army came before Lingen.  This important city
+surrendered after a fortnight's siege.
+
+Thus closed a sagacious, business-like, three-months' campaign, in the
+course of which the stadholder, although with a slender force, had by
+means of his excellent organization and his profound practical science,
+achieved very considerable results.  He had taken nine strongly-fortified
+cities and five castles, opened the navigation of the Rhine, and
+strengthened the whole eastern bulwarks of the republic.  He was censured
+by the superficial critics of the old school for his humanity towards the
+conquered garrisons.  At least it was thought quite superfluous to let
+these Spanish soldiers go scot free.  Five thousand veterans had thus
+been liberated to swell the ranks of the cardinal's army, but the result
+soon proved the policy of Maurice to be, in many ways, wholesome.  The
+great repudiation by Philip, and the consequent bankruptcy of Alberta
+converted large numbers of the royal troops into mutineers, and these
+garrisons from the eastern frontier were glad to join in the game.
+
+After the successful siege of Hulst in the previous year the cardinal had
+reduced the formidable mutiny which had organized itself at Tirlemont and
+Chapelle in the days of his luckless predecessor.  Those rebels had been
+paid off and had mainly returned to Italy and other lands to spend their
+money.  But soon a new rebellion in all the customary form's established
+itself in Antwerp citadel during the temporary absence of Mexia, the
+governor, and great was the misery of the unhappy burghers thus placed at
+the mercy of the guns of that famous pentagon.  They were obliged to
+furnish large sums to the whole garrison, paying every common foot-
+soldier twelve stivers a day and the officers in proportion, while the
+great Eletto demanded, beside his salary, a coach and six, a state bed
+with satin curtains and fine linen, and the materials for banquetting
+sumptuously every day.  At the slightest demur to these demands the
+bombardment from the citadel would begin, and the accurate artillery
+practice of those experienced cannoneers soon convinced the loyal
+citizens of the propriety of the arrangement.  The example spread.  The
+garrison of Ghent broke into open revolt, and a general military
+rebellion lasted for more than a year.
+
+While the loyal cities of the obedient provinces were thus enjoying the
+fruits of their loyalty and obedience, the rebellious capital of the
+republic was receiving its stadholder with exuberant demonstrations of
+gratitude.  The year, begun with the signal victory of Turnhout, had
+worthily terminated, so far as military events were concerned, with the
+autumnal campaign on the Rhine, and great were the rejoicings throughout
+the little commonwealth.
+
+Thus, with diminished resources, had the republic been doing its share of
+the work which the anti-Spanish league had been called into existence to
+accomplish.  But, as already intimated, this league was a mere fraud upon
+the Netherlands, which their statesmen were not slow in discovering.  Of
+course it was the object of Philip and of the pope to destroy this
+formidable triple alliance as soon as formed, and they found potent
+assistance, not only in Henry's counsellors, but in the bosom of that
+crafty monarch himself.  Clement hated Philip as much as he feared him,
+so that the prospect both of obtaining Henry as a counterpoise to his own
+most oppressive and most Catholic protector, and of breaking up the great
+convert's alliance with the heretic queen and the rebellious republic,
+was a most tempting one to his Holiness.  Therefore he employed,
+indefatigably, the matchless powers of intrigue possessed by Rome to
+effect this great purpose.  As for Elizabeth, she was weary of the war,
+most anxious to be reimbursed her advances to the States, and profoundly
+jealous of the rising commercial and naval greatness of the new
+commonwealth.  If the league therefore proved impotent from the
+beginning, certainly it was not the fault of the United Netherlands.
+We have seen how much the king deplored, in intimate conversation with
+De Bethune,  his formal declaration of war against Spain which the Dutch
+diplomatists had induced him to make; and indeed nothing can be more
+certain than that this public declaration of war, and this solemn
+formation of the triple alliance against Philip, were instantly
+accompanied on Henry's part by secret peace negotiations with Philip's
+agents.  Villeroy, told Envoy Calvaert that as for himself he always
+trembled when he thought on what he had done, in seconding the will of
+his Majesty in that declaration at the instance of the States-General, of
+which measure so many losses and such bitter fruits had been the result.
+He complained, too, of the little assistance or co-operation yielded by
+England.  Calvaert replied that he had nothing to say in defence of
+England, but that certainly the king could have no cause to censure the
+States.  The republic, however, had good ground, he said, to complain
+that nothing had been done by France, that all favourable occasions had
+been neglected, and that there was a perpetual change of counsels.  The
+envoy, especially, and justly, reproached the royal government for having
+taken no advantage of the opportunity offered by the victory of Turnhout,
+in which the republic had utterly defeated the principal forces of the
+common enemy.  He bluntly remarked, too, that the mysterious comings and
+goings of Balvena had naturally excited suspicions in the Netherlands,
+and that it would be better that all such practices should be at once
+abandoned.  They did his Majesty no service, and it was no wonder that
+they caused uneasiness to his allies.  Villeroy replied that the king had
+good reasons to give satisfaction to those who were yearning for peace.
+
+As Henry himself was yearning in this regard as much as any of his
+subjects, it was natural enough that he should listen to Balvena and all
+other informal negotiators whom Cardinal Ilbert might send from Brussels
+or Clement from Rome.  It will be recollected that Henry's parting words
+to Balvena at Rouen had been: "Tell the archduke that I am very much his
+friend.  Let him arrange a peace.  Begone.  Be diligent."
+
+But the king's reply to Calvaert, when, after the interview with
+Villeroy, that envoy was admitted to the royal dressing room for private
+conversation and took the occasion to remonstrate with his Majesty on
+these intrigues with the Spanish agent, was that he should send off
+Balvena in such fashion that it would take from the cardinal-archduke all
+hope of troubling him with any further propositions.
+
+It has been seen, too, with what an outbreak of wrath the proposition,
+made by Elizabeth through Robert Sydney, that she should succour Calais
+on condition of keeping it for herself, had been received by Henry.
+At a somewhat later moment, when Calais had passed entirely into the
+possession of Spain, the queen offered to lay siege to that city with
+twelve thousand men, but with the understanding that the success was to
+be entirely for her own profit.  Again the king bad expressed great
+astonishment and indignation at the proposition.
+
+Nevertheless, after Amiens had been lost, Henry had sent Fonquerolles on
+a special mission to England, asking Elizabeth's assistance in the siege
+for its recovery, and offering that she should keep Calais as a pledge
+for expenses thus incurred, on the same terms as those on which she held
+the Brill and Flushing in the Netherlands.  This proposal, however, to
+make a considerable campaign in Picardy, and to be indemnified by Henry
+for her trouble with the pledge of a city which was not his property, did
+not seem tempting to Elizabeth: The mission of Fonquerolles was
+fruitless, as might have been supposed.  Nothing certainly in the queen's
+attitude, up to that moment, could induce the supposition that she would
+help to reduce Amiens for the sake of the privilege of conquering Calais
+if she could.
+
+So soon as her refusal was made certain, Henry dropped the mask.
+Buzanval, the regular French envoy at the Hague--even while amazing the
+States by rebukes for their short-comings in the field and by demands for
+immediate co-operation in the king's campaign, when the king was doing
+nothing but besiege Amiens--astonished the republican statesmen still
+further by telling them--that his master was listening seriously to the
+pope's secret offers.
+
+His Holiness had assured the king, through the legate at Paris, that he
+could easily bring about a peace between him and Philip, if Henry would
+agree to make it alone, and he would so manage it that the king's name
+should not be mixed up with the negotiations, and that he should not
+appear as seeking for peace.  It was to be considered however--so Henry's
+envoy intimated both at Greenwich and the Hague--that if the king should
+accept the pope's intervention he would be obliged to exclude from a
+share in it the queen and all others not of the Catholic religion, and it
+was feared that the same necessity which had compelled him to listen to
+these overtures would force him still further in the same path.  He
+dreaded lest, between peace and war, he might fall into a position in
+which the law would be dictated to him either by the enemy or by those
+who had undertaken to help him out of danger.
+
+Much more information to this effect did Buzanval communicate to the
+States on the authority of a private letter from the king, telling him of
+the ill-success of the mission of Fonquerolles.  That diplomatist had
+brought back nothing from England, it appeared, save excuses, general
+phrases, and many references to the troubles in Ireland and to the danger
+of a new Spanish Armada.
+
+It was now for the first time, moreover, that the States learned how they
+had been duped both by England and France in the matter of the League.
+To their surprise they were informed that while they were themselves
+furnishing four thousand men, according to the contract signed by the
+three powers, the queen had in reality only agreed to contribute two
+thousand soldiers, and these only for four months' service, within a very
+strict territorial limit, and under promise of immediate reimbursement of
+the expenses thus incurred.
+
+These facts, together with the avowal that their magnanimous ally had
+all along been secretly treating for peace with the common enemy, did not
+make a cheerful impression upon those plain-spoken republicans, nor was
+it much consolation to them to receive the assurance that "after the
+king's death his affection and gratitude towards the States would be
+found deeply engraved upon his heart."
+
+The result of such a future autopsy might seem a matter of comparative
+indifference, since meantime the present effect to the republic of those
+deep emotions was a treacherous desertion.  Calvaert, too, who had so
+long haunted the king like his perpetual shadow, and who had believed
+him--at least so far as the Netherlands were concerned--to be almost
+without guile, had been destined after all to a rude awakening.  Sick and
+suffering, he did not cease, so long as life was in him, to warn the
+States-General of the dangers impending over them from the secret
+negotiations which their royal ally was doing his best to conceal from
+them, and as to which he had for a time succeeded so dexterously in
+hoodwinking their envoy himself.  But the honest and energetic agent of
+the republic did not live to see the consummation of these manceuvres of
+Henry and the pope.  He died in Paris during the month of June of this
+year.
+
+Certainly the efforts of Spanish and Papal diplomacy had not been
+unsuccessful in bringing about a dissolution of the bonds of amity by
+which the three powers seemed so lately to be drawing themselves very
+closely together.  The republic and Henry IV.  were now on a most
+uncomfortable footing towards each other.  On the other hand, the queen
+was in a very ill humour with the States and very angry with Henry.
+Especially the persistent manner in which the Hollanders carried on trade
+with Spain and were at the same time making fortunes for themselves and
+feeding the enemy, while Englishmen, on pain of death, were debarred from
+participation in such traffic, excited great and general indignation in
+England.  In vain was it represented that this trade, if prohibited to
+the commonwealth would fall into the hands of neutral powers, and that
+Spain would derive her supplies from the Baltic and other regions as
+regularly as ever, while the republic, whose whole life was in her
+foreign commerce, would not only become incapable of carrying on the war
+but would perish of inanition.  The English statesmen threatened to
+declare all such trade contraband, and vessels engaging in it lawful
+prize to English cruisers.
+
+Burghley declared, with much excitement, to Canon, that he, as well
+as all the council, considered the conduct of the Hollanders so
+unjustifiable as to make them regret that their princess had ever
+embarked with a State which chose to aid its own enemies in the
+destruction of itself and its allies.  Such conduct was so monstrous that
+those who were told of it would hardly believe it.
+
+The Dutch envoy observed that there were thirty thousand sailors engaged
+in this trade, and he asked the Lord Treasurer whether he proposed that
+these people should all starve or be driven into the service of the
+enemy.  Burghley rejoined that the Hollanders had the whole world beside
+to pursue their traffic in, that they did indeed trade over the whole
+world, and had thereby become so extraordinarily, monstrously rich that
+there was no believing it.
+
+Caron declared his sincere wish that this was true, but said, on the
+contrary, that he knew too well what extreme trouble and labour the
+States-General had in providing for the expenses of the war and in
+extracting the necessary funds from the various communities.  This would
+hardly be the case were such great wealth in the land as was imagined.
+But still the English counsellors protested that they would stop this
+trading with the enemy at every hazard.
+
+On the question of peace or war itself the republican diplomatists were
+often baffled as to the true intentions of the English Government.  "As
+the queen is fine and false," said Marquis Havre, observing and aiding in
+the various intrigues which were weaving at Brussels, "and her council
+much the same, she is practising towards the Hollanders a double
+stratagem.  On the one hand she induces them to incline to a general
+peace.  On the other, her adherents, ten or twelve in number of those who
+govern Holland and have credit with the people, insist that the true.
+interest of the State is in a continuation of the war."
+
+But Havre, adept in diplomatic chicane as he undoubtedly was, would have
+found it difficult to find any man of intelligence or influence in that
+rebellious commonwealth, of which he was once a servant, who had any
+doubt on that subject.  It needed no English argument to persuade Olden-
+Barneveld, and the other statesmen who guided the destiny of the
+republic, that peace would be destruction.  Moreover, there is no
+question that both the queen and Burghley would have been truly grateful
+had the States-General been willing to make peace and return to the
+allegiance which they had long since spurned.
+
+Nevertheless it is difficult to say whether there were at this moment
+more of animosity in Elizabeth's mind towards her backsliding ally, with
+whom she had so recently and so pompously sworn an eternal friendship,
+or towards her ancient enemy.  Although she longed for peace, she hardly
+saw her way to it, for she felt that the secret movements of Henry had in
+a manner barred the path.  She confessed to the States' envoy that it was
+as easy for her to make black white as to make peace with Spain.  To this
+Caron cordially assented, saying with much energy, "There is as much
+chance for your Majesty and for us to make peace, during the life of the
+present King of Spain, as to find redemption in hell."
+
+To the Danish ambassadors, who had come to England with proposals of
+mediation, the queen had replied that the King of Spain had attacked her
+dominions many times, and had very often attempted her assassination,
+that after long patience she had begun to defend herself, and had been
+willing to show him that she had the courage and the means, not only to
+maintain herself against his assaults, but also to invade his realms;
+that, therefore, she was not disposed to speak first; nor to lay down any
+conditions.  Yet, if she saw that the King of Spain had any remorse for
+his former offences against her, and wished to make atonement for them,
+she was willing to declare that her heart was not so alienated from
+peace; but that she could listen to propositions on the subject.
+
+She said, too, that such a peace must be a general one, including both
+the King of France and the States of the Netherlands, for with these
+powers she had but lately made an offensive and defensive league against
+the King of Spain, from which she protested that for no consideration in
+the world would she ever swerve one jot.
+
+Certainly these were words of Christian charity and good faith, but such
+professions are the common staple of orations and documents for public
+consumption.  As the accounts became more and more minute, however, of
+Henry's intrigues with Albert, Philip, and Clement, the queen grew more
+angry.
+
+She told Caron that she was quite aware that the king had long been in
+communication with the cardinal's emissaries, and that he had even sent
+some of his principal counsellors to confer with the cardinal himself at
+Arras, in direct violation of the stipulations of the league.  She
+expressed her amazement at the king's conduct; for she knew very well,
+she said, that the league had hardly been confirmed and sworn to, before
+he was treating with secret agents sent to him by the cardinal.  "And
+now," she continued, "they propose to send an ambassador to inform me of
+the whole proceeding, and to ask my advice and consent in regard to
+negotiations which they have, perchance, entirely concluded."
+
+She further informed the republican envoy that the king had recently been
+taking the ground in these dealings with the common enemy; that the two
+kingdoms of France and England must first be provided for; that when the
+basis between these powers and Spain had been arranged, it would be time
+to make arrangements for the States, and that it would probably be found
+advisable to obtain a truce of three or four years between them and
+Spain, in which interval the government of the provinces might remain on
+its actual footing.  During this armistice the King of Spain was to
+withdraw all Spanish troops from the Netherlands, in consequence of which
+measure all distrust would by degrees vanish, and the community, becoming
+more and more encouraged, would in time recognise the king for their
+sovereign once more.
+
+This, according to the information received by Elizabeth from her
+resident minister in France, was Henry's scheme for carrying out the
+principles of the offensive and defensive league, which only the year
+before he had so solemnly concluded with the Dutch republic.  Instead of
+assisting that commonwealth in waging her war of independence against
+Spain, he would endeavour to make it easy for her to return peacefully to
+her ancient thraldom.
+
+The queen asked Caron what he thought of the project.  How could that
+diplomatist reply but with polite scorn?  Not a year of such an armistice
+would elapse, he said, before the Spanish partisans would have it all
+their own way in the Netherlands, and the King of Spain would be master
+of the whole country.  Again and again he repeated that peace, so long as
+Philip lived, was an impossibility for the States.  No doubt that monarch
+would gladly consent to the proposed truce, for it, would be indeed
+strange if by means of it he could not so establish himself in the
+provinces as to easily overthrow the sovereigns who were thus helping him
+to so advantageous a position.
+
+The queen listened patiently to a long and earnest remonstrance in this
+vein made by the envoy, and assured him that not even to gain another
+kingdom would she be the cause of a return of the provinces to the
+dominion of Spain.  She would do her best to dissuade the king from his
+peace negotiations; but she would listen to De Maisae, the new special
+envoy from Henry, and would then faithfully report to Caron, by word of
+mouth, the substance of the conversation.  The States-General did not
+deserve to be deceived, nor would she be a party to any deception, unless
+she were first cheated herself.  "I feel indeed," she added, "that
+matters are not always managed as they should be by your Government, and
+that you have not always treated princes, especially myself, as we
+deserve to be treated.  Nevertheless, your State is not a monarchy, and
+so we must take all things into consideration, and weigh its faults
+against its many perfections."
+
+With this philosophical--and in the mouth of Elizabeth Tudor, surely very
+liberal--reflection, the queen terminated the interview with the
+republican envoy.
+
+Meantime the conferences with the special ambassador of France proceeded.
+For, so soon as Henry had completed all his arrangements, and taken his
+decision to accept the very profitable peace offered to him by Spain, he
+assumed that air of frankness which so well became him, and candidly
+avowed his intention of doing what he had already done.  Hurault de
+Maisse arrived in England not long before the time when the peace-
+commissioners were about assembling at Vervins.  He was instructed to
+inform her Majesty that he had done his best to bring about a general
+alliance of the European powers from which alone the league concluded
+between England, France, and the Netherlands would have derived
+substantial strength.
+
+But as nothing was to be hoped for from Germany, as England offered but
+little assistance, and as France was exhausted by her perpetual
+conflicts, it had become necessary for the king to negotiate for a peace.
+He now wished to prove, therefore, to the queen, as to a sister to whom
+he was under such obligations, that the interests of England were as dear
+to him as those of France.
+
+The proof of these generous sentiments did not, however, seem so clear as
+could be wished, and there were very stormy debates, so soon as the
+ambassador found himself in conference with her Majesty's counsellors.
+The English statesmen bitterly reproached the French for having thus
+lightly thrown away the alliance between the two countries, and they
+insisted upon the duty of the king to fulfil his solemn engagements.
+
+The reply was very frank and very decided.  Kings, said De Maisse, never
+make treaties except with the tacit condition to embrace every thing that
+may be useful to them, and carefully to avoid every thing prejudicial to
+their interests.
+
+The corollary from this convenient and sweeping maxim was simple enough.
+The king could not be expected, by his allies to reject an offered peace
+which was very profitable, nor to continue a war which, was very
+detrimental.  All that they could expect was that he should communicate
+his intentions to them, and this he was now very cheerfully doing.  Such
+in brief were the statements of De Maisse.
+
+The English were indignant.  They also said a stout word for the
+provinces, although it has been made sufficiently clear that they did not
+love that upstart republic.  But the French ambassador replied that his,
+master really meant secretly to assist the States in carrying on the war
+until they should make an arrangement.  He should send them very powerful
+succours for this purpose, and he expected confidently that England would
+assist him in this line of conduct.  Thus Henry was secretly pledging
+himself, to make underhand but substantial war against Spain, with which
+power he was at that instant concluding peace, while at the same time he
+was abandoning his warlike league with the queen and the republic, in
+order to affect that very pacification.  Truly the morality of the
+governing powers of the earth was not entirely according to the apostolic
+standard.
+
+The interviews between the queen and the new ambassador were, of course,
+on his part, more courteous in tone than those with the counsellors, but
+mainly to the same effect.  De Maisse stated that the Spanish king had
+offered to restore every place that he held in France, including Calais,
+Brittany, and the Marquisate of Saluces, and as he likewise manifested a
+willingness to come to favourable terms with her Majesty and with the
+States, it was obviously the duty of Henry to make these matters known to
+her Majesty, in whose hands was thus placed the decision between peace or
+continuation of the war.  The queen asked what was the authority for the
+supposition that England was to be included by Spain in the pacification.
+De Maisse quoted President Richardot.  In that case, the queen remarked,
+it was time for her to prepare for a third Spanish armada.  When a former
+envoy from France had alluded to Richardot as expressing the same
+friendly sentiments on the part of his sovereign and himself, she had
+replied by referring to the sham negotiations of Bourbourg, by which
+the famous invasion of 1588 had been veiled, and she had intimated her
+expectation that another Spanish fleet would soon be at her throat.  And
+within three weeks of the utterance of her prophecy the second armada,
+under Santa Gadea, had issued from Spain to assail her realms.  Now then,
+as Richardot was again cited as a peace negotiator, it was time to look
+for a third invasion.  It was an impertinence for Secretary of State
+Villeroy to send her word about Richardot.  It was not an impertinence in
+King Henry, who understood war-matters better than he did affairs of
+state, in which kings were generally governed by their counsellors and
+secretaries, but it was very strange that Villeroy should be made quiet
+with a simple declaration of Richardot.
+
+The queen protested that she would never consent to a peace with Spain,
+except with the knowledge and consent of the States.  De Maisse replied
+that the king was of the same mind, upon which her Majesty remarked that
+in that case he had better have apprised her and the States of his
+intentions before treating alone and secretly with the enemy.  The envoy
+denied that the king had been treating.  He had only been listening to
+what the King of Spain had to propose, and suggesting his own wishes and
+intentions.  The queen rejoined that this was treating if anything was,
+and certainly her Majesty was in the right if the term has any meaning at
+all.
+
+Elizabeth further reproachfully observed, that although the king talked
+about continuing the war, he seemed really tired of that dangerous
+pursuit, in which he had exercised himself so many long years, and that
+he was probably beginning to find a quiet and agreeable life more to his
+taste.  She expressed the hope, however, that he would acquit himself
+honourably towards herself and her allies, and keep the oaths which he
+had so solemnly sworn before God.
+
+Such was the substance of the queen's conversations with De Maisse, as
+she herself subsequently reported them to the States' envoy.
+
+The republican statesmen had certainly cause enough to suspect Henry's
+intentions, but they did not implicitly trust Elizabeth.  They feared
+that both king and queen were heartily sick of the war, and disposed to
+abandon the league, while each was bent on securing better terms than the
+other in any negotiations for peace.  Barneveld--on the whole the most
+sagacious of the men then guiding the affairs of Europe, although he
+could dispose of but comparatively slender resources, and was merely the
+chief minister of a scarcely-born little commonwealth of some three
+million souls--was doing his best to save the league and to divert Henry
+from thoughts of peace.  Feeling that the queen, notwithstanding her
+professions to Caron and others, would have gladly entered into
+negotiations with Philip, had she found the door as wide open as Henry
+had found it, he did his best to prevent both his allies from proceeding
+farther in that direction.  He promised the French envoy at the Hague
+that not only would the republic continue to furnish the four thousand
+soldiers as stipulated in the league, but that if Henry would recommence
+active operations, a States' army of nine thousand foot and two thousand
+horse should at once take the field on the Flemish frontier of France,
+and aid in the campaign to the full extent of their resources.  If the
+king were disposed to undertake the siege of Calais, the Advocate engaged
+that he should be likewise energetically assisted in that enterprise.
+
+Nor was it suggested in case the important maritime stronghold were
+recovered that it should be transferred, not to the sovereign of France,
+but to the dominions of the republic.  That was the queen's method of
+assisting an ally, but it was not the practice of the States.  Buzanval,
+who was quite aware of his master's decision to conclude peace, suggested
+Henry's notion of a preliminary and general truce for six months.  But of
+course Barneveld rejected the idea with horror.  He felt, as every
+intelligent statesman of the commonwealth could not but feel, that an
+armistice would be a death-blow.  It would be better, he said, for the
+States to lose one or two towns than to make a truce, for there were so
+many people in the commonwealth sure to be dazzled by the false show of a
+pacification, that they would be likely, after getting into the suburbs,
+to wish to enter the heart of the city.  "If," said the Advocate, "the
+French and the English know what they are doing when they are,
+facilitating the Spanish dominion in the provinces, they would prefer to
+lose a third of their own kingdoms to seeing the Spaniard absolute master
+here."
+
+It was determined, in this grave position of affairs, to send a special
+mission both to France and to England with the Advocate as its chief.
+Henry made no objections to this step, but, on the contrary, affected
+much impatience for the arrival of the envoys, and ascribed the delay to
+the intrigues of Elizabeth.  He sent word to Prince Maurice and to
+Barneveld that he suspected the queen of endeavouring to get before him
+in negotiating with Spain in order to obtain Calais for herself.  And,
+in truth, Elizabeth very soon afterwards informed Barneveld that she
+might really have had Calais, and have got the better of the king in
+these secret transactions.
+
+Meantime, while the special mission to France and England was getting
+ready to depart, an amateur diplomatist appeared in Brussels, and made a
+feeble effort to effect a reconciliation between the republic and the
+cardinal.
+
+This was a certain Van der Meulen, an Antwerp merchant who, for religious
+reasons, had emigrated to Leyden, and who was now invited by the cardinal
+archduke to Brussels to confer with his counsellors as to the possibility
+of the rebellious States accepting his authority.  For, as will soon be
+indicated, Philip had recently resolved on a most important step.  He was
+about to transfer the sovereignty of all the Netherlands to his daughter
+Isabella and her destined husband, Cardinal Albert.  It would, obviously,
+therefore, be an excessively advantageous arrangement for those new
+sovereigns if the rebellious States would join hands with the obedient
+provinces, accept the dominion of Albert and Isabella and give up their
+attempt to establish a republican government.  Accordingly the cardinal
+had intimated that the States would be allowed the practice of their
+religion, while the military and civil functionaries might retain office.
+He even suggested that he would appoint Maurice of Nassau his stadholder
+for the northern provinces, unless he should prefer a high position in
+the Imperial armies.  Such was the general admiration felt in Spain and
+elsewhere for the military talents of the prince, that he would probably
+be appointed commander-in-chief of the forces against Mahomet.  Van der
+Meulen duly reported all these ingenious schemes to the States, but the
+sturdy republicans only laughed at them.  They saw clearly enough through
+such slight attempts to sow discord in their commonwealth, and to send
+their great chieftain to Turkey.
+
+A most affectionate letter, written by the cardinal-archduke to the
+States-General, inviting them to accept his sovereignty, and another from
+the obedient provinces to the united States of the same purport, remained
+unanswered.
+
+But the Antwerp merchant, in his interviews with the crafty politicians
+who surrounded the cardinal, was able at least to obtain some insight
+into the opinions prevalent at Brussels; and these were undoubtedly to
+the effect that both England and France were willing enough to abandon
+the cause of the Netherlands, provided only that they could obtain
+satisfactory arrangements for themselves.
+
+Van der Meulen remarked to Richardot that in all their talk about a
+general peace nothing had been said of the Queen of England, to whom the
+States were under so great obligations, and without whom they would never
+enter into any negotiations.
+
+Richardot replied that the queen had very sagaciously provided for the
+safety of her own kingdom, and had kept up the fire everywhere else in
+order to shelter herself.  There was more difficulty for this lady, he
+said, than for any of the rest.  She had shown herself very obstinate,
+and had done them a great deal of mischief.  They knew very well that the
+King of France did not love her.  Nevertheless, as they had resolved upon
+a general peace, they were willing to treat with her as well as with the
+others.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Auction sales of judicial ermine
+Decline a bribe or interfere with the private sale of places
+Famous fowl in every pot
+Fellow worms had been writhing for half a century in the dust
+For his humanity towards the conquered garrisons (censured)
+Historical scepticism may shut its eyes to evidence
+Imagining that they held the world's destiny in their hands
+King had issued a general repudiation of his debts
+Loud, nasal, dictatorial tone, not at all agreeable
+Peace would be destruction
+Repudiation of national debts was never heard of before
+Some rude lessons from that vigorous little commonwealth
+Such a crime as this had never been conceived (bankruptcy)
+They liked not such divine right nor such gentle-mindedness
+Whether murders or stratagems, as if they were acts of virtue
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v69
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 70, 1598
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+     Mission of the States to Henry to prevent the consummation of peace
+     with Spain--Proposal of Henry to elevate Prince Maurice to the
+     sovereignty, of the States--Embarkation of the States' envoys for
+     England--Their interview with Queen Elizabeth--Return of the envoys
+     from England--Demand of Elizabeth for repayment of her advances to
+     the republic--Second embassy to England--Final arrangement between
+     the Queen and the States.
+
+The great Advocate was now to start on his journey in order to make a
+supreme effort both with Henry and with Elizabeth to prevent the
+consummation of this fatal peace.  Admiral Justinus of Nassau, natural
+son of William the Silent, was associated with Barneveld in the mission,
+a brave fighting man, a staunch patriot, and a sagacious counsellor; but
+the Advocate on this occasion, as in other vital emergencies of the
+commonwealth, was all in all.
+
+The instructions of the envoys were simple.  They were to summon the
+king to fulfil his solemnly sworn covenants with the league.  The States-
+General had never doubted, they said, that so soon as the enemy had begun
+to feel the effects, of that league he would endeavour to make a
+composition with one or other of the parties in order to separate them,
+and to break up that united strength which otherwise he could never
+resist.  The king was accordingly called upon to continue the war against
+the common enemy, and the States-General offered, over and above the four
+hundred and fifty thousand florins promised by them for the support of
+the four thousand infantry for the year 1598, to bring their whole
+military power, horse and foot, into the field to sustain his Majesty in
+the war, whether separately or in conjunction, whether in the siege of
+cities or in open campaigns.  Certainly they could hardly offer fairer
+terms than these.
+
+Henry had complained, and not unreasonably, that Elizabeth had made no
+offers of assistance for carrying on the war either to Fonquerolles or to
+Hurault de Maisse; but he certainly could make no reproach of that nature
+against the republic, nor assign their lukewarmness as an excuse for his
+desertion.
+
+The envoys were ready to take their departure for France on the last day
+of January.
+
+It might be a curious subject to consider how far historical events are
+modified and the world's destiny affected by the different material
+agencies which man at various epochs has had at his disposal.  The human
+creature in his passions and ambitions, his sensual or sordid desires,
+his emotional and moral nature, undergoes less change than might be hoped
+from age to age.  The tyrant; the patriot, the demagogue, the voluptuary,
+the peasant, the trader, the intriguing politician, the hair-splitting
+diplomatist, the self-sacrificing martyr, the self-seeking courtier,
+present essentially one type in the twelfth, the sixteenth, the
+nineteenth, or any other century.  The human tragi-comedy seems ever
+to repeat itself with the same bustle, with the same excitement for
+immediate interests, for the development of the instant plot or passing
+episode, as if the universe began and ended with each generation--as in
+reality it would appear to do for the great multitude of the actors.
+There seems but a change of masks, of costume, of phraseology, combined
+with a noisy but eternal monotony.  Yet while men are produced and are
+whirled away again in endless succession, Man remains, and to all
+appearance is perpetual and immortal even on this earth.  Whatever
+science acquires man inherits.  Whatever steadfastness is gained for
+great moral truths which change not through the ages--however they may be
+thought, in dark or falsely brilliant epochs, to resolve themselves into
+elemental vapour--gives man a securer foothold in his onward and upward
+progress.  The great, continuous history of that progress is not made up
+of the reigns of kings or the lives of politicians, with whose names
+history has often found it convenient to mark its epochs.  These are but
+milestones on the turnpike.  Human progress is over a vast field, and it
+is only at considerable intervals that a retrospective view enables us to
+discern whether the movement has been slow or rapid, onward or
+retrograde.
+
+The record of our race is essentially unwritten.  What we call history is
+but made up of a few scattered fragments, while it is scarcely given to
+human intelligence to comprehend the great whole.  Yet it is strange to
+reflect upon the leisurely manner in which great affairs were conducted
+in the period with which we are now occupied, as compared with the fever
+and whirl of our own times, in which the stupendous powers of steam and
+electricity are ever-ready to serve the most sublime or the most vulgar
+purposes of mankind.  Whether there were ever a critical moment in which
+a rapid change might have been effected in royal or national councils,
+had telegraphic wires and express trains been at the command of Henry,
+or Burghley, or Barneveld, or the Cardinal Albert, need not and cannot
+be decided.  It is almost diverting, however, to see how closely the
+intrigues of cabinets, the movements of armies, the plans of patriots,
+were once dependent on those natural elements over which man has now
+gained almost despotic control.
+
+Here was the republic intensely eager to prevent, with all speed, the
+consummation of a treaty between its ally and its enemy--a step which it
+was feared might be fatal to its national existence, and concerning which
+there seemed a momentary hesitation.  Yet Barneveld and Justinus of
+Nassau, although ready on the last day of January, were not able to sail
+from the Brill to Dieppe until the 18th March, on account of a persistent
+south-west wind.
+
+After forty-six days of waiting, the envoys, accompanied by Buzanval,
+Henry's resident at the Hague, were at last, on the 18th March, enabled
+to set sail with a favourable breeze.  As it was necessary for travellers
+in that day to provide themselves with every possible material for their
+journey--carriages, horses, hosts of servants, and beds, fortunate enough
+if they found roads and occasionally food--Barneveld and Nassau were
+furnished with three ships of war, while another legation on its way to
+England had embarked in two other vessels of the same class.  A fleet of
+forty or fifty merchantmen sailed under their convoy.  Departing from the
+Brill in this imposing manner, they sailed by Calais, varying the
+monotony of the voyage by a trifling sea-fight with some cruisers from
+that Spanish port, neither side receiving any damage.
+
+Landing at Dieppe on the morning of the 20th, the envoys were received
+with much ceremony at the city gates by the governor of the place, who
+conducted them in a stately manner to a house called the king's mansion,
+which he politely placed at their disposal.  "As we learned, however,"
+says Barneveld, with grave simplicity; "that there was no furniture
+whatever in that royal abode, we thanked his Excellency, and declared
+that we would rather go to a tavern."
+
+After three days of repose and preparation in Dieppe, they started at
+dawn on their journey to Rouen, where they arrived at sundown.
+
+On the next morning but one they set off again on their travels, and
+slept that night at Louviers.  Another long day's journey brought them to
+Evreux.  On the 27th they came to Dreux, on the 28th to Chartres, and on
+the 29th to Chateaudun.  On the 30th, having started an hour before
+sunrise, they were enabled after a toilsome journey to reach Blois at an
+hour after dark.  Exhausted with fatigue, they reposed in that city for a
+day, and on the 1st April proceeded, partly by the river Loire and partly
+by the road, as far as Tours.  Here they were visited by nobody, said
+Barneveld, but fiddlers and drummers, and were execrably lodged.
+Nevertheless they thought the town in other respects agreeable, and
+apparently beginning to struggle out of the general desolation of,
+France.  On the end April they slept at Langeais, and on the night of the
+3rd reached Saumur, where they were disappointed at the absence of the
+illustrious Duplessis Mornay, then governor of that city.  A glance at
+any map of France will show the course of the journey taken by the
+travellers, which, after very hard work and great fatigue, had thus
+brought them from Dieppe to Saumur in about as much time as is now
+consumed by an average voyage from Europe to America.  In their whole
+journey from Holland to Saumur, inclusive of the waiting upon the wind
+and other enforced delays, more than two months had been consumed.
+Twenty-four hours would suffice at present for the excursion.
+
+At Saumur they received letters informing them that the king was
+"expecting them with great devotion at Angiers."  A despatch from Cecil,
+who was already with Henry, also apprised them that he found "matters
+entirely arranged for a peace."  This would be very easily accomplished,
+he said, for France and England, but the great difficulty was for the
+Netherlands.  He had come to France principally for the sake of managing
+affairs for the advantage of the States, but he begged the envoys not to
+demean themselves as if entirely bent on war.
+
+They arrived at Angiers next day before dark, and were met at a league's
+distance from the gates by the governor of the castle, attended by young
+Prince Frederic Henry of Nassau; followed by a long train of nobles and
+mounted troops.  Welcomed in this stately manner on behalf of the king,
+the envoys were escorted to the lodgings provided for them in the city.
+The same evening they waited on the widowed princess of Orange, Louisa of
+Coligny, then residing temporarily with her son in Angiera, and were
+informed by her that the king's mind was irrevocably fixed on peace.  She
+communicated, however, the advice of her step-son in law, the Duke of
+Bouillon, that they should openly express their determination to continue
+the war, notwithstanding that both their Majesties of England and France
+wished to negotiate.  Thus the counsels of Bouillon to the envoys were
+distinctly opposed to those of Cecil, and it was well known to them that
+the duke was himself sincerely anxious that the king should refuse the
+pacific offers of Spain.
+
+Next morning, 5th April, they were received at the gates of the castle
+by the governor of Anjou and the commandant of the citadel of Angiers,
+attended by a splendid retinue, and were conducted to the king, who was
+walking in the garden of the fortress.  Henry received them with great
+demonstrations of respect, assuring them that he considered the States-
+General the best and most faithful friends that he possessed in the
+world, and that he had always been assisted by them in time of his
+utmost need with resoluteness and affection.
+
+The approach of the English ambassador, accompanied by the Chancellor of
+France and several other persons, soon brought the interview to a
+termination.  Barneveld then presented several gentlemen attached to the
+mission, especially his son and Hugo Grotius, then a lad of fifteen, but
+who had already gained such distinction at Leyden that Scaliger,
+Pontanus; Heinsius, Dousa, and other professors, foretold that he would
+become more famous than Erasmus.  They were all very cordially received
+by the king, who subsequently bestowed especial marks of his
+consideration upon the youthful Grotius.
+
+The same day the betrothal of Monsieur Caesar with the daughter of the
+Duke of Mercoeur was celebrated, and there was afterwards much dancing
+and banqueting at the castle.  It was obvious enough to the envoys that
+the matter of peace and war was decided.  The general of the Franciscans,
+sent by the pope, had been flitting very busily for many months between
+Rome, Madrid, Brussels, and Paris, and there could be little doubt that
+every detail of the negotiations between France and Spain had been
+arranged while Olden-Barneveld and his colleague had been waiting
+for the head-wind to blow itself out at the Brill.
+
+Nevertheless no treaty had as yet been signed, and it was the business of
+the republican diplomatists to prevent the signature if possible.  They
+felt, however, that they were endeavouring to cause water to run up hill.
+Villeroy, De Maisse, and Buzanval came to them to recount, by the king's
+order, everything that had taken place.  This favour was, however, the
+less highly appreciated by them, as they felt that the whole world was
+in a very short time to be taken as well into the royal confidence.
+
+These French politicians stated that the king, after receiving the most
+liberal offers of peace on the part of Spain, had communicated all the
+facts to the queen, and had proposed, notwithstanding these most
+profitable overtures, to continue the war as long as her Majesty and the
+States-General would assist him in it.  De Maisse had been informed,
+however, by the queen that she had no means to assist the king withal,
+and was, on the contrary, very well disposed to make peace.  The lord
+treasurer had avowed the same opinions as his sovereign, had declared
+himself to be a man of peace, and had exclaimed that peace once made he
+would sing "Nunc dimitte servum tuum Domine."  Thereupon, at the
+suggestion of the legate, negotiations had begun at Vervins, and although
+nothing was absolutely concluded, yet Sir Robert Cecil, having just been
+sent as special ambassador from the queen, had brought no propositions
+whatever of assistance in carrying on the war, but plenty of excuses
+about armadas, Irish rebellions, and the want of funds.  There was
+nothing in all this, they said, but want of good will.  The queen had
+done nothing and would do nothing for the league herself, nor would she
+solicit for it the adherence of other kings and princes.  The king, by
+making peace, could restore his kingdom to prosperity, relieve the
+distress of his subjects, and get back all his lost cities--Calais,
+Ardres, Dourlens, Blavet, and many more--without any expense of treasure
+or of blood.
+
+Certainly there was cogency in this reasoning from the point of view of
+the French king, but it would have been as well to state, when he was so
+pompously making a league for offensive and defensive war, that his real
+interests and his real purposes were peace.  Much excellent diplomacy,
+much ringing of bells, firing of artillery, and singing of anthems in
+royal chapels, and much disappointment to honest Dutchmen, might have
+thus been saved.  It is also instructive to observe the difference
+between the accounts of De Maisse's negotiations in England given by that
+diplomatist himself, and those rendered by the queen to the States'
+envoy.
+
+Of course the objurgations of the Hollanders that the king, in a very
+fallacious hope of temporary gain to himself, was about to break his
+solemn promises to his allies and leave them to their fate, drew but few
+tears down the iron cheeks of such practised diplomatists as Villeroy and
+his friends.
+
+The envoys visited De Rosuy, who assured them that he was very much their
+friend, but gave them to understand that there was not the slightest
+possibility of inducing the king to break off the negotiations.
+
+Before taking final leave of his Majesty they concluded, by advice of the
+Princess of Orange and of Buzanval, to make the presents which they had
+brought with them from the States-General.  Accordingly they sent,
+through the hands of the princess, four pieces of damask linen and two
+pieces of fine linen to the king's sister, Madame Catherine, two pieces
+of linen to Villeroy, and two to the beautiful Gabrielle.  The two
+remaining pieces were bestowed upon Buzanval for his pains in
+accompanying them on the journey and on their arrival at court.
+
+The incident shows the high esteem in which the Nethcrland fabrics were
+held at that period.
+
+There was a solemn conference at last between the leading counsellors of
+the king, the chancellor, the Dukes of Espernon and Bouillon, Count
+Schomberg, and De Sancy, Plessis, Buzanval, Maisse, the Dutch envoys, and
+the English ambassador and commissioner Herbert.  Cecil presided, and
+Barneveld once more went over the whole ground, resuming with his usual
+vigour all the arguments by which the king's interest and honour were
+proved to require him to desist from the peace negotiations.  And the
+orator had as much success as is usual with those who argue against a
+foregone conclusion.  Everyone had made up his mind.  Everyone knew that
+peace was made.  It is unnecessary, therefore, to repeat the familiar
+train of reasoning.  It is superfluous to say that the conference was
+barren.  On the same evening Villeroy called on the States' envoys, and
+informed them plainly, on the part of the king, that his Majesty had
+fully made up his mind.
+
+On the 23rd April--three mortal weeks having thus been wasted in
+diplomatic trilling--Barneveld was admitted to his Majesty's dressing-
+room.  The Advocate at the king's request came without his colleague,
+and was attended only by his son.  No other persons were present in the
+chamber save Buzanval and Beringen.  The king on this occasion confirmed
+what had so recently been stated by Villeroy.  He had thoroughly
+pondered, he said, all the arguments used by the States to dissuade him
+from the negotiation, and had found them of much weight.  The necessities
+of his kingdom, however, compelled him to accept a period of repose.  He
+would not, however, in the slightest degree urge the States to join in
+the treaty.  He desired their security, and would aid in maintaining it.
+What had most vexed him was that the Protestants with great injustice
+accused him of intending to make war upon them.  But innumerable and
+amazing reports were flying abroad, both among his own subjects, the
+English, and the enemies' spies, as to these secret conferences.  He then
+said that he would tell the Duke of Bouillon to speak with Sir Robert
+Cecil concerning a subject which now for the first time he would mention
+privately to Olden-Barneveld.
+
+The king then made a remarkable and unexpected suggestion.  Alluding
+to the constitution of the Netherlands, he remarked that a popular
+government in such emergencies as those then existing was subject to more
+danger than monarchies were, and he asked the Advocate if he thought
+there was no disposition to elect a prince.  Barneveld replied that the
+general inclination was rather for a good republic.  The government,
+however, he said, was not of the people, but aristocratic, and the state
+was administered according to laws and charters by the principal
+inhabitants, whether nobles or magistrates of cities.  Since the death
+of the late Prince of Orange, and the offer made to the King of France,
+and subsequently to the Queen of England, of the sovereignty, there had
+been no more talk on that subject, and to discuss again so delicate a
+matter might cause divisions and other difficulties in the State.
+
+Henry then spoke of Prince Maurice, and asked whether, if he should be
+supported by the Queen of England and the King of France, it would not be
+possible to confer the sovereignty upon him.
+
+Here certainly was an astounding question to be discharged like a pistol-
+shot full in the face of a republican minister.
+
+The answer of the Advocate was sufficiently adroit if not excessively
+sincere.
+
+If your Majesty, said he, together with her Majesty the queen, think the
+plan expedient, and are both willing on this footing to continue the war,
+to rescue all the Netherlands from the hands of the Spaniards and their
+adherents, and thus render the States eternally obliged to the sovereigns
+and kingdoms of France and England, my lords the States-General would
+probably be willing to accept this advice.
+
+But the king replied by repeating that repose was indispensable to him.
+
+Without inquiring for the present whether the project of elevating
+Maurice to the sovereignty of the Netherlands, at the expense of the
+republican constitution, was in harmony or not with the private opinions
+of Barneveld at that period, it must be admitted that the condition he
+thus suggested was a very safe one to offer.  He had thoroughly satisfied
+himself during the period in which he had been baffled by the southwest
+gales at the Brill and by the still more persistent head-winds which he
+had found prevailing at the French court, that it was hopeless to strive
+for that much-desired haven, a general war.  The admiral and himself
+might as well have endeavoured to persuade Mahomet III. and Sigismund of
+Poland to join the States in a campaign against Cardinal Albert, as to
+hope for the same good offices from Elizabeth and Henry.
+
+Having received exactly the answer which he expected, he secretly
+communicated, next day, to Cecil the proposition thus made by the king.
+Subsequently he narrated the whole conversation to the Queen of England.
+
+On the 27th April both Barneveld and Nassau were admitted to the royal
+dressing-room in Nantes citadel for a final audience.  Here, after the
+usual common places concerning his affection for the Netherlands, and the
+bitter necessity which compelled him to desert the alliance, Henry again
+referred to his suggestion in regard to Prince Maurice; urging a change
+from a republican to a monarchical form of government as the best means
+of preserving the State.
+
+The envoys thanked the king for all the honours conferred upon them, but
+declared themselves grieved to the heart by his refusal to grant their
+request.  The course pursued by his Majesty, they said, would be found
+very hard of digestion by the States, both in regard to the whole force
+of the enemy which would now come upon their throats, and because of the
+bad example thus set for other powers.
+
+They then took leave, with the usual exchange of compliments.
+At their departure his Majesty personally conducted them through various
+apartments until they came to the chamber of his mistress, the Duchess
+of Beaufort, then lying in childbed.  Here he drew wide open the bed-
+curtains, and bade them kiss the lady.  They complied, and begging the
+duchess to use her influence in their behalf, respectfully bade her
+farewell.  She promised not to forget their request, and thanked them
+for the presents of damask and fine linen.
+
+Such was the result of the mission of the great Advocate and his
+colleague to Henry IV., from which so much had been hoped; and for
+anything useful accomplished, after such an expenditure of time, money,
+and eloquence, the whole transaction might have begun and ended in this
+touching interview with the beautiful Gabrielle.
+
+On the 19th of May the envoys embarked at Dieppe for England, and on the
+25th were safely lodged with the resident minister of the republic, Noel
+de Caron, at the village of Clapham.
+
+Having so ill-succeeded in their attempts to prevent the treaty between
+France and Spain, they were now engaged in what seemed also a forlorn
+hope, the preservation of their offensive and defensive alliance with
+England.  They were well aware that many of the leading counsellors of
+Elizabeth, especially Burghley and Buckhurst, were determined upon peace.
+They knew that the queen was also heartily weary of the war and of the
+pugnacious little commonwealth which had caused her so much expense.  But
+they knew, too, that Henry, having now secured the repose of his own
+kingdom, was anything but desirous that his deserted allies should enjoy
+the same advantage.  The king did not cease to assure the States that he
+would secretly give them assistance in their warfare against his new
+ally, while Secretary of State Villeroy, as they knew, would place every
+possible impediment in the way of the queen's negotiations with Spain.
+
+Elizabeth, on her part, was vexed with everybody.  What the States most
+feared was that she might, in her anger or her avarice, make use of the
+cautionary towns in her negotiations with Philip.  At any rate, said
+Francis Aerssens, then States' minister in France, she will bring us to
+the brink of the precipice, that we may then throw ourselves into
+her arms in despair.
+
+The queen was in truth resolved to conclude a peace if a peace could be
+made.  If not, she was determined to make as good a bargain with the
+States as possible, in regard to the long outstanding account of her
+advances.  Certainly it was not unreasonable that she should wish to see
+her exchequer reimbursed by people who, as she believed, were rolling in
+wealth, the fruit of a contraband commerce which she denied to her own
+subjects, and who were in honour bound to pay their debts to her now, if
+they wished her aid to be continued.  Her subjects were impoverished and
+panting for peace, and although, as she remarked, "their sense of duty
+restrained them from the slightest disobedience to her absolute
+commands," still she could not forgive herself for thus exposing them to
+perpetual danger.
+
+She preferred on the whole, however, that the commonwealth should consent
+to its own dissolution; for she thought it unreasonable that--after this
+war of thirty years, during fifteen of which she had herself actively
+assisted them--these republican Calvinists should, refuse to return to
+the dominion of their old tyrant and the pope.  To Barneveld, Maurice
+of Nassau, and the States-General this did not seem a very logical
+termination to so much hard fighting.
+
+Accordingly, when on the 26th of May the two envoys fell on their knees--
+as the custom was--before the great queen, and had been raised by her to
+their feet again, they found her Majesty in marvellously ill-humour.
+Olden-Barneveld recounted to her the results of their mission to France,
+and said that from beginning to end it had been obvious that there could
+be no other issue.  The king was indifferent, he had said, whether the
+States preferred peace or war, but in making his treaty he knew that he
+had secured a profit for himself, iuflicted damage on his enemy, and done
+no harm to his friends.
+
+Her Majesty then interrupted the speaker by violent invectives against
+the French king for his treachery.  She had written with her own hand,
+she said, to tell him that she never had believed him capable of doing
+what secretaries and other servants had reported concerning him, but
+which had now proved true.
+
+Then she became very abusive to the Dutch envoys, telling them that they
+were quite unjustifiable in not following Sir Robert Cecil's advice,
+and in not engaging with him at once in peace negotiations; at least so
+far as to discover what the enemy's intentions might be.  She added,
+pettishly, that if Prince Maurice and other functionaries were left in
+the enjoyment of their offices, and if the Spaniards were sent out of the
+country, there seemed no reason why such terms should not be accepted.
+
+Barneveld replied that such accommodation was of course impossible,
+unless they accepted their ancient sovereign as prince.  Then came the
+eternal two points--obedience to God, which meant submission to the pope;
+and obedience to the king, that was to say, subjection to his despotic
+authority.  Thus the Christian religion would be ruined throughout the
+provinces, and the whole land be made a bridge and a ladder for Spanish
+ambition.
+
+The queen here broke forth into mighty oaths, interrupting the envoy's
+discourse, protesting over and over again by the living God that she
+would not and could not give the States any further assistance; that she
+would leave them to their fate; that her aid rendered in their war had
+lasted much longer than the siege of Troy did, and swearing that she had
+been a fool to help them and the king of France as she had done, for it
+was nothing but evil passions that kept the States so obstinate.
+
+The envoy endeavoured to soothe her, urging that as she had gained the
+reputation over the whole world of administering her affairs with
+admirable, yea with almost divine wisdom, she should now make use of that
+sagacity in the present very difficult matter.  She ought to believe that
+it was not evil passion, nor ambition, nor obstinacy that prevented the
+States from joining in these negotiations, but the determination to
+maintain their national existence, the Christian religion, and their
+ancient liberties and laws.  They did not pretend, he said, to be wiser
+than great monarch or their counsellors, but the difference between their
+form of government and a monarchy must be their excuse.
+
+Monarchs, when they made treaties, remained masters, and could protect
+their realms and their subjects from danger.  The States-General could
+not accept a prince without placing themselves under his absolute
+authority, and the Netherlanders would never subject themselves to
+their deadly enemy, whom they had long ago solemnly renounced.
+
+Surely these remarks of the Advocate should have seemed entirely
+unanswerable.  Surely there was no politician in Europe so ignorant as
+not to know that any treaty of peace between Philip and the States meant
+their unconditional subjugation and the complete abolition of the
+Protestant religion.  Least of all did the Queen of England require
+information on this great matter of state.  It was cruel trifling
+therefore, it was inhuman insolence on her part, to suggest anything
+like a return of the States to the dominion of Spain.
+
+But her desire for peace and her determination to get back her money
+overpowered at that time all other considerations.
+
+The States wished to govern themselves, she said; why then could they not
+make arrangements against all dangers, and why could they not lay down
+conditions under which the king would not really be their master;
+especially if France and England should guarantee them against any
+infraction of their rights.  By the living God! by the living God! by the
+living God! she swore over and over again as her anger rose, she would
+never more have anything to do with such people; and she deeply regretted
+having thrown away her money and the lives of her subjects in so stupid a
+manner.
+
+Again the grave and experienced envoy of the republic strove with calm
+and earnest words to stay the torrent of her wrath; representing that her
+money and her pains had by no means been wasted, that the enemy had been
+brought to shame and his finances to confusion; and urging her, without
+paying any heed to the course pursued by the King of France, to allow the
+republic to make levies of troops, at its own expense, within her
+kingdom.
+
+But her Majesty was obdurate.  "How am I to defend myself?" she cried;
+"how are the affairs of Ireland to be provided for? how am I ever to get
+back my money?  who is to pay the garrisons of Brill and Flushing?"
+And with this she left the apartment, saying that her counsellors
+would confer with the envoys.'
+
+From the beginning to the end of the interview the queen was in a very
+evil temper, and took no pains to conceal her dissatisfaction with all
+the world.
+
+Now there is no doubt whatever that the subsidies furnished by England
+to the common cause were very considerable, amounting in fourteen years,
+according to the queen's calculation, to nearly fourteen hundred thousand
+pounds sterling.  But in her interviews with the republican statesmen she
+was too prone to forget that it was a common cause, to forget that the
+man who had over and over again attempted her assassination, who had
+repeatedly attempted the invasion of her realms with the whole strength
+of the most powerful military organization in the world, whose dearest
+wish on earth was still to accomplish her dethronement and murder, to
+extirpate from England the religion professed by the majority of living
+Englishmen, and to place upon her vacant throne a Spanish, German, or
+Italian prince, was as much her enemy as he was the foe of his ancient
+subjects in the Netherlands.  At that very epoch Philip was occupied in
+reminding the pope that the two had always agreed as to the justice of
+the claims of the Infanta Isabella to the English crown, and calling on
+his Holiness to sustain those pretensions, now that she had been obliged,
+in consequence of the treaty with the Prince of Bearne, to renounce her
+right to reign over France.
+
+Certainly it was fair enough for the queen and her, counsellors to stand
+out for an equitable arrangement of the debt; but there was much to
+dispute in the figures.  When was ever an account of fifteen years'
+standing adjusted, whether between nations or individuals, without much
+wrangling?  Meantime her Majesty held excellent security in two thriving
+and most important Netherland cities.  But had the States consented to
+re-establish the Spanish authority over the whole of their little
+Protestant republic, was there an English child so ignorant of arithmetic
+or of history as not to see how vast would be the peril, and how
+incalculable the expense, thus caused to England?
+
+Yet besides the Cecils and the lord high admiral, other less influential
+counsellors of the crown--even the upright and accomplished Buckhurst,
+who had so often proved his friendship for the States--were in favour of
+negotiation.  There were many conferences with meagre results.  The
+Englishmen urged that the time had come for the States to repay the
+queen's advances, to relieve her from future subsidies, to assume the
+payment of the garrisons in the cautionary towns, and to furnish a force
+in defence of England when attacked.  Such was the condition of the
+kingdom, they said--being, as it was, entirely without fortified cities--
+that a single battle would imperil the whole realm, so that it was
+necessary to keep the enemy out of it altogether.
+
+These arguments were not unreasonable, but the inference was surely
+illogical.  The special envoys from the republic had not been instructed
+to treat about the debt.  This had been the subject of perpetual
+negotiation.  It was discussed almost every day by the queen's
+commissioners at the Hague and by the States' resident minister at
+London.  Olden-Barneveld and the admiral had been sent forth by the
+Staten in what in those days was considered great haste to prevent a
+conclusion of a treaty between their two allies and the common enemy.
+They had been too late in France, and now, on arriving in England, they
+found that government steadily drifting towards what seemed the hopeless
+shipwreck of a general peace.
+
+What must have been the grief of Olden-Barneveld when he heard from the
+lips of the enlightened Buckhurst that the treaty of 1585 had been
+arranged to expire--according to the original limitation--with a peace,
+and that as the States could now make peace and did not choose to do so,
+her Majesty must be considered as relieved from her contract of alliance,
+and as justified in demanding repayment of her advances!
+
+To this perfidious suggestion what could the States' envoy reply but that
+as a peace such as the treaty of 1585 presupposed--to wit, with security
+for the Protestant religion and for the laws and liberties of the
+provinces--was impossible, should the States now treat with the king or
+the cardinal?
+
+The envoys had but one more interview with, the queen, in which she was
+more benignant in manner but quite as peremptory in her demands.  Let the
+States either thoroughly satisfy her as to past claims and present
+necessities, or let them be prepared for her immediate negotiation with
+the enemy.  Should she decide to treat, she would not be unmindful of
+their interests, she said, nor deliver them over into the enemy's hands.
+She repeated, however, the absurd opinion that there were means enough of
+making Philip nominal sovereign of all the Netherlands, without allowing
+him to exercise any authority over them.  As if the most Catholic and
+most absolute monarch that ever breathed could be tied down by the
+cobwebs of constitutional or treaty stipulations; as if the previous
+forty years could be effaced from the record of history.
+
+She asked, too, in case the rumours of the intended transfer of the
+Netherlands to the cardinal or the Infanta should prove true, which she
+doubted, whether this arrangement would make any difference in the
+sentiments of the States.
+
+Barneveld replied that the transfer was still uncertain, but that they
+had no more confidence in the cardinal or the Infants than in the King of
+Spain himself.
+
+On taking leave of the queen the envoys waited upon Lord Burghley, whom
+they found sitting in an arm-chair in his bedchamber, suffering from the
+gout and with a very fierce countenance.   He made no secret of his
+opinions in favour of negotiation, said that the contracts made by
+monarchs should always be interpreted reasonably, and pronounced a warm
+eulogy on the course pursued by the King of France.  It was his Majesty's
+duty, he said, to seize the best opportunity for restoring repose to his
+subjects and his realms, and it was the duty of other sovereigns to do
+the same.
+
+The envoys replied that they were not disposed at that moment to sit in
+judgment upon the king's actions.  They would content themselves with
+remarking that in their opinion even kings and princes were bound by
+their, contracts, oaths, and pledges before God and man; and with this
+wholesome sentiment they took leave of the lord high treasurer.
+
+They left London immediately, on the last day of May, without, passports.
+or despatches of recal, and embarked at Gravesend in the midst of a gale
+of wind.
+
+Lord Essex, the sincere friend of the republic, was both surprised and
+disturbed at their sudden departure, and sent a special courier, after
+them to express his regrets at the unsatisfactory termination to their
+mission: "My mistress knows very well," said he, "that she is an absolute
+princess, and that, when her ministers have done their extreme duty, she
+wills what she wills."
+
+The negotiations between England and Spain were deferred, however, for a
+brief space, and a special message was despatched to the Hague as to the
+arrangement of the debt.  "Peace at once with Philip," said the queen,
+"or else full satisfaction of my demands."
+
+Now it was close dealing between such very thrifty and acute bargainers
+as the queen and the Netherland republic.
+
+Two years before, the States had offered to pay twenty thousand pounds a
+year on her Majesty's birthday so long as the war should last, and after
+a peace, eighty thousand pounds annually for four years.  The queen, on
+her part, fixed the sum total of the debt at nearly a million and a half
+sterling, and required instant payment of at least one hundred thousand
+pounds on account, besides provision for a considerable annual refunding,
+assumption by the States of the whole cost of the garrisons in the
+cautionary towns, and assurance of assistance in case of an attack upon
+England.  Thus there was a whole ocean between the disputants.
+
+Vere and Gilpin were protocolling and marshalling accounts at the Hague,
+and conducting themselves with much arrogance and bitterness, while,
+meantime, Barneveld had hardly had time to set his foot on his native
+shores before he was sent back again to England at the head of another
+solemn legation.  One more effort was to be made to arrange this
+financial problem and to defeat the English peace party.
+
+The offer of the year 1596 just alluded to was renewed and instantly
+rejected.  Naturally enough, the Dutch envoys were disposed, in the
+exhausting warfare which was so steadily draining their finances, to pay
+down as little as possible on the nail, while providing for what they
+considered a liberal annual sinking fund.
+
+The English, on the contrary, were for a good round sum in actual cash,
+and held the threatened negotiation with Spain over the heads of the
+unfortunate envoys like a whip.
+
+So the queen's counsellors and the republican envoys travelled again and
+again over the well-worn path.
+
+On the 29th June, Buckhurst took Olden-Barneveld into his cabinet, and
+opened his heart to him, not as a servant of her Majesty, he said, but
+as a private Englishman.  He was entirely for peace.  Now that peace was
+offered to her Majesty, a continuance of the war was unrighteous, and the
+Lord God's blessing could not be upon it.  Without God's blessing no
+resistance could be made by the queen nor by the States to the enemy,
+who was ten times more powerful than her Majesty in kingdoms, provinces,
+number of subjects, and money.  He had the pope, the emperor, the Dukes
+of Savoy and Lorraine, and the republic of Genoa, for his allies.  He
+feared that the war might come upon England, and that they might be fated
+on one single day to win or lose all.  The queen possessed no mines, and
+was obliged to carry on the war by taxing her people.  The king had ever-
+flowing fountains in his mines; the queen nothing but a stagnant pool,
+which, when all the water was pumped out, must in the end be dry.  He
+concluded, therefore, that as her Majesty had no allies but the
+Netherlands, peace was best for England, and advisable for the provinces.
+Arrangements could easily be made to limit the absolute authority of
+Spain.
+
+This highly figurative view of the subject--more becoming to the author
+of Ferrex and Porrex than to so, experienced a statesman as Sackville had
+become since his dramatic days--did not much impress Barneveld.  He
+answered that, although the King of Spain was unquestionably very
+powerful, the Lord God was still stronger; that England and the
+Netherlands together could maintain the empire of the seas, which was
+of the utmost importance, especially for England; but that if the
+republic were to make her submission to Spain, and become incorporate
+with that power, the control of the seas was lost for ever to England.
+
+The Advocate added the unanswerable argument that to admit Philip as
+sovereign, and then to attempt a limitation of his despotism was a
+foolish dream.
+
+Buckhurst repeated that the republic was the only ally of England, that
+there was no confidence to be placed by her in any other power, and that
+for himself, he was, as always, very much the friend of the States.
+
+Olden-Barneveld might well have prayed, however, to be delivered from
+such friends.  To thrust one's head into the lion's mouth, while one's
+friends urge moderation on the noble animal, can never be considered a
+cheerful or prudent proceeding.
+
+At last, after all offers had been rejected which the envoys had ventured
+to make, Elizabeth sent for Olden-Barneveld and Caron and demanded their
+ultimatum within twenty-four hours.  Should it prove unsatisfactory, she
+would at once make peace with Spain.
+
+On the 1st August the envoys accordingly proposed to Cecil and the other
+ministers to pay thirty thousand pounds a year, instead of twenty
+thousand, so long as the war should last, but they claimed the right of
+redeeming the cautionary towns at one hundred thousand pounds each.  This
+seemed admissible, and Cecil and his colleagues pronounced the affair
+arranged.  But they had reckoned without the queen after all.
+
+Elizabeth sent for Caron as soon as she heard of the agreement, flew into
+a great rage, refused the terms, swore that she would instantly make
+peace with Spain, and thundered loudly against her ministers.
+
+"They were great beasts," she said, "if they had stated that she would
+not treat with the enemy.  She had merely intended to defer the
+negotiations."
+
+So the whole business was to be done over again.  At last the sum claimed
+by the queen, fourteen hundred thousand pounds, was reduced by agreement
+to eight hundred thousand, and one-half of this the envoys undertook on
+the part of the States to refund in annual payments of thirty thousand
+pounds, while the remaining four hundred thousand should be provided for
+by some subsequent arrangement.  All attempts, however, to obtain a
+promise from the queen to restore the cautionary towns to the republic in
+case of a peace between Spain and England remained futile.
+
+That was to be a bone of contention for many years.
+
+It was further agreed by the treaty, which was definitely signed on the
+16th August, that, in case England were invaded by the common enemy, the
+States should send to the queen's assistance at least thirty ships of
+war, besides five thousand infantry and five squadrons of horse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+     Negotiations between France and Spain--Conclusion of the treaty of
+     peace--Purchase of the allegiance of the French nobles--Transfer of
+     the Netherlands to Albert and Isabella--Marriage of the Infante and
+     the Infanta--Illness of Philip II.--Horrible nature of his malady--
+     His last hours and death--Review of his reign--Extent of the Spanish
+     dominions--Causes of the greatness of Spain, and of its downfall--
+     Philip's wars and their expenses--The Crown revenues of Spain--
+     Character of the people--Their inordinate self-esteem--Consequent
+     deficiency of labour--Ecclesiastical Government--Revenues of the
+     Church--Characteristics of the Spanish clergy--Foreign commerce of
+     Spain--Governmental system of Philip II.--Founded on the popular
+     ignorance and superstition--Extinction of liberty in Spain--The Holy
+     Inquisition--The work and character of Philip.
+
+While the utterly barren conferences had been going on at Angiers and
+Nantes between Henry IV. and the republican envoys, the negotiations had
+been proceeding at Vervins.
+
+President Richardot on behalf of Spain, and Secretary of State Villeroy
+as commissioner of Henry, were the chief negotiators.
+
+Two old acquaintances, two ancient Leaguers, two bitter haters of
+Protestants and rebels, two thorough adepts in diplomatic chicane, they
+went into this contest like gladiators who thoroughly understood and
+respected each other's skill.
+
+Richardot was recognized by all as the sharpest and most unscrupulous
+politician in the obedient Netherlands.  Villeroy had conducted every
+intrigue of France during a whole generation of mankind.  They scarcely
+did more than measure swords and test each other's objects, before
+arriving at a conviction as to the inevitable result of the encounter.
+
+It was obvious at once to Villeroy that Philip was determined to make
+peace with France in order that the triple alliance might be broken up.
+It was also known to the French diplomatist that the Spanish king was
+ready for, almost every concession to Henry, in order that this object
+might be accomplished.
+
+All that Richardot hoped to save out of the various conquests made by
+Spain over France was Calais.
+
+But Villeroy told him that it was useless to say a word on that subject.
+His king insisted on the restoration of the place.  Otherwise he would
+make no peace.  It was enough, he said, that his Majesty said nothing
+about Navarre.
+
+Richardot urged that at the time when the English had conquered Calais
+it had belonged to Artois, not to France.  It was no more than equitable,
+then, that it should be retained by its original proprietor.
+
+The general of the Franciscans, who acted as a kind of umpire in the
+transactions, then took each negotiator separately aside and whispered in
+his ear.
+
+Villeroy shook his head, and said he had given his ultimatum.  Richardot
+acknowledged that he had something in reserve, upon which the monk said
+that it was time to make it known.
+
+Accordingly--the two being all ears--Richardot observed that what he was
+about to state he said with fear and trembling.  He knew not what the
+King of Spain would think of his proposition, but he would, nevertheless,
+utter the suggestion that Calais should be handed over to the pope.
+
+His Holiness would keep the city in pledge until the war with the rebels
+was over, and then there would be leisure enough to make definite
+arrangements on the subject.
+
+Now Villeroy was too experienced a practitioner to be imposed upon, by
+this ingenious artifice.  Moreover, he happened to have an intercepted
+letter in his possession in which Philip told the cardinal that Calais
+was to be given up if the French made its restitution a sine qua non.
+So Villeroy did make it a sine qua non, and the conferences soon after
+terminated in an agreement on the part of Spain to surrender all its
+conquests in France.
+
+Certainly no more profitable peace than this could have been made by the
+French king under such circumstances, and Philip at the last moment had
+consented to pay a heavy price for bringing discord between the three
+friends.  The treaty was signed at Vervins on the 2nd May, and contained
+thirty-five articles.  Its basis was that of the treaty of Cateau
+Cambresis of 1559.  Restitution of all places conquered by either party
+within the dominions of the other since the day of that treaty was
+stipulated.  Henry recovered Calais, Ardres, Dourlens, Blavet, and many
+other places, and gave up the country of Charolois.  Prisoners were to be
+surrendered on both sides without ransom, and such of those captives of
+war as had been enslaved at the galleys should be set free.
+
+The pope, the emperor, all states, and cities under their obedience or
+control, the Duke of Savoy, the King of Poland and Sweden, the Kings of
+Denmark and Scotland, the Dukes of Lorraine and Tuscany, the Doge of
+Venice, the republic of Genoa, and many lesser states and potentates,
+were included in the treaty.  The famous Edict of Nantes in favour of
+the Protestant subjects of the French king was drawn up and signed in
+the city of which it bears the name at about the same time with these
+negotiations.  Its publication was, however, deferred until after the
+departure of the legate from France in the following year.
+
+The treaty of Cateau Cambresis had been pronounced the most disgraceful
+and disastrous one that had ever been ratified by a French monarch; and
+surely Henry had now wiped away that disgrace and repaired that disaster.
+It was natural enough that he should congratulate himself on the rewards
+which he had gathered by deserting his allies.
+
+He had now sufficient occupation for a time in devising ways and means,
+with the aid of the indefatigable Bethune, to pay the prodigious sums
+with which he had purchased the allegiance of the great nobles and lesser
+gentlemen of France.  Thirty-two millions of livres were not sufficient
+to satisfy the claims of these patriots, most of whom had been drawing
+enormous pensions from the King of Spain up to the very moment, or beyond
+it, when they consented to acknowledge the sovereign of their own
+country.  Scarcely a, great name in the golden book of France but was
+recorded among these bills of sale.
+
+Mayenne, Lorraine, Guise, Nemours, Mercoeur, Montpensier, Joyeuse,
+Epernon, Brissac, D'Arlincourt, Balagny, Rochefort, Villeroy, Villars,
+Montespan, Leviston, Beauvillars, and countless others, figured in the
+great financier's terrible account-book, from Mayenne, set down at the
+cool amount of three and a half millions, to Beauvoir or Beauvillars at
+the more modest price of a hundred and sixty thousand livres.  "I should
+appal my readers," said De Bethune, "if I should show to them that this
+sum makes but a very small part of the amounts demanded from the royal
+treasury, either by Frenchmen or by strangers, as pay and pension, and
+yet the total was thirty-two millions's."
+
+And now the most Catholic king, having brought himself at last to
+exchange the grasp of friendship with the great ex-heretic, and to
+recognize the Prince of Bearne as the legitimate successor of St. Louis,
+to prevent which consummation he had squandered so many thousands of
+lives, so many millions of treasure, and brought ruin to so many
+prosperous countries, prepared himself for another step which he had
+long hesitated to take.
+
+He resolved to transfer the Netherlands to his daughter Isabella and to
+the Cardinal Archduke Albert, who, as the king had now decided, was to
+espouse the Infanta.
+
+The deed of cession was signed at Madrid on the 6th May, 1598.  It was
+accompanied by a letter of the same date from the Prince Philip, heir
+apparent to the crown.
+
+On the 30th May the Infanta executed a procuration by which she gave
+absolute authority to her future husband to rule over the provinces of
+the Netherlands, Burgundy, and Charolois, and to receive the oaths of the
+estates and of public functionaries.
+
+     [See all the deeds and documents in Bor, IV.  461-466.  Compare
+     Herrera, iii.  766-770.  Very elaborate provisions were made in
+     regard to the children and grand-children to spring from this
+     marriage, but it was generally understood at the time that no issue
+     was to be expected.  The incapacity of the cardinal seems to have
+     been revealed by an indiscretion of the General of Franciscans--
+     diplomatist and father confessor--and was supported by much
+     collateral evidence.  Hence all these careful stipulations were a
+     solemn jest, like much of the diplomatic work of this reign.]
+
+It was all very systematically done.  No transfer of real estate, no
+'donatio inter vivos' of mansions and messuages, parks and farms, herds
+and flocks, could have been effected in a more business-like manner than
+the gift thus made by the most prudent king to his beloved daughter.
+
+The quit-claim of the brother was perfectly regular.
+
+So also was the power of attorney, by which the Infanta authorised the
+middle-aged ecclesiastic whom she was about to espouse to take possession
+in her name of the very desirable property which she had thus acquired.
+
+It certainly never occurred, either to the giver or the receivers, that
+the few millions of Netherlanders, male and female, inhabiting these
+provinces in the North Sea, were entitled to any voice or opinion as to
+the transfer of themselves and their native land to a young lady living
+in a remote country.  For such was the blasphemous system of Europe at
+that day.  Property had rights.  Kings, from whom all property emanated,
+were enfeoffed directly from the Almighty; they bestowed certain
+privileges on their vassals, but man had no rights at all.  He was
+property, like the ox or the ass, like the glebe which he watered with
+the sweat of his brow.
+
+The obedient Netherlands acquiesced obediently in these new arrangements.
+They wondered only that the king should be willing thus to take from his
+crown its choicest jewels--for it is often the vanity of colonies and
+dependencies to consider themselves gems.
+
+The republican Netherlanders only laughed at these arrangements, and
+treated the invitation to transfer themselves to the new sovereigns of
+the provinces with silent contempt.
+
+The cardinal-archduke left Brussels in September, having accomplished the
+work committed to him by the power of attorney, and having left Cardinal
+Andrew of Austria, bishop of Constantia, son of the Archduke Ferdinand,
+to administer affairs during his absence.  Francis de Mendoza, Admiral of
+Arragon, was entrusted with the supreme military command for the same
+interval.
+
+The double marriage of the Infante of Spain with the Archduchess Margaret
+of Austria, and of the unfrocked Cardinal Albert of Austria with the
+Infanta Clara Eugenia Isabella, was celebrated by proxy, with immense
+pomp, at Ferrara, the pope himself officiating with the triple crown upon
+his head.
+
+Meantime, Philip II., who had been of delicate constitution all his life,
+and who had of late years been a confirmed valetudinarian, had been
+rapidly failing ever since the transfer of the Netherlands in May.
+Longing to be once more in his favourite retirement of the Escorial,
+he undertook the journey towards the beginning of June, and was carried
+thither from Madrid in a litter borne by servants, accomplishing the
+journey of seven leagues in six days.
+
+When he reached the palace cloister, he was unable to stand.  The gout,
+his life-long companion, had of late so tortured him in the hands and
+feet that the mere touch of a linen sheet was painful to him.  By the
+middle of July a low fever had attacked him, which rapidly reduced his
+strength.  Moreover, a new and terrible symptom of the utter
+disintegration of his physical constitution had presented itself.
+Imposthumes, from which he had suffered on the breast and at the joints,
+had been opened after the usual ripening applications, and the result was
+not the hoped relief, but swarms of vermin, innumerable in quantities,
+and impossible to extirpate, which were thus generated and reproduced in
+the monarch's blood and flesh.
+
+The details of the fearful disorder may have attraction for the
+pathologist, but have no especial interest for the general reader.  Let
+it suffice, that no torture ever invented by Torquemada or Peter Titelman
+to serve the vengeance of Philip and his ancestors or the pope against
+the heretics of Italy or Flanders, could exceed in acuteness the agonies
+which the most Catholic king was now called upon to endure.  And not one
+of the long line of martyrs, who by decree of Charles or Philip had been
+strangled, beheaded, burned, or buried alive, ever faced a death of
+lingering torments with more perfect fortitude, or was sustained by more
+ecstatic visions of heavenly mercy, than was now the case with the great
+monarch of Spain.
+
+That the grave-worms should do their office before soul and body were
+parted, was a torment such as the imagination of Dante might have
+invented for the lowest depths of his "Inferno."
+
+     [A great English poet has indeed expressed the horrible thought:--
+
+                   "It is as if the dead could feel
+                    The icy worm about them steal:"--BYRON.]
+
+On the 22nd July, the king asked Dr. Mercado if his sickness was likely
+to have a fatal termination.  The physician, not having the courage at
+once to give the only possible reply, found means to evade the question.
+On the 1st August his Majesty's confessor, father Diego de Yepes, after
+consultation with Mercado, announced to Philip that the only issue to his
+malady was death.  Already he had been lying for ten days on his back, a
+mass of sores and corruption, scarcely able to move, and requiring four
+men to turn him in his bed.
+
+He expressed the greatest satisfaction at the sincerity which had now
+been used, and in the gentlest and most benignant manner signified his
+thanks to them for thus removing all doubts from his mind, and for giving
+him information which it was of so much importance for his eternal
+welfare to possess.
+
+His first thought was to request the papal nuncio, Gaetano, to despatch a
+special courier to Rome to request the pope's benediction.  This was
+done, and it was destined that the blessing of his Holiness should arrive
+in time.
+
+He next prepared himself to make a general confession, which lasted three
+days, father Diego having drawn up at his request a full and searching
+interrogatory.  The confession may have been made the more simple,
+however, by the statement which he made to the priest, and subsequently
+repeated to the Infante his son, that in all his life he had never
+consciously done wrong to any one.  If he had ever committed an act of
+injustice, it was unwittingly, or because he had been deceived in the
+circumstances.  This internal conviction of general righteousness was
+of great advantage to him in the midst of his terrible sufferings, and
+accounted in great degree for the gentleness, thoughtfulness for others,
+and perfect benignity, which, according to the unanimous testimony of
+many witnesses, characterised his conduct during this whole sickness.
+
+After he had completed his long general confession, the sacrament of the
+Lord's Supper was administered to him.  Subsequently, the same rites were
+more briefly performed every few days.
+
+His sufferings were horrible, but no saint could have manifested in them
+more gentle resignation or angelic patience.  He moralized on the
+condition to which the greatest princes might thus be brought at last by
+the hand of God, and bade the prince observe well his father's present
+condition, in order that, when he too should be laid thus low, he might
+likewise be sustained by a conscience void of offence.  He constantly
+thanked his assistants and nurses for their care, insisted upon their
+reposing themselves after their daily fatigues, and ordered others to
+relieve them in their task.
+
+He derived infinite consolation from the many relics of saints, of which,
+as has been seen, he had made plentiful prevision during his long reign.
+Especially a bone of St. Alban, presented to him by Clement VIII., in
+view of his present straits, was of great service.  With this relic, and
+with the arm of St. Vincent of Ferrara, and the knee-bone of St.
+Sebastian, he daily rubbed his sores, keeping the sacred talismans ever
+in his sight on the altar, which was not far from his bed.  He was much
+pleased when the priests and other bystanders assured him that the
+remains of these holy men would be of special efficacy to him, because he
+had cherished and worshipped them in times when misbelievers and heretics
+had treated them with disrespect.
+
+On a sideboard in his chamber a human skull was placed, and upon this
+skull--in ghastly mockery of royalty, in truth, yet doubtless in the
+conviction that such an exhibition showed the superiority of anointed
+kings even over death--he ordered his servants to place a golden crown.
+And thus, during the whole of his long illness, the Antic held his state,
+while the poor mortal representative of absolute power lay living still,
+but slowly mouldering away.
+
+With perfect composure, and with that minute attention to details which
+had characterised the king all his lifetime, and was now more evident
+than ever, he caused the provisions for his funeral obsequies to be read
+aloud one day by Juan Ruys de Velasco, in order that his children, his
+ministers, and the great officers of state who were daily in attendance
+upon him, might thoroughly learn their lesson before the time came for
+performing the ceremony.
+
+"Having governed my kingdom for forty years," said he, "I now give it
+back, in the seventy-first year of my age, to God Almighty, to whom it
+belongs, recommending my soul into His blessed hands, that His Divine
+Majesty may do what He pleases therewith."
+
+He then directed that after his body should have been kept as long as the
+laws prescribed, it should be buried thus:--
+
+The officiating bishop was to head the procession, bearing the crucifix,
+and followed by the clergy.
+
+The Adelantado was to come next, trailing the royal standard along the
+ground.  Then the Duke of Novara was to appear, bearing the crown on an
+open salver, covered with a black cloth, while the Marquis of Avillaer
+carried the sword of state.
+
+The coffin was to be borne by eight principal grandees, clad in mourning
+habiliments, and holding lighted torches.
+
+The heir apparent was to follow, attended by Don Garcia de Loyasa, who
+had just been consecrated, in the place of Cardinal Albert, as Archbishop
+of Toledo.
+
+The body was to be brought to the church, and placed in the stately tomb
+already prepared for its reception.  "Mass being performed," said the
+king, "the prelate shall place me in the grave which shall be my last
+house until I go to my eternal dwelling.  Then the prince, third king of
+my name, shall go into the cloister of St. Jerome at Madrid, where he
+shall keep nine days mourning.  My daughter, and her aunt--my sister,
+the ex-empress--shall for the same purpose go to the convent of the grey
+sisters."
+
+The king then charged his successor to hold the Infanta in especial
+affection and consideration; "for," said he, "she has been my mirror,
+yea; the light of my eyes."  He also ordered that the Marquis of Mondejar
+be taken from prison and set free, on condition never to show himself at
+Court.  The wife of Antonio Perez was also to be released from prison, in
+order that she might be immured in a cloister, her property being
+bestowed upon her daughters.
+
+As this unfortunate lady's only crime consisted in her husband's intrigue
+with the king's mistress, Princess Eboli, in which she could scarcely be
+considered an accomplice, this permission to exchange one form of
+incarceration for another did not seem an act of very great benignity.
+
+Philip further provided that thirty thousand masses should be said for
+his soul, five hundred slaves liberated from the galleys, and five
+hundred maidens provided with marriage portions.
+
+After these elaborate instructions had been read, the king ordered a
+certain casket to be brought to him and opened in his presence.  From
+this he took forth a diamond of great price and gave it to the Infanta,
+saying that it had belonged to her mother, Isabella of France.  He asked
+the prince if he consented to the gift.  The prince answered in the
+affirmative.
+
+He next took from the coffer a written document, which he handed to his
+son, saying, "Herein you will learn how to govern your kingdoms."
+
+Then he produced a scourge, which he said was the instrument with which
+his father, the emperor, had been in the habit of chastising himself
+during his retreat at the monastery of Juste.  He told the by-standers to
+observe the imperial blood by which the lash was still slightly stained.
+
+As the days wore on he felt himself steadily sinking, and asked to
+receive extreme unction.  As he had never seen that rite performed he
+chose to rehearse it beforehand, and told Ruys Velasco; who was in
+constant attendance upon him, to go for minute instructions on the
+subject to the Archbishop of Toledo.  The sacrament having been duly.
+administered; the king subsequently, on the 1st September, desired to
+receive it once more.  The archbishop, fearing that the dying monarch's
+strength would be insufficient for the repetition of the function,
+informed him that the regulations of the Church required in such cases
+only a compliance with certain trifling forms, as the ceremony had been
+already once thoroughly carried out.  But the king expressed himself as
+quite determined that the sacrament should be repeated in all its parts;
+that he should once more--be anointed--to use the phrase of brother
+Francis Neyen--with the oil which holy athletes require in their wrestle
+with death.
+
+This was accordingly done in the presence of his son and daughter, and,
+of his chief secretaries, Christopher de Moura and John de Idiaquez,
+besides the Counts Chinchon, Fuensalido, and several other conspicuous
+personages.  He was especially desirous that his son should be present,
+in order that; when he too should come to die, he might not find himself,
+like his father, in ignorance of the manner in which this last sacrament
+was to be performed.
+
+When it was finished he described himself as infinitely consoled, and as
+having derived even more happiness from the rite than he had dared to
+anticipate.
+
+Thenceforth he protested that he would talk no more of the world's
+affairs.  He had finished with all things below, and for the days or
+hours still remaining to him he would keep his heart exclusively fixed
+upon Heaven.  Day by day as he lay on his couch of unutterable and almost
+unexampled misery, his confessors and others read to him from religious
+works, while with perfect gentleness he would insist that one reader
+should relieve another, that none might be fatigued.
+
+On the 11th September he dictated these words to Christopher de Moura,
+who was to take them to Diego de Yepes, the confessor:--
+
+"Father Confessor, you are in the place of God, and I protest thus
+before His presence that I will do all that you declare necessary for my
+salvation.  Thus upon you will be the, responsibility for my omissions,
+because I am ready to do all."
+
+Finding that the last hour was approaching, he informed Don Fernando de
+Toledo where: he could find some candles of our lady of Montserrat, one
+of which he desered to keep in his hand at the supreme moment.  He also
+directed Ruys de Velasco to take from a special shrine--which he had
+indicated to him six years before--a crucifix which the emperor his
+father had held upon his death-bed.  All this was accomplished according
+to his wish.
+
+He had already made arrangements for his funeral procession, and had
+subsequently provided all the details of his agony.  It was now necessary
+to give orders as to the particulars of his burial.
+
+He knew that decomposition had made such progress even while he was still
+living as to render embalming impossible: He accordingly instructed Don
+Christopher to see his body wrapped in a shroud just as it lay, and to
+cause it to be placed in a well-soldered metallic coffin already
+provided.  The coffin of state, in which the leaden one was to be
+enclosed, was then brought into the chamber by his command, that he might
+see if it was entirely to his taste.  Having examined it, he ordered that
+it should be lined with white satin and ornamented with gold nails and
+lace-work.  He also described a particular brocade of black and gold, to
+be found in the jewelroom, which he desired for the pall.
+
+Next morning he complained to Don Christopher that the Sacrament of the
+Lord's Supper had not been administered to him for several days.  It was
+urged that his strength was deemed insufficient, and that, as he had
+received that rite already four times during his illness, and extreme
+unction twice, it was thought that the additional fatigue might be spared
+him.  But as the king insisted, the sacrament was once more performed and
+prayers were read.  He said with great fervour many times, "Pater, non
+mea voluntas, sed tux fiat."  He listened, too, with much devotion to the
+Psalm, "As the hart panteth for the water-brooks;" and he spoke faintly
+at long intervals of the Magdalen, of the prodigal son, and of the
+paralytic.
+
+When these devotional exercises had been concluded, father Diego
+expressed the hope to him that he might then pass away, for it would be a
+misfortune by temporary convalescence to fall from the exaltation of
+piety which he had then reached.  The remark was heard by Philip with an
+expression of entire satisfaction.
+
+That day both the Infanta and the prince came for the last time to his
+bedside to receive his blessing.  He tenderly expressed his regret to his
+daughter that he had not been permitted to witness her marriage, but
+charged her never to omit any exertion to augment and sustain the holy
+Roman Catholic religion in the Netherlands.  It was in the interest of
+that holy Church alone that he had endowed her with those provinces, and
+he now urged it upon her with his dying breath to impress upon her future
+husband these his commands to both.
+
+His two children took leave of him with tears and sobs: As the prince
+left the chamber he asked Don Christopher who it was that held the key to
+the treasury.
+
+The secretary replied, "It is I, Sir."  The prince demanded that he
+should give it into his hands.  But Don Christopher excused himself,
+saying that it had been entrusted to him by the king, and that without
+his consent he could not part with it.  Then the prince returned to the
+king's chamber, followed by the secretary, who narrated to the dying
+monarch what had taken place.
+
+"You have done wrong," said Philip; whereupon Don Christopher, bowing to
+the earth, presented the key to the prince.
+
+The king then feebly begged those about his bedside to repeat the dying
+words of our Saviour on the cross, in order that he might hear them and
+repeat them in his heart as his soul was taking flight.
+
+His father's crucifix was placed in his hands, and he said distinctly,
+"I die like a good Catholic, in faith and obedience to the holy Roman
+Church."  Soon after these last words had been spoken, a paroxysm,
+followed by faintness, came over him, and he lay entirely still.
+
+They had covered his face with a cloth, thinking that he had already
+expired, when he suddenly started, with great energy, opened his eyes,
+seized the crucifix again from the hand of Don Fernando de Toledo, kissed
+it, and fell back again into agony.
+
+The archbishop and the other priests expressed the opinion that he must
+have had, not a paroxysm, but a celestial vision, for human powers would
+not have enabled him to arouse himself so quickly and so vigorously as he
+had done at that crisis.
+
+He did not speak again, but lay unconsciously dying for some hours, and
+breathed his last at five in the morning of Sunday the 13th September.
+
+His obsequies were celebrated according to the directions which he had so
+minutely given.
+
+               ------------------------------------
+
+These volumes will have been written in vain if it be now necessary to
+recal to my readers the leading events in the history of the man who had
+thus left the world where, almost invisible himself, he had so long
+played a leading part.  It may not be entirely useless, however, to throw
+a parting glance at a character which it has been one of the main objects
+of this work, throughout its whole course, to pourtray.  My theme has
+been the reign of Philip II., because, as the less is included in the
+greater, the whole of that reign, with the exception of a few episodes,
+is included in the vast movement out of which the Republic of the United
+Netherlands was born and the assailed independence of France and England
+consolidated.  The result of Philip's efforts to establish a universal
+monarchy was to hasten the decline of the empire which he had inherited,
+by aggravating the evils which had long made that downfall inevitable.
+
+It is from no abstract hatred to monarchy that I have dwelt with emphasis
+upon the crimes of this king, and upon the vices of the despotic system,
+as illustrated during his lifetime.  It is not probable that the
+military, monarchical system--founded upon conquests achieved by
+barbarians and pirates of a distant epoch over an effete civilization and
+over antique institutions of intolerable profligacy--will soon come to an
+end in the older world.  And it is the business of Europeans so to deal
+with the institutions of their inheritance or their choice as to ensure
+their steady melioration and to provide for the highest interests of the
+people.  It matters comparatively little by what name a government is
+called, so long as the intellectual and moral development of mankind, and
+the maintenance of justice among individuals, are its leading principles.
+A government, like an individual, may remain far below its ideal; but,
+without an ideal, governments and individuals are alike contemptible.
+It is tyranny only--whether individual or popular--that utters its feeble
+sneers at the ideologists, as if mankind were brutes to whom instincts
+were all in all and ideas nothing.  Where intellect and justice are
+enslaved by that unholy trinity--Force; Dogma, and Ignorance--the
+tendency of governments, and of those subjected to them, must of
+necessity be retrograde and downward.
+
+There can be little doubt to those who observe the movements of mankind
+during the course of the fourteen centuries since the fall of the Roman
+Empire--a mere fragment of human history--that its progress, however
+concealed or impeded, and whether for weal or woe, is towards democracy;
+for it is the tendency of science to liberate and to equalize the
+physical and even the intellectual forces of humanity.  A horse and a
+suit of armour would now hardly enable the fortunate possessor of such
+advantages to conquer a kingdom, nor can wealth and learning be
+monopolised in these latter days by a favoured few.  Yet veneration for a
+crown and a privileged church--as if without them and without their close
+connection with each other law and religion were impossible--makes
+hereditary authority sacred to great masses of mankind in the old world.
+The obligation is the more stringent, therefore, on men thus set apart
+as it were by primordial selection for ruling and instructing their
+fellow-creatures, to keep their edicts and their practice in harmony with
+divine justice.  For these rules cannot be violated with impunity during
+along succession of years, and it is usually left for a comparatively
+innocent generation, to atone for the sins of their forefathers.  If
+history does not teach this it teaches nothing, and as the rules of
+morality; whether for individuals or for nations, are simple and devoid
+of mystery; there is the less excuse for governments which habitually and
+cynically violate the eternal law.
+
+Among self-evident truths not one is more indisputable than that which,
+in the immortal words of our Declaration of Independence, asserts the
+right of every human being to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
+happiness; but the only happiness that can be recognised by a true
+statesman as the birthright of mankind is that which comes from
+intellectual and moral development, and from the subjugation of the
+brutal instincts.
+
+A system according to which clowns remain clowns through all the ages,
+unless when extraordinary genius or fortunate accident enables an
+exceptional individual to overleap the barrier of caste, necessarily
+retards the result to which the philosopher looks forward with perfect
+faith.
+
+For us, whose business it is to deal with, and, so far as human
+fallibility will permit, to improve our inevitable form of government-
+which may degenerate into the most intolerable of polities unless we are
+ever mindful that it is yet in its rudimental condition; that, although
+an immense step has been taken in the right direction by the abolition of
+caste, the divorce of Church and State, and the limitation of intrusion
+by either on the domain of the individual, it is yet only a step from
+which, without eternal vigilance, a falling back is very easy; and that
+here, more than in other lands, ignorance of the scientific and moral
+truths on--which national happiness and prosperity depend, deserves
+bitter denunciation--for us it is wholesome to confirm our faith in
+democracy, and to justify our hope that the People will prove itself
+equal to the awful responsibility of self-government by an occasional
+study of the miseries which the opposite system is capable of producing.
+It is for this reason that the reign of the sovereign whose closing
+moments have just been recorded is especially worthy of a minute
+examination, and I still invite a parting glance at the spectacle thus
+presented, before the curtain falls.
+
+The Spanish monarchy in the reign of Philip II.  was not only the most
+considerable empire then existing, but probably the most powerful and
+extensive empire that had ever been known.  Certainly never before had so
+great an agglomeration of distinct and separate sovereignties been the
+result of accident.  For it was owing to a series of accidents--in the
+common acceptation of that term--that Philip governed so mighty a realm.
+According to the principle that vast tracts: of the earth's surface, with
+the human beings feeding upon: them, were transferable in fee-simple from
+one man or woman to another by marriage, inheritance, or gift, a
+heterogeneous collection of kingdoms, principalities, provinces, and:
+wildernesses had been consolidated, without geographical continuity, into
+an artificial union--the populations differing from each other as much as
+human beings can differ, in race, language, institutions, and historical
+traditions, and resembling each other in little, save in being the
+property alike of the same fortunate individual.
+
+Thus the dozen kingdoms of Spain, the seventeen provinces of the
+Netherlands, the kingdoms of the Two Sicilies, the duchy of Milan, and
+certain fortresses and districts of Tuscany, in Europe; the kingdom of
+Barbary, the coast of Guinea, and an indefinite and unmeasured expanse.
+of other territory, in Africa; the controlling outposts and cities all
+along the coast of the two Indian peninsulas, with as much of the country
+as it seemed good to occupy, the straits and the, great archipelagoes, so
+far as they had--been visited'by Europeans, in Asia; Peru, Brazil,
+Mexico, the Antilles--the whole recently discovered fourth quarter of the
+world in short, from the "Land of Fire" in the South to the frozen
+regions of the North--as much territory as the Spanish and Portuguese
+sea-captains could circumnavigate and the pope in the plentitude of his
+power and his generosity could bestow on his fortunate son, in America;
+all this enormous proportion of the habitable globe was the private
+property, of Philip; who was the son of Charles, who was the son of
+Joanna, who was the daughter of Isabella, whose husband was Ferdinand.
+By what seems to us the most whimsical of political arrangements, the
+Papuan islander, the Calabrian peasant, the Amsterdam merchant, the semi-
+civilized Aztec, the Moor of Barbary, the Castilian grandee, the roving
+Camanche, the Guinea negro, the Indian Brahmin, found themselves--could
+they but have known it--fellow-citizens of one commonwealth.  Statutes of
+family descent, aided by fraud, force, and chicane, had annexed the
+various European sovereignties to the crown of Spain; the genius of a
+Genoese sailor had given to it the New World, and more recently the
+conquest of Portugal, torn from hands not strong enough to defend the
+national independence, had vested in the same sovereignty those Oriental
+possessions which were due to the enterprise of Vasco de Gama, his
+comrades and successors.  The, voyager, setting forth from the straits of
+Gibraltar, circumnavigating the African headlands and Cape Comorin, and
+sailing through the Molucca channel and past the isles which bore the
+name of Philip in the Eastern sea, gave the hand at last to his
+adventurous comrade, who, starting from the same point, and following
+westward in the track of Magellaens and under the Southern Cross, coasted
+the shore of Patagonia, and threaded his path through unmapped and
+unnumbered clusters of islands in the Western Pacific; and during this
+spanning of the earth's whole circumference not an inch of land or water
+was traversed that was not the domain of Philip.
+
+For the sea, too, was his as well as the dry land.
+
+From Borneo to California the great ocean was but a Spanish lake, as much
+the king's private property as his fish-ponds at the Escorial with their
+carp and perch.  No subjects but his dared to navigate those sacred
+waters.  Not a common highway of the world's commerce, but a private path
+for the gratification of one human being's vanity, had thus been laid out
+by the bold navigators of the sixteenth century.
+
+It was for the Dutch rebels to try conclusions upon this point, as they
+had done upon so many others, with the master of the land and sea.  The
+opening scenes therefore in the great career of maritime adventure and
+discovery by which these republicans were to make themselves famous will
+soon engage the reader's attention.
+
+Thus the causes of what is called the greatness of Spain are not far to
+seek.  Spain was not a nation, but a temporary and factitious conjunction
+of several nations, which it was impossible to fuse into a permanent
+whole, but over whose united resources a single monarch for a time
+disposed.  And the very concentration of these vast and unlimited,
+powers, fortuitous as it was, in this single hand, inspiring the
+individual, not unnaturally, with a consciousness of superhuman grandeur;
+impelled him to those frantic and puerile efforts to achieve the
+impossible which resulted, in the downfall of Spain.  The man who
+inherited so much material greatness believed himself capable of
+destroying the invisible but omnipotent spirit of religious and political
+liberty in the Netherlands, of trampling out the national existence of
+France and of England, and of annexing those realms to his empire: It has
+been my task to relate, with much minuteness, how miserably his efforts
+failed.
+
+But his resources were great.  All Italy was in his hands, with the
+single exception of the Venetian republic; for the Grand Duke of Florence
+and the so-called republic of Genoa were little more than his vassals,
+the pope was generally his other self, and the Duke of Savoy was his son-
+in-law.  Thus his armies, numbering usually a hundred thousand men, were
+supplied from the best possible sources.  The Italians were esteemed the
+best soldiers for siege; assault, light skirmishing.  The German heavy
+troopers and arquebuseers were the most effective for open field-work,
+and these were to be purchased at reasonable prices and to indefinite
+amount from any of the three or four hundred petty sovereigns to whom
+what was called Germany belonged.  The Sicilian and Neapolitan pikemen,
+the Milanese light-horse, belonged exclusively to Philip, and were used,
+year after year, for more than a generation of mankind, to fight battles
+in which they had no more interest than had their follow-subjects in the
+Moluccas or in Mexico, but which constituted for them personally as
+lucrative a trade on the whole as was afforded them at that day by
+any branch of industry.
+
+Silk, corn, wine, and oil were furnished in profusion from these favoured
+regions, not that the inhabitants might enjoy life, and, by accumulating
+wealth, increase the stock of human comforts and contribute to
+intellectual and scientific advancement, but in order that the proprietor
+of the soil might feed those eternal armies ever swarming from the south
+to scatter desolation over the plains of France, Burgundy, Flanders, and
+Holland, and to make the crown of Spain and the office of the Holy
+Inquisition supreme over the world.  From Naples and Sicily were derived
+in great plenty the best materials and conveniences for ship-building and
+marine equipment.  The galleys and the galley-slaves furnished by these
+subject realms formed the principal part of the royal navy.  From distant
+regions, a commerce which in Philip's days had become oceanic supplied
+the crown with as much revenue as could be expected in a period of gross
+ignorance as to the causes of the true grandeur and the true wealth of
+nations.  Especially from the mines of Mexico came an annual average of
+ten or twelve millions of precious metals, of which the king took twenty-
+five per cent. for himself.
+
+It would be difficult and almost superfluous to indicate the various
+resources placed in the hands of this one personage, who thus controlled
+so large a portion of the earth.  All that breathed or grew belonged to
+him, and most steadily was the stream of blood and treasure poured
+through the sieve of his perpetual war.  His system was essentially a
+gigantic and perpetual levy of contributions in kind, and it is only in
+this vague and unsatisfactory manner that the revenues of his empire can
+be stated.  A despot really keeps no accounts, nor need to do so, for he
+is responsible to no man for the way in which he husbands or squanders
+his own.  Moreover, the science of statistics had not a beginning of
+existence in those days, and the most common facts can hardly be
+obtained, even by approximation.  The usual standard of value, the
+commodity which we call money--gold or silver--is well known to be at
+best a fallacious guide for estimating the comparative wealth--of
+individuals or of nations at widely different epochs.  The dollar of
+Philip's day was essentially the same bit of silver that it is in our
+time in Spain, Naples, Rome, or America, but even should an elaborate
+calculation be made as to the quantity of beef, or bread or broadcloth to
+be obtained for that bit of silver in this or that place in the middle of
+the sixteenth century, the result, as compared with prices now prevalent,
+would show many remarkable discrepancies.  Thus a bushel of wheat at
+Antwerp during Philip's reign might cost a quarter of a dollar, in
+average years, and there have been seasons in our own time when two
+bushels of wheat could have been bought for a quarter of a dollar in
+Illinois.  Yet if, notwithstanding this, we should allow a tenfold value
+in exchange to the dollar of Philip's day, we should be surprised at the
+meagreness of his revenues, of his expenditures, and of the debts which
+at the close of his career brought him to bankruptcy; were the sums
+estimated in coin.
+
+Thus his income was estimated by careful contemporary statesmen at what
+seemed to them the prodigious annual amount of sixteen millions of
+dollars.  He carried on a vast war without interruption during the whole
+of his forty-three years' reign against the most wealthy and military
+nations of Christendom not recognising his authority, and in so doing he
+is said to have expended a sum total of seven hundred millions of
+dollars--a statement which made men's hair stand on their heads.  Yet the
+American republic, during its civil war to repress the insurrection of
+the slaveholders, has spent nominally as large a sum as this every year;
+and the British Empire in time of profound peace spends half as much
+annually.  And even if we should allow sixteen millions to have
+represented the value of a hundred and sixty millions--a purely arbitrary
+supposition--as compared with our times, what are a hundred and sixty,
+millions of dollars, or thirty-three millions of pounds sterling--as the
+whole net revenue of the greatest empire that had ever existed in the
+world, when compared with the accumulated treasures over which civilized
+and industrious countries can now dispose?  Thus the power of levying men
+and materials in kind constituted the chief part of the royal power, and,
+in truth, very little revenue in money was obtained from Milan or Naples,
+or from any of the outlying European possessions of the crown.
+
+Eight millions a year were estimated as the revenue from the eight
+kingdoms incorporated under the general name of Castile, while not more
+than six hundred thousand came from the three kingdoms which constituted
+Arragon.  The chief sources of money receipts were a tax of ten per cent.
+upon sales, paid by the seller, called Alcavala, and the Almoxarifalgo or
+tariff upon both imports and exports.  Besides these imposts he obtained
+about eight hundred thousand dollars a year by selling to his subjects
+the privilege of eating eggs upon fast-days, according to the permission
+granted him by the pope, in the bull called the Cruzada.  He received
+another annual million from the Sussidio and the Excusado.  The first was
+a permission originally given by the popes to levy six hundred thousand
+dollars a year upon ecclesiastical property for equipment of a hundred
+war-galleys against the Saracens, but which had more recently established
+itself as a regular tax to pay for naval hostilities against Dutch and
+English heretics--a still more malignant species of unbelievers in the
+orthodox eyes of the period.  The Excusado was the right accorded to the
+king always to select from the Church possessions a single benefice and
+to appropriate its fruit--a levy commuted generally for four hundred
+thousand dollars a year.  Besides these regular sources of income, large
+but irregular amounts of money were picked up by his Majesty in small
+sums, through monks sent about the country simply as beggars, under no
+special license, to collect alms from rich and poor for sustaining the
+war against the infidels of England and Holland.  A certain Jesuit,
+father Sicily by name, had been industrious enough at one period in
+preaching this crusade to accumulate more than a million and a half, so
+that a facetious courtier advised his sovereign to style himself
+thenceforth king, not of the two, but of the three Sicilies, in honour of
+the industrious priest.
+
+It is worthy of remark that at different periods during Philip's reign,
+and especially towards its close, the whole of his regular revenue was
+pledged to pay the interest, on his debts, save only the Sussidio and the
+Cruzada.  Thus the master of the greatest empire of the earth had at
+times no income at his disposal except the alma he could solicit from his
+poorest subjects to maintain his warfare against foreign miscreants, the
+levy on the Church for war-galleys; and the proceeds of his permission to
+eat meat on Fridays.  This sounds like an epigram, but it is a plain,
+incontestable fact.
+
+Thus the revenues of his foreign dominions being nearly consumed by their
+necessary expenses, the measure of his positive wealth was to be found in
+the riches of Spain.  But Spain at that day was not an opulent country.
+It was impossible that it should be rich, for nearly every law, according
+to which the prosperity of a country becomes progressive; was habitually
+violated.  It is difficult to state even by approximation the amount of
+its population, but the kingdoms united under the crown of Castile were
+estimated by contemporaries to contain eight millions, while the kingdom
+of Portugal, together with those annexed to Arragon and the other
+provinces of the realm, must have numbered half as many.  Here was a
+populous nation in a favoured land, but the foundation of all wealth was
+sapped by a perverted moral sentiment.
+
+Labour was esteemed dishonourable.  The Spaniard, from highest to lowest,
+was proud, ignorant, and lazy.  For a people endowed by nature with many
+noble qualities--courage, temperance, frugality, endurance, quickness of
+perception; a high sense of honour, a reverence for law--the course of
+the national history had proved as ingeniously bad a system of general
+education as could well be invented.
+
+The eternal contests, century after century, upon the soil of Spain
+between the crescent and the cross, and the remembrance of the ancient
+days in which Oriental valour and genius had almost extirpated Germanic
+institutions and Christian faith from the peninsula, had inspired one
+great portion of the masses with a hatred, amounting almost to insanity,
+towards every form of religion except the Church of Rome, towards every
+race of mankind except the Goths and Vandals.  Innate reverence for
+established authority had expanded into an intensity of religious emotion
+and into a fanaticism of loyalty which caused the anointed monarch
+leading true believers against infidels to be accepted as a god.  The
+highest industrial and scientific civilization that had been exhibited
+upon Spanish territory was that of Moors and Jews.  When in the course of
+time those races had been subjugated, massacred, or driven into exile,
+not only was Spain deprived of its highest intellectual culture and its
+most productive labour, but intelligence, science, and industry were
+accounted degrading, because the mark of inferior and detested peoples.
+
+The sentiment of self-esteem, always a national characteristic, assumed
+an almost ludicrous shape.  Not a ragged Biscayan muleteer, not a
+swineherd of Estremadura, that did not imagine himself a nobleman because
+he was not of African descent.  Not a half-starved, ignorant brigand,
+gaining his living on the highways and byways by pilfering or
+assassination, that did not kneel on the church pavement and listen to
+orisons in an ancient tongue, of which he understood not a syllable, with
+a sentiment of Christian self-complacency to which Godfrey of Bouillon
+might have been a stranger.  Especially those born towards the northern
+frontier, and therefore farthest removed from Moorish contamination, were
+proudest of the purity of their race.  To be an Asturian or a Gallician,
+however bronzed by sun and wind, was to be furnished with positive proof
+against suspicion of Moorish blood; but the sentiment was universal
+throughout the peninsula.
+
+It followed as a matter of course that labour of any kind was an
+impeachment against this gentility of descent.  To work was the province
+of Moors, Jews, and other heretics; of the Marani or accursed, miscreants
+and descendants of miscreants; of the Sanbeniti or infamous, wretches
+whose ancestors had been convicted by the Holy Inquisition of listening,
+however secretly, to the Holy Scriptures as expounded by other lips than
+those of Roman priests.  And it is a remarkable illustration of this
+degradation of labour and of its results, that in the reign of Philip
+twenty-five thousand individuals of these dishonoured and comparatively
+industrious classes, then computed at four millions in number in the
+Castilian kingdoms alone, had united in a society which made a formal
+offer to the king to pay him two thousand dollars a head if the name and
+privileges of hidalgo could be conferred upon them.  Thus an
+inconsiderable number of this vilest and most abject of the population--
+oppressed by taxation which was levied exclusively upon the low, and from
+which not only the great nobles but mechanics and other hidalgos were,
+exempt--had been able to earn and to lay by enough to offer the monarch
+fifty millions of dollars to purchase themselves out of semi-slavery into
+manhood, and yet found their offer rejected by an almost insolvent king.
+Nothing could exceed the idleness and the frivolity of the upper classes,
+as depicted by contemporary and not unfriendly observers.  The nobles
+were as idle and as ignorant as their inferiors.  They were not given to
+tournays nor to the delights of the chase and table, but were fond of
+brilliant festivities, dancing, gambling, masquerading, love-making, and
+pompous exhibitions of equipage, furniture, and dress.  These diversions
+--together with the baiting of bulls and the burning of Protestants--made
+up their simple round of pleasures.  When they went to the wars they
+scorned all positions but that of general, whether by land or sea, and as
+war is a trade which requires an apprenticeship; it is unnecessary to
+observe that these grandees were rarely able to command, having never
+learned to obey.  The poorer Spaniards were most honourably employed
+perhaps--so far as their own mental development was concerned--when they
+were sent with pike and arquebus to fight heretics in France and
+Flanders.  They became brave and indomitable soldiers when exported to
+the seat of war, and thus afforded proof--by strenuously doing the
+hardest physical work that human beings can be called upon to perform,
+campaigning year after year amid the ineffable deprivations, dangers, and
+sufferings which are the soldier's lot--that it was from no want of
+industry or capacity that the lower masses of Spaniards in that age were
+the idle, listless, dice-playing, begging, filching vagabonds into which
+cruel history and horrible institutions had converted them at home.
+
+It is only necessary to recal these well-known facts to understand why
+one great element of production--human labour--was but meagrely supplied.
+It had been the deliberate policy of the Government for ages to extirpate
+the industrious classes, and now that a great portion of Moors and Jews
+were exiles and outcasts, it was impossible to supply their place by
+native workmen.  Even the mechanics, who condescended to work with their
+hands in the towns, looked down alike upon those who toiled in the field
+and upon those who, attempted to grow rich by traffic.  A locksmith or a
+wheelwright who could prove four descents of western, blood called
+himself a son of somebody--a hidalgo--and despised the farmer and the
+merchant.  And those very artisans were careful not to injure themselves
+by excessive industry, although not reluctant by exorbitant prices to
+acquire in one or-two days what might seem a fair remuneration for a
+week, and to impress upon their customers that it was rather by way of
+favour that they were willing to serve them at all.
+
+Labour being thus deficient, it is obvious that there could hardly have
+been a great accumulation, according to modern ideas, of capital.  That
+other chief element of national wealth, which is the result of
+generations of labour and of abstinence, was accordingly not abundant.
+And even those accretions of capital, which in the course of centuries
+had been inevitable, were as clumsily and inadequately diffused as the
+most exquisite human perverseness could desire.  If the object of civil
+and political institutions had been to produce the greatest ill to the
+greatest number, that object had been as nearly attained at last in Spain
+as human imperfection permits; the efforts of government and of custom
+coming powerfully to the aid of the historical evils already indicated.
+
+It is superfluous to say that the land belonged not to those who lived
+upon it--but subject to the pre-eminent right of the crown--to a small
+selection of the human species.  Moderate holdings, small farms, peasant
+proprietorship's, were unknown.  Any kind of terrestrial possession; in
+short, was as far beyond the reach of those men who held themselves so
+haughtily and esteemed themselves so inordinately, as were the mountains
+in the moon.
+
+The great nobles--and of real grandees of Spain there were but forty-
+nine, although the number of titled families was much larger--owned all
+the country, except that vast portion of it which had reposed for ages in
+the dead-hand of the Church.  The law of primogeniture, strictly
+enforced, tended with every generation to narrow the basis of society.
+Nearly every great estate was an entail, passing from eldest son to
+eldest son, until these were exhausted, in which case a daughter
+transferred the family possessions to a new house.  Thus the capital of
+the country--meagre at best in comparison with what it might have been,
+had industry been honoured instead of being despised, had the most
+intelligent and most diligent classes been cherished rather than hunted
+to death or into obscure dens like vermin--was concentrated in very few
+hands.  Not only was the accumulation less than it should have been, but
+the slenderness of its diffusion had nearly amounted to absolute
+stagnation.  The few possessors of capital wasted their revenues in
+unproductive consumption.  The millions of the needy never dreamed of the
+possibility of deriving benefit from the capital of the rich, nor would
+have condescended to employ it, nor known how to employ it, had its use
+in any form been vouchsafed to them.  The surface of Spain, save only
+around the few royal residences, exhibited no splendour of architecture,
+whether in town or country, no wonders of agricultural or horticultural
+skill, no monumentsof engineering and constructive genius in roads,
+bridges, docks, warehouses, and other ornamental and useful fabrics, or
+in any of the thousand ways in which man facilitates intercourse among
+his kind and subdues nature to his will.
+
+Yet it can never be too often repeated that it, is only the Spaniard of
+the sixteenth century, such as extraneous circumstances had made him,
+that is here depicted; that he, even like his posterity and his
+ancestors, had been endowed by Nature with some of her noblest gifts.
+Acuteness of intellect, wealth of imagination, heroic qualities of heart,
+and hand, and brain, rarely surpassed in any race, and manifested on a
+thousand battle-fields, and in the triumphs of a magnificent and most
+original literature, had not been able to save a whole nation from the
+disasters and the degradation which the mere words Philip II, and the
+Holy Inquisition suggest to every educated mind.
+
+Nor is it necessary for my purpose to measure exactly the space which
+separated Spain from the other leading monarchies of the day.  That the
+standard of civilization was a vastly higher one in England, Holland, or
+even France--torn as they all were with perpetual civil war--no thinker
+will probably deny; but as it is rather my purpose at this moment to
+exhibit the evils which may spring from a perfectly bad monarchical
+system, as administered by a perfectly bad king, I prefer not to wander
+at present from the country which was ruled for almost half a century by
+Philip II.
+
+Besides the concentration of a great part of the capital of the country
+in a very small number of titled families, still another immense portion
+of the national wealth belonged, as already intimated, to the Church.
+
+There were eleven archbishops, at the head of whom stood the Archbishop
+of Toledo, with the enormous annual revenue of three hundred thousand
+dollars.  Next to him came the Archbishop of Seville, with one hundred
+and fifty thousand dollars yearly, while the income of the others varied
+from fifty thousand to twenty thousand dollars respectively.
+
+There were sixty-two bishops, with annual incomes ranging from fifty
+thousand to six thousand dollars.  The churches, also, of these various
+episcopates were as richly endowed as the great hierarchs themselves.
+But without fatiguing the reader with minute details, it is sufficient to
+say that one-third of the whole annual income of Spain and Portugal
+belonged to the ecclesiastical body.  In return for this enormous
+proportion of the earth's fruits, thus placed by the caprice of destiny
+at their disposal, these holy men did very little work in the world.
+They fed their flocks neither with bread nor with spiritual food.
+They taught little, preached little, dispensed little in charity.
+Very few of the swarming millions of naked and hungry throughout the land
+were clothed or nourished out of these prodigious revenues of the Church.
+The constant and avowed care of those prelates was to increase their
+worldly, possessions, to build up the fortunes of their respective
+families, to grow richer and richer at the expense of the people whom for
+centuries they had fleeced.  Of gross crime, of public ostentatious
+immorality, such as had made the Roman priesthood of that and preceding
+ages loathsome in the sight of man and God, the Spanish Church-
+dignitaries were innocent.  Avarice; greediness, and laziness were
+their characteristics.  It is almost superfluous to say that, while the
+ecclesiastical princes were rolling in this almost fabulous wealth, the
+subordinate clergy, the mob of working priests, were needy, half-starved
+mendicants.
+
+From this rapid survey of the condition of the peninsula it will seem
+less surprising than it might do at first glance that the revenue of the
+greatest monarch of the world was rated at the small amount--even after
+due allowance for the difference of general values between the sixteenth
+and nineteenth centuries--of sixteen millions of dollars.  The King of
+Spain was powerful and redoubtable at home and abroad, because accident
+had placed the control of a variety of separate realms in his single
+hand.  At the same time Spain was poor and weak, because she had lived
+for centuries in violation of the principles on which the wealth and
+strength of nations depend.  Moreover, every one of those subject and
+violently annexed nations hated Spain with undying fervour, while an
+infernal policy--the leading characteristics of which were to sow
+dissensions among the nobles, to confiscate their property on all
+convenient occasions, and to bestow it upon Spaniards and other
+foreigners; to keep the discontented masses in poverty, but to deprive
+them of the power or disposition to unite with their superiors in rank
+in demonstrations against the crown--had sufficed to suppress any
+extensive revolt in the various Italian states united under Philip's
+sceptre.  Still more intense than the hatred of the Italians was the
+animosity which was glowing in every Portuguese breast against the
+Spanish sway; while even the Arragonese were only held in subjection by
+terror, which, indeed, in one form or another, was the leading instrument
+of Philip's government.
+
+It is hardly necessary to enlarge upon the regulations of Spain's foreign
+commerce; for it will be enough to repeat the phrase that in her eyes the
+great ocean from east to west was a Spanish lake, sacred to the ships of
+the king's subjects alone.  With such a simple code of navigation coming
+in aid of the other causes which impoverished the land, it may be
+believed that the maritime traffic of the country would dwindle into the
+same exiguous proportions which characterised her general industry.
+
+Moreover, it should never be forgotten that, although the various
+kingdoms of Spain were politically conjoined by their personal union
+under one despot, they were commercially distinct.  A line of custom-
+houses separated each province from the rest, and made the various
+inhabitants of the peninsula practically strangers to each other.  Thus
+there was less traffic between Castile, Biscay, and Arragon than there
+was between any one of them and remote foreign nations.  The Biscayans,
+for example, could even import and export commodities to and from remote
+countries by sea, free of duty, while their merchandize to and from
+Castile was crushed by imposts.  As this ingenious perversity of positive
+arrangements came to increase the negative inconveniences caused by the
+almost total absence of tolerable roads, canals, bridges, and other means
+of intercommunication, it may be imagined that internal traffic--the very
+life-blood of every prosperous nation--was very nearly stagnant in Spain.
+As an inevitable result, the most thriving branch of national industry
+was that of the professional smuggler, who, in the pursuit of his
+vocation, did his best to aid Government in sapping the wealth of the
+nation.
+
+The whole accumulated capital of Spain, together with the land--in the
+general sense which includes not only the soil but the immovable property
+of a country being thus exclusively owned by the crown, the church, and
+a very small number of patrician families, while the supply of labour
+owing to the special causes which had converted the masses of the people
+into paupers ashamed to work but not unwilling to beg or to rob--was
+incredibly small, it is obvious that, so long as the same causes
+continued in operation, the downfall of the country was a logical result
+from which there was no escape.  Nothing but a general revolution of mind
+and hand against the prevalent system, nothing but some great destructive
+but regenerating catastrophe, could redeem the people.
+
+And it is the condition of the people which ought always to be the
+prominent subject of interest to those who study the records of the Past.
+It is only by such study that we can derive instruction from history,
+and enable ourselves, however dimly and feebly, to cast the horoscope
+of younger nations.  Human history, so far as it has been written, is at
+best a mere fragment; for the few centuries or year-thousands of which
+there is definite record are as nothing compared to the millions of
+unnumbered years during which man has perhaps walked the earth.  It may
+be as practicable therefore to derive instruction from a minute
+examination in detail of a very limited period of time and space, and
+thus to deduce general rules for the infinite future, during which our
+species may be destined to inhabit this planet, as by a more extensive
+survey, which must however be at best a limited one.  Men die, but Man is
+immortal, and it would be a sufficiently forlorn prospect for humanity if
+we were not able to discover causes in operation which would ultimately
+render the system of Philip II. impossible in any part of the globe.
+Certainly, were it otherwise, the study of human history would be the
+most wearisome and unprofitable of all conceivable occupations.  The
+festivities of courts, the magnificence of an aristocracy, the sayings
+and doings of monarchs and their servants, the dynastic wars, the solemn
+treaties; the Ossa upon Pelion of diplomatic and legislative rubbish by
+which, in the course of centuries, a few individuals or combinations of
+individuals have been able to obstruct the march of humanity, and have
+essayed to suspend the operation of elemental laws--all this contains but
+little solid food for grown human beings.  The condition of the brave and
+quickwitted Spanish people in the latter half of the sixteenth century
+gives more matter for reflection and possible instruction.
+
+That science is the hope of the world, that ignorance is the real
+enslaver of mankind, and therefore the natural ally of every form of
+despotism, may be assumed as an axiom, and it was certainly the ignorance
+and superstition of the people upon which the Philippian policy was
+founded.
+
+A vast mass, entirely uneducated, half fed, half clothed, unemployed; and
+reposing upon a still lower and denser stratum--the millions namely of
+the "Accursed," of the Africans, and last and vilest of all, the
+"blessed" descendants of Spanish protestants whom the Holy Office had
+branded with perpetual infamy because it had burned their progenitors--
+this was the People; and it was these paupers and outcasts, nearly the
+whole nation, that paid all the imposts of which the public revenue was
+composed.  The great nobles, priests, and even the hidalgos, were exempt
+from taxation.  Need more be said to indicate the inevitable ruin of both
+government and people?
+
+And it was over such a people, and with institutions like these, that
+Philip II. was permitted to rule during forty-three years.  His power was
+absolute.  With this single phrase one might as well dismiss any attempt
+at specification.  He made war or peace at will with foreign nations.
+He had power of life and death over all his subjects.  He had unlimited
+control of their worldly goods.  As he claimed supreme jurisdiction over
+their religious opinions also, he was master of their minds, bodies, and
+estates.  As a matter of course, he nominated and removed at will every
+executive functionary, every judge, every magistrate, every military or
+civil officer; and moreover, he not only selected, according to the
+license tacitly conceded to him by the pontiff, every archbishop, bishop,
+and other Church dignitary, but, through his great influence at Rome,
+he named most of the cardinals, and thus controlled the election of the
+popes.  The whole machinery of society, political, ecclesiastical,
+military, was in his single hand.  There was a show of provincial
+privilege here and there in different parts of Spain, but it was but the
+phantom of that ancient municipal liberty which it had been the especial
+care of his father and his great-grandfather to destroy.  Most patiently
+did Philip, by his steady inactivity, bring about the decay of the
+last ruins of free institutions in the peninsula.  The councils and
+legislative assemblies were convoked and then wearied out in waiting
+for that royal assent to their propositions and transactions, which was
+deferred intentionally, year after year, and never given.  Thus the time
+of the deputies was consumed in accomplishing infinite nothing, until the
+moment arrived when the monarch, without any violent stroke of state,
+could feel safe in issuing decrees and pragmatic edicts; thus reducing
+the ancient legislative and consultative bodies to nullity, and
+substituting the will of an individual for a constitutional fabric.  To
+criticise the expenses of government or to attempt interference with the
+increase of taxation became a sorry farce.  The forms remained in certain
+provinces after the life had long since fled.  Only in Arragon had the
+ancient privileges seemed to defy the absolute authority of the monarch;
+and it was reserved for Antonio Perez to be the cause of their final
+extirpation.  The grinning skulls of the Chief Justice of that kingdom
+and of the boldest and noblest advocates and defenders of the national
+liberties, exposed for years in the market-place, with the record of
+their death-sentence attached, informed the Spaniards, in language which
+the most ignorant could read, that the crime of defending a remnant of
+human freedom and constitutional law was sure to draw down condign
+punishment.  It was the last time in that age that even the ghost of
+extinct liberty was destined to revisit the soil of Spain.  It mattered
+not that the immediate cause for pursuing Perez was his successful amour
+with the king's Mistress, nor that the crime of which he was formally
+accused was the deadly offence of Calvinism, rather than his intrigue
+with the Eboli and his assassination of Escovedo; for it was in the
+natural and simple sequence of events that the last vestige of law or
+freedom should be obliterated wherever Philip could vindicate his sway.
+It must be admitted, too, that the king seized this occasion to strike a
+decisive blow with a promptness very different from his usual artistic
+sluggishness.  Rarely has a more terrible epigram been spoken by man than
+the royal words which constituted the whole trial and sentence of the
+Chief Justice of Arragon, for the crime of defending the law of his
+country: "You will take John of Lanuza, and you will have his head cut
+off."  This was the end of the magistrate and of the constitution which
+he had defended.
+
+His power, was unlimited.  A man endowed with genius and virtue, and
+possessing the advantages of a consummate education, could have perhaps
+done little more than attempt to mitigate the general misery, and to
+remove some of its causes.  For it is one of the most pernicious dogmas
+of the despotic system, and the one which the candid student of history
+soonest discovers to be false, that the masses of mankind are to look to
+any individual, however exalted by birth or intellect, for their
+redemption.  Woe to the world if the nations are never to learn that
+their fate is and ought to be in their own hands; that their
+institutions, whether liberal or despotic, are the result of the
+national biography and of the national character, not the work of a few
+individuals whose names have been preserved by capricious Accident as
+heroes and legislators.  Yet there is no doubt that, while comparatively
+powerless for good, the individual despot is capable of almost infinite
+mischief.  There have been few men known to history who have been able to
+accomplish by their own exertions so vast an amount of evil as the king
+who had just died.  If Philip possessed a single virtue it has eluded the
+conscientious research of the writer of these pages.  If there are vices
+--as possibly there are from which he was exempt, it is because it is not
+permitted to human nature to attain perfection even in evil.  The only
+plausible explanation--for palliation there is none--of his infamous
+career is that the man really believed himself not a king but a god.  He
+was placed so high above his fellow-creatures as, in good faith perhaps,
+to believe himself incapable of doing wrong; so that, whether indulging
+his passions or enforcing throughout the world his religious and
+political dogmas, he was ever conscious of embodying divine inspirations
+and elemental laws.  When providing for the assassination of a monarch,
+or commanding the massacre of a townfill of Protestants; when trampling
+on every oath by which a human being can bind himself; when laying
+desolate with fire and sword, during more than a generation, the
+provinces which he had inherited as his private property, or in carefully
+maintaining the flames of civil war in foreign kingdoms which he hoped to
+acquire; while maintaining over all Christendom a gigantic system of
+bribery, corruption, and espionage, keeping the noblest names of England
+and Scotland on his pension-lists of traitors, and impoverishing his
+exchequer with the wages of iniquity paid in France to men of all
+degrees, from princes of blood like Guise and Mayenne down to the
+obscurest of country squires, he ever felt that these base or bloody
+deeds were not crimes, but the simple will of the godhead of which he was
+a portion.  He never doubted that the extraordinary theological system
+which he spent his life in enforcing with fire and sword was right, for
+it was a part of himself.  The Holy Inquisition, thoroughly established
+as it was in his ancestral Spain, was a portion of the regular working
+machinery by which his absolute kingship and his superhuman will
+expressed themselves.  A tribunal which performed its functions with a
+celerity, certainty, and invisibility resembling the attributes of
+Omnipotence; which, like the pestilence, entered palace or hovel at will,
+and which smote the wretch guilty or suspected of heresy with a precision
+against which no human ingenuity or sympathy could guard--such an
+institution could not but be dear to his heart.  It was inevitable that
+the extension and perpetuation of what he deemed its blessings throughout
+his dominions should be his settled purpose.  Spain was governed by an
+established terrorism.  It is a mistake to suppose that Philip was
+essentially beloved in his native land, or that his religious and
+political system was heartily accepted because consonant to the national
+character.  On the contrary, as has been shown, a very large proportion
+of the inhabitants were either secretly false to the Catholic faith, or
+descended at least from those who had expiated their hostility to it with
+their lives.  But the Grand Inquisitor was almost as awful a personage;
+as the king or the pope.  His familiars were in every village and at
+every fireside, and from their fangs there was no escape.  Millions of
+Spaniards would have rebelled against the crown or accepted the reformed
+religion, had they not been perfectly certain of being burned or hanged
+at the slightest movement in such a direction.  The popular force in the
+course of the political combinations of centuries seemed at last to have
+been eliminated.  The nobles, exempt from taxation, which crushed the
+people to the earth, were the enemies rather than the chieftains and
+champions of the lower classes in any possible struggle with a crown to
+which they were united by ties of interest as well as of affection, while
+the great churchmen, too, were the immediate dependants and of course the
+firm supporters of the king.  Thus the people, without natural leaders,
+without organisation, and themselves divided into two mutually hostile
+sections, were opposed by every force in the State.  Crown, nobility, and
+clergy; all the wealth and all that there was of learning, were banded
+together to suppress the democratic principle.  But even this would
+hardly have sufficed to extinguish every spark of liberty, had it not
+been for the potent machinery of the Inquisition; nor could that
+perfection of terrorism have become an established institution but for
+the extraordinary mixture of pride and superstition of which the national
+character had been, in the course of the national history, compounded.
+The Spanish portion of the people hated the nobles, whose petty exactions
+and oppressions were always visible; but they had a reverential fear of
+the unseen monarch, as the representative both of the great unsullied
+Christian nation to which the meanest individual was proud to belong, and
+of the God of wrath who had decreed the extermination of all unbelievers.
+The "accursed" portion of the people were sufficiently disloyal at heart,
+but were too much crushed by oppression and contempt to imagine
+themselves men.  As to the Netherlanders, they did not fight originally
+for independence.  It was not until after a quarter of a century of
+fighting that they ever thought of renouncing their allegiance to Philip.
+They fought to protect themselves against being taxed by the king without
+the consent of those constitutional assemblies which he had sworn to
+maintain, and to save themselves and their children from being burned
+alive if they dared to read the Bible.  Independence followed after
+nearly a half-century of fighting, but it would never have been obtained,
+or perhaps demanded, had those grievances of the people been redressed.
+
+Of this perfect despotism Philip was thus the sole administrator.
+Certainly he looked upon his mission with seriousness, and was
+industrious in performing his royal functions.  But this earnestness and
+seriousness were, in truth, his darkest vices; for the most frivolous
+voluptuary that ever wore a crown would never have compassed a thousandth
+part of the evil which was Philip's life-work.  It was because he was a
+believer in himself, and in what he called his religion, that he was
+enabled to perpetrate such a long catalogue of crimes.  When an humble
+malefactor is brought before an ordinary court of justice, it is not
+often, in any age or country, that he escapes the pillory or the gallows
+because, from his own point of view, his actions, instead of being
+criminal, have been commendable, and because the multitude and continuity
+of his offences prove him to have been sincere.  And because anointed
+monarchs are amenable to no human tribunal, save to that terrible assize
+which the People, bursting its chain from time to time in the course of
+the ages, sets up for the trial of its oppressors, and which is called
+Revolution, it is the more important for the great interests of humanity
+that before the judgment-seat of History a crown should be no protection
+to its wearer.  There is no plea to the jurisdiction of history, if
+history be true to itself.
+
+As for the royal criminal called Philip II., his life is his arraignment,
+and these volumes will have been written in vain if a specification is
+now required.
+
+Homicide such as was hardly ever compassed before by one human being was
+committed by Philip when in the famous edict of 1568 he sentenced every
+man, woman, and child in the Netherlands to death.  That the whole of
+this population, three millions or more, were not positively destroyed
+was because no human energy could suffice to execute the diabolical
+decree.  But Alva, toiling hard, accomplished much of this murderous
+work.  By the aid of the "Council of Blood," and of the sheriffs and
+executioners of the Holy Inquisition, he was able sometimes to put eight
+hundred human beings to death in a single week for the crimes of
+Protestantism or of opulence, and at the end of half a dozen years he
+could boast of having strangled, drowned, burned, or beheaded somewhat
+more than eighteen thousand of his fellow-creatures.  These were some of
+the non-combatant victims; for of the tens of thousands who perished
+during his administration alone, in siege and battle, no statistical
+record has been preserved.
+
+In face of such wholesale crimes, of these forty years of bloodshed, it
+is superfluous to refer to such isolated misdeeds as his repeated
+attempts to procure the assassination of the Prince of Orange, crowned at
+last by the success of Balthazar Gerard, nor to his persistent efforts to
+poison the Queen of England; for the enunciation of all these murders or
+attempts at murder would require a repetition of the story which it has
+been one of the main purposes of these volumes to recite.
+
+For indeed it seems like mere railing to specify his crimes.  Their very
+magnitude and unbroken continuity, together with their impunity, give
+them almost the appearance of inevitable phenomena.  The horrible
+monotony of his career stupefies the mind until it is ready to accept the
+principle of evil as the fundamental law of the world.
+
+His robberies, like his murders, were colossal.  The vast, system of
+confiscation set up in the Netherlands was sufficient to reduce
+unnumbered innocent families to beggary, although powerless to break
+the spirit of civil and religious liberty or to pay the expenses of
+subjugating a people.  Not often in the world's history have so many
+thousand individual been plundered by a foreign tyrant for no crime, save
+that they were rich enough to be worth robbing.  For it can never be too
+often repeated that those confiscations and extortions were perpetrated
+upon Catholics as well as Protestants, monarchists as well as rebels; the
+possession of property making proof of orthodoxy or of loyalty well-nigh
+impossible.
+
+Falsehood was the great basis of the king's character, which perhaps
+derives its chief importance, as a political and psychological study,
+from this very fact.  It has been shown throughout the whole course of
+this history, by the evidence of his most secret correspondence, that he
+was false, most of all, to those to whom he gave what he called his
+heart.  Granvelle, Alva, Don John, Alexander Farnese, all those, in
+short, who were deepest in his confidence experienced in succession his
+entire perfidy, while each in turn was sacrificed to his master's
+sleepless suspicion.  The pope himself was often as much the dupe of the
+Catholic monarch's faithlessness as the vilest heretic had ever been.
+Could the great schoolmaster of iniquity for the sovereigns and
+politicians of the south have lived to witness the practice of the
+monarch who had most laid to heart the precepts of the "Prince," he would
+have felt that he had not written in vain, and that his great paragon of
+successful falsehood, Ferdinand of Arragon, had been surpassed by the
+great grandson.  For the ideal perfection of perfidy, foreshadowed by the
+philosopher who died in the year of Philip's birth, was thoroughly
+embodied at last by this potentate.  Certainly Nicholas Macchiavelli
+could have hoped for no more docile pupil.  That all men are vile, that
+they are liars; scoundrels, poltroons, and idiots alike--ever ready to
+deceive and yet easily to be duped, and that he only is fit to be king
+who excels his kind in the arts of deception; by this great maxim of the
+Florentine, Philip was ever guided.  And those well-known texts of
+hypocrisy, strewn by the same hand, had surely not fallen on stony ground
+when received into Philip's royal soul.
+
+"Often it is necessary, in order to maintain power, to act contrary to
+faith, contrary to charity, contrary to humanity, contrary to religion
+.  .  .  .  .  .  A prince ought therefore to have great care that from
+his mouth nothing should ever come that is not filled with those five
+qualities, and that to see and hear him he should appear all piety, all
+faith, all integrity, all humanity, all religion.  And nothing is more
+necessary than to seem to have this last-mentioned quality.  Every one
+sees what you seem, few perceive what you are."
+
+Surely this hand-book of cant had been Philip's 'vade mecum' through his
+life's pilgrimage.
+
+It is at least a consolation to reflect that a career controlled by such
+principles came to an ignominious close.  Had the mental capacity of this
+sovereign been equal to his criminal intent, even greater woe might have
+befallen the world.  But his intellect was less than mediocre.  His
+passion for the bureau, his slavery to routine, his puerile ambition
+personally to superintend details which could have been a thousand times
+better administered by subordinates, proclaimed every day the narrowness
+of his mind.  His diligence in reading, writing, and commenting upon
+despatches may excite admiration only where there has been no opportunity
+of judging of his labours by personal inspection.  Those familiar with
+the dreary displays of his penmanship must admit that such work could
+have been at least as well done by a copying clerk of average capacity.
+His ministers were men of respectable ability, but he imagined himself,
+as he advanced in life, far superior to any counsellor that he could
+possibly select, and was accustomed to consider himself the first
+statesman in the world.
+
+His reign was a thorough and disgraceful failure.  Its opening scene was
+the treaty of Catean Cambresis, by which a triumph over France had been
+achieved for him by the able generals and statesmen of his father, so
+humiliating and complete as to make every French soldier or politician
+gnash his teeth.  Its conclusion was the treaty of Vervins with the same
+power, by which the tables were completely turned, and which was as
+utterly disgraceful to Spain as that of Cateau Cambresis had been to
+France.  He had spent his life in fighting with the spirit of the age--
+that invincible power of which he had not the faintest conception--while
+the utter want of adaptation of his means to his ends often bordered, not
+on the ludicrous, but the insane.
+
+He attempted to reduce the free Netherlands to slavery and to papacy.
+Before his death they had expanded into an independent republic, with a
+policy founded upon religious toleration and the rights of man.  He had
+endeavoured all his life to exclude the Bearnese from his heritage and
+to place himself or his daughter on the vacant throne; before his death
+Henry IV. was the most powerful and popular sovereign that had ever
+reigned in France.  He had sought to invade and to conquer England, and
+to dethrone and assassinate its queen.  But the queen outwitted,
+outgeneralled, and outlived, him; English soldiers and sailors, assisted.
+by their Dutch comrades in arms, accomplished on the shores of Spain what
+the Invincible Armada had in vain essayed against England and Holland;
+while England, following thenceforth the opposite system to that of
+absolutism and the Inquisition, became, after centuries of struggles
+towards the right, the most powerful, prosperous, and enlightened kingdom
+in the world.
+
+His exchequer, so full when he ascended the throne as to excite the awe
+of contemporary financiers, was reduced before his death to a net income
+of some four millions of dollars.  His armies; which had been the wonder
+of the age in the earlier period of his reign for discipline, courage,
+and every quality on which military efficiency depends, were in his later
+years a horde of starving, rebellious brigands, more formidable to their
+commanders than to the foe.  Mutiny was the only organised military
+institution that was left in his dominions, while the Spanish
+Inquisition, which it was the fell purpose of his life from youth upwards
+to establish over the world, became a loathsome and impossible nuisance
+everywhere but in its natal soil.
+
+If there be such a thing as historical evidence, then is Philip II.,
+convicted before the tribunal of impartial posterity of every crime
+charged in his indictment.  He lived seventy-one years and three months,
+he reigned forty-three years.  He endured the martyrdom of his last
+illness with the heroism of a saint, and died in the certainty of
+immortal bliss as the reward of his life of evil.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+A despot really keeps no accounts, nor need to do so
+All Italy was in his hands
+Every one sees what you seem, few perceive what you are
+God of wrath who had decreed the extermination of all unbeliever
+Had industry been honoured instead of being despised
+History is but made up of a few scattered fragments
+Hugo Grotius
+Idle, listless, dice-playing, begging, filching vagabonds
+Ignorance is the real enslaver of mankind
+Innocent generation, to atone for the sins of their forefathers
+Intelligence, science, and industry were accounted degrading
+Labour was esteemed dishonourable
+Man had no rights at all  He was property
+Matters little by what name a government is called
+Moral nature, undergoes less change than might be hoped
+Names history has often found it convenient to mark its epochs
+National character, not the work of a few individuals
+Proceeds of his permission to eat meat on Fridays
+Rarely able to command, having never learned to obey
+Rich enough to be worth robbing
+Seems but a change of masks, of costume, of phraseology
+Selling the privilege of eating eggs upon fast-days
+Sentiment of Christian self-complacency
+Spain was governed by an established terrorism
+That unholy trinity--Force; Dogma, and Ignorance
+The great ocean was but a Spanish lake
+The most thriving branch of national industry (Smuggler)
+The record of our race is essentially unwritten
+Thirty thousand masses should be said for his soul
+Those who argue against a foregone conclusion
+Three or four hundred petty sovereigns (of Germany)
+Utter want of adaptation of his means to his ends
+While one's friends urge moderation
+Whole revenue was pledged to pay the interest, on his debts
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v70
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 71, 1598-1599
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+     Commercial prospects of Holland--Travels of John Huygen van
+     Linschoten Their effect on the trade and prosperity of the
+     Netherlands--Progress of nautical and geographical science--Maritime
+     exploration--Fantastic notions respecting the polar regions--State
+     of nautical science--First arctic expedition--Success of the
+     voyagers--Failure of the second expedition--Third attempt to
+     discover the north-east passage--Discovery of Spitzbergen--
+     Scientific results of the voyage--Adventures in the frozen regions--
+     Death of William Barendz--Return of the voyagers to Amsterdam--
+     Southern expedition against the Spanish power--Disasters attendant
+     upon it--Extent of Dutch discovery.
+
+During a great portion of Philip's reign the Netherlanders, despite their
+rebellion, had been permitted to trade with Spain.  A spectacle had thus
+been presented of a vigorous traffic between two mighty belligerents, who
+derived from their intercourse with each other the means of more
+thoroughly carrying on their mutual hostilities.  The war fed their
+commerce, and commerce fed their war.  The great maritime discoveries at
+the close of the fifteenth century had enured quite as much to the
+benefit of the Flemings and Hollanders as to that of the Spaniards and
+Portuguese, to whom they were originally due.  Antwerp and subsequently
+Amsterdam had thriven on the great revolution of the Indian trade which
+Vasco de Gama's voyage around the Cape had effected.  The nations of the
+Baltic and of farthest Ind now exchanged their products on a more
+extensive scale.  and with a wider sweep across the earth than when the
+mistress of the Adriatic alone held the keys of Asiatic commerce.  The
+haughty but intelligent oligarchy of shopkeepers, which had grown so rich
+and attained so eminent a political position from its magnificent
+monopoly, already saw the sources of its grandeur drying up before its
+eyes, now that the world's trade--for the first time in human history--
+had become oceanic.
+
+In Holland, long since denuded of forests, were great markets of timber,
+whither shipbuilders and architects came from all parts of the world to
+gather the utensils for their craft.  There, too, where scarcely a pebble
+had been deposited in the course of the geological transformations of our
+planet, were great artificial quarries of granite, and marble, and
+basalt.  Wheat was almost as rare a product of the soil as cinnamon, yet
+the granaries of Christendom, and the Oriental magazines of spices and
+drugs, were found chiefly on that barren spot of earth.  There was the
+great international mart where the Osterling, the Turk, the Hindoo, the
+Atlantic and the Mediterranean traders stored their wares and negotiated
+their exchanges; while the curious and highly-prized products of
+Netherland skill--broadcloths, tapestries, brocades, laces, substantial
+fustians, magnificent damasks, finest linens--increased the mass of
+visible wealth piled mountains high upon that extraordinary soil which
+produced nothing and teemed with everything.
+
+After the incorporation of Portugal with Spain however many obstacles
+were thrown in the way of the trade from the Netherlands to Lisbon and
+the Spanish ports.  Loud and bitter were the railings uttered, as we
+know, by the English sovereign and her statesmen against the nefarious
+traffic which the Dutch republic persisted in carrying on with the common
+enemy.  But it is very certain that although the Spanish armadas would
+have found it comparatively difficult to equip themselves without the tar
+and the timber, the cordage, the stores, and the biscuits furnished by
+the Hollanders, the rebellious commonwealth, if excluded from the world's
+commerce, in which it had learned to play so controlling a part, must
+have ceased to exist.  For without foreign navigation the independent
+republic was an inconceivable idea.  Not only would it have been
+incapable of continuing the struggle with the greatest monarch in the
+world, but it might as well have buried itself once and for ever beneath
+the waves from which it had scarcely emerged.  Commerce and Holland were
+simply synonymous terms.  Its morsel of territory was but the wharf to
+which the republic was occasionally moored; its home was in every ocean
+and over all the world.  Nowhere had there ever existed before so large a
+proportion of population that was essentially maritime.  They were born
+sailors--men and women alike--and numerous were the children who had
+never set foot on the shore.  At the period now treated of the republic
+had three times as many ships and sailors as any one nation in the world.
+Compared with modern times, and especially with the gigantic commercial
+strides of the two great Anglo-Saxon families, the statistics both of
+population and of maritime commerce in that famous and most vigorous
+epoch would seem sufficiently meagre.  Yet there is no doubt that in the
+relative estimate of forces then in activity it would be difficult to
+exaggerate the naval power of the young commonwealth.  When therefore,
+towards the close of Philip II.'s reign, it became necessary to renounce
+the carrying trade with Spain and Portugal, by which the communication
+with India and China was effected, or else to submit to the confiscation
+of Dutch ships in Spanish ports, and the confinement of Dutch sailors in
+the dungeons of the Inquisition, a more serious dilemma was presented to
+the statesmen of the Netherlands than they had ever been called upon to
+solve.
+
+For the splendid fiction of the Spanish lake was still a formidable fact.
+Not only were the Portuguese and Spaniards almost the only direct traders
+to the distant East, but even had no obstacles been interposed by
+Government, the exclusive possession of information as to the course of
+trade, the pre-eminent practical knowledge acquired by long experience of
+that dangerous highway around the world at a time when oceanic navigation
+was still in its infancy, would have given a monopoly of the traffic to
+the descendants of the bold discoverers who first opened the great path
+to the world's commerce.
+
+The Hollanders as a nation had never been engaged in the direct trade
+around the Cape of Good Hope.  Fortunately however at this crisis in
+their commercial destiny there was a single Hollander who had thoroughly
+learned the lesson which it was so necessary that all his countrymen
+should now be taught.  Few men of that period deserve a more kindly and
+more honourable remembrance by posterity for their contributions to
+science and the progress of civilization than John Huygen van Linschoten,
+son of a plain burgher of West Friesland.  Having always felt a strong
+impulse to study foreign history and distant nations and customs; he
+resolved at the early age of seventeen "to absent himself from his
+fatherland, and from the conversation of friends and relatives," in order
+to gratify this inclination for self-improvement.  After a residence of
+two years in Lisbon he departed for India in the suite of the Archbishop
+of Goa, and remained in the East for nearly thirteen years.  Diligently
+examining all the strange phenomena which came under his observation and
+patiently recording the results of his researches day by day and year by
+year, he amassed a fund of information which he modestly intended for the
+entertainment of his friends when he should return to his native country.
+It was his wish that "without stirring from their firesides or counting-
+houses" they might participate with him in the gratification and
+instruction to be derived fiom looking upon a world then so strange, and
+for Europeans still so new.  He described the manners and customs, the
+laws, the religions, the social and political institutions, of the
+ancient races who dwelt in either peninsula of India.  He studied the
+natural history, the botany, the geography of all the regions which he
+visited.  Especially the products which formed the material of a great
+traffic; the system of culture, the means of transportation, and the
+course of commerce, were examined by him with minuteness, accuracy, and
+breadth of vision.  He was neither a trader nor a sailor, but a man of
+letters, a scientific and professional traveller.  But it was obvious
+when he returned, rich with the spoils of oriental study during thirteen
+years of life, that the results of his researches were worthy of a wider
+circulation than that which he had originally contemplated.  His work was
+given to the public in the year 1596, and was studied with avidity not
+only by men of science but by merchants and seafarers.  He also added to
+the record of his Indian experiences a practical manual for navigators.
+He described the course of the voyage from Lisbon to the East, the
+currents, the trade-winds and monsoons, the harbours, the islands, the
+shoals, the sunken rocks and dangerous quicksands, and he accompanied
+his work with various maps and charts, both general and special, of land
+and water, rarely delineated before his day, as well as by various
+astronomical and mathematical calculations.  Already a countryman of
+his own, Wagenaar of Zeeland, had laid the mariners of the world under
+special obligation by a manual which came into such universal use that
+for centuries afterwards the sailors of England and of other countries
+called their indispensable 'vade-mecum' a Wagenaar.  But in that text-
+book but little information was afforded to eastern voyagers, because,
+before the enterprise of Linschoten, little was known of the Orient
+except to the Portuguese and Spaniards, by whom nothing was communicated.
+
+The work of Linschoten was a source of wealth, both from the scientific
+treasures which it diffused among an active and intelligent people, and
+the impulse which it gave to that direct trade between the Netherlands
+and the East which had been so long deferred, and which now came to
+relieve the commerce of the republic, and therefore the republic itself,
+from the danger of positive annihilation.
+
+It is not necessary for my purpose to describe in detail the series of
+voyages by way of the Cape of Good Hope which, beginning with the
+adventures of the brothers Houtmann at this period, and with the
+circumnavigation of the world by Olivier van Noord, made the Dutch for
+a long time the leading Christian nation in those golden regions, and
+which carried the United Netherlands to the highest point of prosperity
+and power.  The Spanish monopoly of the Indian and the Pacific Ocean was
+effectually disposed of, but the road was not a new road, nor did any
+striking discoveries at this immediate epoch illustrate the enterprise of
+Holland in the East.  In the age just opening the homely names most dear
+to the young republic were to be inscribed on capes, islands, and
+promontories, seas, bays, and continents.  There was soon to be a "Staten
+Island" both in the frozen circles of the northern and of the southern
+pole, as well as in that favoured region where now the mighty current of
+a worldwide commerce flows through the gates of that great metropolis of
+the western world, once called New Amsterdam.  Those well-beloved words,
+Orange and Nassau, Maurice and William, intermingled with the names of
+many an ancient town and village, or with the simple patronymics of hardy
+navigators or honoured statesmen, were to make the vernacular of the new
+commonwealth a familiar sound in the remotest corners of the earth; while
+a fifth continent, discovered by the enterprise of Hollanders, was soon
+to be fitly baptized with the name of the fatherland.  Posterity has been
+neither just nor grateful, and those early names which Dutch genius and
+enterprise wrote upon so many prominent points of the earth's surface,
+then seen for the first time by European eyes, are no longer known.
+
+The impulse given to the foreign trade of the Netherlands by the
+publication of Linschoten's work was destined to be a lasting one.
+Meantime this most indefatigable and enterprising voyager--one of those
+men who had done nothing in his own estimation so long as aught remained
+to do--was deeply pondering the possibility of a shorter road to the
+opulent kingdoms of Cathay and of China than the one which the genius of
+De Gama had opened to his sovereigns.  Geography as a science was
+manifesting the highest activity at that period, but was still in a
+rudimentary state.  To the Hollanders especially much of the progress
+already made by it was owing.  The maps of the world by Mercator of
+Leyden, published on a large scale, together with many astronomical and
+geographical charts, delineations of exploration, and other scientific
+works, at the magnificent printing establishment of William Blaeuw, in
+Amsterdam, the friend and pupil of Tycho Brahe, and the first in that
+line of typographers who made the name famous, constituted an epoch in
+cosmography.  Another ardent student of geography lived in Amsterdam,
+Peter Plancius by name, a Calvinist preacher, and one of the most zealous
+and intolerant of his cloth.  In an age and a country which had not yet
+thoroughly learned the lesson taught by hundreds of thousands of murders
+committed by an orthodox church, he was one of those who considered the
+substitution of a new dogma and a new hierarchy, a new orthodoxy and a
+new church, in place of the old ones, a satisfactory result for fifty,
+years of perpetual bloodshed.  Nether Torquemada nor Peter Titelmann
+could have more thoroughly abhorred a Jew or a Calvinist than Peter
+Plancius detested a Lutheran, or any other of the unclean tribe of
+remonstranta.  That the intolerance of himself and his comrades was
+confined to fiery words, and was not manifested in the actual burning
+alive of the heterodox, was a mark of the advance made by the mass of
+mankind in despite of bigotry.  It was at any rate a solace to those who
+believed in human progress; even in matters of conscience, that no other
+ecclesiastical establishment was ever likely to imitate the matchless
+machinery for the extermination of heretical vermin which the Church of
+Rome had found in the Spanish Inquisition.  The blasts of denunciation
+from the pulpit of Plancius have long since mingled with empty air and
+been forgotten, but his services in the cause of nautical enterprise and
+geographical science, which formed, as it were, a relaxation to what he
+deemed the more serious pursuits of theology, will endear his name for
+ever to the lovers of civilization.
+
+Plancius and Dr. Francis Maalzoon--the enlightened pensionary of
+Enkhuizen--had studied long and earnestly the history and aspects of the
+oceanic trade, which had been unfolding itself then for a whole century,
+but was still comparatively new, while Barneveld, ever ready to assist in
+the advancement of science, and to foster that commerce which was the
+life of the commonwealth, was most favourably disposed towards projects
+of maritime exploration.  For hitherto, although the Hollanders had been
+among the hardiest and the foremost in the art of navigation they had
+contributed but little to actual discovery.  A Genoese had led the way to
+America, while one Portuguese mariner had been the first to double the
+southern cape of Africa, and another, at the opposite side of the world,
+had opened what was then supposed the only passage through the vast
+continent which, according to ideas then prevalent, extended from the
+Southern Pole to Greenland, and from Java to Patagonia.  But it was
+easier to follow in the wake of Columbus, Gama, or Magellan, than to
+strike out new pathways by the aid of scientific deduction and audacious
+enterprise.  At a not distant day many errors, disseminated by the
+boldest of Portuguese navigators, were to be corrected by the splendid
+discoveries of sailors sent forth by the Dutch republic, and a rich
+harvest in consequence was to be reaped both by science and commerce.  It
+is true, too, that the Netherlanders claimed to have led the way to the
+great voyages of Columbus by their discovery of the Azores.  Joshua van
+den Berg, a merchant of Bruges, it was vigorously maintained, had landed
+in that archipelago in the year 1445.  He had found there, however, no
+vestiges of the human race, save that upon the principal island, in the
+midst of the solitude, was seen--so ran the tale--a colossal statue of a
+man on horseback, wrapped in a cloak, holding the reins of his steed in
+his left hand, and solemnly extending his right arm to the west.  This
+gigantic and solitary apparition on a rock in the ocean was supposed
+to indicate the existence of a new world, and the direction in which it
+was to be sought, but it is probable that the shipwrecked Fleeting was
+quite innocent of any such magnificent visions.  The original designation
+of the Flemish Islands, derived from their first colonization by
+Netherlanders, was changed to Azores by Portuguese mariners, amazed at
+the myriads of hawks which they found there.  But if the Netherlanders
+had never been able to make higher claims as discoverers than the
+accidental and dubious landing upon an unknown shore of a tempest-tost
+mariner, their position in the records of geographical exploration would
+not be so eminent as it certainly is.
+
+Meantime the eyes of Linschoten, Plancius, Maalzoon, Barneveld, and of
+many other ardent philosophers and patriots, were turned anxiously
+towards the regions of the North Pole.  Two centuries later--and still
+more recently in our own day and generation--what heart has not thrilled
+with sympathy and with pride at the story of the magnificent exploits,
+the heroism, the contempt of danger and of suffering which have
+characterized the great navigators whose names are so familiar to the
+world; especially the arctic explorers of England and of our own country?
+The true chivalry of an advanced epoch--recognizing that there can be no
+sublimer vocation for men of action than to extend the boundary of human
+knowledge in the face of perils and obstacles more formidable and more
+mysterious than those encountered by the knights of old in the cause of
+the Lord's sepulchre or the holy grail--they have thus embodied in a form
+which will ever awaken enthusiasm in imaginative natures, the noble
+impulses of our latter civilization.  To win the favour of that noblest
+of mistresses, Science; to take authoritative possession, in her name,
+of the whole domain of humanity; to open new pathways to commerce; to
+elevate and enlarge the human intellect, and to multiply indefinitely the
+sum of human enjoyments; to bring the inhabitants of the earth into
+closer and more friendly communication, so that, after some yet
+unimagined inventions and discoveries, and after the lapse of many years,
+which in the sight of the Omnipotent are but as one day, the human race
+may form one pacific family, instead of being broken up, as are the most
+enlightened of peoples now, into warring tribes of internecine savages,
+prating of the advancement of civilization while coveting each other's
+possessions, intriguing against each other's interests, and thoroughly in
+earnest when cutting each other's throats; this is truly to be the
+pioneers of a possible civilization, compared to which our present
+culture may seem but a poor barbarism.  If the triumphs and joys of the
+battle-field have been esteemed among the noblest themes for poet,
+painter, or chronicler, alike in the mists of antiquity and in the full
+glare of later days, surely a still more encouraging spectacle for those
+who believe in the world's progress is the exhibition of almost infinite
+valour, skill, and endurance in the cause of science and humanity.
+
+It was believed by the Dutch cosmographers that some ten thousand miles
+of voyaging might be saved, could the passage to what was then called the
+kingdoms of Cathay be effected by way of the north.  It must be
+remembered that there were no maps of the unknown regions lying beyond
+the northern headlands of Sweden.  Delineations of continents, islands,
+straits, rivers, and seas, over which every modern schoolboy pores, were
+not attempted even by the hand of fancy.  It was perhaps easier at the
+end of the sixteenth century than it is now, to admit the possibility of
+a practical path to China and India across the pole; for delusions as to
+climate and geographical configuration then prevalent have long since
+been dispelled.  While, therefore, at least as much heroism was required
+then as now to launch into those unknown seas, in hope to solve the dread
+mystery of the North; there was even a firmer hope than can ever be
+cherished again of deriving an immediate and tangible benefit from the
+enterprise.  Plancius and Maalzoon, the States-General and Prince
+Maurice, were convinced that the true road to Cathay would be found by
+sailing north-east.  Linschoten, the man who knew India and the beaten
+paths to India better than any other living Christian, was so firmly
+convinced of the truth of this theory, that he volunteered to take the
+lead in the first expedition.  Many were the fantastic dreams in which
+even the wisest thinkers of the age indulged as to the polar regions.
+Four straits or channels, pierced by a magic hand, led, it was thought,
+from the interior of Muscovy towards the arctic seas.  According to some
+speculators, however, those seas enclosed a polar continent where
+perpetual summer and unbroken daylight reigned, and whose inhabitants,
+having obtained a high degree of culture; lived in the practice of every
+virtue and in the enjoyment of every blessing.  Others peopled these
+mysterious regions with horrible savages, having hoofs of horses and
+heads of dogs, and with no clothing save their own long ears coiled
+closely around their limbs and bodies; while it was deemed almost certain
+that a race of headless men, with eyes in their breasts, were the most
+enlightened among those distant tribes.  Instead of constant sunshine,
+it was believed by such theorists that the wretched inhabitants of that
+accursed zone were immersed in almost incessant fogs or tempests, that
+the whole population died every winter and were only recalled to
+temporary existence by the advent of a tardy and evanescent spring.
+No doubt was felt that the voyager in those latitudes would have to
+encounter volcanoes of fire and mountains of ice, together with land and
+sea monsters more ferocious than the eye of man had ever beheld; but it
+was universally admitted that an opening, either by strait or sea, into
+the desired Indian haven would reveal itself at last.
+
+The instruments of navigation too were but rude and defective compared to
+the beautiful machinery with which modern art and science now assist
+their votaries along the dangerous path of discovery.  The small yet
+unwieldy, awkward, and, to the modern mind, most grotesque vessels in
+which such audacious deeds were performed in the sixteenth and
+seventeenth centuries awaken perpetual astonishment.  A ship of a hundred
+tons burden, built up like a tower, both at stem and stern, and
+presenting in its broad bulbous prow, its width of beam in proportion to
+its length, its depression amidships, and in other sins against symmetry,
+as much opposition to progress over the waves as could well be imagined,
+was the vehicle in which those indomitable Dutchmen circumnavigated the
+globe and confronted the arctic terrors of either pole.  An astrolabe--
+such as Martin Beheim had invented for the Portuguese, a clumsy
+astronomical ring of three feet in circumference--was still the chief
+machine used for ascertaining the latitude, and on shipboard a most
+defective one.  There were no logarithms, no means of determining at sea
+the variations of the magnetic needle, no system of dead reckoning by
+throwing the log and chronicling the courses traversed.  The firearms
+with which the sailors were to do battle with the unknown enemies that
+might beset their path were rude and clumsy to handle.  The art of
+compressing and condensing provisions was unknown.  They had no tea nor
+coffee to refresh the nervous system in its terrible trials; but there
+was one deficiency which perhaps supplied the place of many positive
+luxuries.  Those Hollanders drank no ardent spirits.  They had beer
+and wine in reasonable quantities, but no mention is ever made in the
+journals of their famous voyages of any more potent liquor; and to
+this circumstance doubtless the absence of mutinous or disorderly
+demonstrations, under the most trying circumstances, may in a great
+degree be attributed.
+
+Thus, these navigators were but slenderly provided with the appliances
+with which hazardous voyages have been smoothed by modern art; but they
+had iron hearts, faith in themselves, in their commanders, in their
+republic, and in the Omnipotent; perfect discipline and unbroken
+cheerfulness amid toil, suffering, and danger.  No chapter of history
+utters a more beautiful homily an devotion to duty as the true guiding
+principle of human conduct than the artless narratives which have been
+preserved of many of these maritime enterprises.  It is for these noble
+lessons that they deserve to be kept in perpetual memory.
+
+And in no individual of that day were those excellent qualities more
+thoroughly embodied than in William Barendz, pilot and burgher of
+Amsterdam.  It was partly under his charge that the first little
+expedition set forth on the 5th of June, 1594, towards those unknown
+arctic seas, which no keel from Christendom had ever ploughed, and to
+those fabulous regions where the foot of civilized men had never trod.
+Maalzoon, Plancius, and Balthaser Moucheron, merchant of Middelburg, were
+the chief directors of the enterprise; but there was a difference of
+opinion between them.
+
+The pensionary was firm in the faith that the true path to China would be
+found by steering through the passage which was known to exist between
+the land of Nova Zembla and the northern coasts of Muscovy, inhabited by
+the savage tribes called Samoyedes.  It was believed that, after passing
+those straits, the shores of the great continent would be found to trend
+in a south-easterly direction, and that along that coast it would
+accordingly be easy to make the desired voyage to the eastern ports of
+China.  Plancius, on the contrary, indicated as the most promising
+passage the outside course, between the northern coast of Nova Zembla and
+the pole.  Three ships and a fishing yacht were provided by the cities of
+Enkhuizen, Amsterdam, and by the province of Zeeland respectively.
+Linschoten was principal commissioner on board the Enkhuizen vessel,
+having with him an experienced mariner, Brandt Ijsbrantz by name, as
+skipper.  Barendz, with the Amsterdam ship and the yacht, soon parted
+company with the others, and steered, according to the counsels of
+Plancius and his own convictions; for the open seas of the north.  And in
+that memorable summer, for the first time in the world's history, the
+whole desolate region of Nova Zembla was visited, investigated, and
+thoroughly mapped out.  Barendz sailed as far as latitude 77 deg. and to
+the extreme north-eastern point of the island.  In a tremendous storm off
+a cape, which he ironically christened Consolationhook (Troost-hoek), his
+ship, drifting under bare poles amid ice and mist and tempest, was nearly
+dashed to pieces; but he reached at last the cluster of barren islets
+beyond the utmost verge of Nova Zembla, to which he hastened to affix the
+cherished appellation of Orange.  This, however, was the limit of his
+voyage.  His ship was ill-provisioned, and the weather had been severe
+beyond expectation.  He turned back on the 1st of August, resolving to
+repeat his experiment early in the following year.
+
+Meantime Linschoten, with the ships Swan and Mercury, had entered the
+passage which they called the Straits of Nassau, but which are now
+known to all the world as the Waigats.  They were informed by the
+Samoyedes of the coast that, after penetrating the narrow channel, they
+would find themselves in a broad and open sea.  Subsequent discoveries
+showed the correctness of the statement, but it was not permitted to the
+adventurers on this occasion to proceed so far.  The strait was already
+filled with ice-drift, and their vessels were brought to a standstill,
+after about a hundred and fifty English miles of progress beyond the
+Waigats; for the whole sea of Tartary, converted into a mass of ice-
+mountains and islands, and lashed into violent agitation by a north
+easterly storm, seemed driving down upon the doomed voyagers.  It was
+obvious that the sunny clime of Cathay was not thus to be reached, at
+least upon that occasion.  With difficulty they succeeded in extricating
+themselves from the dangers surrounding them, and emerged at last from
+the Waigats.
+
+On the 15th of August, in latitude 69 deg. 15', they met the ship of
+Barendz and returned in company to Holland, reaching Amsterdam on the
+16th of September.  Barendz had found the seas and coasts visited by him
+destitute of human inhabitants, but swarming with polar bears, with
+seals, with a terrible kind of monsters, then seen for the first time, as
+large as oxen, with almost human faces and with two long tusks protruding
+from each grim and grotesque visage.  These mighty beasts, subsequently
+known as walrusses or sea-horses, were found sometimes in swarms of two
+hundred at a time, basking in the arctic sun, and seemed equally at home
+on land, in the sea, and on icebergs.  When aware of the approach of
+their human visitors, they would slide off an iceblock into the water,
+holding their cubs in their arms, and ducking up and down in the sea as
+if in sport.  Then tossing the young ones away, they would rush upon the
+boats, and endeavour to sink the strangers, whom they instinctively
+recognised as their natural enemies.  Many were the severe combats
+recorded by the diarist of that voyage of Barendz with the walrusses and
+the bears.
+
+The chief result of this first expedition was the geographical
+investigation made, and, with unquestionable right; these earliest arctic
+pilgrims bestowed the names of their choice upon the regions first
+visited by themselves.  According to the unfailing and universal impulse
+on such occasions, the names dear to the fatherland were naturally
+selected.  The straits were called Nassau, the island at its mouth became
+States or Staten Island; the northern coasts of Tartary received the
+familiar appellations of New Holland, New Friesland, New Walcheren; while
+the two rivers, beyond which Linschoten did not advance, were designated
+Swan and Mercury respectively, after his two ships.  Barendz, on his
+part, had duly baptized every creek, bay, islet, and headland of Nova
+Zembla, and assuredly Christian mariner had never taken the latitude of
+77 deg. before.  Yet the antiquary, who compares the maps soon afterwards
+published by William Blaeuw with the charts now in familiar use, will
+observe with indignation the injustice with which the early geographical
+records have been defaced, and the names rightfully bestowed upon those
+terrible deserts by their earliest discoverers rudely torn away.  The
+islands of Orange can still be recognized, and this is almost the only
+vestige left of the whole nomenclature.  But where are Cape Nassau,
+William's Island, Admiralty Island, Cape Plancius, Black-hook, Cross-
+hook, Bear's-hook, Ice-hook, Consolation-hook, Cape Desire, the Straits
+of Nassau, Maurice Island, Staten Island, Enkhuizen Island, and many
+other similar appellations.
+
+The sanguine Linschoten, on his return, gave so glowing an account of the
+expedition that Prince Maurice and Olden-Barneveld, and prominent members
+of the States-General, were infected with his enthusiasm.  He considered
+the north-east passage to China discovered and the problem solved.  It
+would only be necessary to fit out another expedition on a larger scale
+the next year, provide it with a cargo of merchandize suitable for the
+China market, and initiate the direct polar-oriental trade without
+further delay.  It seems amazing that so incomplete an attempt to
+overcome such formidable obstacles should have been considered a decided
+success.  Yet there is no doubt of the genuineness of the conviction by
+which Linschoten was actuated.  The calmer Barendz, and his friend and
+comrade Gerrit de Veer, were of opinion that the philosopher had made
+"rather a free representation" of the enterprise of 1594 and of the
+prospects for the future.
+
+Nevertheless, the general Government, acting on Linschoten's suggestion,
+furnished a fleet of seven ships: two from Enkhuizen, two from Zeeland,
+two from Amsterdam; and a yacht which was to be despatched homeward with
+the news, so soon as the expedition should have passed through the
+straits of Nassau, forced its way through the frozen gulf of Tartary,
+doubled Cape Tabin, and turned southward on its direct course to China.
+The sublime credulity which accepted Linschoten's hasty solution of the
+polar enigma as conclusive was fairly matched by the sedateness with
+which the authorities made the preparations for the new voyage.  So
+deliberately were the broadcloths, linens, tapestries, and other assorted
+articles for this first great speculation to Cathay, via the North Pole,
+stowed on board the fleet, that nearly half the summer had passed before
+anchor was weighed in the Meuse.  The pompous expedition was thus
+predestined to an almost ridiculous failure.  Yet it was in the hands of
+great men, both on shore and sea.  Maurice, Barneveld, and Maalzoon had
+personally interested themselves in the details of its outfitting,
+Linschoten sailed as chief commissioner, the calm and intrepid Barendz
+was upper pilot of the whole fleet, and a man who was afterwards destined
+to achieve an immortal name in the naval history of his country, Jacob
+Heemskerk, was supercargo of the Amsterdam ship.  In obedience to the
+plans of Linschoten and of Maalzoon, the passage by way of the Waigats
+was of course attempted.  A landing was effected on the coast of Tartary.
+Whatever geographical information could be obtained from such a source
+was imparted by the wandering Samoyedes.  On the 2nd of September a party
+went ashore on Staten Island and occupied themselves in gathering some
+glistening pebbles which the journalist of the expedition describes with
+much gravity as a "kind of diamonds, very plentiful upon the island."
+While two of the men were thus especially engaged in a deep hollow, one
+of them found himself suddenly twitched from behind.  "What are you
+pulling at me for, mate?"  he said, impatiently to his comrade as he
+supposed.  But his companion was a large, long, lean white bear, and in
+another instant the head of the unfortunate diamond-gatherer was off and
+the bear was sucking his blood.  The other man escaped to his friends,
+and together a party of twenty charged upon the beast.  Another of the
+combatants was killed and half devoured by the hungry monster before a
+fortunate bullet struck him in the head.  But even then the bear
+maintained his grip upon his two victims, and it was not until his brains
+were fairly beaten out with the butt end of a snaphance by the boldest of
+the party that they were enabled to secure the bodies of their comrades
+and give them a hurried kind of Christian burial.  They flayed the bear
+and took away his hide with them, and this, together with an ample supply
+of the diamonds of Staten Island, was the only merchandize obtained upon
+the voyage for which such magnificent preparations had been made.  For,
+by the middle of September, it had become obviously hopeless to attempt
+the passage of the frozen sea that season, and the expedition returned,
+having accomplished nothing.  It reached Amsterdam upon the 18th of
+November, 1595.
+
+The authorities, intensely disappointed at this almost ridiculous result,
+refused to furnish direct assistance to any farther attempts at arctic
+explorations.  The States-General however offered a reward of twenty-five
+thousand florins to any navigators who might succeed in discovering the
+northern passage, with a proportionate sum to those whose efforts in that
+direction might be deemed commendable, even if not crowned with success.
+
+Stimulated by the spirit of adventure and the love of science far more
+than by the hope of gaining a pecuniary prize, the undaunted Barendz, who
+was firm in the faith that a pathway existed by the north of Nova Zembla
+and across the pole to farthest Ind, determined to renew the attempt the
+following summer.  The city of Amsterdam accordingly, early in the year
+1596, fitted out two ships.  Select crews of entirely unmarried men
+volunteered for the enterprise.  John Cornelisz van der Ryp, an
+experienced sea-captain, was placed in charge of one of the vessels,
+William Barendz was upper pilot of the other, and Heemskerk, "the man who
+ever steered his way through ice or iron," was skipper and supercargo.
+
+The ships sailed from the Vlie on the 18th May.  The opinions of Peter
+Plancius prevailed in this expedition at last; the main object of both
+Ryp and Barendz being to avoid the fatal, narrow, ice-clogged Waigats.
+Although identical in this determination, their views as to the
+configuration of the land and sea, and as to the proper course to be
+steered, were conflicting.  They however sailed in company mainly in a
+N.E.  by N. direction, although Barendz would have steered much more to
+the east.
+
+On the 5th June the watch on deck saw, as they supposed, immense flocks
+of white swans swimming towards the ships, and covering the sea as far as
+the eye could reach.  All hands came up to look at the amazing spectacle,
+but the more experienced soon perceived that the myriads of swans were
+simply infinite fields of ice, through which however they were able to
+steer their course without much impediment, getting into clear sea beyond
+about midnight, at which hour the sun was one degree above the horizon.
+
+Proceeding northwards two days more they were again surrounded by ice,
+and, finding the "water green as grass, they believed themselves to be
+near Greenland."  On the 9th June they discovered an island in latitude,
+according to their observation, 74 deg. 30', which seemed about five
+miles long.  In this neighbourhood they remained four days, having on one
+occasion a "great fight which lasted four glasses" with a polar bear, and
+making a desperate attempt to capture him in order to bring him as a show
+to Holland.  The effort not being successful, they were obliged to take
+his life to save their own; but in what manner they intended, had they
+secured him alive, to provide for such a passenger in the long voyage
+across the North Pole to China, and thence back to Amsterdam, did not
+appear.  The attempt illustrated the calmness, however, of those hardy
+navigators.  They left the island on the 13th June, having baptised it
+Bear Island in memory of their vanquished foe, a name which was
+subsequently exchanged for the insipid appellation of Cherry Island, in
+honour of a comfortable London merchant who seven years afterwards sent a
+ship to those arctic regions.
+
+Six days later they saw land again, took the sun, and found their
+latitude 80 deg. 11'.  Certainly no men had ever been within less than
+ten degrees of the pole before.  On the longest day of the year they
+landed on this newly discovered country, which they at first fancied to
+be a part of Greenland.  They found its surface covered with eternal
+snow, broken into mighty glaciers, jagged with precipitous ice-peaks; and
+to this land of almost perpetual winter, where the mercury freezes during
+ten months in the year, and where the sun remains four months beneath the
+horizon, they subsequently gave the appropriate and vernacular name of
+Spitzbergen.  Combats with the sole denizens of these hideous abodes,
+the polar bears, on the floating ice, on the water, or on land, were
+constantly occurring, and were the only events to disturb the monotony of
+that perpetual icy sunshine, where no night came to relieve the almost
+maddening glare.  They rowed up a wide inlet on the western coast, and
+came upon great numbers of wild-geese sitting on their eggs.  They proved
+to be the same geese that were in the habit of visiting Holland in vast
+flocks every summer, and it had never before been discovered where they
+laid and hatched their eggs.  "Therefore," says the diarist of the
+expedition, "some voyagers have not scrupled to state that the eggs grow
+on trees in Scotland, and that such of the fruits of those trees as fall
+into the water become goslings, while those which drop on the ground
+burst in pieces and come to nothing.  We now see that quite the contrary
+is the case," continues De Veer, with perfect seriousness, "nor is it to
+be wondered at, for nobody has ever been until now where those birds lay
+their eggs.  No man, so far as known, ever reached the latitude of eighty
+degrees before.  This land was hitherto unknown."
+
+The scientific results of this ever-memorable voyage might be deemed
+sufficiently meagre were the fact that the eggs of wild geese did not
+grow on trees its only recorded discovery.  But the investigations made
+into the dread mysteries of the north, and the actual problems solved,
+were many, while the simplicity of the narrator marks the infantine
+character of the epoch in regard to natural history.  When so illustrious
+a mind as Grotius was inclined to believe in a race of arctic men whose
+heads grew beneath their shoulders; the ingenuous mariner of Amsterdam
+may be forgiven for his earnestness in combating the popular theory
+concerning goslings.
+
+On the 23rd June they went ashore again, and occupied themselves, as well
+as the constant attacks of the bears would permit, in observing the
+variation of the needle, which they ascertained to be sixteen degrees.
+On the same day, the ice closing around in almost infinite masses, they
+made haste to extricate themselves from the land and bore southwards
+again, making Bear Island once more on the 1st July.  Here Cornelius Ryp
+parted company with Heemskerk and Barendz, having announced his intention
+to sail northward again beyond latitude 80 deg. in search of the coveted
+passage.  Barendz, retaining his opinion that the true inlet to the
+circumpolar sea, if it existed, would be found N.E. of Nova Zembla,
+steered in that direction.  On the 13th July they found themselves by
+observation in latitude 73 deg., and considered themselves in the
+neighbourhood of Sir Hugh Willoughby's land.  Four days later they were
+in Lomms' Bay, a harbour of Nova Zembla, so called by them from the
+multitude of lomms frequenting it, a bird to which they gave the
+whimsical name of arctic parrots.  On the 20th July the ice obstructed
+their voyage; covering the sea in all directions with floating mountains
+and valleys, so that they came to an anchor off an islet where on a
+former voyage the Hollanders had erected the precious emblem of Christian
+faith, and baptised the dreary solitude Cross Island.  But these
+pilgrims, as they now approached the spot, found no worshippers there,
+while, as if in horrible mockery of their piety, two enormous white bears
+had reared themselves in an erect posture, in order the better to survey
+their visitors, directly at the foot of the cross.  The party which had
+just landed were unarmed, and were for making off as fast as possible to
+their boats.  But Skipper Heemskerk, feeling that this would be death to
+all of them, said simply, "The first man that runs shall have this boat-
+hook of mine in his hide.  Let us remain together and face them off."  It
+was done.  The party moved slowly towards their boats, Heemskerlk
+bringing up the rear, and fairly staring the polar monsters out of
+countenance, who remained grimly regarding them, and ramping about the
+cross.
+
+The sailors got into their boat with much deliberation, and escaped to
+the ship, "glad enough," said De Veer, "that they were alive to tell the
+story, and that they had got out of the cat-dance so fortunately."
+
+Next day they took the sun, and found their latitude 76 deg. 15', and the
+variation of the needle twenty-six degrees.
+
+For seventeen days more they were tossing about in mist and raging snow-
+storms, and amidst tremendous icebergs, some of them rising in steeples
+and pinnacles to a hundred feet above the sea, some grounded and
+stationary, others drifting fearfully around in all directions,
+threatening to crush them at any moment or close in about them and
+imprison them for ever.  They made fast by their bower anchor on the
+evening of 7th August to a vast iceberg which was aground, but just as
+they had eaten their supper there was a horrible groaning, bursting, and
+shrieking all around them, an indefinite succession of awful, sounds
+which made their hair stand on end, and then the iceberg split beneath
+the water into more than four hundred pieces with a crash "such as no
+words could describe."  They escaped any serious damage, and made their
+way to a vast steepled and towered block like a floating cathedral, where
+they again came to anchor.
+
+On the 15th August they reached the isles of Orange, on the extreme
+north-eastern verge of Nova Zembla.  Here a party going ashore climbed to
+the top of a rising ground, and to their infinite delight beheld an open
+sea entirely free from ice, stretching to the S. E.  and E.S.E.  as far
+as eye could reach.  At last the game was won, the passage to Cathay was
+discovered.  Full of joy, they pulled back in their boat to the ship,
+"not knowing how to get there quick enough to tell William Barendz."
+Alas!  they were not aware of the action of that mighty ocean river, the
+Gulf-stream, which was sweeping around those regions with its warm
+dissolving current.
+
+Three days later they returned baffled in their sanguine efforts to sail
+through the open sea.  The ice had returned upon them, setting
+southwardly in obedience to the same impulse which for a moment had
+driven it away, and they found themselves imprisoned again near the "Hook
+of Desire."
+
+On the 25th August they had given up all the high hopes by which they had
+been so lately inspired, and, as the stream was again driving the ice
+from the land, they trusted to sail southward and westward back towards
+the Waigats.  Having passed by Nova Zembla, and found no opening into the
+seas beyond, they were disposed in the rapidly waning summer to effect
+their retreat by the south side of the island, and so through the Straits
+of Nassau home.  In vain.  The catastrophe was upon them.  As they
+struggled slowly past the "Ice-haven," the floating mountains and
+glaciers, impelled by the mighty current, once more gathered around and
+forced them back to that horrible harbour.  During the remaining days of
+August the ship struggled, almost like a living creature, with the perils
+that, beset her; now rearing in the air, her bows propped upon mighty
+blocks, till she absolutely sat erect upon her stern, now lying prostrate
+on her side, and anon righting again as the ice-masses would for a moment
+float away and leave her breathing space and room to move in.  A blinding
+snow-storm was raging the while, the ice was cracking and groaning in all
+directions, and the ship was shrieking, so that the medley of awful
+sights and sounds was beyond the power of language.  "'Twas enough to
+make the hair stand on end," said Gerrit de Veer, "to witness the hideous
+spectacle."
+
+But the agony was soon over.  By the 1st September the ship was hard and
+fast.  The ice was as immoveable as the dry land, and she would not move
+again that year even if she ever floated.  Those pilgrims from the little
+republic were to spend the winter in their arctic harbour.  Resigning
+themselves without a murmur to their inevitable fate, they set about
+their arrangements with perfect good humour and discipline.  Most
+fortunately a great quantity of drift wood, masses of timber, and great
+trees torn away with their roots from distant shores, lay strewn along
+the coast, swept thither by the wandering currents.  At once they
+resolved to build a house in which they might shelter themselves from the
+wild beasts, and from their still more cruel enemy, the cold.  So
+thanking God for the providential and unexpected supply of building
+material and fuel, they lost no time in making sheds, in hauling timber,
+and in dragging supplies from the ship before the dayless winter should
+descend upon them.
+
+Six weeks of steady cheerful labour succeeded.  Tremendous snow-storms,
+accompanied by hurricanes of wind, often filled the atmosphere to
+suffocation, so that no human being could move a ship's length without
+perishing; while, did any of their number venture forth, as the tempest
+subsided, it was often to find himself almost in the arms of a polar bear
+before the dangerous snow-white form could be distinguished moving
+sluggishly through the white chaos.
+
+For those hungry companions never left them so long as the sun remained
+above the horizon, swarming like insects and birds in tropical lands.
+When the sailors put their meat-tubs for a moment out upon the ice a
+bear's intrusive muzzle would forthwith be inserted to inspect the
+contents.  Maddened by hunger, and their keen scent excited by the salted
+provisions, and by the living flesh and blood of these intruders upon
+their ancient solitary domains, they would often attempt to effect their
+entrance into the ship.
+
+On one such occasion, when Heemskerk and two companions were the whole
+garrison, the rest being at a distance sledding wood, the future hero of
+Gibraltar was near furnishing a meal to his Nova Zembla enemies.  It was
+only by tossing sticks and stones and marling-spikes across the ice,
+which the bears would instantly turn and pursue, like dogs at play with
+children, that the assault could be diverted until a fortunate shot was
+made.
+
+Several were thus killed in the course of the winter, and one in
+particular was disembowelled and set frozen upon his legs near their
+house, where he remained month after month with a mass of snow and ice
+accumulated upon him, until he had grown into a fantastic and gigantic
+apparition, still wearing the semblance of their mortal foe.
+
+By the beginning of October the weather became so intensely cold that it
+was almost impossible to work.  The carpenter died before the house was
+half completed.  To dig a grave was impossible, but they laid him in a
+cleft of the ice, and he was soon covered with the snow.  Meantime the
+sixteen that were left went on as they best might with their task, and on
+October 2nd they had a house-raising.  The frame-work was set up, and in
+order to comply with the national usage in such cases, they planted,
+instead of the May-pole with its fluttering streamers, a gigantic icicle
+before their new residence.  Ten days later they moved into the house and
+slept there for the first time, while a bear, profiting by their absence,
+passed the night in the deserted ship.
+
+On the 4th November the sun rose no more, but the moon at first shone day
+and night, until they were once in great perplexity to know whether it
+were midday or midnight.  It proved to be exactly noon.  The bears
+disappeared with the sun, but white foxes swarmed in their stead, and all
+day and night were heard scrambling over their roof.  These were caught
+daily in traps and furnished them food, besides furs for raiment.  The
+cold became appalling, and they looked in each other's faces sometimes in
+speechless amazement.  It was obvious that the extreme limit of human
+endurance had been reached.  Their clothes were frozen stiff.  Their
+shoes were like iron, so that they were obliged to array themselves from
+head to foot in the skins of the wild foxes.  The clocks stopped.  The
+beer became solid.  The Spanish wine froze and had to be melted in
+saucepans.  The smoke in the house blinded them.  Fire did not warm them,
+and their garments were often in a blaze while their bodies were half
+frozen.  All through the month of December an almost perpetual snow-
+deluge fell from the clouds.  For days together they were unable to
+emerge, and it was then only by most vigorous labour that they could
+succeed in digging a passage out of their buried house.  On the night of
+the 7th December sudden death had nearly put an end to the sufferings of
+the whole party.  Having brought a quantity of seacoal from the ship,
+they had made a great fire, and after the smoke was exhausted, they had
+stopped up the chimney and every crevice of the house.  Each man then
+turned into his bunk for the night, "all rejoicing much in the warmth and
+prattling a long time with each other."  At last an unaccustomed
+giddiness and faintness came over them, of which they could not guess the
+cause, but fortunately one of the party had the instinct, before he lost
+consciousness, to open the chimney, while another forced open the door
+and fell in a swoon upon the snow.  Their dread enemy thus came to their
+relief, and saved their lives.
+
+As the year drew to a close, the frost and the perpetual snow-tempest
+became, if that were possible, still more frightful.  Their Christmas was
+not a merry one, and for the first few days of the new year, it was
+impossible for them to move from the house.  On the 25th January, the
+snow-storms having somewhat abated, they once more dug themselves as it
+were out of their living grave, and spent the whole day in hauling wood
+from the shore.  As their hour-glasses informed them that night was
+approaching, they bethought themselves that it was Twelfth Night, or
+Three Kings' Eve.  So they all respectfully proposed to Skipper
+Heemskerk, that, in the midst of their sorrow they might for once have a
+little diversion.  A twelfth-night feast was forthwith ordained.  A
+scanty portion of the wine yet remaining to them was produced.  Two
+pounds weight of flour, which they had brought to make paste with for
+cartridges, was baked into pancakes with a little oil, and a single hard
+biscuit was served out to each man to be sopped in his meagre allowance
+of wine.  "We were as happy," said Gerrit de veer, with simple pathos,
+"as if we were having a splendid banquet at home.  We imagined ourselves
+in the fatherland with all our friends, so much did we enjoy our repast."
+
+That nothing might be omitted, lots were drawn for king, and the choice
+fell on the gunner, who was forthwith proclaimed monarch of Nova Zembla.
+Certainly no men, could have exhibited more undaunted cheerfulness amid
+bears and foxes, icebergs and cold--such as Christians had never
+conceived of before--than did these early arctic pilgrims.  Nor did
+Barendz neglect any opportunity of studying the heavens.  A meridian was
+drawn near the house, on which the compass was placed, and observations
+of various stars were constantly made, despite the cold, with
+extraordinary minuteness.  The latitude, from concurrent measurement of
+the Giant, the Bull, Orion, Aldebaran, and other constellations--in the
+absence of the sun--was ascertained to be a little above seventy-six
+degrees, and the variations of the needle were accurately noted.
+
+On the 24th January it was clear weather and comparatively mild, so that
+Heemskerk, with De Veer and another, walked to the strand.  To their
+infinite delight and surprise they again saw the disk of the sun on the
+edge of the horizon, and they all hastened back with the glad tidings.
+But Barendz shook his head.  Many days must elapse, he said, before the
+declination of the sun should be once more 14 deg., at which point in the
+latitude of 76 deg. they had lost sight of the luminary on the 4th
+November, and at which only it could again be visible.  This, according
+to his calculations, would be on the 10th February.  Two days of mirky
+and stormy atmosphere succeeded, and those who had wagered in support of
+the opinion of Barendz were inclined to triumph over those who believed
+in the observation of Heemskerk.  On the 27th January there was, however,
+no mistake.  The sky was bright, and the whole disk of the sun was most
+distinctly seen by all, although none were able to explain the
+phenomenon, and Barendz least of all.  They had kept accurate diaries
+ever since their imprisonment, and although the clocks sometimes had
+stopped, the hour-glasses had regularly noted the lapse of time.
+Moreover, Barendz knew from the Ephemerides for 1589 to 1600, published
+by Dr. Joseph Scala in Venice, a copy of which work he had brought with
+him, that on the 24th January, 1597, the moon would be seen at one
+o'clock A.M. at Venice, in conjunction with Jupiter.  He accordingly took
+as good an observation as could be done with the naked eye and found that
+conjunction at six o'clock A.M. Of the same day, the two bodies appearing
+in the same vertical line in the sign of Taurus.  The date was thus
+satisfactorily established, and a calculation of the longitude of the
+house was deduced with an accuracy which in those circumstances was
+certainly commendable.  Nevertheless, as the facts and the theory of
+refraction were not thoroughly understood, nor Tycho Brahe's tables of
+refraction generally known, pilot Barendz could not be expected to be
+wiser than his generation.
+
+The startling discovery that in the latitude of 76 deg. the sun
+reappeared on the 24th January, instead of the 10th February, was
+destined to awaken commotion throughout the whole scientific world,
+and has perhaps hardly yet been completely explained.
+
+But the daylight brought no mitigation of their sufferings.  The
+merciless cold continued without abatement, and the sun seemed to mock
+their misery.  The foxes disappeared, and the ice-bears in their stead
+swarmed around the house, and clambered at night over the roof.  Again
+they constantly fought with them for their lives.  Daily the grave
+question was renewed whether the men should feed on the bears or the
+bears on the men.  On one occasion their dead enemy proved more dangerous
+to them than in life, for three of their number, who had fed on bear's
+liver, were nearly poisoned to death.  Had they perished, none of the
+whole party would have ever left Nova Zembla.  "It seemed," said the
+diarist, "that the beasts had smelt out that we meant to go away, and had
+just begin to have a taste for us."
+
+And thus the days wore on.  The hour-glass and the almanac told them
+that winter had given place to spring, but nature still lay in cold
+obstruction.  One of their number, who had long been ill, died.  They
+hollowed a grave for him in the frozen snow, performing a rude burial
+service, and singing a psalm; but the cold had nearly made them all
+corpses before the ceremony was done.
+
+At last, on the 17th April, some of them climbing over the icebergs to
+the shore found much open sea.  They also saw a small bird diving in the
+water, and looked upon it as a halcyon and harbinger of better fortunes.
+The open weather continuing, they began to hanker for the fatherland.  So
+they brought the matter, "not mutinously but modestly and reasonably,
+before William Barendz; that he might suggest it to Heemskerk, for they
+were all willing to submit to his better judgment."  It was determined to
+wait through the month of May.  Should they then be obliged to abandon
+the ship they were to make the voyage in the two open boats, which had
+been carefully stowed away beneath the snow.  It was soon obvious that
+the ship was hard and fast, and that she would never float again, except
+perhaps as a portion of the icebergs in which she had so long been
+imbedded, when they should be swept off from the shore.
+
+As they now set to work repairing and making ready the frail skiffs which
+were now their only hope, and supplying them with provisions and even
+with merchandize from the ship, the ravages made by the terrible winter
+upon the strength of the men became painfully apparent.  But Heemskerk
+encouraged them to persevere; "for," said he, "if the boats are not got
+soon under way we must be content to make our graves here as burghers of
+Nova Zembla."
+
+On the 14th June they launched the boats, and "trusting themselves to
+God," embarked once more upon the arctic sea.  Barendz, who was too ill
+to walk, together with Claas Anderson, also sick unto death, were dragged
+to the strand in sleds, and tenderly placed on board.
+
+Barendz had, however, despite his illness, drawn up a triple record of
+their voyage; one copy being fastened to the chimney of their deserted
+house, and one being placed in each of the boats.  Their voyage was full
+of danger as they slowly retraced their way along the track by which they
+reached the memorable Ice Haven, once more doubling the Cape of Desire
+and heading for the Point of Consolation--landmarks on their desolate
+progress, whose nomenclature suggests the immortal apologue so familiar
+to Anglo-Saxon ears.
+
+Off the Ice-hook, both boats came alongside each other, and Skipper
+Heemskerk called out to William Barendz to ask how it was with him.
+
+"All right, mate," replied Barendz, cheerfully; "I hope to be on my legs
+again before we reach the Ward-huis."  Then' he begged De Veer to lift
+him up, that he might look upon the Ice-hook once more.  The icebergs
+crowded around them, drifting this way and that, impelled by mighty
+currents and tossing on an agitated sea.  There was "a hideous groaning
+and bursting and driving of the ice, and it seemed every moment as if the
+boats were to be dashed into a hundred pieces."  It was plain that their
+voyage would now be finished for ever, were it not possible for some one
+of their number to get upon the solid ice beyond and make fast a line.
+"But who is to bell the cat?" said Gerrit de Veer, who soon, however,
+volunteered himself, being the lightest of all.  Leaping from one
+floating block to another at the imminent risk of being swept off into
+space, he at last reached a stationary island, and fastened his rope.
+Thus they warped themselves once more into the open sea.
+
+On the 20th June William Barendz lay in the boat studying carefully the
+charts which they had made of the land and ocean discovered in their
+voyage.  Tossing about in an open skiff upon a polar sea, too weak to sit
+upright, reduced by the unexampled sufferings of that horrible winter
+almost to a shadow, he still preserved his cheerfulness, and maintained
+that he would yet, with God's help, perform his destined task.  In his
+next attempt he would steer north-east from the North Cape, he said, and
+so discover the passage.
+
+While he was "thus prattling," the boatswain of the other boat came on
+board, and said that Claas Anderson would hold out but little longer.
+
+"Then," said William Barendz, "methinks I too shall last but a little
+while.  Gerrit, give me to drink."  When he had drunk, he turned his eyes
+on De Veer and suddenly breathed his last.
+
+Great was the dismay of his companions, for they had been deceived by
+the dauntless energy of the man, thus holding tenaciously to his great
+purpose, unbaffled by danger and disappointment, even to the last instant
+of life.  He was their chief pilot and guide, "in whom next to God they
+trusted."
+
+And thus the hero, who for vivid intelligence, courage, and perseverance
+amid every obstacle, is fit to be classed among the noblest of maritime
+adventurers, had ended his career.  Nor was it unmeet that the man who
+had led those three great although unsuccessful enterprises towards the
+North Pole, should be laid at last to rest--like the soldier dying in a
+lost battle--upon the field of his glorious labours.
+
+Nearly six weeks longer they struggled amid tempestuous seas.  Hugging
+the shore, ever in danger of being dashed to atoms by the ice, pursued by
+their never-failing enemies the bears, and often sailing through enormous
+herds of walrusses, which at times gave chase to the boats, they at last
+reached the Schanshoek on the 28th July.
+
+Here they met with some Russian fishermen, who recognised Heemskerk and
+De Veer, having seen them on their previous voyage.  Most refreshing it
+was to see other human faces again, after thirteen months' separation
+from mankind, while the honest Muscovites expressed compassion for the
+forlorn and emaciated condition of their former acquaintance.  Furnished
+by them with food and wine, the Hollanders sailed in company with the
+Russians as far as the Waigats.
+
+On the 18th August they made Candenoes, at the mouth of the White Sea,
+and doubling that cape stood boldly across the gulf for Kildin.  Landing
+on the coast they were informed by the Laps that there were vessels from
+Holland at Kola.
+
+On the 25th August one of the party, guided by a Lap, set forth on foot
+for that place.  Four days later the guide was seen returning without
+their comrade; but their natural suspicion was at once disarmed as the
+good-humoured savage straightway produced a letter which he handed to
+Heemakerk.
+
+Breaking the seal, the skipper found that his correspondent expressed
+great surprise at the arrival of the voyagers, as he he had supposed them
+all to be long since dead.  Therefore he was the more delighted with
+their coming, and promised to be with them soon, bringing with him plenty
+of food and drink.
+
+The letter was signed--
+                              "By me, JAN CORNELISZ RYP."
+
+The occurrence was certainly dramatic, but, as one might think,
+sufficiently void of mystery.  Yet, astonishing to relate, they all fell
+to pondering who this John Ryp might be who seemed so friendly and
+sympathetic.  It was shrewdly suggested by some that it might perhaps be
+the sea-captain who had parted company with them off Bear Island fourteen
+months before in order to sail north by way of Spitzbergen.  As his
+Christian name and surname were signed in full to the letter, the
+conception did not seem entirely unnatural, yet it was rejected on the
+ground that they had far more reasons to believe that he had perished
+than he for accepting their deaths as certain.  One might imagine it to
+have been an every day occurrence for Hollanders to receive letters by a
+Lapland penny postman in those, desolate regions.  At last Heemskerk
+bethought himself that among his papers were several letters from their
+old comrade, and, on comparison, the handwriting was found the same as
+that of the epistle just received.  This deliberate avoidance of any
+hasty jumping at conclusions certainly inspires confidence in the general
+right accuracy of the adventurers, and we have the better right to
+believe that on the 24th January the sun's disk was really seen by them
+in the ice harbour--a fact long disputed by the learned world--when the
+careful weighing of evidence on the less important matter of Ryp's letter
+is taken into account.
+
+Meantime while they were slowly admitting the identity of their friend
+and correspondent, honest John Cornelius Ryp himself arrived--no
+fantastic fly-away Hollander, but in full flesh and blood, laden with
+provisions, and greeting them heartily.
+
+He had not pursued his Spitzbergen researches of the previous year, but
+he was now on a trading voyage in a stout vessel, and he conveyed them
+all by way of the Ward-huis, where he took in a cargo, back to the
+fatherland.
+
+They dropped anchor in the Meuse on the 29th October, and on the 1st
+November arrived at Amsterdam.  Here, attired in their robes and caps of
+white fox-skin which they had worn while citizens of Nova Zembla, they
+were straightway brought before the magistrates to give an account of
+their adventures.
+
+They had been absent seventeen months, they had spent a whole autumn,
+winter, and spring--nearly ten months--under the latitude of 76 deg. in a
+frozen desert, where no human beings had ever dwelt before, and they had
+penetrated beyond 80 deg. north--a farther stride towards the pole than
+had ever been hazarded.  They had made accurate geographical,
+astronomical, and meteorological observations of the regions visited.
+They had carefully measured latitudes and longitudes and noted the
+variations of the magnet.  They had thoroughly mapped out, described, and
+designated every cape, island, hook, and inlet of those undiscovered
+countries, and more than all, they had given a living example of courage,
+endurance, patience under hardship, perfect discipline, fidelity, to
+duty, and trust in God, sufficient to inspire noble natures with
+emulation so long as history can read moral lessons to mankind.
+
+No farther attempt was made to discover the north-eastern passage.  The
+enthusiasm of Barendz had died with him, and it may be said that the
+stern negation by which this supreme attempt to solve the mystery of the
+pole was met was its best practical result.  Certainly all visions of a
+circumpolar sea blessed with a gentle atmosphere and eternal
+tranquillity, and offering a smooth and easy passage for the world's
+commerce between Europe and Asia, had been for ever dispelled.
+
+The memorable enterprise of Barendz and Heemskerk has been thought worthy
+of a minute description because it was a voyage of discovery, and
+because, however barren of immediate practical results it may, seem to
+superficial eyes, it forms a great landmark in the history of human
+progress and the advancement of science.
+
+Contemporaneously with these voyages towards the North Pole, the
+enlightened magistrates of the Netherland municipalities, aided by
+eminent private citizens, fitted out expeditions in the opposite
+direction.  It was determined to measure strength with the lord of the
+land and seas, the great potentate against whom these republicans had
+been so long in rebellion, in every known region of the globe.  Both from
+the newly discovered western world, and from the ancient abodes of
+oriental civilization, Spanish monopoly had long been furnishing the
+treasure to support Spanish tyranny, and it was the dearest object of
+Netherland ambition to confront their enemy in both those regions, and
+to clip both those overshadowing wings of his commerce at once.
+
+The intelligence, enthusiasm, and tenacity in wrestling against immense
+obstacles manifested by the young republic at this great expanding era of
+the world's history can hardly be exaggerated.  It was fitting that the
+little commonwealth, which was foremost among the nations in its hatred
+of tyranny, its love of maritime adventure, and its aptitude for foreign
+trade, should take the lead in the great commercial movements which
+characterized the close of the sixteenth and the commencement of the
+seventeenth centuries.
+
+While Barendz and Heemskerk were attempting to force the frozen gates
+which were then supposed to guard the northern highway of commerce,
+fleets were fitting out in Holland to storm the Southern Pole, or at
+least to take advantage of the pathways already opened by the genius and
+enterprise of the earlier navigators of the century.  Linschoten had
+taught his countrymen the value of the technical details of the Indian
+trade as then understood.  The voyages of the brothers Houtmann, 1595-
+1600, the first Dutch expeditions to reach the East by doubling the Cape
+of Good Hope, were undertaken according to his precepts, and directed by
+the practical knowledge obtained by the Houtmanns during a residence in
+Portugal, but were not signalized by important discoveries.  They are
+chiefly memorable as having laid the foundation of the vast trade out of
+which the republic was to derive so much material power, while at the
+same time they mark the slight beginnings of that mighty monopoly, the
+Dutch East India Company, which was to teach such tremendous lessons in
+commercial restriction to a still more colossal English corporation,
+that mercantile tyrant only in our own days overthrown.
+
+At the same time and at the other side of the world seven ships, fitted
+out from Holland by private enterprise, were forcing their way to the
+South Sea through the terrible strait between Patagonia and Fire Land;
+then supposed the only path around the globe.  For the tortuous mountain
+channel, filled with whirlpools and reefs, and the home of perpetual
+tempest, which had been discovered in the early part of the century by
+Magellan, was deemed the sole opening pierced by nature through the
+mighty southern circumpolar continent.  A few years later a daring
+Hollander was to demonstrate the futility of this theory, and to give his
+own name to a broader pathway, while the stormy headland of South
+America, around which the great current of universal commerce was
+thenceforth to sweep, was baptized by the name of the tranquil town in
+West Friesland where most of his ship's company were born.
+
+Meantime the seven ships under command of Jacob Mahu, Simon de Cordes,
+and Sebald de Weerdt; were contending with the dangers of the older
+route.  The expedition sailed from Holland in June, 1598, but already the
+custom was forming itself of directing those navigators of almost unknown
+seas by explicit instructions from those who remained on shore, and who
+had never navigated the ocean at all.  The consequence on this occasion
+was that the voyagers towards the Straits of Magellan spent a whole
+summer on the coast of Africa, amid pestiferous heats and distracting
+calms, and reached the straits only in April of the following year.
+Admiral Mahu and a large proportion of the crew had meantime perished of
+fevers contracted by following the course marked out for them by their
+employers, and thus diminished in numbers, half-stripped of provisions,
+and enfeebled by the exhausting atmosphere of the tropics, the survivors
+were ill prepared to confront the antarctic ordeal which they were
+approaching.  Five months longer the fleet, under command of Admiral de
+Cordes, who had succeeded to the command, struggled in those straits,
+where, as if in the home of Eolus, all the winds of heaven seemed holding
+revel; but indifference to danger, discipline, and devotion to duty
+marked the conduct of the adventurers, even as those qualities had just
+been distinguishing their countrymen at the other pole.  They gathered no
+gold, they conquered no kingdoms, they made few discoveries, they
+destroyed no fleets, yet they were the first pioneers on a path on which
+thereafter were to be many such achievements by the republic.
+
+At least one heroic incident, which marked their departure from the
+straits, deserves to be held in perpetual remembrance.  Admiral de Cordes
+raised on the shore, at the western mouth of the channel, a rude memorial
+with an inscription that the Netherlanders were the first to effect this
+dangerous passage with a fleet of heavy ships.  On the following day, in
+commemoration of the event, he founded an order of knighthood.  The chief
+officers of the squadron were the knights-commanders, and the most
+deserving of the crew were the knights-brethren.  The members of the
+fraternity made solemn oath to De Cordes, as general, and to each other,
+that "by no danger, no necessity, nor by the fear of death, would they
+ever be moved to undertake anything prejudicial to their honour, to, the
+welfare of the fatherland, or to the success of the enterprise in which
+they were engaged; pledging themselves to stake their lives in order,
+consistently with honour, to inflict every possible damage on the
+hereditary enemy, and to plant the banner of Holland in all those
+territories whence the King of Spain gathered the treasures with which he
+had carried on this perpetual war against the Netherlands."
+
+Thus was instituted on the desolate shores of Fire Land the order of
+Knights of the Unchained Lion, with such rude solemnities as were
+possible in those solitudes.  The harbour where the fleet was anchored
+was called the Chevaliers' Bay, but it would be in vain to look on modern
+maps for that heroic appellation.  Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego
+know the honest knights of the Unchained Lion no more; yet to an
+unsophisticated mind no stately brotherhood of sovereigns and patricians
+seems more thoroughly inspired with the spirit of Christian chivalry than
+were those weather-beaten adventurers.  The reefs and whirlwinds of
+unknown seas, polar cold, Patagonian giants, Spanish cruisers, a thousand
+real or fabulous dangers environed them.  Their provisions were already
+running near exhaustion; and they were feeding on raw seal-flesh, on
+snails and mussels, and on whatever the barren rocks and niggard seas
+would supply, to save them from absolutely perishing, but they held their
+resolve to maintain their honour unsullied, to be true to each other and
+to the republic, and to circumnavigate the globe to seek the proud enemy
+of their fatherland on every sea, and to do battle with him in every
+corner of the earth.  The world had already seen, and was still to see,
+how nobly Netherlanders could keep their own.  Meantime disaster on
+disaster descended on this unfortunate expedition.  One ship after
+another melted away and was seen no more.  Of all the seven, only one,
+that of Sebald de Weerdt, ever returned to the shores of Holland.
+Another reached Japan, and although the crew fell into hostile hands, the
+great trade with that Oriental empire was begun.  In a third--the Blyde
+Boodachaft, or Good News--Dirk Gerrits sailed nearer the South Pole than
+man had ever been before, and discovered, as he believed, a portion of
+the southern continent, which he called, with reason good, Gerrit's Land.
+The name in course of time faded from maps and charts, the existence of
+the country was disputed, until more than two centuries later the
+accuracy of the Dutch commander was recognised.  The rediscovered land
+however no longer bears his name, but has been baptized South Shetland.
+
+Thus before the sixteenth century had closed, the navigators of Holland
+had reached almost the extreme verge of human discovery at either pole.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+     Military Operations in the Netherlands--Designs of the Spanish
+     Commander--Siege of Orsoy--Advance upon Rheinberg--Murder of the
+     Count of Broeck and his garrison--Capture of Rees and Emmerich--
+     Outrages of the Spanish soldiers in the peaceful provinces--
+     Inglorious attempt to avenge the hostilities--State of trade in the
+     Provinces--Naval expedition under van der Does--Arrival of Albert
+     and Isabella at Brussels--Military operations of Prince Maurice--
+     Negotiation between London and Brussels--Henry's determination to
+     enact the Council of Trent--His projected marriage--Queen Elizabeth
+     and Envoy Caron--Peace proposals of Spain to Elizabeth--Conferences
+     at Gertruydenberg--Uncertain state of affairs.
+
+The military operations in the Netherlands during the whole year 1598
+were on a comparatively small scale and languidly conducted.  The States
+were exhausted by the demands made upon the treasury, and baffled by the
+disingenuous policy of their allies.  The cardinal-archduke, on the other
+hand, was occupied with the great events of his marriage, of his father-
+in-law's death, and of his own succession in conjunction with
+his wife to the sovereignty of the provinces.
+
+In the autumn, however, the Admiral of Arragon, who, as has been stated,
+was chief military commander during the absence of Albert, collected an
+army of twenty-five thousand foot and two thousand cavalry, crossed the
+Meuse at Roermond, and made his appearance before a small town called
+Orsoy, on the Rhine.  It was his intention to invade the duchies of
+Clever, Juliers, and Berg, taking advantage of the supposed madness of
+the duke, and of the Spanish inclinations of his chief counsellors, who
+constituted a kind of regency.  By obtaining possession of these
+important provinces--wedged as they were between the territory of the
+republic, the obedient Netherlands, and Germany--an excellent military
+position would be gained for making war upon the rebellious districts
+from the east, for crushing Protestantism in the duchies, for holding
+important passages of the Rhine, and for circumventing the designs of the
+Protestant sons-in-law and daughters of the old Duke of Cleves.  Of
+course, it was the determination of Maurice and the States-General to
+frustrate these operations.  German and Dutch Protestantism gave battle
+on this neutral ground to the omnipotent tyranny of the papacy and Spain.
+
+Unfortunately, Maurice had but a very slender force that autumn at his
+command.  Fifteen hundred horse and six thousand infantry were all his
+effective troops, and with these he took the field to defend the borders
+of the republic, and to out-manceuvre, so far as it might lie in his
+power, the admiral with his far-reaching and entirely unscrupulous
+designs.
+
+With six thousand Spanish veterans, two thousand Italians, and many
+Walloon and German regiments under Bucquoy, Hachincourt, La Bourlotte,
+Stanley, and Frederic van den Berg, the admiral had reached the frontiers
+of the mad duke's territory.  Orsoy was garrisoned by a small company of
+"cocks' feathers," or country squires, and their followers.
+
+Presenting himself in person before the walls of the town, with a priest
+at his right hand and a hangman holding a bundle of halters at the other,
+he desired to be informed whether the governor would prefer to surrender
+or to hang with his whole garrison.  The cock feathers surrendered.
+The admiral garrisoned and fortified Orsoy as a basis and advanced upon
+Rheinberg, first surprising the Count of Broeck in his castle, who was at
+once murdered in cold blood with his little garrison.
+
+He took Burik on the 11th October, Rheinberg on the 15th of the same
+month, and compounded with Wesel for a hundred and twenty thousand
+florins.  Leaving garrisons in these and a few other captured places, he
+crossed the Lippe, came to Borhold, and ravaged the whole country side.
+His troops being clamorous for pay were only too eager to levy black-mail
+on this neutral territory.  The submission of the authorities to this
+treatment brought upon them a reproach of violation of neutrality by the
+States-General; the Governments of Munster and of the duchies being
+informed that, if they aided and abetted the one belligerent, they must
+expect to be treated as enemies by the other.
+
+The admiral took Rees on the 30th October, and Emmerich on the 2nd
+November--two principal cities of Cleves.  On the 8th November he crossed
+into the territory of the republic and captured Deutekom, after a very
+short siege.  Maurice, by precaution, occupied Sevenaer in Cleves.  The
+prince--whose difficult task was to follow up and observe an enemy by
+whom he was outnumbered nearly four to one, to harass him by skirmishes,
+to make forays on his communications, to seize important points before he
+could reach them, to impose upon him by an appearance of far greater
+force than the republican army could actually boast, to protect the
+cities of the frontier like Zutphen, Lochem, and Doesburg, and to prevent
+him from attempting an invasion of the United Provinces in force, by
+crossing any of the rivers, either in the autumn or after the winter's
+ice had made them passable for the Spanish army-succeeded admirably in
+all his strategy.  The admiral never ventured to attack him, for fear of
+risking a defeat of his whole army by an antagonist whom he ought to have
+swallowed at a mouthful, relinquished all designs upon the republic,
+passed into Munster, Cleves, and Berg, and during the whole horrible
+winter converted those peaceful provinces into a hell.  No outrage which
+even a Spanish army could inflict was spared the miserable inhabitants.
+Cities and villages were sacked and burned, the whole country was placed
+under the law of black-mail.  The places of worship, mainly Protestant,
+were all converted at a blow of the sword into Catholic churches.  Men
+were hanged, butchered, tossed in sport from the tops of steeples,
+burned, and buried alive.  Women of every rank were subjected by
+thousands to outrage too foul and too cruel for any but fiends or Spanish
+soldiers to imagine.
+
+Such was the lot of thousands of innocent men and women at the hands of
+Philip's soldiers in a country at peace with Philip, at the very moment
+when that monarch was protesting with a seraphic smile on his expiring
+lips that he had never in his whole life done injury to a single human
+being.
+
+In vain did the victims call aloud upon their sovereign, the Emperor
+Rudolph.  The Spaniards laughed the feeble imperial mandates to scorn,
+and spurned the word neutrality.  "Oh, poor Roman Empire!" cried John
+Fontanus, "how art thou fallen!  Thy protector has become thy despoiler,
+and, although thy members see this and know it, they sleep through it
+all.  One day they may have a terrible awakening from their slumbers
+.  .  .  .  .  .  .  The Admiral of Arragon has entirely changed the
+character of the war, recognizes no neutrality, saying that there must be
+but one God, one pope, and one king, and that they who object to this
+arrangement must be extirpated with fire and sword, let them be where
+they may."
+
+The admiral, at least, thoroughly respected the claims of the dead Philip
+to universal monarchy.
+
+Maurice gained as much credit by the defensive strategy through which he
+saved the republic from the horrors thus aficting its neighbours, as he
+had ever done by his most brilliant victories.  Queen Elizabeth was
+enchanted with the prowess of the prince, and with the sagacious
+administration of those republican magistrates whom she never failed to
+respect, even when most inclined to quarrel with them.  "Never before was
+it written or heard of," said the queen, "that so great an extent of
+country could be defended with so few troops, that an invasion of so
+superior a hostile force could be prevented, especially as it appeared
+that all the streams and rivers were frozen."  This, she added, was owing
+to the wise and far-seeing counsels of the States-General, and to the
+faithful diligence of their military commander, who now, as she declared,
+deserved the title of the first captain of all Christendom.
+
+A period of languor and exhaustion succeeded.  The armies of the States
+had dwindled to an effective force of scarcely four or five thousand men,
+while the new levies came in but slowly.  The taxation, on the other
+hand, was very severe.  The quotas for the provinces had risen to the
+amount of five million eight hundred thousand florins for the year 1599,
+against an income of four millions six hundred thousand, and this deficit
+went on increasing, notwithstanding a new tax of one-half per cent. on
+the capital of all estates above three thousand florins in value, and
+another of two and a half per cent. on all sales of real property.  The
+finances of the obedient provinces were in a still worse condition, and
+during the absence of the cardinal-archduke an almost universal mutiny,
+occasioned by the inability of the exchequer to provide payment for the
+troops, established itself throughout Flanders and Brabant.  There was
+much recrimination on the subject of the invasion of the Rhenish duchies,
+and a war of pamphlets and manifestos between the archduke's Government
+and the States-General succeeded to those active military operations by
+which so much misery had been inflicted on the unfortunate inhabitants of
+that border land.  There was a slight attempt on the part of the Princes
+of Brunswick, Hesse, and Brandenburg to counteract and to punish the
+hostilities of the Spanish troops committed upon German soil.  An army
+--very slowly organized, against the wishes of the emperor, the bishops,
+and the Catholic party--took the field, and made a feeble demonstration
+upon Rheinberg and upon Rees entirely without result and then disbanded
+itself ingloriously.
+
+Meantime the admiral had withdrawn from German territory, and was amusing
+himself with a variety of blows aimed at vital points of the republic.
+An excursion into the Isle of Bommel was not crowned with much success.
+The assault on the city was repulsed.  The fortress of Crevecoeur was,
+however, taken, and the fort of St. Andrew constructed--in spite of the
+attempts of the States to frustrate the design--at a point commanding the
+course of both the Waal and the Meuse.  Having placed a considerable
+garrison in each of those strongholds, the admiral discontinued his
+labours and went into winter-quarters.
+
+The States-General for political reasons were urgent that Prince Maurice
+should undertake some important enterprise, but the stadholder, sustained
+by the opinion of his cousin Lewis William, resisted the pressure.  The
+armies of the Commonwealth were still too slender in numbers and too
+widely scattered for active service on a large scale, and the season for
+active campaigning was wisely suffered to pass without making any attempt
+of magnitude during the year.
+
+The trade of the provinces, moreover, was very much hampered, and their
+revenues sadly diminished by the severe prohibitions which had succeeded
+to the remarkable indulgence hitherto accorded to foreign commerce.
+Edicts in the name of the King of Spain and of the Archdukes Albert and
+Isabella, forbidding all intercourse between the rebellious provinces and
+the obedient Netherlands or any of the Spanish possessions, were met by
+countervailing decrees of the States-General.  Free trade with its
+enemies and with all the world, by means of which the commonwealth had
+prospered in spite of perpetual war, was now for a season destroyed, and
+the immediate results were at once visible in its diminished resources.
+To employ a portion of the maritime energies of the Hollanders and
+Zeelanders, thus temporarily deprived of a sufficient field, a naval
+expedition of seventy-five war vessels under Admiral van der Does was
+fitted out, but met with very trifling success.  They attacked and
+plundered the settlements and forts of the Canary Islands, inflicted much
+damage on the inhabitants, sailed thence to the Isle of St. Thomas, near
+the equator, where the towns and villages were sacked and burned, and
+where a contagious sickness broke out in the fleet, sweeping off in a
+very brief period a large proportion of the crew.  The admiral himself
+fell a victim to the disease and was buried on the island.  The fleet put
+to sea again under Admiral Storm van Wena, but the sickness pursued the
+adventurers on their voyage towards Brazil, one thousand of them dying at
+sea in fifteen days.  At Brazil they accomplished nothing, and, on their
+homeward voyage, not only the new commander succumbed to the same
+contagion, but the mortality continued to so extraordinary an extent
+that, on the arrival of the expedition late in the winter in Holland,
+there were but two captains left alive, and, in many of the vessels, not
+more than six sound men to each.  Nothing could be more wretched than
+this termination of a great and expensive voyage, which had occasioned
+such high hopes throughout the provinces; nothing more dismal than the
+political atmosphere which surrounded the republic during the months
+which immediately ensued.  It was obvious to Barneveld and the other
+leading personages, in whose hands was the administration of affairs,
+that a great military success was absolutely indispensable, if the
+treacherous cry of peace, when peace was really impossible, should
+not become universal and fatal.
+
+Meantime affairs were not much more cheerful in the obedient provinces.
+Archduke Albert arrived with his bride in the early days of September,
+1599, at Brussels, and was received with great pomp and enthusiastic
+rejoicings.  When are pomp and enthusiasm not to be obtained by imperial
+personages, at brief notice and in vast quantities, if managers
+understand their business?  After all, it may be doubted whether the
+theatrical display was as splendid as that which marked the beginning of
+the Ernestian era.  Schoolmaster Houwaerts had surpassed himself on that
+occasion, and was no longer capable of deifying the new sovereign as
+thoroughly as he had deified his brother.
+
+Much real discontent followed close upon the fictitious enthusiasm.  The
+obedient provinces were poor and forlorn, and men murmured loudly at the
+enormous extravagance of their new master's housekeeping.  There were one
+hundred and fifty mules, and as many horses in their sovereign's stables,
+while the expense of feeding the cooks; lackeys, pages, and fine
+gentlemen who swelled the retinue of the great household, was estimated,
+without, wages or salaries, at two thousand florins a day.  Albert
+had wished to be called a king, but had been unable to obtain the
+gratification of his wish.  He had aspired to be emperor, and he was at
+least sufficiently imperial in his ideas of expense.  The murmurers were
+loftily rebuked for their complaints, and reminded of the duty of
+obedient provinces to contribute at least as much for the defence of
+their masters as the rebels did in maintenance of their rebellion.
+The provincial estates were summoned accordingly to pay roundly for the
+expenses of the war as well as of the court, and to enable the new
+sovereigns to suppress the military mutiny, which amid the enthusiasm
+greeting their arrival was the one prominent and formidable fact.
+
+The archduke was now thirty-nine years of age, the Infanta Isabella six
+years younger.  She was esteemed majestically beautiful by her courtiers,
+and Cardinal Bentivoglio, himself a man of splendid intellect, pronounced
+her a woman of genius, who had grown to be a prodigy of wisdom, under the
+tuition of her father, the most sagacious statesman of the age.  In
+attachment to the Roman faith and ritual, in superhuman loftiness of
+demeanour, and in hatred of heretics, she was at least a worthy child of
+that sainted sovereign.  In a moral point of view she was his superior.
+The archdukes--so Albert and Isabella were always designated--were a
+singularly attached couple, and their household, if extravagant and
+imperial, was harmonious.  They loved each other--so it was believed--
+as sincerely as they abhorred heretics and rebels, but it does not appear
+that they had a very warm affection for their Flemish subjects.  Every
+characteristic of their court was Spanish.  Spanish costume, Spanish
+manners, the Spanish tongue, were almost exclusively predominant, and
+although the festivals, dances, banquets, and tourneys, were all very
+magnificent, the prevailing expression of the Brabantine capital
+resembled that of a Spanish convent, so severely correct, so stately, and
+so grim, was the demeanour of the court.
+
+The earliest military operations of the stadholder in the first year of
+the new century were successful.  Partly by menace; but more effectually
+by judicious negotiation.  Maurice recovered Crevecoeur, and obtained the
+surrender of St. Andrew, the fort which the admiral had built the
+preceding year in honour of Albert's uncle.  That ecclesiastic, with whom
+Mendoza had wrangled most bitterly during the whole interval of Albert's
+absence, had already taken his departure for Rome, where he soon
+afterwards died.  The garrisons of the forts, being mostly Walloon
+soldiers, forsook the Spanish service for that of the States, and were
+banded together in a legion some twelve hundred strong, which became
+known as the "New Beggars," and were placed under the nominal command of
+Frederick Henry of Nassau, youngest child of William the Silent.  The
+next military event of the year was a mad combat, undertaken by formal
+cartel, between Breaute, a young Norman noble in the service of the
+republic, and twenty comrades, with an equal number of Flemish warriors
+from the obedient provinces, under Grobbendonck.  About one half of the
+whole number were killed, including the leaders, but the encounter,
+although exciting much interest at the time, had of course no permanent
+importance.
+
+There was much negotiation, informal and secret, between Brussels and
+London during this and a portion of the following year.  Elizabeth,
+naturally enough, was weary of the war, but she felt, after all, as did
+the Government of France, that a peace between the United Netherlands and
+Spain would have for its result the restoration of the authority of his
+most Catholic Majesty over all the provinces.  The statesmen of France
+and England, like most of the politicians of Europe, had but slender
+belief in the possibility of a popular government, and doubted therefore
+the continued existence of the newly-organized republic.  Therefore they
+really deprecated the idea of a peace which should include the States,
+notwithstanding that from time to time the queen or some of her
+counsellors had so vehemently reproached the Netherlanders with their
+unwillingness to negotiate.  "At the first recognition that these people
+should make of the mere shadow of a prince," said Buzanval, the keenly
+observing and experienced French envoy at the Hague, "they lose the form
+they have.  All the blood of the body would flow to the head, and the
+game would be who should best play the valet. . . . . The house of
+Nassau would lose its credit within a month in case of peace."  As such
+statesmen could not imagine a republic, they ever dreaded the restoration
+in the United Provinces of the subverted authority of Spain.
+
+France and England were jealous of each other, and both were jealous of
+Spain.  Therefore even if the republican element, the strength and
+endurance of which was so little suspected, had been as trifling a factor
+in the problem, as was supposed, still it would have been difficult for
+any one of these powers to absorb the United Netherlands.  As for
+France, she hardly coveted their possession.  "We ought not to flatter
+ourselves," said Buzanval, "that these maritime peoples will cast
+themselves one day into our nets, nor do I know that it would be
+advisable to pull in the net if they should throw themselves in."
+
+Henry was full of political schemes and dreams at this moment--as much as
+his passion for Mademoiselle d'Entraigues, who had so soon supplanted the
+image of the dead Gabrielle in his heart, would permit.  He was very well
+disposed to obtain possession of the Spanish Netherlands, whenever he
+should see his way to such an acquisition, and was even indulging in
+visions of the imperial crown.
+
+He was therefore already, and for the time at least, the most intense
+of papists.  He was determined to sacrifice the Huguenot chiefs, and
+introduce the Council of Trent, in order, as he told Du Plessis, that all
+might be Christians.  If he still retained any remembrance of the ancient
+friendship between himself and the heretic republic, it was not likely
+to exhibit itself, notwithstanding his promises and his pecuniary
+liabilities to her, in anything more solid than words.  "I repeat it,"
+said the Dutch envoy at Paris; "this court cares nothing for us, for all
+its cabals tend to close union with Rome, whence we can expect nothing
+but foul weather.  The king alone has any memory of our past services."
+But imperturbable and self-confident as ever, Henry troubled himself
+little with fears in regard to the papal supremacy, even when his
+Parliament professed great anxiety in regard to the consequences of the
+Council of Trent, if not under him yet under his successors.  "I will so
+bridle the popes," said he, cheerfully, "that they will never pass my
+restrictions. My children will be still more virtuous and valiant than I.
+If I have none, then the devil take the hindmost.  Nevertheless I choose
+that the council shall be enacted.  I desire it more ardently than I
+pressed the edict for the Protestants."  Such being the royal humour at
+the moment, it may well be believed that Duplessis Mornay would find but
+little sunshine from on high on the occasion of his famous but forgotten
+conferences with Du Perron, now archbishop of Evreux, before the king and
+all the court at Fontainebleau.  It was natural enough that to please the
+king the king's old Huguenot friend should be convicted of false
+citations from the fathers; but it would seem strange, were the motives
+unknown, that Henry should have been so intensely interested in this most
+arid and dismal of theological controversies.  Yet those who had known
+and observed the king closely for thirty years, declared that he had
+never manifested so much passion, neither on the eve of battles nor of
+amorous assignations, as he then did for the demolition of Duplessis and
+his deductions.  He had promised the Nuncius that the Huguenot should be
+utterly confounded, and with him the whole fraternity, "for," said the
+king, "he has wickedly and impudently written against the pope, to whom I
+owe as much as I do to God."
+
+These were not times in which the Hollanders, battling as stoutly against
+Spain and the pope as they had done during the years when the republic
+stood shoulder to shoulder with Henry the Huguenot, could hope for aid
+and comfort from their ancient ally.
+
+It is very characteristic of that age of dissimulation and of reckless
+political gambling, that at the very moment when Henry's marriage with
+Marie de Medicis was already arranged, and when that princess was soon
+expected in Lyons, a cabal at the king's court was busy with absurd
+projects to marry their sovereign to the Infanta of Spain.  It is true
+that the Infanta was already the wife of the cardinal-archduke, but it
+was thought possible--for reasons divulged through the indiscretions or
+inventions of the father confessor--to obtain the pope's dispensation on
+the ground of the nullity of the marriage.  Thus there were politicians
+at the French court seriously occupied in an attempt to deprive the
+archduke of his wife, of his Netherland provinces, and of the crown of,
+the holy Roman empire, which he still hoped to inherit.  Yet the ink was
+scarcely dry with which Henry had signed the treaty of amity with Madrid
+and Brussels.
+
+The Queen of England, on the other hand--although often listenting to
+secret agents from Brussels and Madrid who offered peace, and although
+perfectly aware that the great abject of Spain in securing peace with
+England was to be able to swoop down at once upon the republic, thus
+deprived of any allies was beside herself with rage, whenever she
+suspected, with or without reason, that Brussels or Madrid had been
+sending peace emissaries to the republic.
+
+"Before I could get into the room," said Caron, on one such occasion,
+"she called out, 'Have you not always told me that the States never
+could, would, or should treat for peace with the enemy?  Yet now it
+is plain enough that they have proceeded only too far in negotiations.'
+And she then swore a big oath that if the States were to deceive her she
+meant to take such vengeance that men should talk of it for ever and
+ever."  It was a long time before the envoy could induce her to listen
+to a single word, although the, perfect sincerity of the States in their
+attitude to the queen and to Spain was unquestionable, and her ill-humour
+on the subject continued long after it had been demonstrated how much she
+had been deceived.
+
+Yet it was impossible in the nature of things for the States to play her
+false, even if no reliance were to be placed on their sagacity and their
+honour.  Even the recent naval expedition of the republic against the
+distant possessions of Spain--which in its result had caused so much
+disappointment to the States, and cost them so many lives, including that
+of the noble admiral whom every sailor in the Netherlands adored had been
+of immense advantage to England.  The queen acknowledged that the Dutch
+Navy had averted the storm which threatened to descend upon her kingdom
+out of Spain, the Spanish ships destined for the coast of Ireland having
+been dispersed and drawn to the other aide of the world by these
+demonstrations of her ally.  For this she vowed that she would be
+eternally grateful, and she said as much in "letters full of sugar and
+honey"--according to the French envoy--which she sent to the States by
+Sir Francis Vere.  She protested, in short, that she had been better and
+more promptly served in her necessities by the Netherlands than by her
+own subjects.
+
+All this sugar and honey however did not make the mission of Envoy
+Edmonds less bitter to the States.  They heard that he was going about
+through half the cities of the obedient Netherlands in a sort of
+triumphal procession, and it was the general opinion of the politicians
+and financiers of the continent that peace between Spain and England was
+as good as made.  Naturally therefore, notwithstanding the exuberant
+expressions of gratitude on the part of Elizabeth, the republican
+Government were anxious to know what all this parleying meant.  They
+could not believe that people would make a raree-show of the English
+envoy except for sufficient reason.  Caron accordingly presented himself
+before the queen, with respectful inquiries on the subject.  He found her
+in appearance very angry, not with him, but with Edmonds, from whom she
+had received no advices.  "I don't know what they are doing with him,"
+said her Majesty, "I hear from others that they are ringing the church
+bells wherever he goes, and that they have carried him through a great
+many more places than was necessary.  I suppose that they think him a
+monster, and they are carrying him about to exhibit him.  All this is
+done," she continued, "to throw dust in the eyes of the poor people, and
+to put it into their heads that the Queen of England is suing for peace,
+which is very wide of the mark."
+
+She further observed that, as the agents of the Spanish Government had
+been perpetually sending to her, she had been inclined once for all to
+learn what they had to say.  Thus she should make manifest to all the
+world that she was not averse to a treaty such as might prove a secure
+peace for herself and for Christendom; otherwise not.
+
+It subsequently appeared that what they had to say was that if the queen
+would give up to the Spanish Government the cautionary towns which she
+held as a pledge for her advances to the republic, forbid all traffic and
+intercourse between her subjects and the Netherlanders, and thenceforth
+never allow an Englishman to serve in or with the armies of the States,
+a peace might be made.
+
+Surely it needed no great magnanimity on the queen's part to spurn such
+insulting proposals, the offer of which showed her capable, in the
+opinion of Verreycken, the man who made them, of sinking into the very
+depths of dishonour.  And she did spurn them.  Surely, for the ally, the
+protrectress, the grateful friend of the republic, to give its chief
+seaports to its arch-enemy, to shut the narrow seas against its ships,
+so that they never more could sail westward, and to abandon its whole
+population to their fate, would be a deed of treachery such as history,
+full of human baseness as it is, has rarely been obliged to record.
+
+Before these propositions had been made by Verreycken Elizabeth protested
+that, should he offer them, she would send him home with such an answer
+that people should talk of it for some time to come.  "Before I consent
+to a single one of those points," said the queen, "I wish myself taken
+from this world.  Until now I have been a princess of my word, who would
+rather die than so falsely deceive such good people as the States." And
+she made those protestations with such expression and attitude that the
+Dutch envoy believed her incapable at that moment of dissimulation.
+
+Nevertheless her indignation did not carry her so far as to induce her to
+break off the negotiations.  The answer of which mankind was to talk in
+time to come was simply that she would not send her commissioners to
+treat for peace unless the Spanish Government should recede from the
+three points thus offered by Verreycken.  This certainly was not a very
+blasting reply, and the Spanish agents were so far from losing heart in
+consequence that the informal conferences continued for a long time, much
+to the discomfort of the Netherlanders.
+
+For more than an hour and a half on one occasion of an uncommonly hot
+afternoon in April did Noel de Caron argue with her Majesty against these
+ill-boding negotiations, and ever and anon, oppressed by the heat of the
+weather and the argument, did the queen wander from one room of the
+palace to the other in search of cool air, still bidding the envoy follow
+her footsteps.  "We are travelling about like pilgrims," said Elizabeth,
+"but what is life but a pilgrimage?"
+
+Yet, notwithstanding this long promenade and these moral reflections,
+Caron could really not make out at the end of the interview whether or no
+she intended to send her commissioners.  At last he asked her the
+question bluntly.
+
+"Hallo!  Hallo!"  she replied.  "I have only spoken to my servant once,
+and I must obtain more information and think over the matter before I
+decide.  Be assured however that I shall always keep you informed of the
+progress of the negotiations, and do you inform the States that they may
+build upon me as upon a rock."
+
+After the envoy had taken his leave, the queen said to him in Latin,
+"Modicae fidei quare dubitasti?"  Caron had however so nearly got out
+of the door that he did not hear this admonition.
+
+This the queen perceived, and calling him by name repeated, "O Caron!
+modicae fidei quare dubitasti?" adding the injunction that he should
+remember this dictum, for he well knew what she meant by it.
+
+Thus terminated the interview, while the negotiations with Spain, not for
+lack of good-will on her part, and despite the positive assertions to the
+contrary of Buzanval and other foreign agents, were destined to come to
+nothing.
+
+At a little later period, at the time of certain informal and secret
+conferences at Gertruydenberg, the queen threatened the envoy with her
+severest displeasure, should the States dare to treat with Spain without
+her permission.  "Her Majesty called out to me," said Caron, "as soon as
+I entered the room, that I had always assured her that the States neither
+would nor could make peace with the enemy.  Yet it was now looking very
+differently, she continued, swearing with a mighty oath that if the
+States should cheat her in that way she meant to revenge herself in such
+a fashion that men would talk of it through all eternity."
+
+The French Government was in a similar state of alarm in consequence of
+the Gertruydenberg conferences.
+
+The envoy of the archdukes, Marquis d'Havre, reported on the other
+hand that all attempts to negotiate had proved fruitless, that Olden-
+Barneveld, who spoke for all his colleagues, was swollen with pride, and
+made it but too manifest that the States had no intention to submit to
+any foreign jurisdiction, but were resolved to maintain themselves in the
+form of a republic.
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Children who had never set foot on the shore
+Done nothing so long as aught remained to do
+Fed on bear's liver, were nearly poisoned to death
+Inhabited by the savage tribes called Samoyedes
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v71
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS, ENTIRE 1590-99 UNITED NETHERLANDS:
+
+A pusillanimous peace, always possible at any period
+A despot really keeps no accounts, nor need to do so
+Accustomed to the faded gallantries
+Alexander's exuberant discretion
+All Italy was in his hands
+All fellow-worms together
+Allow her to seek a profit from his misfortune
+Anatomical study of what has ceased to exist
+Artillery
+At length the twig was becoming the tree
+Auction sales of judicial ermine
+Being the true religion, proved by so many testimonies
+Beneficent and charitable purposes (War)
+Bomb-shells were not often used although known for a century
+Burning of Servetus at Geneva
+Certainly it was worth an eighty years' war
+Chief seafaring nations of the world were already protestant
+Children who had never set foot on the shore
+Chronicle of events must not be anticipated
+Conceding it subsequently, after much contestation
+Conformity of Governments to the principles of justice
+Considerable reason, even if there were but little justice
+Constant vigilance is the price of liberty
+Continuing to believe himself invincible and infallible
+Court fatigue, to scorn pleasure
+Deal with his enemy as if sure to become his friend
+Decline a bribe or interfere with the private sale of places
+Disciple of Simon Stevinus
+Divine right of kings
+Done nothing so long as aught remained to do
+Eat their own children than to forego one high mass
+Ever met disaster with so cheerful a smile
+Every one sees what you seem, few perceive what you are
+Evil has the advantage of rapidly assuming many shapes
+Famous fowl in every pot
+Fed on bear's liver, were nearly poisoned to death
+Fellow worms had been writhing for half a century in the dust
+Fled from the land of oppression to the land of liberty
+For his humanity towards the conquered garrisons (censured)
+For us, looking back upon the Past, which was then the Future
+French seem madmen, and are wise
+Future world as laid down by rival priesthoods
+German Highland and the German Netherland
+God of wrath who had decreed the extermination of all unbeliever
+Had industry been honoured instead of being despised
+Hanging of Mary Dyer at Boston
+Hardly an inch of French soil that had not two possessors
+He spent more time at table than the Bearnese in sleep
+Henry the Huguenot as the champion of the Council of Trent
+Highest were not necessarily the least slimy
+His invectives were, however, much stronger than his arguments
+Historical scepticism may shut its eyes to evidence
+History is but made up of a few scattered fragments
+History is a continuous whole of which we see only fragments
+Holy institution called the Inquisition
+Hugo Grotius
+Humanizing effect of science upon the barbarism of war
+Idle, listless, dice-playing, begging, filching vagabonds
+Ignorance is the real enslaver of mankind
+Imagining that they held the world's destiny in their hands
+Imposed upon the multitudes, with whom words were things
+Impossible it was to invent terms of adulation too gross
+In times of civil war, to be neutral is to be nothing
+Inevitable fate of talking castles and listening ladies
+Infinite capacity for pecuniary absorption
+Inhabited by the savage tribes called Samoyedes
+Innocent generation, to atone for the sins of their forefathers
+Intelligence, science, and industry were accounted degrading
+Invaluable gift which no human being can acquire, authority
+King was often to be something much less or much worse
+King had issued a general repudiation of his debts
+Labour was esteemed dishonourable
+Leading motive with all was supposed to be religion
+Life of nations and which we call the Past
+Little army of Maurice was becoming the model for Europe
+Loud, nasal, dictatorial tone, not at all agreeable
+Luxury had blunted the fine instincts of patriotism
+Magnificent hopefulness
+Man had no rights at all  He was property
+Maritime heretics
+Matters little by what name a government is called
+Meet around a green table except as fencers in the field
+Mondragon was now ninety-two years old
+Moral nature, undergoes less change than might be hoped
+More catholic than the pope
+Myself seeing of it methinketh that I dream
+Names history has often found it convenient to mark its epochs
+National character, not the work of a few individuals
+Nothing cheap, said a citizen bitterly, but sermons
+Obscure were thought capable of dying natural deaths
+Octogenarian was past work and past mischief
+Often necessary to be blind and deaf
+One-third of Philip's effective navy was thus destroyed
+Past was once the Present, and once the Future
+Patriotism seemed an unimaginable idea
+Peace would be destruction
+Philip II. gave the world work enough
+Picturesqueness of crime
+Placid unconsciousness on his part of defeat
+Plea of infallibility and of authority soon becomes ridiculous
+Portion of these revenues savoured much of black-mail
+Proceeds of his permission to eat meat on Fridays
+Rarely able to command, having never learned to obey
+Religion was rapidly ceasing to be the line of demarcation
+Repudiation of national debts was never heard of before
+Rich enough to be worth robbing
+Righteous to kill their own children
+Road to Paris lay through the gates of Rome
+Royal plans should be enforced adequately or abandoned entirely
+Sacked and drowned ten infant princes
+Sages of every generation, read the future like a printed scroll
+Seems but a change of masks, of costume, of phraseology
+Self-assertion--the healthful but not engaging attribute
+Selling the privilege of eating eggs upon fast-days
+Sentiment of Christian self-complacency
+Sewers which have ever run beneath decorous Christendom
+Shift the mantle of religion from one shoulder to the other
+Slain four hundred and ten men with his own hand
+So often degenerated into tyranny (Calvinism)
+Some rude lessons from that vigorous little commonwealth
+Spain was governed by an established terrorism
+Spaniards seem wise, and are madmen
+Strangled his nineteen brothers on his accession
+Such a crime as this had never been conceived (bankruptcy)
+That unholy trinity--Force; Dogma, and Ignorance
+The history of the Netherlands is history of liberty
+The great ocean was but a Spanish lake
+The divine speciality of a few transitory mortals
+The Alcoran was less cruel than the Inquisition
+The nation which deliberately carves itself in pieces
+The most thriving branch of national industry (Smuggler)
+The record of our race is essentially unwritten
+There are few inventions in morals
+They liked not such divine right nor such gentle-mindedness
+They had come to disbelieve in the mystery of kingcraft
+Thirty thousand masses should be said for his soul
+Thirty-three per cent. interest was paid (per month)
+Those who argue against a foregone conclusion
+Three or four hundred petty sovereigns (of Germany)
+To attack England it was necessary to take the road of Ireland
+Toil and sacrifices of those who have preceded us
+Tranquil insolence
+Under the name of religion (so many crimes)
+Unproductive consumption was alarmingly increasing
+Upon their knees, served the queen with wine
+Use of the spade
+Utter want of adaptation of his means to his ends
+Utter disproportions between the king's means and aims
+Valour on the one side and discretion on the other
+Walk up and down the earth and destroy his fellow-creatures
+We have the reputation of being a good housewife
+Weapons
+Whether murders or stratagems, as if they were acts of virtue
+While one's friends urge moderation
+Whole revenue was pledged to pay the interest, on his debts
+Wish to sell us the bear-skin before they have killed the bear
+Worn nor caused to be worn the collar of the serf
+Wrath of that injured personage as he read such libellous truths
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Entire United Netherlands 1590-99
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, Project Gutenberg Edition, Vol. 84
+
+History of the United Netherlands, 1600-1609, Complete
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER, XXXVIII.
+
+     Military events--Aggressive movement of the Netherlanders--State of
+     the Archdukes provinces--Mutiny of the Spanish forces--Proposed
+     invasion of Flanders by the States-General--Disembarkation of the
+     troops on the Spanish coasts--Capture of Oudenburg and other places
+     --Surprise of Nieuport--Conduct of the Archduke--Oudenburg and the
+     other forts re-taken--Dilemma of the States' army--Attack of the
+     Archduke on Count Ernest's cavalry--Panic and total overthrow of the
+     advance-guard of the States' army--Battle of Nieuport--Details of
+     the action--Defeat of the Spanish army--Results of the whole
+     expedition.
+
+The effect produced in the republic by the defensive and uneventful
+campaigning of the year 1599 had naturally been depressing.  There was
+murmuring at the vast amount of taxation, especially at the new
+imposition of one-half per cent. upon all property, and two-and-a-half
+per cent. on all sales, which seemed to produce so few results.  The
+successful protection of the Isle of Bommel and the judicious purchase of
+the two forts of Crevecoeur and St. Andrew; early in the following year,
+together with their garrisons, were not military events of the first
+magnitude, and were hardly enough to efface the mortification felt at the
+fact that the enemy had been able so lately to construct one of those
+strongholds within the territory of the commonwealth.
+
+It was now secretly determined to attempt an aggressive movement on a
+considerable scale, and to carry the war once for all into the heart of
+the obedient provinces.  It was from Flanders that the Spanish armies
+drew a great portion of their supplies.  It was by the forts erected on
+the coast of Flanders in the neighbourhood of Ostend that this important
+possession of the States was rendered nearly valueless.  It was by
+privateers swarming from the ports of Flanders, especially from Nieuport
+and Dunkirk, that the foreign trade of the republic was crippled, and its
+intercommunications by river and estuary rendered unsafe.  Dunkirk was
+simply a robbers' cave, a station from which an annual tax was levied
+upon the commerce of the Netherlands, almost sufficient, had it been paid
+to the national treasury instead of to the foreign freebooters, to
+support the expenses of a considerable army.
+
+On the other hand the condition of the archdukes seemed deplorable.
+Never had mutiny existed before in so well-organised and definite a form
+even in the Spanish Netherlands.
+
+Besides those branches of the "Italian republic," which had been
+established in the two fortresses of Crevecoeur and St. Andrew, and which
+had already sold themselves to the States, other organisations quite as
+formidable existed in various other portions of the obedient provinces.
+Especially at Diest and Thionville the rebellious Spaniards and Italians
+were numbered by thousands, all veterans, well armed, fortified in strong
+cities; and supplying themselves with perfect regularity by contributions
+levied upon the peasantry, obeying their Eletto and other officers with
+exemplary promptness; and paying no more heed to the edicts or the
+solicitations of the archduke than if he had been the Duke of Muscovy.
+
+The opportunity seemed tempting to strike a great blow.  How could Albert
+and Isabella, with an empty exchequer and a mutinous army, hope either to
+defend their soil from attack or to aim a counter blow at the republic,
+even if, the republic for a season should be deprived of a portion of its
+defenders?
+
+The reasoning was plausible, the prize tempting.  The States-General, who
+habitually discountenanced rashness, and were wont to impose superfluous
+restraints upon the valiant but discreet Lewis William, and upon the
+deeply pondering but energetic Maurice, were now grown as ardent as
+they had hitherto been hesitating.  In the early days of June it was
+determined in secret session to organize a great force in Holland and
+Zeeland, and to embark suddenly for Nieuport, to carry that important
+position by surprise or assault, and from that basis to redeem Dunkirk.
+The possession of these two cities, besides that of Ostend, which had
+always been retained by the Republic, would ensure the complete
+subjugation of Flanders.  The trifling force of two thousand men under
+Rivas--all that the archduke then had in that province--and the sconces
+and earthworks which had been constructed around Ostend to impede the
+movements and obstruct the supplies of the garrison, would be utterly
+powerless to prevent the consummation of the plan.  Flanders once
+subjugated, it would not be long before the Spaniards were swept from the
+obedient Netherlands as thoroughly as they had been from the domains of
+the commonwealth, and all the seventeen provinces, trampling out every
+vestige of a hated foreign tyranny, would soon take their natural place
+as states of a free; prosperous, and powerful union.
+
+But Maurice of Nassau did not share the convictions of the States-
+General.  The unwonted ardour of Barneveld did not inflame his
+imagination.  He urged that the enterprise was inexcusably rash; that its
+execution would require the whole army of the States, except the slender
+garrisons absolutely necessary to protect important places from surprise;
+that a defeat would not be simply disaster, but annihilation; that
+retreat without absolute triumph would be impossible, and that amid such
+circumstances the archduke, in spite of his poverty and the rebellious
+condition of his troops, would doubtless assemble a sufficient force to
+dispute with reasonable prospects of victory, this invasion of his
+territory.
+
+Sir Francis Vere, too, was most decidedly opposed to the plan.  He
+pointed out with great clearness its dangerous and possibly fatal
+character; assuring the Staten that, within a fortnight after the
+expedition had begun, the archduke would follow upon their heels with an
+army fully able to cope with the best which they could put into the
+field.  But besides this experienced and able campaigner, who so
+thoroughly shared the opinions of Prince Maurice, every military man in
+the provinces of any consideration, was opposed to, the scheme.
+Especially Lewis William--than whom no more sagacious military critic or
+accomplished strategist existed in Europe, denounced it with energy and
+even with indignation.  It was, in the opinion of the young stadholder of
+Friesland, to suspend the existence of the whole commonwealth upon a
+silken thread.  Even success, he prophesied, would bring no permanent,
+fruits, while the consequences of an overthrow, were fearful to
+contemplate.  The immediate adherents and most trusted counsellors of
+William Lewis were even more unmeasured in their denunciations than he
+was himself.  "'Tis all the work of Barneveld and the long-gowns," cried
+Everard van Reyd.  "We are led into a sack from which there is no
+extrication.  We are marching to the Caudine Forks."
+
+Certainly it is no small indication of the vast influence and the
+indomitable resolution of Barneveld that he never faltered in this storm
+of indignation.  The Advocate had made up his mind to invade Flanders and
+to capture Nieuport; and the decree accordingly went forth, despite all
+opposition.  The States-General were sovereign, and the Advocate and the
+States-General were one.
+
+It was also entirely characteristic of Maurice that he should submit his
+judgment on this great emergency to that of Olden-Barneveld.  It was
+difficult for him to resist the influence of the great intellect to which
+he had always willingly deferred in affairs of state, and from which;
+even in military matters, it was hardly possible for him to escape.  Yet
+in military matters Maurice was a consummate professor, and the Advocate
+in comparison but a school-boy.
+
+The ascendency of Barneveld was the less wholesome, therefore, and it
+might have been better had the stadholder manifested more resolution.
+But Maurice had not a resolute character.  Thorough soldier as he was, he
+was singularly vacillating, at times almost infirm of purpose, but never
+before in his career had this want of decision manifested itself in so
+striking a manner.
+
+Accordingly the States-General, or in other words John of Olden-Barneveld
+proposed to invade Flanders, and lay siege, to Nieuport.  The States-
+General were sovereign, and Maurice bowed to their authority.  After the
+matter had been entirely decided upon the state-council was consulted,
+and the state-council attempted no opposition to the project. The
+preparations were made with matchless energy and extraordinary secrecy.
+Lewis William, who meanwhile was to defend the eastern frontier of the
+republic against any possible attack, sent all the troops that it was
+possible to spare; but he sent, them with a heavy heart.  His forebodings
+were dismal.  It seemed to him that all was about to be staked upon a
+single cast of the dice.  Moreover it was painful to him while the
+terrible game, was playing to be merely a looker on and a prophet of
+evil from a distance, forbidden to contribute by his personal skill and
+experience to a fortunate result.  Hohenlo too was appointed to protect
+the southern border, and was excluded from, all participation in the
+great expedition.
+
+As to the enemy, such rumors as might came to them from day to day of
+mysterious military, preparations on the part of the rebels only served
+to excite suspicion in others directions.  The archduke was uneasy in,
+regard to the Rhine and the Gueldrian; quarter, but never dreamt of a
+hostile descent upon the Flemish coast.
+
+Meantime, on the 19th June Maurice of Nassau made his appearance at
+Castle Rammekens, not far from Flushing, at the mouth of the Scheld, to
+superintend the great movement.  So large a fleet as was there assembled
+had never before been seen or heard of in Christendom.  Of war-ships,
+transports, and flat-bottomed barges there were at least thirteen
+hundred.  Many eye-witnesses, who counted however with their
+imaginations, declared that there were in all at least three thousand
+vessels, and the statement has been reproduced by grave and trustworthy
+chroniclers.  As the number of troops to be embarked upon the enterprise
+certainly did not exceed fourteen thousand, this would have been an
+allowance of one vessel to every five soldiers, besides the army
+munitions and provisions--a hardly reasonable arrangement.
+
+Twelve thousand infantry and sixteen hundred cavalry, the consummate
+flower of the States' army, all well-paid, well-clad, well-armed, well-
+disciplined veterans, had been collected in this place of rendezvous and
+were ready to embark.  It would be unjust to compare the dimensions of
+this force and the preparations for ensuring the success of the
+enterprise with the vast expeditions and gigantic armaments of later
+times, especially with the tremendous exhibitions of military and naval
+energy with which our own civil war has made us familiar.  Maurice was an
+adept in all that science and art had as yet bequeathed to humanity for
+the purpose of human' destruction, but the number of his troops was small
+compared to the mighty hosts which the world since those days has seen
+embattled.  War, as a trade, was then less easily learned.  It was a
+guild in which apprenticeship was difficult, and in which enrolment was
+usually for life.  A little republic of scarce three million souls, which
+could keep always on foot a regular well-appointed army of twenty-five
+thousand men and a navy of one or two hundred heavily armed cruisers, was
+both a marvel and a formidable element in the general polity of the
+world.  The lesson to be derived both in military and political
+philosophy from the famous campaign of Nieuport does not depend for its
+value on the numbers of the ships or soldiers engaged in the undertaking.
+Otherwise, and had it been merely a military expedition like a thousand
+others which have been made and forgotten, it would not now deserve more
+than a momentary attention.  But the circumstances were such as to make
+the issue of the impending battle one of the most important in human
+history.  It was entirely possible that an overwhelming defeat of the
+republican forces on this foreign expedition would bring with it an
+absolute destruction of the republic, and place Spain once more in
+possession of the heretic "islands," from which basis she would menace
+the very existence of England more seriously than she had ever done
+before.  Who could measure the consequences to Christendom of such a
+catastrophe?
+
+The distance from the place where the fleet and army were assembled to
+Nieuport--the objective point of the enterprise--was but thirty-five
+miles as the crow flies.  And the crow can scarcely fly in a straighter
+line than that described by the coast along which the ships were to shape
+their course.
+
+And here it is again impossible not to reflect upon the change which
+physical science has brought over the conduct of human affairs.  We have
+seen in a former chapter a most important embassy sent forth from the
+States for the purpose of preventing the consummation of a peace between
+their ally and their enemy.  Celerity was a vital element in the success
+of such a mission; for the secret negotiations which it was intended to
+impede were supposed to be near their termination.  Yet months were
+consumed in a journey which in our day would have been accomplished in
+twenty-four hours.  And now in this great military expedition the
+essential and immediate purpose was to surprise a small town almost
+within sight from the station at which the army was ready to embark.
+Such a midsummer voyage in this epoch of steam-tugs and transports would
+require but a few hours.  Yet two days long the fleet lay at anchor while
+a gentle breeze blew persistently from the south-west.  As there seemed
+but little hope that the wind would become more favourable, and as the
+possibility of surprise grew fainter with every day's delay, it was
+decided to make a landing upon the nearest point of Flemish coast placed
+by circumstances within their reach: Count Ernest of Nassau; with the
+advance-guard, was accordingly, despatched on the 21st June to the
+neighbourhood of the Sas-of Ghent, where he seized a weakly guarded fort,
+called Philippine, and made thorough preparations, for the arrival of the
+whole army.  On the following day the rest of the troops made their
+appearance, and in the course of five hours were safely disembarked.
+
+The army, which consisted of Zeelanders, Frisians, Hollanders, Walloons,
+Germans, English, and Scotch, was divided into three corps.  The advance
+was under the command of Count Ernest, the battalia under that of Count
+George Everard Solms, while the rear-guard during the march was entrusted
+to that experienced soldier Sir Francis Vere.  Besides Prince Maurice,
+there were three other members of the house of Nassau serving in the
+expedition--his half-brother Frederic Henry, then a lad of sixteen, and
+the two brothers of the Frisian stadholder, Ernest and Lewis Gunther,
+whom Lewis William had been so faithfully educating in the arts of peace
+and war both by precept and example.  Lewis Gunther, still a mere youth,
+but who had been the first to scale the fort of Cadiz, and to plant on
+its height the orange banner of the murdered rebel, and whose gallantry
+during the whole expedition had called forth the special commendations of
+Queen Elizabeth--expressed in energetic and affectionate terms to his
+father--now commanded all the cavalry.  Certainly if the doctrine of
+primordial selection could ever be accepted among human creatures, the
+race of Nassau at that day might have seemed destined to be chiefs of the
+Netherland soil.  Old John of Nassau, ardent and energetic as ever in the
+cause of the religious reformation of Germany and the liberation of
+Holland, still watched from his retirement the progress of the momentous
+event.  Four of his brethren, including the great founder of the
+republic, had already laid down their lives for the sacred cause.  His
+son Philip had already fallen under the banner in the fight of Bislich,
+and three other sons were serving the republic day and night, by sea and
+land, with sword, and pen, and purse, energetically, conscientiously, and
+honourably.  Of the stout hearts and quick intellects on which the safety
+of the commonwealth then depended, none was more efficient or true than
+the accomplished soldier and statesman Lewis William.  Thoroughly
+disapproving of the present invasion of Flanders, he was exerting
+himself, now that it had been decided upon by his sovereigns the States-
+Generals, with the same loyalty as that of Maurice, to bring it to a
+favourable issue, although not personally engaged in the adventure.
+
+So soon as the troops had been landed the vessels were sent off as
+expeditiously as possible, that none might fall into, the enemy's hands;
+the transports under a strong convoy of war-ships having been directed to
+proceed as fast as the wind would permit in the direction of Nieuport.
+The march then began.  On the 23rd they advanced a league and halted for
+the night at Assenede.  The next day brought them three leagues further,
+to a place called Eckerloo.  On the 25th they marched to Male, a distance
+of three leagues and a half, passing close to the walls of Bruges, in
+which they had indulged faint hopes of exciting an insurrection, but
+obtained nothing but a feeble cannonade from the fortifications which did
+no damage except the killing of one muleteer.  The next night was passed
+at Jabbeke, four leagues from Male, and on the 27th, after marching
+another league, they came before the fort of Oudenburg.
+
+This important post on the road which the army would necessarily traverse
+in coming from the interior to the coast was easily captured and then
+strongly garrisoned.  Maurice with the main army spent the two following
+days at the fortress, completing his arrangements.  Solms was sent
+forward to seize the sconces and redoubts of the enemy around Ostend, at
+Breedene, Snaaskerk, Plassendaal, and other points, and especially to
+occupy the important fort called St. Albert, which was in the downs at
+about a league from that city.  All this work was thoroughly
+accomplished; little or no resistance having been made to the occupation
+of these various places.  Meantime the States-General, who at the special
+request of Maurice were to accompany the expedition in order to observe
+the progress of events for which they were entirely responsible, and to
+aid the army when necessary by their advice and co-operation, had
+assembled to the number of thirteen in Ostend.  Solms having strengthened
+the garrison of that place then took up his march along the beach to
+Nieuport.  During the progress of the army through Holland and Zeeland
+towards its place of embarkation there had been nothing but dismal
+prognostics, with expressions of muttered indignation, wherever the
+soldiers passed.  It seemed to the country people, and to the inhabitants
+of every town and village, that their defenders were going to certain
+destruction; that the existence of the commonwealth was hanging by a
+thread soon to be snapped asunder.  As the forces subsequently marched
+from the Sas of Ghent towards the Flemish coast there was no rising of
+the people in their favour, and although Maurice had issued distinct
+orders that the peasantry were to be dealt with gently and justly, yet
+they found neither peasants nor villagers to deal with at all.  The whole
+population on their line of march had betaken themselves to the woods,
+except the village sexton of Jabbeke and his wife, who were too old to
+run.  Lurking in the thickets and marshes, the peasants fell upon all
+stragglers from the army and murdered them without mercy--so difficult
+is it in times of civil war to make human brains pervious to the light of
+reason.  The stadholder and his soldiers came to liberate their brethren
+of the same race, and speaking the same language, from abject submission
+to a foreign despotism.  The Flemings had but to speak a word, to lift a
+finger, and all the Netherlands, self-governed, would coalesce into one
+independent confederation of States, strong enough to defy all the
+despots of Europe.  Alas! the benighted victims of superstition hugged
+their chains, and preferred the tyranny under which their kindred had
+been tortured, burned, and buried alive for half-a-century long, to the
+possibility of a single Calvinistic conventicle being opened in any
+village of obedient Flanders.  So these excellent children of Philip and
+the pope, whose language was as unintelligible to them as it was to
+Peruvians or Iroquois, lay in wait for the men who spoke their own mother
+tongue, and whose veins were filled with their own blood, and murdered
+them, as a sacred act of duty.  Retaliation followed as a matter of
+course, so that the invasion of Flanders, in this early stage of its
+progress, seemed not likely to call forth very fraternal feelings
+between the two families of Netherlanders.
+
+The army was in the main admirably well supplied, but there was a
+deficiency of drink.  The water as they advanced became brackish and
+intolerably bad, and there was great difficulty in procuring any
+substitute.  At Male three cows were given for a pot of beer, and more of
+that refreshment might have been sold at the same price, had there been
+any sellers.
+
+On the 30th June Maurice marched from Oudenburg, intending to strike a
+point called Niewendam--a fort in the neighbourhood of Nieuport--and so
+to march along the walls of that city and take up his position
+immediately in its front.  He found the ground, however, so marshy and
+impracticable as he advanced, that he was obliged to countermarch, and to
+spend that night on the downs between forts Isabella and St. Albert.
+
+On the 1st July he resumed his march, and passing a bridge over a small
+stream at a place called Leffingen, laying down a road as he went with
+sods and sand, and throwing bridges over streams and swamps, he arrived
+in the forenoon before Nieuport.  The, fleet had reached the roadstead
+the same morning.
+
+This was a strong, well-built, and well-fortified little city, situate
+half-a-league from the sea coast on low, plashy ground.  At high water it
+was a seaport, for a stream or creek of very insignificant dimensions was
+then sufficiently filled by the tide to admit vessels of considerable
+burthen.  This haven was immediately taken possession of by the
+stadholder, and two-thirds of his army were thrown across to the western
+side of the water, the troops remaining on the Ostend side being by a
+change of arrangement now under command of Count Ernest.
+
+Thus the army which had come to surprise Nieuport had, after
+accomplishing a distance of nearly forty miles in thirteen days,
+at last arrived before that place.  Yet there was no more expeditious
+or energetic commander in Christendom than Maurice, nor troops better
+trained in marching and fighting than his well-disciplined army.
+
+It is now necessary to cast a glance towards the interior of Flanders,
+in order to observe how the archduke conducted himself in this emergency.
+So soon as the news of the landing of the States' army at the port of
+Ghent reached the sovereign's ears, he awoke from the delusion that
+danger was impending on his eastern border, and lost no time in
+assembling such troops as could be mustered from far and near to protect
+the western frontier.  Especially he despatched messengers well charged
+with promises, to confer with the authorities of the "Italian Republic"
+at Diest and Thionville.  He appealed to them in behalf of the holy
+Catholic religion, he sought to arouse their loyalty to himself and the
+Infanta Isabella--daughter of the great and good Philip II., once
+foremost of earthly potentates, and now eminent among the saints of
+heaven--by whose fiat he and his wife had now become legitimate
+sovereigns of all the Netherlands.  And those mutineers responded with
+unexpected docility.  Eight hundred foot soldiers and six hundred cavalry
+men came forth at the first summons, making but two conditions in
+addition to the stipulated payment when payment should be possible--that
+they should be commanded by their own chosen officers, and that they
+should be placed in the first rank in the impending conflict.  The
+example spread.  Other detachments of mutineers in various strongholds,
+scenting the battle from afar, came in with offers to serve in the
+campaign on similar terms.  Before the last week of June the archduke had
+a considerable army on foot.  On the 29th of that month, accompanied by
+the Infanta, he reviewed a force of ten thousand foot and nearly two
+thousand cavalry in the immediate vicinity of Ghent.  He addressed them
+in a few stirring words, reminding them of their duty to the Church and
+to himself, and assuring them--as commanders of every nation and every
+age are wont to assure their troops at the eve of every engagement--that
+the cause in which they were going forth to battle was the most sacred
+and inspiring for which human creatures could possibly lay down their
+lives.  Isabella, magnificently attired, and mounted on a white palfrey,
+galloped along the lines, and likewise made an harangue.  She spoke to
+the soldiers as "her lions," promised them boundless rewards in this
+world and the next, as the result of the great victory which they were
+now about to gain over the infidels; while as to their wages, she vowed
+that, rather than they should remain unpaid, she would sacrifice all her
+personal effects, even to the plate from which she ate her daily bread,
+and to the jewels which she wore in her ears.
+
+Thousands of hoarse voices greeted the eloquence of the archdukes with
+rude acclamations, while the discharge of arquebus and volleys of cannon
+testified to the martial ardour with which the troops were inspired; none
+being more enthusiastic than the late mutineers.  The army marched at
+once, under many experienced leaders--Villars, Zapena, and Avalos among
+the most conspicuous.  The command of the artillery was entrusted to
+Velasco; the marshal-general of the camp was Frederic van den Berg, in
+place of the superannuated Peter Ernest; while the Admiral of Arragon,
+Francisco de Mendoza, "terror of Germany and of Christendom," a little
+man with flowing locks, long hooked nose, and a sinister glance from his
+evil black eyes, was general of the cavalry.  The admiral had not
+displayed very extraordinary genius in his recent campaigning in the
+Rhenish duchies, but his cruelty had certainly been conspicuous.  Not
+even Alva could have accomplished more murders and other outrages in the
+same space of time than had been perpetrated by the Spanish troops during
+the infamous winter of 1598-9.  The assassination of Count Broeck at his
+own castle had made more stir than a thousand other homicides of nameless
+wretches at the same period had done, because the victim had been a man
+of rank and large possessions, but it now remained to be seen whether
+Mendoza was to gain fresh laurels of any kind in the battle which was
+probably impending.
+
+On the 1st of July the archduke came before Oudenburg.  Not a soul within
+that fortress nor in Ostend dreamed of an enemy within twenty miles of
+them, nor had it been supposed possible that a Spanish army could take
+the field for many weeks to come.  The States-General at Ostend were
+complacently waiting for the first bulletin from Maurice announcing his
+capture of Nieuport and his advance upon Dunkirk, according to the
+program so succinctly drawn up for him, and meantime were holding
+meetings and drawing up comfortable protocols with great regularity.
+Colonel Piron, on his part, who had been left with several companies of
+veterans to hold Oudenburg and the other forts, and to protect the rear
+of the invading army, was accomplishing that object by permitting a large
+portion of his force to be absent on foraging parties and general
+marauding.  When the enemy came before Oudenburg they met with no
+resistance.  The fort was surrendered at once, and with it fell the
+lesser sconces of Breedene, Snaaskerk, and Plassendaal--all but the more
+considerable fort St. Albert.  The archduke, not thinking it advisable to
+delay his march by the reduction of this position, and having possession
+of all the other fortifications around Ostend, determined to push forward
+next morning at daybreak.  He had granted favourable terms of surrender
+to the various garrisons, which, however, did not prevent them from being
+dearly--every man of them immediately butchered in cold blood.
+
+Thus were these strong and well-manned redoubts, by which Prince Maurice
+had hoped to impede for many days the march of a Spanish army--should a
+Spanish army indeed be able to take the field at all--already swept off
+in an hour.  Great was the dismay in Ostend when Colonel Piron and a few
+stragglers brought the heavy news of discomfiture and massacre to the
+high and mighty States-General in solemn meeting assembled.
+
+Meanwhile, the States' army before Nieuport, not dreaming of any pending
+interruption to their labours, proceeded in a steady but leisurely manner
+to invest the city.  Maurice occupied himself in tracing the lines of
+encampment and entrenchment, and ordered a permanent bridge to be begun
+across the narrowest part of the creek, in order that the two parts of
+his army might not be so dangerously divided from each other as they now
+were, at high water, by the whole breadth and depth of the harbour.
+Evening came on before much had been accomplished on this first day of
+the siege.  It was scarcely dusk when a messenger, much exhausted and
+terrified, made his appearance at Count Ernest's tent. He was a straggler
+who had made his escape from Oudenburg, and he brought the astounding
+intelligence that the archduke had already possession of that position
+and of all the other forts.  Ernest instantly jumped into a boat and had
+himself rowed, together with the messenger, to the headquarters of Prince
+Maurice on the other side of the river.  The news was as unexpected as it
+was alarming.  Here was the enemy, who was supposed incapable of mischief
+for weeks to come, already in the field, and planted directly on their
+communications with Ostend.  Retreat, if retreat were desired, was
+already impossible, and as to surprising the garrison of Nieuport and so
+obtaining that stronghold as a basis for further aggressive operations,
+it is very certain that if any man in Flanders was more surprised than
+another at that moment it was Prince Maurice himself.  He was too good a
+soldier not to see at a glance that if the news brought by the straggler
+were true, the whole expedition was already a failure, and that, instead
+of a short siege and an easy victory, a great battle was to be fought
+upon the sands of Nieuport, in which defeat was destruction of the whole
+army of the republic, and very possibly of the republic itself.
+
+The stadholder hesitated.  He was prone in great emergencies to hesitate
+at first, but immovable when his resolution was taken.  Vere, who was
+asleep in his tent, was sent for and consulted.  Most of the generals
+were inclined to believe that the demonstrations at Oudenburg, which had
+been so successful, were merely a bravado of Rivas, the commander of the
+permanent troops in that district, which were comparatively insignificant
+in numbers.  Vere thought otherwise.  He maintained that the archduke was
+already in force within a few hours' march of them, as he had always
+supposed would be the case.  His opinion was not shared by the rest,
+and he went back to his truckle-bed, feeling that a brief repose was
+necessary for the heavy work which would soon be upon him.  At midnight
+the Englishman was again called from his slumbers.  Another messenger,
+sent directly from the States-General at Ostend, had made his way to the
+stadholder.  This time there was no possibility of error, for Colonel
+Piron had sent the accord with the garrison commanders of the forts which
+had been so shamefully violated, and which bore the signature of the
+archduke.
+
+It was now perfectly obvious that a pitched battle was to be fought
+before another sunset, and most anxious were the deliberations in that
+brief midsummer's night.  The dilemma was as grave a one as commander-in-
+chief had ever to solve in a few hours.  A portentous change had come
+over the prospects of the commonwealth since the arrival of these
+despatches.  But a few hours before, and never had its destiny seemed so
+secure, its attitude more imposing.  The little republic, which Spain had
+been endeavouring forty years long to subjugate, had already swept every
+Spanish soldier out of its territory, had repeatedly carried fire and
+sword into Spain itself, and even into its distant dependencies, and at
+that moment--after effecting in a masterly manner the landing of a great
+army in the very face of the man who claimed to be sovereign of all the
+Netherlands, and after marching at ease through the heart of his
+territory--was preparing a movement, with every prospect of success,
+which should render the hold of that sovereign on any portion of
+Netherland soil as uncertain and shifting as the sands on which the
+States army was now encamped.
+
+The son of the proscribed and murdered rebel stood at the head of as
+powerful and well-disciplined an army as had ever been drawn up in line
+of battle on that blood-stained soil.  The daughter of the man who had so
+long oppressed the provinces might soon be a fugitive from the land over
+which she had so recently been endowed with perpetual sovereignty.  And
+now in an instant these visions were fading like a mirage.
+
+The archduke, whom poverty and mutiny were to render powerless against
+invasion, was following close up upon the heels of the triumphant army of
+the stadholder.  A decision was immediately necessary.  The siege of
+Nieuport was over before it had begun.  Surprise had failed, assault for
+the moment was impossible, the manner how best to confront the advancing
+foe the only question.
+
+Vere advised that the whole army should at once be concentrated and led
+without delay against the archduke before he should make further
+progress.  The advice involved an outrageous impossibility, and it
+seems incredible that it could have been given in good faith; still more
+amazing that its rejection by Maurice should have been bitterly censured.
+Two-thirds of the army lay on the other side of the harbour, and it was
+high water at about three o'clock.  While they were deliberating, the sea
+was rising, and, so soon as daybreak should make any evolutions possible,
+they would be utterly prohibited during several hours by the inexorable
+tide.  More time would be consumed by the attempt to construct temporary
+bridges (for of course little progress had been made in the stone bridge
+hardly begun) or to make use of boats than in waiting for the falling of
+the water, and, should the enemy make his appearance while they were
+engaged in such confusing efforts, the army would be hopelessly lost.
+
+Maurice, against the express advice of Vere, decided to send his cousin
+Ernest, with the main portion of the force established on the right bank
+of the harbour, in search of the archduke, for the purpose of holding him
+in check long enough to enable the rest of the army to cross the water
+when the tide should serve.  The enemy, it was now clear, would advance
+by precisely the path over which the States' army had marched that
+morning.  Ernest was accordingly instructed to move with the greatest
+expedition in order to seize the bridge at Leffingen before the archduke
+should reach the deep, dangerous, and marshy river, over which it was the
+sole passage to the downs.  Two thousand infantry, being the Scotch
+regiment of Edmonds and the Zeelanders of Van der Noot, four squadrons of
+Dutch cavalry, and two pieces of artillery composed the force with which
+Ernest set forth at a little before dawn on his hazardous but heroic
+enterprise.
+
+With a handful of troops he was to make head against an army, and the
+youth accepted the task in the cheerful spirit of self-sacrifice which
+characterized his house.  Marching as rapidly as the difficult ground
+would permit, he had the disappointment, on approaching the fatal point
+at about eight o'clock, to see the bridge at Leffingen in the possession
+of the enemy.  Maurice had sent off a messenger early that morning with
+a letter marked post haste (cito, cito) to Ostend ordering up some four
+hundred cavalry-men then stationed in that city under Piron and Bruges,
+to move up to the support of Ernest, and to destroy the bridge and dams
+at Leffingen before the enemy should arrive.  That letter, which might
+have been so effective, was delivered, as it subsequently appeared,
+exactly ten days after it was written.  The States, of their own
+authority, had endeavoured to send out those riders towards the scene of
+action, but it was with great difficulty that they could be got into the
+saddle at all, and they positively refused to go further than St. Albert
+fort.
+
+What course should he now pursue?  He had been sent to cut the archduke's
+road.  He had failed.  Had he remained in his original encampment his
+force would have been annihilated by the overwhelming numbers of the
+enemy so soon as they reached the right bank of Nieuport haven, while
+Maurice could have only looked hopelessly on from the opposite shore.
+At least nothing worse than absolute destruction could befal him now.
+Should he accept a combat of six or eight to one the struggle would be
+hopeless, but the longer it was protracted the better it would be for his
+main army, engaged at that very moment as he knew in crossing the haven
+with the ebbing tide.  Should he retreat, it might be possible for him to
+escape into Fort Albert or even Ostend, but to do so would be to purchase
+his own safety and that of his command at the probable sacrifice of the
+chief army of the republic.  Ernest hesitated but an instant.  Coming
+within carbine-shot of the stream, where he met his cavalry which had
+been sent forward at full speed, in the vain hope of seizing or
+destroying the bridge before it should be too late, he took up a position
+behind a dyke, upon which he placed his two field-pieces, and formed his
+troops in line of battle exactly across the enemy's path.  On the right
+he placed the regiment of Scots.  On the left was Van der Noot's Zeeland
+infantry, garnished with four companies of riders under Risoir, which
+stood near St. Mary's church.  The passage from the stream to the downs
+was not more than a hundred yards wide, being skirted on both sides by a
+swamp.  Here Ernest with his two thousand men awaited the onset of the
+archduke's army.  He was perfectly aware that it was a mere question of
+time, but he was sure that his preparations must interpose a delay to the
+advance of the Spaniards, should his troops, as he felt confident, behave
+themselves as they had always done, and that the delay would be of
+inestimable value to his friends at the haven of Nieuport.
+
+The archduke paused; for he, too, could not be certain, on observing the
+resolute front thus presented to him, that he was not about to engage the
+whole of the States' army.  The doubt was but of short duration, however,
+and the onset was made.  Ernest's artillery fired four volleys into the
+advancing battalions with such effect as to stagger them for a moment,
+but they soon afterwards poured over the dyke in over whelming numbers,
+easily capturing the cannon.  The attack began upon Ernest's left, and
+Risoir's cavalry, thinking that they should be cut off from all
+possibility of retreat into Fort St. Albert, turned their backs in the
+most disgraceful manner, without even waiting for the assault.  Galloping
+around the infantry on the left they infected the Zeelanders with their
+own cowardice.  Scarcely a moment passed before Van der Noot's whole
+regiment was running away as fast as the troopers, while the Scots on the
+right hesitated not for an instant to follow their example.  Even before
+the expected battle had begun, one of those hideous and unaccountable
+panics which sometimes break out like a moral pestilence to destroy all
+the virtue of an army, and to sweep away the best-considered schemes of
+a general, had spread through Ernest's entire force.  So soon as the
+demi-cannon had discharged their fourth volley, Scots, Zeelanders,
+Walloons, pikemen, musketeers, and troopers, possessed by the demon of
+cowardice, were running like a herd of swine to throw themselves into the
+sea.  Had they even kept the line of the downs in the direction of the
+fort many of them might have saved their lives, although none could have
+escaped disgrace.  But the Scots, in an ecstasy of fear, throwing away
+their arms as they fled, ran through the waters behind the dyke, skimmed
+over the sands at full speed, and never paused till such as survived the
+sabre and musket of their swift pursuers had literally drowned themselves
+in the ocean.  Almost every man of them was slain or drowned.  All the
+captains--Stuart, Barclay, Murray, Kilpatrick, Michael, Nesbit--with the
+rest of the company officers, doing their best to rally the fugitives,
+were killed.  The Zeelanders, more cautious in the midst of their panic,
+or perhaps knowing better the nature of the country, were more successful
+in saving their necks.  Not more than a hundred and fifty of Van der
+Noot's regiment were killed, while such of the cavalry of Bruges and
+Piron as had come to the neighbourhood of Fort Albert, not caring to
+trust themselves to the shelter of that redoubt, now fled as fast as
+their horses' legs would carry them, and never pulled bridle till they
+found themselves in Ostend.  And so beside themselves with panic were
+these fugitives, and so virulent was the contagion, that it was difficult
+to prevent the men who had remained in the fort from joining in the
+flight towards Ostend.  Many of them indeed threw themselves over the
+walls and were sabred by the enemy when they might have been safe within
+the fortifications.  Had these cavalry companies of Bruges and Piron been
+even tolerably self-possessed, had they concentrated themselves in the
+fort instead of yielding to the delirium which prompted them to
+participate in their comrades' flight, they would have had it entirely in
+their power, by making an attack, or even the semblance of an attack, by
+means of a sudden sally from the fort, to have saved, not the battle
+indeed, but a large number of lives.  But the panic was hopeless and
+universal, and countless fugitives scrambling by the fort were shot in
+a leisurely manner by a comparative few of the enemy as easily as the
+rabbits which swarmed in those sands were often knocked down in
+multitudes by half-a-dozen sportsmen.
+
+And thus a band of patriots, who were not cowards by nature, and who had
+often played the part of men, had horribly disgraced themselves, and were
+endangering the very existence of their country, already by mistaken
+councils brought within the jaws of death.  The glory of Thermopyla;
+might have hung for ever over that bridge of Leffingen.  It was now a
+pass of infamy, perhaps of fatal disaster.  The sands were covered with
+weapons-sabre, pike, and arquebus--thrown away by almost every soldier as
+he fled to save the life which after all was sacrificed.  The artillery,
+all the standards and colours, all the baggage and ammunition, every
+thing was lost.  No viler panic, no more complete defeat was ever
+recorded.  Such at half-past eight in the morning was that memorable
+Sunday of the 2nd July, 1600, big with the fate of the Dutch republic
+--the festival of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, always thought of
+happy augury for Spanish arms.
+
+Thus began the long expected battle of Nieuport.  At least a thousand of
+the choicest troops of the stadholder were slain, while the Spanish had
+hardly lost a man.
+
+The archduke had annihilated his enemy, had taken his artillery and
+thirty flags.  In great exultation he despatched a messenger to the
+Infanta at Ghent, informing her that he had entirely defeated the
+advance-guard of the States' army, and that his next bulletin would
+announce his complete triumph and the utter overthrow of Maurice, who had
+now no means of escape.  He stated also that he would very soon send the
+rebel stadholder himself to her as a prisoner.  The Infanta, much pleased
+with the promise, observed to her attendants that she was curious to see
+how Nassau would conduct himself when he should be brought a captive into
+her presence.  As to the Catholic troops, they were informed by the
+archduke that after the complete victory which they were that day to
+achieve, not a man should be left alive save Maurice and his brother
+Frederic Henry.  These should be spared to grace the conqueror's triumph,
+but all else should be put to the sword.
+
+Meantime artillery thundered, bonfires blazed, and bells rang their
+merriest peals in Ghent, Bruges, and the other obedient cities as the
+news of the great victory spread through the land.
+
+When the fight was done the archduke called a council of war.  It was a
+grave question whether the army should at once advance in order to
+complete the destruction of the enemy that day, or pause for an interval
+that the troops fatigued with hard marching and with the victorious
+combat in which they just had been engaged, should recover their full
+strength.  That the stadholder was completely in their power was certain.
+The road to Ostend was barred, and Nieuport would hold him at bay, now
+that the relieving army was close upon his heels.  All that was necessary
+in order to annihilate his whole force, was that they should entrench
+themselves for the night on the road which he must cross.  He would then
+be obliged to assault their works with troops inferior in number to
+theirs and fatigued by the march.  Should he remain where he was he would
+soon be starved into submission, and would be obliged to surrender his
+whole army.  On the other hand, by advancing now, in the intolerable heat
+of a July sun over the burning and glaring sands, the troops already
+wearied would arrive on the field of battle utterly exhausted, and would
+be obliged to attack an enemy freshly and cheerfully awaiting them on
+ground of his own selection.
+
+Moreover it was absolutely certain that Fort Albert would not hold an
+hour if resolutely assaulted in the midst of the panic of Ernest's
+defeat, and, with its capture, the annihilalation of Maurice was certain.
+
+Meantime the three thousand men under Velasco, who had been detached to
+protect the rear, would arrive to reinforce the archduke's main army,
+should he pause until the next day.
+
+These arguments, which had much logic in them, were strongly urged by
+Zapena, a veteran marshal of the camp who had seen much service, and
+whose counsels were usually received with deference.  But on this
+occasion commanders and soldiers were hot for following up their victory.
+They cared nothing for the numbers of their enemy, they cried, "The more
+infidels the greater glory in destroying them."  Delay might after all
+cause the loss of the prize, it was eagerly shouted.  The archduke ought
+to pray that the sun might stand still for him that morning, as for
+Joshua in the vale of Ajalon.  The foe seeing himself entrapped, with
+destruction awaiting him, was now skulking towards his ships, which still
+offered him the means of escape.  Should they give him time he would
+profit by their negligence, and next morning when they reached Nieuport,
+the birds would be flown.  Especially the leaders of the mutineers of
+Diest and Thionville were hoarse with indignation at the proposed delay.
+They had not left their brethren, they shouted, nor rallied to the
+archduke's banner in order to sit down and dig in the sand like
+ploughmen.  There was triumph for the Holy Church, there was the utter
+overthrow of the heretic army, there was rich booty to be gathered, all
+these things were within their reach if they now advanced and smote the
+rebels while, confused and panic-stricken, they were endeavouring to
+embark in their ships.
+
+While these vehement debates were at the hottest, sails were descried in
+the offing; for the archduke's forces already stood upon the edge of the
+downs.  First one ship, then another and another, moved steadily along
+the coast, returning from Nieuport in the direction of Ostend.
+
+This was more than could be borne.  It was obvious that the rebels were
+already making their escape, and it was urged upon the cardinal that
+probably Prince Maurice and the other chieftains were on board one of
+those very vessels, and were giving him the slip.  With great expedition
+it would still be possible to overtake them before the main body could
+embark, and the attack might yet be made at the most favourable moment.
+Those white sails gleaming in the distance were more eloquent than Zapena
+or any other advocate of delay, and the order was given to advance.  And
+it was exactly at this period that it still lay within the power of the
+States' cavalry at Ostend to partially redeem their character, and to
+render very effective service.  Had four or five hundred resolute
+troopers hung upon the rear of the Spanish army now, as it moved toward
+Nieuport, they might, by judiciously skirmishing, advancing and
+retreating according to circumstances, have caused much confusion, and
+certainly have so harassed the archduke as to compel the detachment of a
+very considerable force of his own cavalry to protect himself against
+such assaults.  But the terror was an enduring one.  Those horsemen
+remained paralyzed and helpless, and it was impossible for the States,
+with all their commands or entreaties, to induce them to mount and ride
+even a half mile beyond the city gates.
+
+While these events had been occurring in the neighbourhood of Ostend,
+Maurice had not been idle at Nieuport.  No sooner had Ernest been
+despatched on his desperate errand than his brother Lewis Gunther was
+ordered by the stadholder to get on horseback and ride through the
+quarters of the army.  On the previous afternoon there had been so little
+thought of an enemy that large foraging parties had gone out from camp in
+all directions, and had not returned.  Lewis gave notice that a great
+battle was to be expected on the morrow, instead of the tranquil
+commencement of a leisurely siege, and that therefore no soul was
+henceforth to leave the camp, while a troop of horse was despatched at
+the first gleam of daylight to scour the country in search of all the
+stragglers.  Maurice had no thought of retreating, and his first care was
+to bring his army across the haven.  The arrangements were soon
+completed, but it was necessary to wait until nearly low water.  Soon
+after eight o'clock Count Lewis began to cross with eight squadrons of
+cavalry, and partly swimming, partly wading, effected the passage in
+safety.  The advanced guard of infantry, under Sir Francis Vere--
+consisting of two thousand six hundred Englishmen, and two thousand eight
+hundred Frisians, with some companies of horse, followed by the battalia
+under Solms, and the rearguard under Tempel--then slowly and with
+difficulty moved along the same dangerous path with the water as high as
+their armpits, and often rising nearly over their heads.  Had the
+archduke not been detained near the bridge of Leffingen by Ernest's
+Scotchmen and Zeelanders during three or four precious hours that
+morning; had he arrived, as he otherwise might have done, just as the
+States' army--horse, foot, and artillery--was floundering through that
+treacherous tide, it would have fared ill for the stadholder and the
+republic.  But the devotion of Ernest had at least prevented the attack
+of the archduke until Maurice and his men stood on dry land.
+
+Dripping from head to foot, but safe and sound, the army had at last
+reached the beach at Nieuport.  Vere had refused his soldiers permission
+to denude themselves in crossing of their shoes and lower garments.
+There was no time for that, he said, and they would either earn new
+clothes for themselves that day, or never need doublet and hose again
+any more in the world.  Some hours had elapsed before the tedious and
+difficult crossing of infantry, cavalry, artillery, and munition trains
+had been accomplished.
+
+Lewis Gunther, with eight squadrons of picked cavalry, including his own
+company, Maurice's own, Frederic Henry's own, with Batenburg's arquebus-
+men, and other veterans, was first to place himself in battle order on
+the beach.  His squadrons in iron corslet and morion, and armed with
+lances, carbines, and sabres, stretched across from the water to the
+downs.  He had not been long stationed there when he observed that far
+away in the direction of Ostend the beach was growing black with troops.
+He believed them at first to be his brother Ernest and his forces
+returning victorious from their hazardous expedition, but he was soon
+undeceived.
+
+A couple of troopers from Ostend came spurring full gallop along the
+strand, and almost breathless with dismay, announced that it was the
+whole army of the archduke advancing in line of battle.  They were
+instantly sent to the rear, without being allowed to speak further, in
+order that they might deliver their message in private to the commander-
+in-chief.  And most terrible were the tidings to which Maurice now
+listened in very secret audience.  Ernest was utterly defeated, his
+command cut to pieces, the triumphant foe advancing rapidly, and already
+in full sight.  The stadholder heard the tale without flinching, and
+having quietly ordered the messengers upon their lives not to open their
+lips on the subject to living soul, sent them securely guarded in a boat
+on board one of the war-ships in the offing.  With perfect cheerfulness
+he then continued his preparations, consulting with Vere, on whom he
+mainly relied for the marshalling of the army in the coming conflict.
+Undecided as he had sometimes shown himself, he was resolute now.  He
+called no council of war, for he knew not how much might be known or
+suspected of the disaster already sustained, and he had fully made up
+his mind as to the course to be pursued.  He had indeed taken a supreme
+resolution.  Entirely out of his own breast, without advising with any
+man, he calmly gave directions that every war-ship, transport, barge, or
+wherry should put to sea at once.  As the tide had now been long on the
+flood, the few vessels that had been aground--within the harbour were got
+afloat, and the whole vast, almost innumerable armada, was soon standing
+out to sea.  No more heroic decision was ever taken by fighting man.
+
+Sir Francis gave advice that entrenchments should be thrown up on the
+north-east, and that instead of advancing towards the enemy they should
+await his coming, and refuse the battle that day if possible.  The
+Englishman, not aware of the catastrophe at Leffingen, which Maurice had
+locked up in his own breast, was now informed by the stadholder that
+there were to be no entrenchments that day but those of pike and
+arquebus.  It was not the fault of Maurice that the fate of the
+commonwealth had been suspended on a silken thread that morning, but he
+knew that but one of two issues was possible.  They must fight their way
+through the enemy back to Ostend, or perish, every man of them.  The
+possibility of surrender did not enter his mind, and he felt that it was
+better to hasten the action before the news of Ernest's disaster should
+arrive to chill the ardour of the troops.
+
+Meantime Lewis Gunther and his cavalry had been sitting motionless upon
+their horses on the beach.  The enemy was already in full view, and the
+young general, most desirous to engage in a preliminary skirmish, sent
+repeated messages to the stadholder for permission to advance.  Presently
+Sir Francis Vere rode to the front, to whom he eagerly urged his request
+that the infantry of the vanguard might be, brought up at once to support
+him.  On the contrary the English general advised that the cavalry should
+fall back to the infantry, in order to avoid a premature movement.  Lewis
+strongly objected to this arrangement, on the ground that the mere
+semblance of retreat, thus upon the eve of battle, would discourage all
+the troops.  But he was over-ruled, for Maurice had expressly enjoined
+upon his cousin that morning to defer in all things to the orders of
+Vere.  These eight squadrons of horse accordingly shifted their position,
+and were now placed close to the edge of the sea, on the left flank of
+the vanguard, which Vere had drawn up across the beach and in the downs.
+On the edge of the downs, on the narrow slip of hard sand above high-
+water mark, and on Vere's right, Maurice had placed a battery of six
+demi-cannon.
+
+Behind the advance was the battalia, or centre, under command of that
+famous fighter, George Everard Solms, consisting of Germans, Swiss,
+French, and Walloons.  The "New Beggars," as the Walloons were called,
+who had so recently surrendered the forts of Crevecoeur and St. Andrew,
+and gone over from the archduke's service to the army of the States, were
+included in this division, and were as eager to do credit to their new
+chief as were the mutineers in the archduke's army to merit the
+approbation of their sovereign.
+
+The rearguard under Tempel was made up, like the other divisions,
+of the blended nationalities of German, Briton, Hollander, and Walloon,
+and, like the others, was garnished at each flank with heavy cavalry.
+
+The Spanish army, after coming nearly within cannon-shot of their
+adversary, paused.  It was plain that the States' troops were not in so
+great a panic as the more sanguine advisers of the archduke had hoped.
+They were not cowering among the shipping, preparing to escape.  Still
+less had any portion of them already effected their retreat in those
+vessels, a few of which had so excited the enemy's ardour when they came
+in sight.  It was obvious that a great struggle, in which the forces were
+very evenly balanced, was now to be fought out upon those sands.  It was
+a splendid tournament--a great duel for life and death between the
+champions of the Papacy and of Protestantism, of the Republic and of
+absolutism, that was to be fought out that midsummer's day.  The lists
+were closed.  The trumpet signal for the fray would soon be blown.
+
+The archduke, in Milanese armour, on a wonderfully beautiful snow-white
+Spanish stallion, moved in the centre of his army.  He wore no helmet,
+that his men might the more readily recognize him as he rode gallantly to
+and fro, marshalling, encouraging, exhorting the troops.  Never before
+had he manifested such decided military talent, combined with
+unquestionable personal valour, as he had done since this campaign began.
+Friend and foe agreed that day that Albert fought like a lion.  He was at
+first well seconded by Mendoza, who led the van, and by Villars, La
+Bourlotte, Avalos, Zapena, and many other officers of note.  The mutinous
+Spanish and Italian cavalry, combined with a few choice squadrons of
+Walloon and German horse, were placed in front and on the flanks.  They
+were under the special supervision of the admiral, who marshalled their
+squadrons and directed their charging, although mounted on a hackney
+himself, and not intending to participate in the action.  Then came the
+battalia and rear, crowding very closely upon each other.
+
+Face to face with them stood the republican host, drawn up in great solid
+squares of infantry, their standards waving above each closely planted
+clump of pikemen, with the musketeers fringing their skirts, while the
+iron-clad ponderous cavalry of Count Lewis and Marcellus Bax, in black
+casque and, corslet, were in front, restlessly expecting the signal for
+the onset.  The volunteers of high rank who were then serving on the
+staff of the stadholder--the Duke of Holstein, the Prince of Anhalt, two
+young Counts Solms, and others--had been invited and even urged to
+abandon the field while there was yet time for setting them on board the
+fleet.  Especially it was thought desirable that young Frederic Henry,
+a mere boy, on whom the hopes of the Orange-Nassau house would rest if
+Maurice fell in the conflict, should be spared the fate which seemed
+hanging over the commonwealth and her defenders.  But the son of William
+the Silent implored his brother with clasped hands not to send him from
+his side at that moment, so that Maurice granted his prayer, and caused
+him to be provided with a complete suit of armour.  Thus in company with
+young Coligny--a lad of his own age, and like himself a grandson of the
+great admiral--the youth who was one day to play so noble a part on the
+stage of the world's affairs was now to be engaged in his first great
+passage of arms.  No one left the field but Sir Robert Sidney, who had
+come over from Ostend, from irrepressible curiosity to witness the
+arrangements, but who would obviously have been guilty of unpardonable
+negligence had he been absent at such a crisis from the important post of
+which he was governor for the queen.
+
+The arena of the conflict seemed elaborately prepared by the hand of
+nature.  The hard, level, sandy beach, swept clean and smooth by the
+ceaseless action of the tides, stretched out far as the eye could reach
+in one long, bold, monotonous line.  Like the whole coast of Flanders and
+of Holland, it seemed drawn by a geometrical rule, not a cape, cove, or
+estuary breaking the perfect straightness of the design.  On the right,
+just beyond high-water mark, the downs, fantastically heaped together
+like a mimic mountain chain, or like tempestuous ocean-waves suddenly
+changed to sand, rolled wild and confused, but still in a regularly
+parallel course with the line of the beach.  They seemed a barrier thrown
+up to protect the land from being bitten quite away by the ever-restless
+and encroaching sea.  Beyond the downs, which were seven hundred yards in
+width; extended a level tract of those green fertile meadows,
+artificially drained, which are so characteristic a feature of the
+Netherland landscapes, the stream which ran from Ostend towards the town
+of Nieuport flowing sluggishly through them. It was a bright warm
+midsummer day.  The waves of the German Ocean came lazily rolling in upon
+the crisp yellow sand, the surf breaking with its monotonous music at the
+very feet of the armies.  A gentle south-west breeze was blowing, just
+filling the sails of more than a thousand ships in the offing, which
+moved languidly along the sparkling sea.  It was an atmosphere better
+befitting a tranquil holiday than the scene of carnage which seemed
+approaching.
+
+Maurice of Nassau, in complete armour, rapier in hand, with the orange-
+plumes waving from his helmet and the orange-scarf across his breast,
+rode through the lines, briefly addressing his soldiers with martial
+energy.  Pointing to the harbour of Nieuport behind them, now again
+impassable with the flood, to the ocean on the left where rode the fleet,
+carrying with it all hope of escape by sea, and to the army of the
+archduke in front, almost within cannon-range, he simply observed that
+they had no possible choice between victory and death.  They must either
+utterly overthrow the Spanish army, he said, or drink all the waters of
+the sea.  Either drowning or butchery was their doom if they were
+conquered, for no quarter was to be expected from their unscrupulous and
+insolent foe.  He was there to share their fate, to conquer or to perish
+with them, and from their tried valour and from the God of battles he
+hoped a more magnificent victory than had ever before been achieved in
+this almost perpetual war for independence.  The troops, perfectly
+enthusiastic, replied with a shout that they were ready to live or die
+with their chieftain, and eagerly demanded to be led upon the foe.
+Whether from hope or from desperation they were confident and cheerful.
+Some doubt was felt as to the Walloons, who had so lately transferred
+themselves from the archduke's army, but their commander, Marquette, made
+them all lift up their hands, and swear solemnly to live or die that day
+at the feet of Prince Maurice.
+
+Two hours long these two armies had stood looking each other in the face.
+It was near two o'clock when the arch duke at last gave the signal to
+advance.  The tide was again almost at the full.  Maurice stood firm,
+awaiting the assault; the enemy slowly coming nearer, and the rising tide
+as steadily lapping away all that was left of the hard beach which
+fringed the rugged downs.  Count Lewis chafed with impatience as it
+became each moment more evident that there would be no beach left for
+cavalry fighting, while in the downs the manoeuvring of horse was
+entirely impossible.  Meantime, by command of Vere, all those sandy
+hillocks and steeps had been thickly sown with musketeers and pikemen.
+Arquebus-men and carabineers were planted in every hollow, while on the
+highest and most advantageous elevation two pieces of cannon had been
+placed by the express direction of Maurice.  It seemed obvious that the
+battle would, after all, be transferred to the downs.  Not long before
+the action began, a private of the enemy's cavalry was taken, apparently
+with his own consent, in a very trifling preliminary skirmish.  He
+bragged loudly of the immense force of the archduke, of the great victory
+already gained over Ernest, with the utter annihilation of his forces,
+and of the impending destruction of the whole States' army.  Strange to
+say, this was the first intimation received by Count Lewis of that grave
+disaster, although it had been for some hours known to Maurice.  The
+prisoner was at once gagged, that he might spread his disheartening news
+no further, but as he persisted by signs and gestures in attempting to
+convey the information which he had evidently been sent forward to
+impart, he was shot by command of the stadholder, and so told no further
+tales.
+
+The enemy had now come very close, and it was the desire of Count Lewis
+that a couple of companies of horse, in accordance with the commands of
+Maurice, should charge the cavalry in front, and that after a brief
+skirmish they should retreat as if panic-stricken behind the advance
+column, thus decoying the Spanish vanguard in hot pursuit towards the
+battery upon the edge of the downs.  The cannon were then suddenly to
+open upon them, and during the confusion sure to be created in their
+ranks, the musketeers, ambushed among the hollows, were to attack them
+in flank, while the cavalry in one mass should then make a concentrated
+charge in front.  It seemed certain that the effect of this movement
+would be to hurl the whole of the enemy's advance, horse and foot, back
+upon his battalia, and thus to break up his army in irretrievable rout.
+The plan was a sensible one, but it was not ingeniously executed.  Before
+the handful of cavalry had time to make the proposed feint the
+cannoneers, being unduly excited, and by express command of Sir Francis
+Vere, fired a volley into the advancing columns of the archduke.  This
+precipitated the action; almost in an instant changed its whole
+character, and defeated the original plan of the republican leader.
+The enemy's cavalry broke at the first discharge from the battery, and
+wheeled in considerable disorder, but without panic, quite into and
+across the downs.  The whole army of the archduke, which had already been
+veering in the same direction, as it advanced, both because the tide was
+so steadily devouring the even surface of the sands, and because the
+position of a large portion of the States' forces among the hillocks
+exposed him to an attack in flank, was now rapidly transferred to the
+downs.  It was necessary for that portion of Maurice's army which still
+stood on what remained of the beach to follow this movement.  A rapid
+change of front was then undertaken, and--thanks to the careful system
+of wheeling, marching, and counter-marching in which the army had been
+educated by William Lewis and Maurice--was executed with less confusion
+than might have been expected.
+
+But very few companies of infantry now remained on the strip of beach
+still bare of the waves, and in the immediate vicinity of the artillery
+planted high and dry beyond their reach.
+
+The scene was transformed as if by magic, and the battle was now to be
+fought out in those shifting, uneven hills and hollows, where every
+soldier stood mid-leg deep in the dry and burning sand.  Fortunately for
+the States' army, the wind was in its back, blowing both sand and smoke
+into the faces of its antagonists, while the already weltering sun glared
+fiercely in their eyes.  Maurice had skilfully made use of the great
+advantage which accident had given him that day, and his very refusal to
+advance and to bring on a premature struggle thus stood him in stead in a
+variety of ways Lewis Gunther was now ordered, with Marcellus Bax and six
+squadrons of horse, to take position within the belt of pasture land on
+the right of the downs.  When he arrived there the van of the archduke's
+infantry had already charged the States' advance under Vere, while just
+behind and on the side of the musketeers and pikemen a large portion of
+the enemy's cavalry was standing stock still on the green.  Without
+waiting for instructions Lewis ordered a charge.  It was brilliantly
+successful.  Unheeding a warm salutation in flank from the musketeers as
+they rode by them, and notwithstanding that they were obliged to take
+several ditches as they charged, they routed the enemy's cavalry at the
+first onset, and drove them into panic-stricken flight.  Some fled for
+protection quite to the rear of their infantry, others were hotly pursued
+across the meadows till they took refuge under the walls of Nieuport.
+The very success of the attack was nearly fatal however to Count Lewis;
+for, unable to restrain the ardour of his troopers in the chase, he found
+himself cut off from the army with only ten horsemen to support him, and
+completely enveloped by the enemy.  Fortunately Prince Maurice had
+foreseen the danger, and had ordered all the cavalry to the meadows so
+soon as the charge was made.  Captain Kloet, with a fresh company of
+mounted carabineers, marked the little squad of States' cavalry careering
+about in the midst of the Catholics, recognized their leader by the
+orange-plumes on his calque, and dashed forward to the rescue.  Lewis
+again found himself at the head of his cavalry, but was obliged to wait
+a long time for the return of the stragglers.
+
+While this brilliant diversion had been enacting as it were on the fringe
+of the battle, its real bustle and business had been going on in the
+downs.  Just as Lewis made his charge in the pastures, the infantry of
+the archduke and the advance guard of the republicans met in deadly
+shock.  More than an hour long they contended with varying success.
+Musketeers, pikemen, arquebusmen, swordmen, charged, sabred, or shot each
+other from the various hollows or heights of vantage, plunging knee-deep
+in the sand, torn and impeded by the prickly broom-plant which grew
+profusely over the whole surface, and fighting breast to breast and hand
+to hand in a vast series of individual encounters.  Thrice were the
+Spaniards repulsed in what for a moment seemed absolute rout, thrice they
+rallied and drove their assailants at push of pike far beyond their
+original position; and again the conquered republicans recovered their
+energy and smote their adversaries as if the contest were just begun.
+The tide of battle ebbed and flowed like the waves of the sea, but it
+would be mere pedantry to affect any technical explanation of its various
+changes.  It was a hot struggle of twenty thousand men, pent up in a
+narrow space, where the very nature of the ground had made artistic
+evolutions nearly impracticable.  The advance, the battalia, even the
+rearguard on both sides were mixed together pell-mell, and the downs were
+soon covered at every step with the dead and dying-Briton, Hollander,
+Spaniard, Italian, Frisian, Frenchman, Walloon, fighting and falling
+together, and hotly contesting every inch of those barren sands.
+
+It seemed, said one who fought there, as if the last day of the world had
+come.
+
+Political and religious hatred, pride of race, remembrance of a half-
+century of wrongs, hope, fury, and despair; these were the real elements
+contending with each other that summer's day.  It was a mere trial of
+ferocity and endurance, not more scientific than a fight between packs of
+wolves and of bloodhounds.
+
+No doubt the brunt of the conflict fell upon Vere, with his Englishmen
+and Frisians, for this advance-guard made up nearly one-half of the
+States' army actually engaged.  And most nobly, indefatigably, did the
+hardy veteran discharge his duty.  Having personally superintended almost
+all the arrangements in the morning, he fought all day in the front,
+doing the work both of a field-marshal and a corporal.
+
+He was twice wounded, shot each time through the same leg, yet still
+fought on as if it were some one else's blood and not his own that was
+flowing from "those four holes in his flesh."  He complained that he was
+not sufficiently seconded, and that the reserves were not brought up
+rapidly enough to his support.  He was manifestly unjust, for although
+it could not be doubted that the English and the Frisians did their best,
+it was equally certain that every part of the army was as staunch as the
+vanguard.  It may be safely asserted that it would not have benefited the
+cause of the States, had every man been thrown into the fight at one and
+the same moment.
+
+During this "bloody bit," as Vere called it, between the infantry on both
+sides, the little battery of two field-pieces planted on the highest
+hillock of the downs had been very effective.  Meantime, while the
+desperate and decisive struggle had been going on, Lewis Gunther, in the
+meadow, had again rallied all the cavalry, which, at the first stage of
+the action, had been dispersed in pursuit of the enemy's horse.
+Gathering them together in a mass, he besought Prince Maurice to order
+him to charge.  The stadholder bade him pause yet a little longer.  The
+aspect of the infantry fight was not yet, in his opinion, sufficiently
+favourable.  Again and again Lewis sent fresh entreaties, and at last
+received the desired permission.  Placing three picked squadrons in
+front, the young general made a furious assault upon the Catholic
+cavalry, which had again rallied and was drawn up very close to the
+musketeers.  Fortune was not so kind to him as at the earlier stage of
+the combat.  The charge was received with dauntless front by the Spanish
+and Italian horse, while at the same moment the infantry poured a severe
+fire into their assailants.  The advancing squadrons faltered, wheeled
+back upon the companies following them, and the whole mass of the
+republican cavalry broke into wild and disorderly retreat.  At the same
+moment the archduke, observing his advantage, threw in his last reserves
+of infantry, and again there was a desperate charge upon Vere's wearied
+troops, as decisive as the counter charge of Lewis's cavalry had been
+unsuccessful.  The English and Frisians, sorely tried during those hours
+of fighting with superior numbers in the intolerable heat, broke at last
+and turned their backs upon the foe.  Some of them fled panic-stricken
+quite across the downs and threw themselves into the sea, but the mass
+retreated in a comparatively orderly manner, being driven from one down
+to another, and seeking a last refuge behind the battery placed on the
+high-water line of the beach.  In the confusion and panic Sir Francis
+Vere went down at last.  His horse, killed by a stray shot fell with and
+upon him, and the heroic Englishman would then and there have finished
+his career--for he would hardly have found quarter from the Spaniards--
+had not Sir Robert Drury, riding by in the tumult, observed him as he lay
+almost exhausted in the sand.  By his exertion and that of his servant
+Higham, Vere was rescued from his perilous situation, placed on the
+crupper of Sir Robert's horse, and so borne off the field.
+
+The current of the retreating and pursuing hosts swept by the spot where
+Maurice sat on horseback, watching and directing the battle.  His bravest
+and best general, the veteran Vere, had fallen; his cousin Lewis was now
+as utterly overthrown as his brother Ernest had been but a few hours
+before at the fatal bridge of Leffingen; the whole army, the only army,
+of the States was defeated, broken, panic-struck; the Spanish shouts of
+victory rang on every side.  Plainly the day was lost, and with it the
+republic.  In the blackest hour that the Netherland commonwealth had ever
+known, the fortitude of the stadholder did not desert him.  Immoveable
+as a rock in the torrent he stemmed the flight of his troops.  Three
+squadrons of reserved cavalry, Balen's own, Vere's own, and Cecil's, were
+all that was left him, and at the head of these he essayed an advance.
+He seemed the only man on the field not frightened; and menacing,
+conjuring, persuading the fugitives for the love of fatherland, of
+himself and his house, of their own honour, not to disgrace and destroy
+themselves for ever; urging that all was not yet lost, and beseeching
+them at least to take despair for their master, and rather to die like
+men on the field than to drown like dogs in the sea, he succeeded in
+rallying a portion of those nearest him.  The enemy paused in their mad
+pursuit, impressed even more than were the States' troops at the
+dauntless bearing of the prince.  It was one of those supreme moments
+in battle and in history which are sometimes permitted to influence the
+course of events during a long future.  The archduke and his generals
+committed a grave error in pausing for an instant in their career.  Very
+soon it was too late to repair the fault, for the quick and correct eye
+of the stadholder saw the point to which the whole battle was tending,
+and he threw his handful of reserved cavalry, with such of the fugitives
+as had rallied, straight towards the battery on the beach.
+
+It was arranged that Balen should charge on the strand, Horace Vere
+through the upper downs, and Cecil along the margin of the beach.  Balen
+rode slowly through the heavy sand, keeping his horses well in wind, and
+at the moment he touched the beach, rushed with fury upon the enemy's
+foot near the battery.  The moment was most opportune, for the last shot
+had been fired from the guns, and they had just been nearly abandoned in
+despair.  The onset of Balen was successful: the Spanish infantry, thus
+suddenly attached, were broken, and many were killed and taken.  Cecil
+and Vere were equally fortunate, so that the retreating English and
+Frisians began to hold firm again.  It was the very crisis of the battle,
+which up to that instant seemed wholly lost by the republic, so universal
+was the overthrow and the flight.  Some hundred and fifty Frisian pikemen
+now rallied from their sullen retreat, and drove the enemy off one
+hillock or dune.
+
+Foiled in their attempt to intercept the backward movement of the States'
+army and to seize this vital point and the artillery with it, the
+Spaniards hesitated and were somewhat discouraged.  Some Zeeland sailors,
+who had stuck like wax to those demi-cannon during the whole conflict,
+now promptly obeyed orders to open yet once more upon the victorious foe.
+At the first volley the Spaniards were staggered, and the sailors with a
+lively shout of "Ian-fall on," inspired the defeated army with a portion
+of their own cheerfulness.  Others vehemently shouted victory without any
+reason whatever.  At that instant Maurice ordered a last charge by those
+few cavalry squadrons, while the enemy was faltering under the play of
+the artillery.  It was a forlorn hope, yet such was the shifting fortune
+of that memorable day that the charge decided the battle.  The whole line
+of the enemy broke, the conquered became the victors, the fugitives
+quickly rallying and shouting victory almost before they had turned their
+faces to the foe, became in their turn the pursuers.  The Catholic army
+could no longer be brought to a stand, but fled wildly in every
+direction, and were shot and stabbed by the republicans as they fled.
+The Admiral of Arragon fell with his hackney in this last charge.
+Unwounded, but struggling to extricate himself from his horse that had
+been killed, he was quickly surrounded by the enemy.
+
+Two Spaniards, Mendo and Villalobos by name, who had recently deserted
+to the States, came up at the moment and recognised the fallen admiral.
+They had reason to recognise him, for both had been in his service, and
+one of them, who was once in immediate household attendance upon him,
+bore the mark of a wound which he had received from his insolent master.
+"Admiral, look at this," cried Villalobos, pointing to the scar on his
+face.  The admiral looked and knew his old servants, and gave his scarf
+to the one and the hanger of his sword-belt to the other, as tokens that
+he was their prisoner.  Thus his life was saved for heavy ransom, of
+which those who had actually captured him would receive a very trifling
+portion.  The great prisoner was carried to the rear, where he
+immediately asked for food and drink, and fell to with an appetite,
+while the pursuit and slaughter went on in all directions.
+
+The archduke, too, whose personal conduct throughout the day was
+admirable, had been slightly wounded by a halberd stroke on the ear.
+This was at an earlier stage of the action, and he had subsequently
+mounted another horse, exchanged his splendid armour for a plain black
+harness, over which he wore a shabby scarf.  In the confusion of the rout
+he was hard beset.  "Surrender, scoundrel!"  cried a Walloon pikeman,
+seizing his horse by the bridle.  But a certain Flemish Captain Kabbeljaw
+recognising his sovereign and rushing to his rescue, slew his assailant
+and four others with his own hand.  He was at last himself killed, but
+Albert escaped, and, accompanied by the Duke of Aumale, who was also
+slightly wounded, by Colonel La Bourlotte, and half a dozen troopers rode
+for their life in the direction of Bruges.  When they reached the fatal
+bridge of Leffingen, over which the archduke had marched so triumphantly
+but a few hours before to annihilate Count Ernest's division, he was
+nearly taken prisoner.  A few soldiers, collected from the scattered
+garrisons, had occupied the position, but knowing nothing of the result
+of the action in the downs, took to their heels and fled as the little
+party of cavaliers advanced.  Had the commander at Ostend or the States-
+General promptly sent out a company or two so soon as the news of the
+victory reached them to seize this vital point, the doom of the archduke
+would have been sealed.  Nothing then could have saved him from capture.
+Fortunately escaping this danger, he now pushed on, and never pulled
+bridle till he reached Bruges.  Thence without pausing he was conveyed to
+Ghent, where he presented himself to the Infanta.  He was not accompanied
+by the captive Maurice of Nassau, and the curiosity of the princess to
+know how that warrior would demean himself as a prisoner was not destined
+on this occasion to be gratified.
+
+Isabella bore the disappointment and the bitter intelligence of the
+defeat with a stoicism worthy of her departed father.  She had already
+had intimations that the day was going against her army, and had
+successively received tidings that her husband was killed, was
+dangerously wounded, was a prisoner; and she was now almost relieved
+to receive him, utterly defeated, but still safe and sound.
+
+Meantime the mad chase continued along the beach and through the downs.
+Never was a rout more absolute than that of Albert's army.  Never had so
+brilliant a victory been achieved by Hollander or Spaniard upon that
+great battleground of Europe--the Netherlands.
+
+Maurice, to whom the chief credit of the victory was unquestionably due,
+had been firm and impassive during the various aspects of the battle,
+never losing his self-command when affairs seemed blackest.  So soon,
+however, as the triumph, after wavering so long, was decided in his
+favour--the veteran legions of Spain and Italy, the picked troops of
+Christendom, all flying at last before his troops--the stadholder was
+fairly melted.  Dismounting from his horse, he threw himself on his knees
+in the sand, and with streaming eyes and uplifted hands exclaimed,
+"O God, what are we human creatures to whom Thou hast brought such
+honour, and to whom Thou hast vouchsafed such a victory!"
+
+The slaughter went on until nightfall, but the wearied conquerors were
+then obliged to desist from the pursuit.  Three thousand Spaniards were
+slain and about six hundred prisoners were taken.  The loss of the
+States' army; including the affair in the morning at Leffingen, was about
+two thousand killed.  Maurice was censured for not following up his
+victory more closely, but the criticism seems unjust.  The night which
+followed the warm summer's day was singularly black and cloudy, the army
+was exhausted, the distance for the enemy to traverse before they found
+themselves safe within their own territory was not great.  In such
+circumstances the stadholder might well deem himself sufficiently
+triumphant to have plucked a splendid victory out of the very jaws of
+death.  All the artillery of the archduke--seven pieces besides the two
+captured from Ernest in the morning--one hundred and twenty standards,
+and a long list of distinguished prisoners, including the Admiral Zapena
+and many other officers of note, were the trophies of the conqueror.
+Maurice passed the night on the battle-field; the admiral supping with
+him in his tent.  Next morning he went to Ostend, where a great
+thanksgiving was held, Uytenbogart preaching an eloquent sermon on the
+116th Psalm.  Afterwards there was a dinner at the house of the States-
+General, in honour of the stadholder, to which the Admiral of Arragon was
+likewise bidden.  That arrogant but discomfited personage was obliged to
+listen to many a rough martial joke at his disaster as they sat at table,
+but he bore the brunt of the encounter with much fortitude.
+
+"Monsieur the Admiral of Arragon," said the stadholder in French, "is
+more fortunate than many of his army.  He has been desiring these four
+years to see Holland.  Now he will make his entrance there without
+striking a blow."  The gibe was perhaps deficient in delicacy towards a
+fallen foe, but a man who had passed a whole winter in murdering his
+prisoners in cold blood might be satisfied if he were stung only by a
+sharp sarcasm or two, when he had himself become a captive.
+
+Others asked him demurely what he thought of these awkward apprentices
+of Holland and Zeeland, who were good enough at fighting behind dykes and
+ramparts of cities, but who never ventured to face a Spanish army in the
+open field.  Mendoza sustained himself with equanimity however, and found
+plenty of answers.  He discussed the battle with coolness, blamed the
+archduke for throwing the whole of his force prematurely into the
+contest, and applauded the prudence of Maurice in keeping his reserves in
+hand.  He ascribed a great share of the result to the States' artillery,
+which had been well placed upon wooden platforms and well served, while
+the archduke's cannon, sinking in the sands, had been of comparatively
+little use.  Especially he expressed a warm admiration for the heroism of
+Maurice in sending away his ships, and in thus leaving himself and his
+soldiers no alternative but death or triumph.
+
+While they still sat at table many of the standards taken from the enemy
+were brought in and exhibited; the stadholder and others amusing
+themselves with reading the inscriptions and devices emblazoned upon
+them.
+
+And thus on the 2nd July, 1600, the army of the States-General, led by
+Maurice of Nassau, had utterly defeated Albert of Austria.
+
+     ["Enfin l'affaire vint auix mains et fut combattu bien furieusement
+     de deux costes l'espace de deux heures.  Enfin Dieu par sa grace
+     voulut que la victoire demeura de more coste."  Such were the simple
+     words in which Maurice announced to his cousin Lewis William his
+     victory in the most important battle that had been fought for half a
+     century.  Not even General Ulysses Grant could be more modest in the
+     hour of immense triumph.]
+
+Strange to say--on another 2nd July, three centuries and two years
+before, a former Albert of Austria had overthrown the emperor Adolphus of
+Nassau, who had then lost both crown and life in the memorable battle of
+Worms.  The imperial shade of Maurice's ancestor had been signally
+appeased.
+
+In Ostend, as may well be imagined, ineffable joy had succeeded to the
+horrible gloom in which the day had been passed, ever since the tidings
+had been received of Ernest's overthrow.
+
+Those very cavalry men, who had remained all day cowering behind the
+walls of the city, seeing by the clouds of dust which marked the track of
+the fugitives that the battle had been won by the comrades whom they had
+so basely deserted in the morning, had been eager enough to join in the
+pursuit.  It was with difficulty that the States, who had been unable to
+drive them out of the town while the fight was impending or going on,
+could keep enough of them within the walls to guard the city against
+possible accident, now that the work was done.  Even had they taken the
+field a few hours earlier, without participating in the action, or
+risking their own lives, they might have secured the pass of Leffingen,
+and made the capture of the archduke or his destruction inevitable.
+
+The city, which had seemed deserted, swarmed with the garrison and with
+the lately trembling burghers, for it seemed to all as if they had been
+born again.  Even the soldiers on the battle-field had embraced each
+other like comrades who had met in another world.  "Blessed be His holy
+name," said the stadholder's chaplain, "for His right hand has led us
+into hell and brought us forth again.  I know not," he continued, "if I
+am awake or if I dream, when I think how God has in one moment raised us
+from the dead."
+
+Lewis Gunther, whose services had been so conspicuous, was well rewarded.
+"I hope," said that general, writing to his brother Lewis William, "that
+this day's work will not have been useless to me, both for what I have
+learned in it and for another thing.  His Excellency has done me
+the honour to give me the admiral for my prisoner."  And equally
+characteristic was the reply of the religious and thrifty stadholder
+of Friesland.
+
+"I thank God," he said, "for His singular grace in that He has been
+pleased to make use of your person as the instrument of so renowned and
+signal a victory, for which, as you have derived therefrom not mediocre
+praise, and acquired a great reputation, it should be now your duty to
+humble yourself before God, and to acknowledge that it is He alone who
+has thus honoured you .  .  .  .  You should reverence Him the more, that
+while others are admonished of their duty by misfortunes and miseries,
+the good God invites you to His love by benefits and honours .  .  .  .
+I am very glad, too, that his Excellency has given you the admiral for
+your prisoner, both because of the benefit to you, and because it is a
+mark of your merit on that day.  Knowing the state of our affairs, you
+will now be able to free your patrimony from encumbrances, when otherwise
+you would have been in danger of remaining embarrassed and in the power
+of others.  It will therefore be a perpetual honour to you that you, the
+youngest of us all, have been able by your merits to do more to raise up
+our house out of its difficulties than your predecessors or myself have
+been able to do."
+
+The beautiful white horse which the archduke had ridden during the battle
+fell into the hands of Lewis Gunther, and was presented by him to Prince
+Maurice, who had expressed great admiration of the charger.  It was a
+Spanish horse, for which the archduke had lately paid eleven hundred
+crowns.
+
+A white hackney of the Infanta had also been taken, and became the
+property of Count Ernest.
+
+The news of the great battle spread with unexampled rapidity, not only
+through the Netherlands but to neighbouring countries.  On the night of
+the 7th July (N.S.) five days after the event, Envoy Caron, in England,
+received intimations of the favourable news from the French ambassador,
+who had received a letter from the Governor of Calais.  Next morning,
+very early, he waited on Sir Robert Cecil at Greenwich, and was admitted
+to his chamber, although the secretary was not yet out of bed.  He, too,
+had heard of the battle, but Richardot had informed the English
+ambassador in Paris that the victory had been gained, not by the
+stadholder, but by the archduke.  While they were talking, a despatch-
+bearer arrived with letters from Vere to Cecil, and from the States-
+General to Caron, dated on the 3rd July.  There could no longer be any
+doubt on the subject, and the envoy of the republic had now full details
+of the glorious triumph which the Spanish agent in Paris had endeavoured
+for a time to distort into a defeat.
+
+While the two were conversing, the queen, who had heard of Caron's
+presence in the palace, sent down for the latest intelligence.  Cecil
+made notes of the most important points in the despatches to be forthwith
+conveyed to her Majesty.  The queen, not satisfied however, sent for
+Caron himself.  That diplomatist, who had just ridden down from London in
+foul weather, was accordingly obliged to present himself--booted and
+spurred and splashed with mud from head to foot--before her Majesty.
+Elizabeth received him with such extraordinary manifestations of delight
+at the tidings that he was absolutely amazed, and she insisted upon his
+reading the whole of the letter just received from Olden-Barneveld, her
+Majesty listening very patiently as he translated it out of Dutch into
+French.  She then expressed unbounded admiration of the States-General
+and of Prince Maurice.  The sagacious administration of the States'
+government is so full of good order and policy," she said, "as to far
+surpass in its wisdom the intelligence of all kings and potentates."
+We kings," she said, "understand nothing of such affairs in comparison,
+but require, all of us, to go to school to the States-General."  She
+continued to speak in terms of warm approbation of the secrecy and
+discretion with which the invasion of Flanders had been conducted, and
+protested that she thanked God on both knees for vouchsafing such a
+splendid victory to the United Provinces.
+
+Yet after all, her Majesty, as mankind in general, both wise and simple,
+are apt to do, had judged only according to the result, and the immediate
+result.  No doubt John of Barneveld was second to no living statesman in
+breadth of view and adroitness of handling, yet the invasion of Flanders,
+which was purely his work, was unquestionably a grave mistake, and might
+easily have proved a fatal one.  That the deadly peril was escaped was
+due, not to his prudence, but to the heroism of Maurice, the gallantry of
+Vere, Count Lewis Gunther, and the forces under them, and the noble self-
+devotion of Ernest.  And even, despite the exertions of these brave men,
+it seems certain that victory would have been impossible had the archduke
+possessed that true appreciation of a situation which marks the
+consummate general.
+
+Surely the Lord seemed to have delivered the enemy into his hands that
+morning.  Maurice was shut in between Nieuport on one side and the
+archduke's army on the other, planted as it was on the only road of
+retreat.  Had Albert entrenched himself, Maurice must either have
+attacked at great disadvantage or attempted embarkation in the face of
+his enemy.  To stay indefinitely where he was would have proved an
+impossibility, and amid the confusion necessary to the shipping of his
+army, how could he have protected himself by six demi-cannon placed on
+the sea-beach?
+
+That Maurice was able to extricate himself from the horrible dilemma in
+which he had been placed, through no fault of his own, and to convert
+imminent disaster into magnificent victory, will always redound to his
+reputation as a great military chief.  And this was all the fruit of the
+expedition, planned, as Elizabeth thought, with so much secrecy and
+discretion.  Three days after the battle the stadholder came again before
+Nieuport, only to find the garrison strengthened meantime by La Bourlotte
+to three thousand men.  A rainy week succeeded, and Maurice then
+announced to the States-General the necessity of abandoning an
+enterprise, a successful issue to which was in his opinion impossible.
+The States-General, grown more modest in military matters, testified
+their willingness to be governed by his better judgment, and left Ostend
+for the Hague on the 18th July.  Maurice, after a little skirmishing with
+some of the forts around that city, in one of which the archduke's
+general La Bourlotte was killed, decided to close the campaign, and he
+returned with his whole army on the last day of July into Holland.
+
+The expedition was an absolute failure, but the stadholder had gained a
+great victory.  The effect produced at home and abroad by this triumphant
+measuring of the republican forces, horse, foot, and artillery, in a
+pitched battle and on so conspicuous an arena, with the picked veterans
+of Spain and Italy, was perhaps worth the cost, but no other benefit was
+derived from the invasion of Flanders.
+
+The most healthy moral to be drawn from this brief but memorable campaign
+is that the wisest statesmen are prone to blunder in affairs of war,
+success in which seems to require a special education and a distinct
+genius.  Alternation between hope and despair, between culpable audacity
+and exaggerated prudence, are but too apt to mark the warlike counsels of
+politicians who have not been bred soldiers.  This, at least, had been
+eminently the case with Barneveld and his colleagues of the States-
+General.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Alas! the benighted victims of superstition hugged their chains
+Culpable audacity and exaggerated prudence
+The wisest statesmen are prone to blunder in affairs of war
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v73
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 74, 1600-1602
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+     Effects of the Nieuport campaign--The general and the statesman--
+     The Roman empire and the Turk--Disgraceful proceedings of the
+     mutinous soldiers in Hungary--The Dunkirk pirates--Siege of Ostend
+     by the Archduke--Attack on Rheinberg by Prince Maurice--Siege and
+     capitulation of Meura--Attempt on Bois-le-Duc--Concentration of the
+     war at Ostend--Account of the belligerents--Details of the siege--
+     Feigned offer of Sir Francis Vere to capitulate--Arrival of
+     reinforcements from the States--Attack and overthrow of the
+     besiegers.
+
+The Nieuport campaign had exhausted for the time both belligerents.
+The victor had saved the republic from impending annihilation, but was
+incapable of further efforts during the summer.  The conquered cardinal-
+archduke, remaining essentially in the same position as before, consoled
+himself with the agreeable fiction that the States, notwithstanding their
+triumph, had in reality suffered the most in the great battle.  Meantime
+both parties did their best to repair damages and to recruit their
+armies.
+
+The States--or in other words Barneveld, who was the States--had learned
+a lesson.  Time was to show whether it would be a profitable one, or
+whether Maurice, who was the preceptor of Europe in the art of war, would
+continue to be a docile pupil of the great Advocate even in military
+affairs.  It is probable that the alienation between the statesman and
+the general, which was to widen as time advanced, may be dated from the
+day of Nieuport.
+
+Fables have even been told which indicated the popular belief in an
+intensity of resentment on the part of the prince, which certainly did
+not exist till long afterwards.
+
+"Ah, scoundrel!"  the stadholder was said to have exclaimed, giving the
+Advocate a box on the ear as he came to wish him joy of his great
+victory, "you sold us, but God prevented your making the transfer."
+
+History would disdain even an allusion to such figments--quite as
+disgraceful, certainly to Maurice as to Barneveld--did they not point the
+moral and foreshadow some of the vast but distant results of events which
+had already taken place, and had they not been so generally repeated that
+it is a duty for the lover of truth to put his foot upon the calumny,
+even at the risk for a passing moment of reviving it.
+
+The condition of the war in Flanders had established a temporary
+equilibrium among the western powers--France and England discussing,
+intriguing, and combining in secret with each other, against each other,
+and in spite of each other, in regard to the great conflict--while Spain
+and the cardinal-archduke on the one side, and the republic on the other,
+prepared themselves for another encounter in the blood-stained arena.
+
+Meantime, on the opposite verge of what was called European civilization,
+the perpetual war between the Roman Empire and the Grand Turk had for the
+moment been brought into a nearly similar equation.  Notwithstanding the
+vast amount of gunpowder exploded during so many wearisome years, the
+problem of the Crescent and the Cross was not much nearer a solution in
+the East than was that of mass and conventicle in the West.  War was the
+normal and natural condition of mankind.  This fact, at least, seemed to
+have been acquired and added to the mass of human knowledge.
+
+From the prolific womb of Germany came forth, to swell impartially the
+Protestant and Catholic hosts, vast swarms of human creatures.  Sold by
+their masters at as high prices as could be agreed upon beforehand, and
+receiving for themselves five stivers a day, irregularly paid, until the
+carrion-crow rendered them the last service, they found at times more
+demand for their labor in the great European market than they could fully
+supply.  There were not Germans enough every year for the consumption of
+the Turk, and the pope, and the emperor, and the republic, and the
+Catholic king, and the Christian king, with both ends of Europe ablaze at
+once.  So it happened that the Duke of Mercoeur and other heroes of the
+League, having effected their reconciliation with the Bearnese, and for a
+handsome price paid down on the nail having acknowledged him to be their
+legitimate and Catholic sovereign, now turned their temporary attention
+to the Turk.  The sweepings of the League--Frenchmen, Walloons, Germans,
+Italians, Spaniards--were tossed into Hungary, because for a season the
+war had become languid in Flanders.  And the warriors grown grey in the
+religious wars of France astonished the pagans on the Danube by a variety
+of crimes and cruelties such as Christians only could imagine.  Thus,
+while the forces of the Sultan were besieging Buda, a detachment of
+these ancient Leaguers lay in Pappa, a fortified town not far from Raab,
+which Archduke Maximilian had taken by storm two years before.  Finding
+their existence monotonous and payments unpunctual, they rose upon the
+governor; Michael Maroti, and then entered into a treaty with the Turkish
+commander outside the walls.  Bringing all the principal citizens of the
+town, their wives and children, and all their moveable property into the
+market-place, they offered to sell the lot, including the governor, for a
+hundred thousand rix dollars.  The bargain was struck, and the Turk,
+paying him all his cash on hand and giving hostages for the remainder,
+carried off six hundred of the men and women, promising soon to
+return and complete the transaction.  Meantime the imperial general,
+Schwartzenberg, came before the place, urging the mutineers with promises
+of speedy payment, and with appeals to their sense of shame, to abstain
+from the disgraceful work.  He might as well have preached to the wild
+swine swarming in the adjacent forests.  Siege thereupon was laid to the
+place.  In a sortie the brave Schwartzenberg was killed, but Colonitz
+coming up in force the mutineers were locked up in the town which they
+had seized, and the Turk never came to their relief.  Famine drove them
+at last to choose between surrender and a desperate attempt to cut their
+way out.  They took the bolder course, and were all either killed or
+captured.  And now--the mutineers having given the Turk this lesson in
+Christian honour towards captives--their comrades and the rest of the
+imperial forces showed them the latest and most approved Christian method
+of treating mutineers.  Several hundred of the prisoners were distributed
+among the different nationalities composing the army to be dealt with at
+pleasure.  The honest Germans were the most straightforward of all
+towards their portion of the prisoners, for they shot them down at once,
+without an instant's hesitation.  But the Lorrainers, the remainder of
+the French troops, the Walloons, and especially the Hungarians--whose
+countrymen and women had been sold into captivity--all vied with each
+other in the invention of cruelties at which the soul sickens, and which
+the pen almost refuses to depict.
+
+These operations and diversions had no sensible effect upon the progress
+of the war, which crept on with the same monotonous and sluggish cruelty
+as ever; but the incidents narrated paint the course of civilization more
+vividly than the detailed accounts of siege and battle; mining and
+countermining, assaults and ambuscades can do, of which the history books
+are full.  The leaguers of Buda and of other cities and fortresses in
+Hungary went their course; and it was destined to remain for a still
+longer season doubtful whether Cross or Crescent should ultimately wave
+over the whole territory of Eastern Europe, and whether the vigorous
+Moslem, believing in himself, his mission, his discipline, and his
+resources, should ultimately absorb what was left of the ancient Roman
+Empire.
+
+Meantime, such of the Walloons, Lorrainers, Germans, and Frenchmen as had
+grown wearied of the fighting on the Danube and the Theiss--might have
+recourse for variety to the perpetual carnage on the Meuse, the Rhine,
+and the Scheld.  If there was not bloodshed enough for all, it was surely
+not the fault of Mahomet, nor Clement, nor Philip.
+
+During the remainder of the year not much was done in of the stadholder
+or the cardinal, but there was immense damage done to the Dutch shipping
+by the famous privateersman, Van der Waecken, with his squadron of twelve
+or fourteen armed cruisers.  In vain had the States exerted themselves to
+destroy the robbers cave, Dunkirk.  Shiploads of granite had been brought
+from Norway, and stone fleets had been sunk in the channel, but the
+insatiable quicksands had swallowed them as fast as they could be
+deposited, the tide rolled as freely as before, and the bold pirates
+sailed forth as gaily as ever to prey upon the defenceless trading
+vessels and herring-smacks of the States.  For it was only upon non-
+combatants that Admiral Van der Waecken made war, and the fishermen
+especially, who mainly belonged to the Memnonite religion, with its
+doctrines of non-resistance--not a very comfortable practice in that
+sanguinary age--were his constant victims.  And his cruelties might have
+almost served as a model to the Christian warriors on the Turkish
+frontier.  After each vessel had been rifled of everything worth
+possessing, and then scuttled, the admiral would order the crews to be,
+thrown overboard at once, or, if he chanced to be in a merry mood, would
+cause them to be fastened to the cabin floor, or nailed crossways on the
+deck and then would sail away leaving ship and sailors to sink at
+leisure.  The States gave chase as well as they could to the miscreant--
+a Dutchman born, and with a crew mainly composed of renegade
+Netherlanders and other outcasts, preying for base lucre on their
+defenceless countryman--and their cruisers were occasionally fortunate
+enough to capture and bring in one of the pirate ships.  In such cases,
+short shrift was granted, and the buccaneers were hanged without mercy,
+thirty-eight having been executed in one morning at Rotterdam.  The
+admiral with most of his vessels escaped, however, to the coast of Spain,
+where his crews during the autumn mainly contrived to desert, and where
+he himself died in the winter, whether from malady, remorse, or
+disappointment at not being rewarded by a high position in the Spanish
+navy.
+
+The war was in its old age.  The leaf of a new century had been turned,
+and men in middle life had never known what the word Peace meant.
+Perhaps they could hardly imagine such a condition.  This is easily said,
+but it is difficult really to picture to ourselves the moral constitution
+of a race of mankind which had been born and had grown up, marrying and
+giving in marriage, dying and burying their dead, and so passing on from
+the cradle towards the grave, accepting the eternal clang of arms, and
+the constant participation by themselves and those nearest to them in the
+dangers, privations, and horrors of siege and battle-field as the
+commonplaces of life.  At least, those Netherlanders knew what fighting
+for independence of a foreign tyrant meant.  They must have hated Spain
+very thoroughly, and believed in the right of man to worship God
+according to the dictates of his conscience, and to govern himself upon
+his own soil, however meagre, very earnestly, or they would hardly have
+spent their blood and treasure, year after year; with such mercantile
+regularity when it was always in their power to make peace by giving up
+the object for which they had been fighting.
+
+Yet the war, although in its old age, was not fallen into decrepitude.
+The most considerable and most sanguinary pitched battle of what then
+were modern times had just been fought, and the combatants were preparing
+themselves for a fresh wrestle, as if the conflict had only begun.  And
+now--although the great leaguers of Harlem, Leyden, and Antwerp, as well
+as the more recent masterpieces of Prince Maurice in Gelderland and
+Friesland were still fresh in men's memory--there was to be a siege,
+which for endurance, pertinacity, valour, and bloodshed on both sides,
+had not yet been foreshadowed, far less equalled, upon the fatal
+Netherland soil.
+
+That place of fashionable resort, where the fine folk of Europe now
+bathe, and flirt, and prattle politics or scandal so cheerfully during
+the summer solstice--cool and comfortable Ostend--was throughout the
+sixteenth century as obscure a fishing village as could be found in
+Christendom.  Nothing, had ever happened there, nobody had ever lived
+there, and it was not until a much later period that the famous oyster,
+now identified with its name, had been brought to its bay to be educated.
+It was known for nothing except for claiming to have invented the
+pickling of herrings, which was not at all the fact.  Towards the latter
+part of the century, however, the poor little open village had been
+fortified to such purpose as to enable it to beat off the great Alexander
+Farnese, when he had made an impromptu effort to seize it in the year
+1583, after his successful enterprise against Dunkirk and Nieuport, and
+subsequent preparation had fortunately been made against any further
+attempt.  For in the opening period of the new century thousands and tens
+of thousands were to come to those yellow sands, not for a midsummer
+holiday, but to join hands in one of the most enduring struggles that
+history had yet recorded, and on which the attention of Europe was for a
+long time to be steadily fixed.
+
+Ostend--East-end--was the only possession of the republic in Flanders.
+Having been at last thoroughly fortified according to the principles of
+the age, it was a place whence much damage was inflicted upon the enemy,
+and whence forays upon the obedient Flemings could very successfully be
+conducted.  Being in the hands of so enterprising a naval power, it
+controlled the coast, while the cardinal-archduke on the other side
+fondly hoped that its possession would give him supremacy on the sea.
+The States of Flanders declared it to be a thorn in the Belgic lion's
+foot, and called urgently upon their sovereign to remove the annoyance.
+
+They offered Albert 300,000 florins a month so long as the siege should
+last, besides an extraordinary sum of 300,000, of which one third was to
+be paid when the place should be invested, one-third when the breach had
+been made, and one-third after the town had been taken.  It was obvious
+that, although they thought the extraction of the thorn might prove
+troublesome, the process would be accomplished within a reasonable time.
+The cardinal-archduke, on his part, was as anxious as the "members" of
+Flanders.  Asking how long the Duke of Parma had been in taking Antwerp,
+and being told "eighteen months," he replied that, if necessary, he was
+willing to employ eighteen years in reducing Ostend.
+
+The town thus about to assume so much importance in the world's eye had
+about three thousand inhabitants within its lowly; thatch-roofed houses.
+It fronted directly upon the seacoast and stretched backward in a
+southerly direction, having the sandy downs on the right and left, and a
+swampy, spongy soil on the inner verge, where it communicated with the
+land.  Its northern part, small and scarcely inhabited, was lashed by the
+ocean, and exposed to perpetual danger from its storms and flood-tides,
+but was partially protected from these encroachments by a dyke stretching
+along the coast on the west.  Here had hitherto been the harbour formed
+by the mouth of the river Iperleda as it mingled with the sea, but this
+entrance had become so choked with sand as to be almost useless at low
+water.  This circumstance would have rendered the labours of the archduke
+comparatively easy, and much discouraged the States, had there not
+fortunately been a new harbour which had formed itself on the eastern
+side exactly at the period of threatened danger.  The dwarf mountain
+range of dunes which encircled the town on the eastern side had been
+purposely levelled, lest the higher summits should offer positions of
+vantage to a besieging foe.  In consequence of this operation, the sea
+had burst over the land and swept completely around the place, almost
+converting it into an island, while at high water there opened a wide and
+profound gulf which with the ebb left an excellent channel quite deep
+enough for even the ships of war of those days.  The next care of the
+States authorities was to pierce their fortifications on this side at a
+convenient point, thus creating a safe and snug haven within the walls
+for the fleets of transports which were soon to arrive by open sea, laden
+with soldiers and munitions.
+
+The whole place was about half an hour's walk in circumference.  It was
+surrounded with a regular counterscarp, bastions, and casemates, while
+the proximity of the ocean and the humid nature of the soil ensured it a
+network of foss and canal on every side.  On the left or western side,
+where the old harbour had once been, and which was the most vulnerable by
+nature, was a series of strong ravelins, the most conspicuous of which
+were called the Sand Hill, the Porcupine, and Hell's Mouth.  Beyond
+these, towards the southwest, were some detached fortifications, resting
+for support, however, upon the place itself, called the Polder, the
+Square, and the South Square.  On the east side, which was almost
+inaccessible, as it would seem, by such siege machinery as then existed,
+was a work called the Spanish half-moon, situate on the new harbour
+called the Guele or Gullet.
+
+Towards the west and southwest, externally, upon the territory of
+Flanders--not an inch of which belonged to the republic, save the sea-
+beaten corner in which nestled the little town-eighteen fortresses had
+been constructed by the archduke as a protection against hostile
+incursions from the place.  Of these, the most considerable were
+St. Albert, often mentioned during the Nieuport campaign, St. Isabella
+St. Clara, and Great-Thirst.
+
+On the 5th July, 1601, the archduke came before the town, and formally
+began the siege.  He established his headquarters in the fort which bore
+the name of his patron saint.  Frederic van den Berg meanwhile occupied
+fort Breden on the eastern side, with the intention, if possible, of
+getting possession of the Gullet, or at least of rendering the entrance
+to that harbour impossible by means of his hostile demonstrations.  Under
+Van den Berg was Count Bucquoy-Longueval, a Walloon officer of much
+energy and experience, now general-in-chief of artillery in the
+archduke's army.
+
+The numbers with which Albert took the field at first have not been
+accurately stated, but it is probable that his object was to keep as many
+as twenty thousand constantly engaged in the siege, and that in this
+regard he was generally successful.
+
+Within the town were fifty-nine companies of infantry, to which were soon
+added twenty-three more under command of young Chatillon, grandson of the
+great Coligny.  It was "an olla podrida of nationalities," according to
+the diarist of the siege--[Meteren].  English, Scotch, Dutch, Flemings,
+Frenchmen, Germans, mixed in about equal proportions.  Commander-in-
+chief at the outset was Sir Francis Vere, who established himself by the
+middle of July in the place, sent thither by order of the States-General.
+It had been the desire of that assembly that the stadholder should make
+another foray in Flanders for the purpose of driving off the archduke
+before he should have time to complete his preliminary operations.  But
+for that year at least Maurice was resolved not to renounce his own
+schemes in deference to those so much more ignorant than himself of the
+art of war, even if Barneveld and his subordinates on their part had not
+learned a requisite lesson of modesty.
+
+So the prince, instead of risking another Nieuport campaign, took the
+field with a small but well-appointed force, about ten thousand men in
+all, marched to the Rhine, and early in June, laid siege to Rheinberg.
+It was his purpose to leave the archduke for the time to break his teeth
+against the walls of Ostend, while he would himself protect the eastern
+frontier, over which came regular reinforcements and supplies for the
+Catholic armies.  His works were laid out with his customary precision
+and neatness.  But, standing as usual, like a professor at his
+blackboard, demonstrating his proposition to the town, he was disturbed
+in his calculations by the abstraction from his little army of two
+thousand English troops ordered by the States-General to march to the
+defence of Ostend.  The most mathematical but most obedient of princes,
+annoyed but not disconcerted, sent off the troops but continued his
+demonstration.
+
+"By this specimen," cried the French envoy, with enthusiasm, "judge of
+the energy of this little commonwealth.  They are besieging Berg with an
+army of twelve thousand men, a place beyond the frontier, and five days'
+march from the Hague.  They are defending another important place,
+besieged by the principal forces of the archdukes, and there is good
+chance of success at both points.  They are doing all this too with such
+a train of equipages of artillery, of munitions, of barks, of ships of
+war, that I hardly know of a monarch in the world who would not be
+troubled to furnish such a force of warlike machinery."
+
+By the middle of July he sprang a mine under the fortifications, doing
+much damage and sending into the air a considerable portion of the
+garrison.  Two of the soldiers were blown into his own camp, and one of
+them, strangely enough, was but slightly injured.  Coming as he did
+through the air at cannon-ball speed, he was of course able to bring the
+freshest intelligence from the interior of the town.
+
+His news as to the condition of the siege confirmed the theory of the
+stadholder.  He persisted in his operations for three weeks longer, and
+the place was then surrendered.  The same terms--moderate and honourable
+were given to the garrison and the burghers as in all Maurice's
+victories.  Those who liked to stay were at liberty to do so, accepting
+the prohibition of public worship according to the Roman ritual, but
+guaranteed against inquisition into household or conscience.  The
+garrison went out with the honours of war, and thus the place, whose
+military value caused it to change hands almost as frequently as a
+counter in a game, was once more in possession of the republic.  In the
+course of the following week Maurice laid siege to the city of Meurs, a
+little farther up the Rhine, which immediately capitulated.  Thus the
+keys to the debatable land of Cleves and Juliers, the scene of the
+Admiral of Arragon's recent barbarities, were now held by the stadholder.
+
+These achievements were followed by an unsuccessful attempt upon
+Bois-le-Duc in the course of November.  The place would have fallen
+notwithstanding the slenderness of the besieging army had not a sudden
+and severe frost caused the prudent prince to raise the siege.  Feeling
+that his cousin Frederic van den Berg, who had been despatched from
+before Ostend to command the relieving force near Bois-le-Duc, might take
+advantage of the prematurely frozen canals and rivers to make an
+incursion into Holland, he left his city just as his works had been
+sufficiently advanced to ensure possession of the prize, and hastened to
+protect the heart of the republic from possible danger.
+
+Nothing further was accomplished by Maurice that year, but meantime
+something had been doing within and around Ostend.
+
+For now the siege of Ostend became the war, and was likely to continue
+to be the war for a long time to come; all other military operations
+being to a certain degree suspended, as if by general consent of both
+belligerants, or rendered subsidiary to the main design.  So long as this
+little place should be beleaguered it was the purpose of the States, and
+of Maurice, acting in harmony with those authorities, to concentrate
+their resources so as to strengthen the grip with which the only scrap of
+Flanders was held by the republic,
+
+And as time wore on, the supposed necessities of the wealthy province,
+which, in political importance, made up a full half of the archduke's
+dominions, together with self-esteem and an exaggerated idea of military
+honour, made that prelate more and more determined to effect his purpose.
+
+So upon those barren sands was opened a great academy in which the
+science and the art of war were to be taught by the most skilful
+practitioners to all Europe; for no general, corporal, artillerist,
+barber-surgeon, or engineer, would be deemed to know his trade if he had
+not fought at Ostend; and thither resorted month after month warriors of
+every rank, from men of royal or of noblest blood to adventurers of
+lowlier degree, whose only fortune was buckled at their sides.  From
+every land, of every religion, of every race, they poured into the town
+or into the besiegers' trenches.  Habsburg and Holstein; Northumberland,
+Vere, and Westmoreland; Fairfax and Stuart; Bourbon, Chatillon, and
+Lorraine; Bentivoglio, Farnese, Spinola, Grimaldi, Arragon, Toledo,
+Avila, Berlaymont, Bucquoy, Nassau, Orange, Solms--such were the historic
+names of a few only of the pupils or professors in that sanguinary high
+school, mingled with the plainer but well known patronymics of the Baxes,
+Meetkerkes, Van Loons, Marquettes, Van der Meers, and Barendrechts, whose
+bearers were fighting, as they long had fought, for all that men most
+dearly prize on earth, and not to win honour or to take doctors' degrees
+in blood.  Papist, Calvinist, Lutheran, Turk, Jew and Moor, European,
+Asiatic, African, all came to dance in that long carnival of death; and
+every incident, every detail throughout the weary siege could if
+necessary be reproduced; for so profound and general was the attention
+excited throughout Christendom by these extensive operations, and so new
+and astonishing were many of the inventions and machines employed--most
+of them now as familiar as gunpowder or as antiquated as a catapult--that
+contemporaries have been most bountiful in their records for the benefit
+of posterity, feeling sure of a gratitude which perhaps has not been
+rendered to their shades.
+
+Especially the indefatigable Philip Fleming-auditor and secretary of
+Ostend before and during the siege, bravest, most conscientious, and most
+ingenious of clerks--has chronicled faithfully in his diary almost every
+cannon-shot that was fired, house that was set on fire, officer that was
+killed, and has pourtrayed each new machine that was invented or imagined
+by native or foreign genius.  For the adepts or, pretenders who swarmed
+to town or camp from every corner of the earth, bringing in their hands
+or brains to be disposed of by either belligerents infallible recipes for
+terminating the siege at a single blow, if only their theories could be
+understood and their pockets be filled, were as prolific and as sanguine
+as in every age.  But it would be as wearisome, and in regard to the
+history of human culture as superfluous, to dilate upon the technics of
+Targone and Giustianini, and the other engineers, Italian and Flemish,
+who amazed mankind at this period by their successes, still more by their
+failures, or to describe every assault, sortie, and repulse, every
+excavation, explosion, and cannonade, as to disinter the details of the
+siege of Nineveh or of Troy.  But there is one kind of enginry which
+never loses its value or its interest, and which remains the same in
+every age--the machinery by which stout hearts act directly upon willing
+hands--and vast were the results now depending on its employment around
+Ostend.
+
+On the outside and at a distance the war was superintended of course by
+the stadholder and commander-in-chief, while his cousin William Lewis,
+certainly inferior to no living man in the science of war, and whose
+studies in military literature, both ancient and modern, during the brief
+intervals of his active campaigning, were probably more profound than
+those of any contemporary, was always alert and anxious to assist with
+his counsels or to mount and ride to the fray.
+
+In the town Sir Francis Vere commanded.  Few shapes are more familiar to
+the student of those times than this veteran campaigner, the offshoot of
+a time-honoured race.  A man of handsome, weather-beaten, battle-bronzed
+visage, with massive forehead, broad intelligent eyes, a high straight
+nose, close-clipped hair, and a great brown beard like a spade; captious,
+irascible, but most resolute, he seemed, in his gold inlaid Milan corslet
+and ruff of point-lace, the very image of a partizan chieftain; one of
+the noblest relics of a race of fighters slowly passing off the world's
+stage.
+
+An efficient colonel, he was not a general to be relied upon in great
+affairs either in council or the field.  He hated the Nassaus, and the
+Nassaus certainly did not admire him, while his inordinate self-esteem,
+both personal and national, and his want of true sympathy for the cause
+in which, he fought, were the frequent source of trouble and danger to
+the republic.
+
+Of the seven or eight thousand soldiers in the town when the siege began,
+at least two thousand were English.  The queen, too intelligent, despite
+her shrewishness to the Staten; not to be faithful to the cause in which
+her own interests were quite as much involved as theirs, had promised
+Envoy Caron that although she was obliged to maintain twenty thousand men
+in Ireland to keep down the rebels, directly leagued as they were with
+Spain and the archdukes, the republic might depend upon five thousand
+soldiers from England.  Detachment after detachment, the soldiers came as
+fast as the London prisons could be swept and the queen's press-gang
+perform its office.  It may be imagined that the native land of those
+warriors was not inconsiderably benefited by the grant to the republic
+of the right to make and pay for these levies.  But they had all red
+uniforms, and were as fit as other men to dig trenches, to defend them;
+and to fill them afterwards, and none could fight more manfully or
+plunder friend and foe with greater cheerfulness of impartiality than did
+those islanders.
+
+The problem which the archduke had set himself to solve was not an easy
+one.  He was to reduce a town, which he could invest and had already
+succeeded very thoroughly in investing on the land aide, but which was
+open to the whole world by sea; while the besieged on their part could
+not only rely upon their own Government and people, who were more at home
+on the ocean than was any nation in the world, but upon their alliance
+with England, a State hardly inferior in maritime resources to the
+republic itself.
+
+On the western side, which was the weakest, his progress was from the
+beginning the more encouraging, and his batteries were soon able to make
+some impression upon the outer works, and even to do considerable damage
+to the interior of the town.  In the course of a few months he had fifty
+siege-guns in position, and had constructed a practicable road all around
+the place, connecting his own fortifications on the west and south with
+those of Bucquoy on the east.
+
+Albert's leading thought however was to cut off the supplies.  The freaks
+of nature, as already observed, combined with his own exertions, had
+effectually disposed of the western harbour as a means of ingress.  The
+tide ebbed and flowed through the narrow channel, but it was clogged with
+sand and nearly, dry at low water.  Moreover, by an invention then
+considered very remarkable, a foundation was laid for the besiegers'
+forts and batteries by sinking large and deep baskets of wicker-work,
+twenty feet in length, and filled with bricks and sand, within this
+abandoned harbour.  These clumsy machines were called sausages,21 and
+were the delight of the camp and of all Europe.  The works thus
+established on the dry side crept slowly on towards the walls, and some
+demi-cannon were soon placed upon, them, but the besieged, not liking
+these encroachments, took the resolution to cut the pea-dyke along the
+coast which had originally protected the old harbour.  Thus the sea, when
+the tides were high and winds boisterous, was free to break in upon the
+archduke's works, and would often swallow sausages, men, and cannon far
+more rapidly than it was possible to place them there.
+
+Yet still those human ants toiled on, patiently restoring what the
+elements so easily destroyed; and still, despite the sea; the cannonade,
+and the occasional sorties of the garrison, the danger came nearer and
+nearer.  Bucquoy on the other side was pursuing the same system, but his
+task was immeasurably more difficult.  The Gullet, or new eastern
+entrance, was a whirlpool at high tide, deep, broad, and swift as a
+millrace.  Yet along its outer verge he too laid his sausages, protecting
+his men at their work as well as he could with gabions, and essayed to
+build a dyke of wicker-work upon which he might place a platform for
+artillery to prevent the ingress of the republican ships.
+
+And his soldiers were kept steadily at work, exposed all the time to the
+guns of the Spanish half-moon from which the besieged never ceased to
+cannonade those industrious pioneers.  It was a bloody business.  Night
+and day the men were knee-deep in the trenches delving in mud and sand,
+falling every instant into the graves which they were thus digging for
+themselves, while ever and anon the sea would rise in its wrath and sweep
+them with their works away.  Yet the victims were soon replaced by
+others, for had not the cardinal-archduke sworn to extract the thorn from
+the Belgic lion's paw even if he should be eighteen years about it, and
+would military honour permit him to break his vow?  It was a piteous
+sight, even for the besieged, to see human life so profusely squandered.
+It is a terrible reflection, too, that those Spaniards, Walloons,
+Italians, confronted death so eagerly, not from motives of honour,
+religion, discipline, not inspired by any kind of faith or fanaticism,
+but because the men who were employed in this horrible sausage-making and
+dyke-building were promised five stivers a day instead of two.
+
+And there was always an ample supply of volunteers for the service so
+long as the five stivers were paid.
+
+But despite all Bucquoy's exertions the east harbour remained as free as
+ever.  The cool, wary Dutch skippers brought in their cargoes as
+regularly as if there had been no siege at all.  Ostend was rapidly
+acquiring greater commercial importance, and was more full of bustle and
+business than had ever been dreamed of in that quiet nook since the days
+of Robert the Frisian, who had built the old church of Ostend, as one of
+the thirty which he erected in honour of St. Peter, five hundred years
+before.
+
+For the States did not neglect their favourite little city.  Fleets of
+transports arrived day after day, week after week, laden with every
+necessary and even luxury for the use of the garrison.  It was perhaps
+the cheapest place in all the Netherlands, so great was the abundance.
+Capons, bares, partridges, and butcher's meat were plentiful as
+blackberries, and good French claret was but two stivers the quart.
+Certainly the prospect was not promising of starving the town into a
+surrender.
+
+But besides all this digging and draining there was an almost daily
+cannonade.  Her Royal Highness the Infanta was perpetually in camp by the
+side of her well-beloved Albert, making her appearance there in great
+state, with eighteen coaches full of ladies of honour, and always
+manifesting much impatience if she did not hear the guns.
+
+She would frequently touch off a forty-pounder with her own serene
+fingers in order to encourage the artillerymen, and great was the
+enthusiasm which such condescension excited.
+
+Assaults, sorties, repulses, ambuscades were also of daily occurrence,
+and often with very sanguinary results; but it would be almost as idle
+now to give the details of every encounter that occurred, as to describe
+the besieging of a snow-fort by schoolboys.
+
+It is impossible not to reflect that a couple of Parrots and a Monitor or
+two would have terminated the siege in half an hour in favor of either
+party, and levelled the town or the besiegers' works as if they had been
+of pasteboard.
+
+Bucquoy's dyke was within a thousand yards of the harbour's entrance, yet
+the guns on his platform never sank a ship nor killed a man on board,
+while the archduke's batteries were even nearer their mark.  Yet it was
+the most prodigious siege of modern days.  Fifty great guns were in
+position around the place, and their balls weighed from ten to forty
+pounds apiece.  It was generally agreed that no such artillery practice
+had ever occurred before in the world.
+
+For the first six months, and generally throughout the siege, there was
+fired on an average a thousand of such shots a day.  In the sieges of the
+American civil war there were sometimes three thousand shots an hour, and
+from guns compared to which in calibre and power those cannon and demi-
+cannon were but children's toys.
+
+Certainly the human arm was of the same length then as now, a pike-thrust
+was as effective as the stab of the most improved bayonet, and when it
+came, as it was always the purpose to do, to the close embrace of foemen,
+the work was done as thoroughly as it could be in this second half of the
+nineteenth century.
+
+Nevertheless it is impossible not to hope that such progress in science
+must at last render long wars impossible.  The Dutch war of independence
+had already lasted nearly forty years.  Had the civil war in America upon
+the territory of half a continent been waged with the Ostend machinery it
+might have lasted two centuries.  Something then may have been gained for
+humanity by giving war such preter-human attributes as to make its
+demands of gold and blood too exhaustive to become chronic.
+
+Yet the loss of human life during that summer and winter was sufficiently
+wholesale as compared with the meagre results.  Blood flowed in torrents,
+for no man could be more free of his soldiers' lives than was the
+cardinal-archduke, hurling them as he did on the enemy's works before the
+pretence of a practical breach had been effected, and before a reasonable
+chance existed of purchasing an advantage at such a price.  Five hundred
+were killed outright in half-an-hour's assault on an impregnable position
+one autumn evening, and lay piled in heaps beneath the Sand Hill fort-
+many youthful gallants from Spain and Italy among them, noble volunteers
+recognised by their perfumed gloves and golden chains, and whose pockets
+were worth rifling.  The Dutch surgeons, too, sallied forth in strength
+after such an encounter, and brought in great bags filled with human fat
+esteemed the sovereignst remedy in the world for wounds and disease.
+
+Leaders were killed on both sides.  Catrici, chief of the Italian
+artillery, and Braccamonte, commander of a famous Sicilian legion, with
+many less-known captains, lost their lives before the town.  The noble
+young Chatillon, grandson of Coligny, who had distinguished himself at
+Nieuport, fell in the Porcupine fort, his head carried off by a cannon-
+ball, which destroyed another officer at his side, and just grazed the
+ear of the distinguished Colonel Uchtenbroek.  Sir Francis Vere, too, was
+wounded in the head by a fragment of iron, and was obliged to leave the
+town for six weeks till his wound should heal.
+
+The unfortunate inhabitants--men, women, and children--were of course
+exposed to perpetual danger, and very many were killed.  Their houses
+were often burned to the ground, in which cases the English auxiliaries
+were indefatigable, not in rendering assistance, but in taking possession
+of such household goods as the flames had spared.  Nor did they always
+wait for such opportunities, but were apt, at the death of an eminent
+burgher, to constitute themselves at once universal legatees.  Thus,
+while honest Bartholomew Tysen, a worthy citizen grocer, was standing
+one autumn morning at his own door, a stray cannon-ball took off his
+head, and scarcely had he been put in a coffin before his house was
+sacked from garret to cellar and all the costly spices, drugs, and other
+valuable merchandize of his warehouse--the chief magazine in the town--
+together with all his household furniture, appropriated by those London
+warriors.  Bartholomew's friends and relatives appealed to Sir Francis
+Vere for justice, but were calmly informed by that general that Ostend
+was like a stranded ship, on its beamends on a beach, and that it was
+impossible not to consider it at the mercy of the wreckers.  So with this
+highly figurative view of the situation from the lips of the governor of
+the place and the commander-in-chief of the English as well as the Dutch
+garrison, they were fain to go home and bury their dead, finding when
+they returned that another cannonball had carried away poor Bartholomew's
+coffin-lid.  Thus was never non-combatant and grocer, alive or dead, more
+out of suits with fortune than this citizen of Ostend; and such were the
+laws of war, as understood by one of the most eminent of English
+practitioners in the beginning of the seventeenth century.  It is true,
+however, that Vere subsequently hanged a soldier for stealing fifty
+pounds of powder and another for uttering counterfeit money, but
+robberies upon the citizens were unavenged.
+
+Nor did the deaths by shot or sword-stroke make up the chief sum of
+mortality.  As usual the murrain-like pestilence which swept off its
+daily victims both within an without the town, was more effective than
+any direct agency of man.  By the month of December the number of the
+garrison had been reduced to less than three thousand, while it is
+probable that the archduke had not eight thousand effective men left in
+his whole army.
+
+It was a black and desolate scene.  The wild waves of the German ocean,
+lashed by the wintry gales, would often sweep over the painfully
+constructed works of besieger and besieged and destroy in an hour the
+labour of many weeks.  The Porcupine's small but vitally-important
+ravelin lying out in the counterscarp between the old town and the new,
+guarding the sluices by which the water for the town moats and canals was
+controlled, and preventing the pioneers of the enemy from undermining the
+western wall--was so damaged by the sea as to be growing almost
+untenable.  Indefatigably had the besieged attempted with wicker-work and
+timber and palisades to strengthen this precious little fort, but they
+had found, even as Bucquoy and the archduke on their part had learned,
+that the North Sea in winter was not to be dammed by bulrushes.
+Moreover, in a bold and successful assault the besiegers had succeeded
+in setting fire to the inflammable materials heaped about the ravelin to
+such effect that the fire burned for days, notwithstanding the flooding
+of the works at each high tide.  The men, working day and night,
+scorching in the flames, yet freezing kneedeep in the icy slush of the
+trenches and perpetually under fire of the hostile batteries, became
+daily more and more exhausted, notwithstanding their determination to
+hold the place.  Christmas drew nigh, and a most gloomy, festival it was
+like to be, for it seemed as if the beleaguered garrison had been
+forgotten by the States.  Weeks had passed away without a single company
+being sent to repair the hideous gaps made daily in the ranks of those
+defenders of a forlorn hope.  It was no longer possible to hold the
+external works; the Square, the Polder, and the other forts on the
+southwest which Vere had constructed with so much care and where he had
+thus far kept his headquarters.  On Sunday morning,--23rd December, he
+reluctantly gave orders that they should be abandoned on the following
+day and the whole garrison concentrated within the town.
+
+The clouds were gathering darkly over the head of the gallant Vere; for
+no sooner had he arrived at this determination than he learned from a
+deserter that the archduke had fixed upon that very Sunday evening for
+a general assault upon the place.  It was hopeless for the garrison to
+attempt to hold these outer forts, for they required a far larger number
+of soldiers than could be spared from the attenuated little army.  Yet
+with those forts in the hands of the enemy there would be nothing left
+but to make the best and speediest terms that might be obtained.  The
+situation was desperate.  Sir Francis called his principal officers
+together, announced his resolve not to submit to the humiliation of a
+surrender after all their efforts, if there was a possibility of escape
+from their dilemma, reminded them that reinforcements might be expected
+to arrive at any moment, and that with even a few hundred additional
+soldiers the outer works might still be manned and the city saved.
+The officers English, Dutch, and French, listened respectfully to his
+remarks, but, without any suggestions on their own part, called on him
+as their Alexander to untie the Gordian knot.  Alexander solved it, not
+with the sword, but with a trick which he hoped might prove sharper than
+a sword.  He announced his intention of proposing at once to treat, and
+to protract the negotiations as long as possible, until the wished-for
+sails should be discerned in the offing, when he would at once break
+faith with them, resume hostilities, and so make fools of the besiegers.
+
+This was a device worthy of a modern Alexander whose surname was Farnese.
+Even in that loose age such cynical trifling with the sacredness of
+trumpets of truce and offers of capitulation were deemed far from
+creditable among soldiers and statesmen, yet the council of war highly
+applauded the scheme, and importuned the general to carry it at once into
+effect.
+
+When it came, however, to selecting the hostages necessary for the
+proposed negotiations, they became less ardent and were all disposed to
+recede.  At last, after much discussion, the matter was settled, and
+before nightfall a drummer was set upon the external parapet of the
+Porcupine, who forthwith began to beat vigorously for a parley.  The
+rattle was a welcome sound in the ears of the weary besiegers, just drawn
+up in column for a desperate assault, and the tidings were at once
+communicated to the archduke in Fort St. Albert.  The prince manifested
+at first some unwillingness to forego the glory of the attack, from
+which he confidently expected a crowning victory, but yielding to the
+representations of his chief generals that it was better to have his town
+without further bloodshed, he consented to treat.  Hostages were
+expeditiously appointed on both sides, and Captains Ogle and Fairfax were
+sent that same evening to the headquarters of the besieging army.  It was
+at once agreed as a preliminary that the empty outer works of the place
+should remain unmolested.  The English officers were received with much
+courtesy.  The archduke lifted his hat as they were presented, asked them
+of what nation they were, and then inquired whether they were authorized
+to agree upon terms of capitulation.  They answered in the negative;
+adding, that the whole business would be in the hands of commissioners to
+be immediately sent by his Highness, as it was supposed, into the town.
+Albert then expressed the hope that there was no fraudulent intention
+in the proposition just made to negotiate.  The officers professed
+themselves entirely ignorant of any contemplated deception; although
+Captain Ogle had been one of the council, had heard every syllable of
+Vere's stratagem, and had heartily approved of the whole plot.  The
+Englishmen were then committed to the care of a Spanish nobleman of the
+duke's staff, and were treated with perfect politeness and hospitality.
+
+Meantime no time was lost in despatching hostages, who should be at the
+same time commissioners, to Ostend.  The quartermaster-general of the
+army, Don Matteo Antonio, and Matteo Serrano, governor of Sluys, but
+serving among the besiegers, were selected for this important business
+as personages of ability, discretion, and distinction.
+
+They reached the town, coming in of course from the western side, as
+expeditiously as possible, but after nightfall.  Before they arrived at
+headquarters there suddenly arose, from some unknown cause, a great alarm
+and beating to arms on the opposite or eastern side of the city.  They
+were entirely innocent of any participation in this uproar and ignorant
+of its cause, but when they reached the presence of Sir Francis Vere they
+found that warrior in a towering passion.  There was cheating going on,
+he exclaimed.  The Spaniards, he cried, were taking advantage of these
+negotiations, and were about, by dishonourable stratagem, to assault the
+town.
+
+Astounded, indignant, but utterly embarrassed, the grave Spaniards knew
+not how to reply.  They were still more amazed when the general, rising
+to a still higher degree of exasperation, absolutely declined to exchange
+another word with them, but ordered Captains Carpentier and St. Hilaire,
+by whom they had been escorted to his quarters, to conduct them out of
+the town again by the same road which had brought them there.  There was
+nothing for it but to comply, and to smother their resentment at such
+extraordinary treatment as best they could.  When they got to the old
+harbour on the western side the tide had risen so high that it was
+impossible to cross.
+
+Nobody knew better than Vere, when he gave the order, that this would be
+the case; so that when the escorting officers returned to state the fact,
+he simply ordered them to take the Spaniards back by the Gullet or
+eastern side.  The strangers were not very young men, and being much
+fatigued with wandering to and fro in the darkness over the muddy roads,
+they begged permission to remain all night in Ostend, if it were only
+in a guardhouse.  But Vere was inexorable, after the duplicity which
+he affected to have discovered on the part of the enemy.  So the
+quartermaster-general and the governor of Sluys, much to the detriment
+of their dignity, were forced once more to tramp through the muddy
+streets.  And obeying their secret instructions, the escort led them
+round and round through the most miry and forlorn parts of the town, so
+that, sinking knee-deep at every step into sloughs and quicksands, and
+plunging about through the mist and sleet of a dreary December's night,
+they at last reached the precincts of the Spanish half-moon on the
+Gullet, be-draggled from head to foot and in a most dismal and exhausted
+condition.
+
+"Ah, the villainous town of Ostend!" exclaimed Serrano, ruefully
+contemplating his muddy boots and imploring at least a pipe of tobacco.
+He was informed, however, that no such medical drugs were kept in the
+fort, but that a draught of good English ale was much at their service.
+The beer was brought in four foaming flagons, and, a little refreshed by
+this hospitality, the Spaniards were put in a boat and rowed under the
+guns of the fort across the Gullet and delivered to their own sentries on
+the outposts of Bucquoy's entrenchments.  By this time it was midnight,
+so that it was necessary for them to remain for the night in the eastern
+encampment before reporting themselves at Fort St. Albert.
+
+Thus far Vere's comedy had been eminently successful, and by taking
+advantage of the accidental alarm and so adroitly lashing himself into a
+fictitious frenzy, the general had gained nearly twenty-four additional
+hours of precious time on which he had not reckoned.
+
+Next morning, after Serrano and Antonio had reported to the archduke, it
+was decided, notwithstanding the very inhospitable treatment which they
+had received, that those commissioners should return to their labours.
+Ogle and Fairfax still remained as hostages in camp, and of course
+professed entire ignorance of these extraordinary proceedings,
+attributing them to some inexplicable misunderstanding.  So on Monday,
+24th, December, the quartermaster and the governor again repaired to
+Ostend with orders to bring about the capitulation of the place as soon
+as possible.  The same sergeant-major was again appointed by Vere to
+escort the strangers, and on asking by what way he should bring them in,
+was informed by Sir Francis that it would never do to allow those
+gentlemen, whose feet were accustomed to the soft sand of the sea-beach
+and downs, to bruise themselves upon the hard paving-stones of Ostend,
+but that the softest and muddiest road must be carefully selected for
+them.  These reasons accordingly were stated with perfect gravity to the
+two Spaniards, who, in spite of their solemn remonstrances, were made to
+repeat a portion of their experiences and to accept it as an act of
+special courtesy from the English general.  Thus so much time had been
+spent in preliminaries and so much more upon the road that the short
+winter's day was drawing to a close before they were again introduced to
+the presence of Vere.
+
+They found that fiery personage on this occasion all smiles and
+blandishments.  The Spaniards were received with most dignified courtesy,
+to which they gravely responded; and the general then proceeded to make
+excuses for the misunderstanding of the preceding day with its
+uncomfortable consequences.  Thereupon arose much animated discussion
+as to the causes and the nature of the alarm on the east side which had
+created such excitement.  Much time was ingeniously consumed in this
+utterly superfluous discussion; but at last the commissioners of the
+archduke insisted on making allusion to the business which had brought
+them to the town.  "What terms of negotiation do you propose?"  they
+asked Sir Francis.  "His Highness has only to withdraw from before
+Ostend," coolly replied the general, "and leave us, his poor neighbours,
+in peace and quietness.  This would be the most satisfactory negotiation
+possible and the one most easily made."
+
+Serrano and Antonio found it difficult to see the matter in that cheerful
+light, and assured Sir Francis that they had not been commissioned by the
+archduke to treat for his own withdrawal but for the surrender of the
+town.  Hereupon high words and fierce discussion very naturally arose,
+and at last, when a good deal of time had been spent in the sharp
+encounter of wits, Vere proposed an adjournment of the discussion until
+after supper; politely expressing the hope that the Spanish gentlemen
+would be his guests.
+
+The conversation had been from the beginning in French, as Vere, although
+a master of the Spanish language, was desirous that the rest of the
+company present should understand everything said at the interview.
+
+The invitation to table was graciously accepted, and the Christmas eve
+passed off more merrily than the preceding night had done, so far as
+Vere's two guests were concerned.  Several distinguished officers were
+present at the festive board: Captain Montesquieu de Roquette, Sir Horace
+Vere, Captains St. Hilaire, Meetkerke, De Ryck, and others among them.
+As it was strict fast for the Catholics that evening--while on the other
+hand the English, still reckoning according to the old style, would not
+keep Christmas until ten days later--the banquet consisted mainly of eggs
+and fish, and the like meagre articles, in compliment to the guests.  It
+was, however, as well furnished as could be expected in a beleaguered
+town, out of whose harbour a winter gale had been for many weeks blowing
+and preventing all ingress.  There was at least no lack of excellent
+Bordeaux wine; while the servants waiting upon the table did not fail to
+observe that Governor Serrano was not in all respects a model of the
+temperance usually characteristic of his race.  They carefully counted
+and afterwards related with admiration, not unmingled with horror, that
+the veteran Spaniard drank fifty-two goblets of claret, and was emptying
+his glass as fast as filled, although by no means neglecting the beer,
+the quality of which he had tested the night before at the Half-moon.
+Yet there seemed to be no perceptible effect produced upon him, save
+perhaps that he grew a shade more grave and dignified with each
+succeeding draught.  For while the banquet proceeded in this very genial
+manner business was by no means neglected; the negotiations for the
+surrender of the city being conducted on both sides with a fuddled
+solemnity very edifying for the attendants to contemplate.
+
+Vere complained that the archduke was unreasonable, for he claimed
+nothing less from his antagonists than their all.  The commissioners
+replied that all was no more than his own property.  It certainly could
+not be thought unjust of him to demand his own, and all Flanders was his
+by legal donation from his Majesty of Spain.  Vere replied that he had
+never studied jurisprudence, and was not versed at all in that--science,
+but he had always heard in England that possession was nine points of the
+law.  Now it so happened that they, and not his Highness, were in
+possession of Ostend, and it would be unreasonable to expect them to make
+a present of it to any one.  The besiegers, he urged, had gained much
+honour by their steady persistence amid so many dangers; difficulties,
+and losses;--but winter had come, the weather was very bad, not a step of
+progress had been made, and he was bold enough to express his opinion
+that it would be far more sensible on the part of his Highness, after
+such deeds of valour, to withdraw his diminished forces out of the
+freezing and pestilential swamps before Ostend and go into comfortable
+winter-quarters at Ghent or Bruges.  Enough had been done for glory, and
+it must certainly now be manifest that he had no chance of taking the
+city.
+
+Serrano retorted that it was no secret to the besiegers that the garrison
+had dwindled to a handful; that it was quite impossible for them to
+defend their outer works any longer; that with the loss of the external
+boulevard the defence of the place would be impossible, and that, on the
+contrary, it was for the republicans to resign themselves to their fate.
+They, too, had done enough for glory, and had nothing for it but to
+retire into the centre of their ruined little nest, where they must
+burrow until the enemy should have leisure to entirely unearth them,
+which would be a piece of work very easily and rapidly accomplished.
+
+This was called negotiation; and thus the winter's evening wore away,
+until the Spaniards; heavy with fatigue and wine, were without much
+difficulty persuaded to seek the couches prepared for them.
+
+Next day the concourse of people around the city was Christmas, wonderful
+to behold.  The rumour had spread through the, provinces, and was on the,
+wing to all foreign countries, that Ostend had capitulated, and that the
+commissioners were at that moment arranging the details.  The cardinal-
+archduke, in complete Milanese armour, with a splendid feather-bush
+waving from his casque and surrounded by his brilliant body-guard,
+galloped to and fro outside the entrenchments, expecting every moment a
+deputation to come forth, bearing the keys of the town.  The Infanta too,
+magnificent in ruff and farthingale and brocaded petticoat, and attended
+by a cavalcade of ladies of honour in gorgeous attire, pranced
+impatiently about, awaiting the dramatic termination of a leaguer which
+was becoming wearisome to besieger and besieged.  Not even on the famous
+second of July of the previous year, when that princess was pleasing
+herself with imaginations as to the deportment of Maurice of Nassau as a
+captive, had her soul been so full of anticipated triumph as on this
+Christmas morning.
+
+Such a festive scene as was now presented in the neighbourhood of Ostend
+had not been exhibited for many a long year in Flanders.  From the whole
+country side came the peasants and burghers, men, women, and children, in
+holiday attire.  It was like a kermiss or provincial fair.  Three
+thousand people at least were roaming about in all direction, gaping with
+wonder at the fortifications of the besieging army, so soon to be
+superfluous, sliding, skating, waltzing on the ice, admiring jugglers,
+dancing bears, puppet shows and merry-go-rounds, singing, and carousing
+upon herrings, sausages, waffles, with mighty draughts of Flemish ale,
+manifesting their exuberant joy that the thorn was nearly extracted from
+the lion's paw, and awaiting with delight a blessed relief from that
+operation.  Never was a merrier Christmas morning in Flanders.  There
+should be an end now to the forays through the country of those red-
+coated English pikemen, those hard-riding, hard-drinking troopers of
+Germany and, Holland, with the French and Scotch arquebus men, and
+terrible Zeeland sailors who had for years swept out of Ostend, at any
+convenient opportunity, to harry the whole province.  And great was the
+joy in Flanders.
+
+Meantime within the city a different scene was enacting.  Those dignified
+Spaniards--governor Serrano and Don Matteo Antonio--having slept off
+their carouse, were prepared after breakfast next morning to resume the
+interrupted negotiations.  But affairs were now to take an unexpected
+turn.  In the night the wind had changed, and in the course of the
+forenoon three Dutch vessels of war were descried in the offing, and soon
+calmly sailed into the mouth of the Gullet.  The news was at once brought
+to Vere's headquarters.  That general's plans had been crowned with
+success even sooner than he expected.  There was no further object in
+continuing the comedy of negotiation, for the ships now arriving seemed
+crowded with troops.  Sir Francis accordingly threw off the mask, and
+assuring his guests with extreme politeness that it had given him great
+pleasure to make the acquaintance of such distinguished personages, he
+thanked them cordially for their visit, but regretted that it would be no
+longer in his power to entertain any propositions of a pacific nature.
+The necessary reinforcements, which he had been so long expecting, had
+at last reached him, and it would not yet be necessary for him to retire
+into his ruined nest.  Military honour therefore would not allow him to
+detain them any longer.  Should he ever be so hard pressed again he felt
+sure that so magnanimous a prince as his Highness would extend to him all
+due clemency and consideration.
+
+The Spaniards; digesting as they best could the sauce of contumely with
+which the gross treachery of the transaction was now seasoned, solemnly
+withdrew, disdaining to express their spleen in words of idle menace.
+
+They were escorted back through the lines, and at once made their report
+at headquarters.  The festival had been dismally interrupted before it
+was well begun.  The vessels were soon observed by friend and foe making
+their way triumphantly up to the town where they soon dropped anchor at
+the wharf of the inner Gullet, having only a couple of sailors wounded,
+despite all the furious discharges of Bucquoy's batteries.  The holiday
+makers dispersed, much discomfited, the English hostages returned to the
+town, and the archduke shut himself up, growling and furious.  His
+generals and counsellors, who had recommended the abandonment of his
+carefully prepared assault, and acceptance of the perfidious propositions
+to negotiate, by which so much golden time had been squandered, were for
+several days excluded from his presence.
+
+Meantime the army, disappointed, discontented, half-starved, unpaid,
+passed their days and nights as before, in the sloppy trenches, while
+deep and earnest were the complaints and the curses which succeeded to
+the momentary exultation of Christmas eve.  The soldiers were more than
+ever embittered against their august commander-in-chief, for they had
+just enjoyed a signal opportunity of comparing the luxury and comfortable
+magnificence of his Highness and the Infanta, and of contrasting it with
+their own misery.  Moreover, it had long been exciting much indignation
+in the ranks that veteran generals and colonels, in whom all men had
+confidence, had been in great numbers superseded in order to make place
+for court favourites, utterly without experience or talent.  Thus the
+veterans; murmuring in the wet trenches.  The archduke meanwhile, in his
+sullen retirement, brooded over a tragedy to follow the very successful
+comedy of his antagonist.
+
+It was not long delayed.  The assault which had been postponed in the
+latter days of December was to be renewed before the end of the first
+week of the new year.  Vere, through scouts and deserters, was aware of
+the impending storm, and had made his arrangements in accordance with,
+the very minute information which he had thus received.  The
+reinforcements, so opportunely sent by the States, were not numerous
+--only six hundred in all--but they were an earnest of fresh comrades to
+follow.  Meantime they sufficed to fill the gaps in the ranks, and to
+enable Vere to keep possession of the external line of fortifications,
+including the all-important Porcupine.  Moreover, during the fictitious
+negotiations, while the general had thus been holding--as he expressed
+it--the wolf by both ears, the labor of repairing damages in dyke, moat,
+and wall had not been for an instant neglected.
+
+The morning of the 7th January, 1602, opened with a vigorous cannonade
+from all the archduke's batteries, east, west, and south.  Auditor
+Fleeting, counsellor and secretary of the city, aide-de-camp and right
+hand of the commander-in-chief, a grim, grizzled, leathern-faced man of
+fifty, steady under fire as a veteran arquebuseer, ready with his pen
+as a counting-house clerk, and as fertile in resource as the most
+experienced campaigner, was ever at the general's side.  At his
+suggestion several houses had been demolished, to furnish materials in
+wood and iron to stop the gaps as soon as made.  Especially about the
+Sand Hill fort and the Porcupine a plentiful supply was collected, no
+time having been lost in throwing up stockades, palisades, and every
+other possible obstruction to the expected assailants.  Knowing perfectly
+well where the brunt of the battle was to be, Vere had placed his brother
+Sir Horace at the head of twelve picked companies of diverse nations in
+the Sand Hill.  Four of the very best companies of the garrison were
+stationed in the Porcupine, and ten more of the choicest in Fort Hell's
+Mouth, under Colonel Meetkerke.  It must be recollected that the first of
+these three works was the key to the fortifications of the old or outer
+town.  The other two were very near it, and were the principal redoubts
+which defended the most exposed and vulnerable portion of the new town on
+the western side.  The Sand Hill, as its name imported, was the only
+existing relic within the city's verge of the chain of downs once
+encircling the whole place.  It had however been cannonaded so steadily
+during the six months' siege as to have become almost ironclad--a mass of
+metal gradually accumulating from the enemy's guns.  With the curtain
+extending from it towards east and west it protected the old town quite
+up to the little ancient brick church, one of the only two in Ostend.
+
+All day long the cannon thundered--a bombardment such as had never before
+been dreamed of in those days, two thousand shots having been distinctly
+counted, by the burghers.  There was but languid response from the
+besieged, who were reserving their strength.  At last, to the brief
+winter's day succeeded a pitch-dark evening.  It was dead low tide at
+seven.  At that hour the drums suddenly beat alarm along the whole line
+of fortifications from the Gullet on the east to the old harbour on the
+west, while through the mirky atmosphere sounded the trumpets of the
+assault, the shouts of the Spanish and Italian commanders, and the fierce
+responsive yells of their troops.  Sir Francis, having visited every
+portion of the works, and satisfied himself that every man in the
+garrison was under arms, and that all his arrangements had been
+fulfilled, now sat on horseback, motionless as a statue, within the Sand
+Hill.  Among the many serious and fictitious attacks now making he waited
+calmly for the one great assault, even allowing some of the enemy to
+scale the distant counterscarp of the external works towards the south,
+which he had by design left insufficiently guarded.  It was but a brief
+suspense, for in a few moments two thousand men had rushed through the
+bed of the old harbour, out of which the tide had ebbed, and were
+vigorously assailing the Sand Hill and the whole length of its curtain.
+The impenetrable darkness made it impossible to count, but the noise and
+the surging fury of the advance rendered it obvious that the critical
+moment had arrived.  Suddenly a vivid illumination burst forth.  Great
+pine torches, piles of tar-barrels, and heaps of other inflammable
+material, which had been carefully arranged in Fort Porcupine, were now
+all at once lighted by Vere's command.
+
+As the lurid blaze flashed far and wide there started out of the gloom
+not only the long lines of yellow jerkined pikemen and arquebuseers, with
+their storm-hoods and scaling ladders, rushing swiftly towards the forts,
+but beyond the broken sea dyke the reserved masses supporting the attack,
+drawn up in solid clumps of spears, with their gay standards waving above
+them, and with a strong force of cavalry in iron corslet and morion
+stationed in the rear to urge on the infantry and prevent their faltering
+in the night's work, became visible--phantom-like but perfectly distinct.
+
+At least four thousand men were engaged in this chief attack, and the
+light now permitted the besieged to direct their fire from cannon, demi-
+cannon, culverin, and snaphance, with fatal effect.  The assailants,
+thinned, straggling, but undismayed, closed up their ranks, and still
+came fiercely on.  Never had Spaniards, Walloons, and Italians,
+manifested greater contempt of death than on this occasion.  They knew
+that the archduke and the infanta were waiting breathlessly in Fort St.
+Albert for the news of that victory of which the feigned negotiations had
+defrauded them at Christmas, and they felt perfectly confident of ending
+both the siege and the forty years' war this January night.  But they had
+reckoned without their wily English host.  As they came nearer--van, and
+at last reserve--they dropped in great heaps under the steady fire of the
+musketry--as Philip Flaming, looking on, exclaimed--like apples when the
+autumn wind blows through the orchard.  And as the foremost still pressed
+nearer and nearer, striving to clamber up the shattered counterscarp and
+through every practicable breach, the English, Hollanders, and
+Zeelanders, met them in the gap, not only at push of pike, but with their
+long daggers and with flaming pitchhoops, and hurled them down to instant
+death.
+
+And thus around the Sand Hill, the Porcupine, and Hell's Mouth, the
+battle raged nearly two hours long, without an inch of ground being
+gained by the assailants.  The dead and dying were piled beneath the
+walls, while still the reserves, goaded up to the mark by the cavalry,
+mounted upon the bodies of their fallen comrades and strove to plant
+their, ladders.  But now the tide was on the flood, the harbour was
+filling, and cool Auditor Fleming, whom nothing escaped quietly asked
+the general's permission to open the western' sluice.  It was obvious,
+he observed, that the fury of the attack was over, and that the enemy
+would soon be effecting a retreat before the water should have risen too
+high.  He even pointed out many stragglers attempting to escape through
+the already deepening shallows.  Vere's consent was at once given, the
+flood-gate was opened, and the assailants such as still survived--panic-
+struck in a moment, rushed wildly back through the old harbour towards
+their camp.  It was too late.  The waters were out, and the contending
+currents whirled the fugitives up and down through the submerged land,
+and beyond the broken dyke, until great numbers of them were miserably
+drowned in the haven, while others were washed out to sea.  Horses and
+riders were borne off towards the Zealand coast, and several of their
+corpses were picked up days afterwards in the neighbourhood of Flushing.
+
+Meantime those who had effected a lodgment in the Polder, the Square, and
+the other southern forts, found, after the chief assault had failed, that
+they had gained nothing by their temporary triumph but the certainty of
+being butchered.  Retreat was impossible, and no quarter was given.
+Count Imbec, a noble of great wealth, offered his weight in gold for his
+ransom, but was killed by a private soldier, who preferred his blood, or
+doubted his solvency.  Durango, marshal of the camp, Don Alvarez de
+Suarez, and Don Matteo Antonio, sergeant-major and quarter-master-
+general, whose adventures as a hostage within the town on Christmas eve
+have so recently been related, were also slain.
+
+On the eastern side Bucquoy's attack was an entire failure.  His
+arrangements were too slowly made, and before he could bring his men to
+the assault the water was so high in the Gullet that they refused to lay
+their pontoons and march to certain death.  Only at lowest ebb, and with
+most exquisite skill in fording, would it have been possible to effect
+anything like an earnest demonstration or a surprise.  Moreover some of
+the garrison, giving themselves out as deserters, stole out of the
+Spanish Half-moon, which had been purposely almost denuded of its
+defenders, towards the enemy's entrenchments, and offered to lead a body
+of Spaniards into that ravelin.  Bucquoy fell into the trap, so that the
+detachment, after a victory as easily effected as that in the southern
+forts, found themselves when the fight was over not the captors but the
+caught.  A few attempted to escape and were driven into the sea; the rest
+were massacred.
+
+Fifteen hundred of the enemy's dead were counted and registered by
+Auditor Fleming.  The whole number of the slain and drowned was reckoned
+as high as two thousand, which was at least, a quarter of the whole
+besieging army.  And so ended this winter night's assault, by which the
+archduke had fondly hoped to avenge himself for Vere's perfidy, and to
+terminate the war at a blow.  Only sixty of the garrison were killed, and
+Sir Horace Vere was wounded.
+
+The winter now set in with severe sleet, and snow, and rain, and furious
+tempests lashing the sea over the works of besieger and besieged, and for
+weeks together paralyzing all efforts of either army.  Eight weary months
+the siege had lasted; the men in town and hostile camp, exposed to the
+inclemency of the wintry trenches, sinking faster before the pestilence
+which now swept impartially through all ranks than the soldiers of the
+archduke had fallen at Nieuport, or in the recent assault on the Sand
+Hill.  Of seven thousand hardly three thousand now remained in the
+garrison.
+
+Yet still the weary sausage making and wooden castle building went on
+along the Gullet and around the old town.  The Bredene dyke crept on inch
+by inch, but the steady ships of the republic came and went unharmed by
+the batteries with which Bucquoy hoped to shut up the New Harbour.  The
+archduke's works were pushed up nearer on the west, but, as yet, not one
+practical advantage had been gained, and the siege had scarcely advanced
+a hair's breadth since the 5th of July of the preceding year, when the
+armies had first sat down before the place.
+
+The stormy month of March had come, and Vere, being called to service in
+the field for the coming season, transferred the command at Ostend to
+Frederic van Dorp, a rugged, hard-headed, ill-favoured, stout-hearted
+Zealand colonel, with the face of a bull-dog, and with the tenacious grip
+of one.
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Constitute themselves at once universal legatees
+Crimes and cruelties such as Christians only could imagine
+Human fat esteemed the sovereignst remedy (for wounds)
+War was the normal and natural condition of mankind
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v74
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 75, 1602-1603
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+     Protraction of the siege of Ostend--Spanish invasion of Ireland--
+     Prince Maurice again on the march--Siege of Grave--State of the
+     archduke's army--Formidable mutiny--State of Europe--Portuguese
+     expedition to Java--Foundation there of the first Batavian trading
+     settlement--Exploits of Jacob Heemskerk--Capture of a Lisbon
+     carrack--Progress of Dutch commerce--Oriental and Germanic republics
+     --Commercial embassy from the King of Atsgen in Sumatra to the
+     Netherlands--Surrender of Grave--Privateer work of Frederic Spinola
+     --Destruction of Spinola's fleet by English and Dutch cruisers--
+     Continuation of the siege of Ostend--Fearful hurricane and its
+     effects--The attack--Capture of external forts--Encounter between
+     Spinola and a Dutch squadron--Execution of prisoners by the
+     archduke--Philip Fleming and his diary--Continuation of operations
+     before Ostend--Spanish veterans still mutinous--Their capital
+     besieged by Van den Berg--Maurice marches to their relief--
+     Convention between the prince and the mutineers--Great commercial
+     progress of the Dutch--Opposition to international commerce--
+     Organization of the Universal East India Company.
+
+It would be desirable to concentrate the chief events of the siege of
+Ostend so that they might be presented to the reader's view in a single
+mass.  But this is impossible.  The siege was essentially the war--as
+already observed--and it was bidding fair to protract itself to such an
+extent that a respect for chronology requires the attention to be
+directed for a moment to other topics.
+
+The invasion of Ireland under Aquila, so pompously heralded as almost to
+suggest another grand armada, had sailed in the beginning of the winter,
+and an army of six thousand men had been landed at Kinsale.  Rarely had
+there been a better opportunity for the Celt to strike for his
+independence.  Shane Mac Neil had an army on foot with which he felt
+confident of exterminating the Saxon oppressor, even without the
+assistance of his peninsular allies; while the queen's army, severely
+drawn upon as it had been for the exigencies of Vere and the States,
+might be supposed unable to cope with so formidable a combination.  Yet
+Montjoy made short work of Aquila and Tyrone.  The invaders, shut up in
+their meagre conquest, became the besieged instead of the assailants.
+Tyrone made a feeble attempt to relieve his Spanish allies, but was soon
+driven into his swamps, the peasants would not rise; in spite of
+proclamations and golden mountains of promise, and Aquila was soon glad
+enough to sign a capitulation by which he saved a portion of his army.
+He then returned, in transports provided by the English general, a much
+discomfited man, to Spain instead of converting Ireland into a province
+of the universal empire.  He had not rescued Hibernia, as he stoutly
+proclaimed at the outset his intention of doing, from the jaws of
+the evil demon.
+
+The States, not much wiser after the experience of Nieuport, were again
+desirous that Maurice should march into Flanders, relieve Ostend, and
+sweep the archduke into the sea.  As for Vere, he proposed that a great
+army of cavalry and infantry should be sent into Ostend, while another
+force equally powerful should take the field as soon as the season
+permitted.  Where the men were to be levied, and whence the funds for
+putting such formidable hosts in motion were to be derived, it was not
+easy to say: "'Tis astonishing," said Lewis William, "that the evils
+already suffered cannot open his eyes; but after all, 'tis no marvel.  An
+old and good colonel, as I hold him to be, must go to school before he
+can become a general, and we must beware of committing any second folly,
+govern ourselves according to our means and the art of war, and leave the
+rest to God."
+
+Prince Maurice, however; yielding as usual to the persuasions or
+importunities of those less sagacious than himself; and being also much
+influenced by the advice of the English queen and the French king, after
+reviewing the most splendid army that even he had ever equipped and set
+in the field, crossed the Waal at Nymegen, and the Meuse at Mook, and
+then moving leisurely along Meuse--side by way of Sambeck, Blitterswyck,
+and Maasyk, came past St. Truyden to the neighbourhood of Thienen, in
+Brabant.  Here he stood, in the heart of the enemy's country, and within
+a day's march of Brussels.  The sanguine portion of his countrymen and
+the more easily alarmed of the enemy already thought it would be an easy
+military promenade for the stadholder to march through Brabant and
+Flanders to the coast, defeat the Catholic forces before Ostend, raise
+the weary siege of that place, dictate peace to the archduke, and return
+in triumph to the Hague, before the end of the summer.
+
+But the experienced Maurice too well knew the emptiness of such dreams.
+He had a splendid army--eighteen thousand foot and five thousand horse--
+of which Lewis William commanded the battalia, Vere the right, and Count
+Ernest the left, with a train of two thousand baggage wagons, and a
+considerable force of sutlers and camp-followers.  He moved so
+deliberately, and with such excellent discipline, that his two wings
+could with ease be expanded for black-mail or forage over a considerable
+extent of country, and again folded together in case of sudden military
+necessity.  But he had no intention of marching through Brussels, Ghent,
+and Bruges, to the Flemish coast.  His old antagonist, the Admiral of
+Arragon, lay near Thienen in an entrenched camp, with a force of at least
+fifteen thousand men, while the archduke, leaving Rivas in command before
+Ostend, hovered in the neighbourhood of Brussels, with as many troops as
+could be spared from the various Flemish garrisons, ready to support the
+admiral.
+
+But Maurice tempted the admiral in vain with the chances of a general
+action.  That warrior, remembering perhaps too distinctly his disasters
+at Nieuport, or feeling conscious that his military genius was more fitly
+displayed in burning towns and villages in neutral territory, robbing the
+peasantry, plundering gentlemen's castles and murdering the proprietors,
+than it was like to be in a pitched battle with the first general of the
+age, remained sullenly within his entrenchments.  His position was too
+strong and his force far too numerous to warrant an attack by the
+stadholder upon his works.  After satisfying himself, therefore, that
+there was no chance of an encounter in Brabant except at immense
+disadvantage, Maurice rapidly counter-marched towards the lower Meuse,
+and on the 18th July laid siege to Grave.  The position and importance of
+this city have been thoroughly set before the reader in a former volumes
+It is only necessary, therefore, to recal the fact that, besides being a
+vital possession for the republic, the place was in law the private
+property of the Orange family, having been a portion of the estate of
+Count de Buren, afterwards redeemed on payment of a considerable sum of
+money by his son-in-law, William the Silent, confirmed to him at the
+pacification of Ghent, and only lost to his children by the disgraceful
+conduct of Captain Hamart, which had cost that officer his head.  Maurice
+was determined at least that the place should not now slip through his
+fingers, and that the present siege should be a masterpiece.  His forts,
+of which he had nearly fifty, were each regularly furnished with moat,
+drawbridge, and bulwark.  His counterscarp and parapet, his galleries,
+covered ways and mines, were as elaborate, massive, and artistically
+finished as if he were building a city instead of besieging one.
+Buzanval, the French envoy, amazed at the spectacle, protested that his
+works "were rather worthy of the grand Emperor of the Turks than of, a
+little commonwealth, which only existed through the disorder of its
+enemies and the assistance of its friends;" but he admitted the utility
+of the stadholder's proceedings to be very obvious.
+
+While the prince calmly sat before Grave, awaiting the inexorable hour
+for burghers and garrison to surrender, the great Francis Mendoza,
+Admiral of Arragon, had been completing the arrangements for his
+exchange.  A prisoner after the Nieuport battle, he had been assigned
+by Maurice, as will be recollected, to his cousin, young Lewis Gunther,
+whose brilliant services as commander of the cavalry had so much
+contributed to the victory.  The amount of ransom for so eminent a
+captive could not fail to be large, and accordingly the thrifty Lewis
+William had congratulated his brother on being able, although so young,
+thus to repair the fortunes of the family by his military industry to a
+greater extent than had yet been accomplished by any of the race.
+Subsequently, the admiral had been released on parole, the sum of his
+ransom having been fixed at nearly one hundred thousand Flemish crowns.
+By an agreement now made by the States, with consent of the Nassau
+family, the prisoner was definitely released, on condition of effecting
+the exchange of all prisoners of the republic, now held in durance by
+Spain in any part of the world.  This was in lieu of the hundred thousand
+crowns which were to be put into the impoverished coffers of Lewis
+Gunther.  It may be imagined, as the hapless prisoners afterwards poured
+in--not only from the peninsula, but from more distant regions, whither
+they had been sent by their cruel taskmasters, some to relate their
+sufferings in the horrible dungeons of Spain, where they had long been
+expiating the crime of defending their fatherland, others to relate their
+experiences as chained galley-slaves in the naval service of their
+bitterest enemies, many with shorn heads and long beards like Turks, many
+with crippled limbs, worn out with chains and blows, and the squalor of
+disease and filth--that the hatred for Spain and Rome did not glow any
+less fiercely within the republic, nor the hereditary love for the
+Nassaus, to whose generosity these poor victims were indebted for their
+deliverance, become fainter, in consequence of these revelations.  It was
+at first vehemently disputed by many that the admiral could be exchanged
+as a prisoner of war, in respect to the manifold murders and other crimes
+which would seem to authorize his trial and chastisement by the tribunals
+of the republic.  But it was decided by the States that the sacred aegis
+of military law must be held to protect even so bloodstained a criminal
+as he, and his release was accordingly effected.  Not long afterwards he
+took his departure for Spain, where his reception was not enthusiastic.
+
+From this epoch is to be dated a considerable reform in the laws
+regulating the exchange of prisoners of war.--[Grotius]
+
+While Maurice was occupied with the siege of Grave, and thus not only
+menacing an important position, but spreading, danger and dismay over all
+Brabant and Flanders, it was necessary for the archduke to detach so
+large a portion of his armies to observe his indefatigable and scientific
+enemy, as to much weaken the vigour of the operations before Ostend.
+Moreover, the execrable administration of his finances, and the dismal
+delays and sufferings of that siege; had brought about another mutiny--on
+the whole, the most extensive, formidable, and methodical of all that had
+hitherto occurred in the Spanish armies.
+
+By midsummer, at least three thousand five hundred veterans, including a
+thousand of excellent cavalry, the very best soldiers in the service, had
+seized the city of Hoogstraaten.  Here they established themselves
+securely, and strengthened the fortifications; levying contributions in
+corn, cattle, and every other necessary, besides wine, beer, and pocket-
+money, from the whole country round with exemplary regularity.  As usual,
+disorder assumed the forms of absolute order.  Anarchy became the best
+organized of governments; and it would have been difficult to find in the
+world--outside the Dutch commonwealth--a single community where justice
+appeared to be so promptly administered as in this temporary republic,
+founded upon rebellion and theft.
+
+For; although a brotherhood of thieves, it rigorously punished such of
+its citizens as robbed for their own, not for the public good.  The
+immense booty swept daily from the granges, castles; and villages of
+Flanders was divided with the simplicity of early Christians, while the
+success and steadiness of the operations paralyzed their sovereign, and
+was of considerable advantage to the States.
+
+Albert endeavoured in vain to negotiate with the rebels.  Nuncius
+Frangipani went to them in person, but was received with calm derision.
+Pious exhortations might turn the keys of Paradise, but gold alone, he
+was informed, would unlock the gates of Hoogstraaten.  In an evil hour
+the cardinal-archduke was tempted to try the effect of sacerdotal
+thunder.  The ex-archbishop of Toledo could not doubt that the terrors of
+the Church would make those brown veterans tremble who could confront so
+tranquilly the spring-tides of the North Sea, and the batteries of Vere
+and Nassau.  So he launched a manifesto, as highly spiced as a pamphlet
+of Marnig, and as severe as a sentence of Torquemada.  Entirely against
+the advice of the States-General of the obedient provinces, he denounced
+the mutineers as outlaws and accursed.  He called on persons of every
+degree to kill any of them in any way, at any time, or in any place,
+promising that the slayer of a private soldier should receive a reward
+of "ten crowns for each head" brought in, while for a subaltern officer's
+head one hundred crowns were offered; for that of a superior officer two
+hundred, and for that of the Eletto or chief magistrate, five hundred
+crowns.  Should the slayer be himself a member of the mutiny, his crime
+of rebellion was to be forgiven, and the price of murder duly paid.  All
+judges, magistrates, and provost-marshals were ordered to make
+inventories of the goods, moveable and immoveable, of the mutineers, and
+of the clothing and other articles belonging to their wives and children,
+all which property was to be brought in and deposited in the hands of the
+proper functionaries of the archduke's camp, in order that it might be
+duly incorporated into the domains of his Highness.
+
+The mutineers were not frightened.  The ban was an anachronism.  If those
+Spaniards and Italians had learned nothing by their much campaigning in
+the land of Calvinism, they had at least unlearned their faith in bell,
+book, and candle.  It happened, too, that among their numbers were to be
+found pamphleteers as ready and as unscrupulous as the scribes of the
+archduke.
+
+So there soon came forth and was published to the world, in the name of
+the Eletto and council of Hoogstraaten, a formal answer to the ban.
+
+"If scolding and cursing be payment," said the magistrates of the mutiny,
+"then we might give a receipt in full for our wages.  The ban is
+sufficient in this respect; but as these curses give no food for our
+bellies nor clothes for our backs, not preventing us, therefore, who have
+been fighting so long for the honour and welfare of the archdukes from
+starving with cold and hunger, we think a reply necessary in order to
+make manifest how much reason these archdukes have for thundering forth
+all this choler and fury, by which women and children may be frightened,
+but at which no soldier will feel alarm.
+
+"When it is stated," continued the mutineers, "that we have deserted our
+banners just as an attempt was making by the archduke to relieve Grave,
+we can only reply that the assertion proves how impossible it is to
+practise arithmetic with disturbed brains.  Passion is a bad
+schoolmistress for the memory, but, as good friends, we will recal to the
+recollection of your Highness that it was not your Highness, but the
+Admiral of Arragon, that commanded the relieving force before that city.
+
+"'Tis very true that we summon your Highnesses, and levy upon your
+provinces, in order to obtain means of living; for in what other quarter
+should we make application.  Your Highnesses give us nothing except
+promises; but soldiers are not chameleons, to live on such air.
+According to every principle of law, creditors have a lien on the
+property of their debtors.
+
+"As to condemning to death as traitors and scoundrels those who don't
+desire to be killed, and who have the means of killing such as attempt to
+execute the sentence; this is hardly in accordance with the extraordinary
+wisdom which has always characterized your Highnesses.
+
+"As, to the confiscation of our goods, both moveable and immoveable, we
+would simply make this observation:
+
+"Our moveable goods are our swords alone, and they can only be moved by
+ourselves.  They are our immoveable goods as well; for should any one but
+ourselves undertake to move them, we assure your Highnesses that they
+will prove too heavy to be handled.
+
+"As to the official register and deposit ordained of the money, clothing,
+and other property belonging to ourselves, our wives and children, the
+work may be done without clerks of inventory.  Certainly, if the domains
+of your Highnesses have no other sources of revenue than the proceeds of
+this confiscation, wherewith to feed the ostrich-like digestions of those
+about you, 'tis to be feared that ere long they will be in the same
+condition as were ours, when we were obliged to come together in
+Hoogstraaten to devise means to keep ourselves, our wives, and children
+alive.  And at that time we were an unbreeched people, like the Indians--
+saving your Highnesses' reverence--and the climate here is too cold for
+such costume.  Your Highnesses, and your relatives the Emperor and King
+of Spain, will hardly make your royal heads greasy with the fat of such
+property as we possess, 'Twill also be a remarkable spectacle after you
+have stripped our wives and children stark naked for the benefit of your
+treasury, to see them sent in that condition, within three days
+afterwards, out of the country, as the ban ordains.
+
+"You order the ban to be executed against our children and our children's
+children, but your Highness never learned this in the Bible, when you
+were an archbishop, and when you expounded, or ought to have expounded,
+the Holy Scriptures to your flock.  What theology teaches your Highness
+to vent your wrath upon the innocent?
+
+"Whenever the cause of discontent is taken away, the soldiers will become
+obedient and cheerful.  All kings and princes may mirror themselves in
+the bad government of your Highness, and may see how they fare who try to
+carry on a war, while with their own hands they cut the sinews of war.
+The great leaders of old--Cyrus, Alexander, Scipio, Caesar--were
+accustomed, not to starve, but to enrich their soldiers.  What did
+Alexander, when in an arid desert they brought, him a helmet full of
+water?  He threw it on the sand, saying that there was only enough for
+him, but not enough for his army.
+
+"Your Highnesses have set ten crowns, and one hundred, and five hundred
+crowns upon our heads, but never could find five hundred mites nor ten
+mites to keep our souls and bodies together.
+
+"Yet you have found means to live yourselves with pomp and luxury, far
+exceeding that of the great Emperor Charles and much surpassing the
+magnificence of your Highnesses' brothers, the emperor and the king."
+
+Thus, and much more, the magistrates of the "Italian republic"--answering
+their master's denunciations of vengeance, both in this world and the
+next, with a humorous scorn very refreshing in that age of the world to
+contemplate.  The expanding influence of the Dutch commonwealth was
+already making itself felt even in the ranks of its most determined foes.
+
+The mutineers had also made an agreement with the States-General, by
+which they had secured permission, in case of need, to retire within the
+territory of the republic.
+
+Maurice had written to them from his camp before Grave, and at first they
+were disposed to treat him with as little courtesy as they had shown the
+Nuncius; for they put the prince's letter on a staff, and fired at it as
+a mark, assuring the trumpeter who brought it that they would serve
+him in the same manner should he venture thither again.  Very soon
+afterwards, however, the Eletto and council, reproving the folly of their
+subordinates, opened negotiations with the stadholder, who, with the
+consent of the States, gave them preliminary permission to take refuge
+under the guns of Bergenop-Zoom, should they by chance be hard pressed.
+
+Thus throughout Europe a singular equilibrium of contending forces seemed
+established.  Before Ostend, where the chief struggle between imperialism
+and republicanism had been proceeding for more than a year with equal
+vigour, there seemed no possibility of a result.  The sands drank up the
+blood of the combatants on both sides, month after month, in summer; the
+pestilence in town and camp mowed down Catholic and Protestant with
+perfect impartiality during the winter, while the remorseless ocean swept
+over all in its wrath, obliterating in an hour the patient toil of
+months.
+
+In Spain, in England, and Ireland; in Hungary, Germany, Sweden, and
+Poland, men wrought industriously day by day and year by year, to destroy
+each other, and to efface the products of human industry, and yet no
+progress could fairly be registered.  The Turk was in Buda, on the right
+bank of the Danube, and the Christian in Pest, on the left, while the
+crescent; but lately supplanted by the cross, again waved in triumph over
+Stuhlweissenberg, capital city of the Magyars.  The great Marshal Biron,
+foiled in his stupendous treachery, had laid down his head upon the
+block; the catastrophe following hard upon the madcap riot of Lord Essex
+in the Strand and his tragic end.  The troublesome and restless
+favourites of Henry and of Elizabeth had closed their stormy career, but
+the designs of the great king and the great queen were growing wider and
+wilder, more false and more fantastic than ever, as the evening shadows
+of both were lengthening.
+
+But it was not in Europe nor in Christendom: alone during that twilight
+epoch of declining absolutism, regal and sacerdotal, and the coming
+glimmer of freedom, religious and commercial, that the contrast between
+the old and new civilizations was exhibiting itself.
+
+The same fishermen and fighting men, whom we have but lately seen sailing
+forth from Zeeland and Friesland to confront the dangers of either pole,
+were now contending in the Indian seas with the Portuguese monopolists of
+the tropics.
+
+A century long, the generosity of the Roman pontiff in bestowing upon
+others what was not his property had guaranteed to the nation of Vasco de
+Gama one half at least of the valuable possessions which maritime genius,
+unflinching valour, and boundless cruelty had won and kept.  But the
+spirit of change was abroad in the world.  Potentates and merchants
+under the equator had been sedulously taught that there were no other
+white men on the planet but the Portuguese and their conquerors the
+Spaniards, and that the Dutch--of whom they had recently heard, and the
+portrait of whose great military chieftain they had seen after the news
+of the Nieuport battle had made the circuit of the earth--were a mere mob
+of pirates and savages inhabiting the obscurest of dens.  They were soon,
+however, to be enabled to judge for themselves as to the power and the
+merits of the various competitors for their trade.
+
+Early in this year Andreas Hurtado de Mendoza with a stately fleet of
+galleons and smaller vessels, more than five-and-twenty in all, was on
+his way towards the island of Java to inflict summary vengeance upon
+those oriental rulers who had dared to trade with men forbidden by his
+Catholic Majesty and the Pope.
+
+The city of Bantam was the first spot marked out for destruction, and it
+so happened that a Dutch skipper, Wolfert Hermann by name, commanding
+five trading vessels, in which were three hundred men, had just arrived
+in those seas to continue the illicit commerce which had aroused the ire
+of the Portuguese.  His whole force both of men and of guns was far
+inferior to that of the flag-ship alone of Mendoza.  But he resolved to
+make manifest to the Indians that the Batavians were not disposed to
+relinquish their promising commercial relations with them, nor to turn
+their backs upon their newly found friends in the hour of danger.  To the
+profound astonishment of the Portuguese admiral the Dutchman with his
+five little trading ships made an attack on the pompous armada, intending
+to avert chastisement from the king of Bantam.  It was not possible for
+Wolfert to cope at close quarters with his immensely superior adversary,
+but his skill and nautical experience enabled him to play at what was
+then considered long bowls with extraordinary effect.  The greater
+lightness and mobility of his vessels made them more than a match, in
+this kind of encounter, for the clumsy, top-heavy, and sluggish marine
+castles in which Spain and Portugal then went forth to battle on the
+ocean.  It seems almost like the irony of history, and yet it is the
+literal fact, that the Dutch galleot of that day--hardly changed in two
+and a half centuries since--"the bull-browed galleot butting through the
+stream,"--[Oliver Wendell Holmes]--was then the model clipper,
+conspicuous among all ships for its rapid sailing qualities and ease of
+handling.  So much has the world moved, on sea and shore, since those
+simple but heroic days.  And thus Wolfert's swift-going galleots circled
+round and round the awkward, ponderous, and much-puzzled Portuguese
+fleet, until by well-directed shots and skilful manoeuvring they had sunk
+several ships, taken two, run others into the shallows, and, at last, put
+the whole to confusion.  After several days of such fighting, Admiral
+Mendoza fairly turned his back upon his insignificant opponent, and
+abandoned his projects upon Java.  Bearing away for the Island of Amboyna
+with the remainder of his fleet, he laid waste several of its villages
+and odoriferous spice-fields, while Wolfert and his companions entered
+Bantam in triumph, and were hailed as deliverers.  And thus on the
+extreme western verge of this magnificent island was founded the first
+trading settlement of the Batavian republic in the archipelago of the
+equator--the foundation-stone of a great commercial empire which was to
+encircle the earth.  Not many years later, at the distance, of a dozen
+leagues from Bantam, a congenial swamp was fortunately discovered in a
+land whose volcanic peaks rose two miles into the air, and here a town
+duly laid out with canals and bridges, and trim gardens and stagnant
+pools, was baptized by the ancient and well-beloved name of Good-Meadow
+or Batavia, which it bears to this day.
+
+Meantime Wolfert Hermann was not the only Hollander cruising in those
+seas able to convince the Oriental mind that all Europeans save the
+Portuguese were not pirates and savages, and that friendly intercourse
+with other foreigners might be as profitable as slavery to the Spanish
+crown.
+
+Captain Nek made treaties of amity and commerce with the potentates of
+Ternate, Tydor, and other Molucca islands.  The King of Candy on the
+Island of Ceylon, lord of the odoriferous fields of cassia which perfume
+those tropical seas, was glad to learn how to exchange the spices of the
+equator for the thousand fabrics and products of western civilization
+which found their great emporium in Holland.  Jacob Heemskerk, too, who
+had so lately astonished the world by his exploits and discoveries during
+his famous winter in Nova Zembla, was now seeking adventures and carrying
+the flag and fame of the republic along the Indian and Chinese coasts.
+The King of Johor on the Malayan peninsula entered into friendly
+relations with him, being well pleased, like so many of those petty
+rulers, to obtain protection against the Portuguese whom he had so long
+hated and feared.  He informed Heemskerk of the arrival in the straits of
+Malacca of an immense Lisbon carrack, laden with pearls and spices,
+brocades and precious-stones, on its way to Europe, and suggested an
+attack.  It is true that the roving Hollander merely commanded a couple
+of the smallest galleots, with about a hundred and thirty men in the two.
+But when was Jacob Heemskerk ever known to shrink from an encounter--
+whether from single-handed combat with a polar bear, or from leading a
+forlorn hope against a Spanish fort, or from assailing a Portuguese
+armada.  The carrack, more than one thousand tons burthen, carried
+seventeen guns, and at least eight times as many men as he commanded.
+Nevertheless, after a combat of but brief duration Heemskerk was master
+of the carrack: He spared the lives of his seven hundred prisoners, and
+set them on shore before they should have time to discover to what a
+handful of Dutchmen they had surrendered.  Then dividing about a million
+florins' worth of booty among his men, who doubtless found such cruising
+among the spice-islands more attractive than wintering at the North Pole,
+he sailed in the carrack for Macao, where he found no difficulty in
+convincing the authorities of the celestial empire that the friendship of
+the Dutch republic was worth cultivating.  There was soon to be work in
+other regions for the hardy Hollander--such as was to make the name of
+Heemskerk a word to conjure with down to the latest posterity.  Meantime
+he returned to his own country to take part in the great industrial
+movements which were to make this year an epoch in commercial history.
+
+The conquerors of Mendoza and deliverers of Bantam had however not paused
+in their work.  From Java they sailed to Banda; and on those volcanic
+islands of nutmegs and cloves made, in the name of their commonwealth,
+a treaty with its republican antipodes.  For there was no king to be
+found in that particular archipelago, and the two republics, the Oriental
+and the Germanic, dealt with each other with direct and becoming
+simplicity.  Their convention was in accordance with the commercial
+ideas of the day, which assumed monopoly as the true basis of national
+prosperity.  It was agreed that none but Dutchmen should ever purchase
+the nutmegs of Banda, and that neither nation should harbour refugees
+from the other.  Other articles, however; showed how much farther, the
+practice of political and religious liberty had advanced than had any
+theory of commercial freedom.  It was settled that each nation should
+judge its own citizens according to its own laws, that neither should
+interfere by force with the other in regard to religious matters, but
+that God should be judge over them all.  Here at least was progress
+beyond the system according to which the Holy Inquisition furnished the
+only enginry of civilization.  The guardianship assumed by Holland over
+these children of the sun was at least an improvement on the tyranny
+which roasted them alive if they rejected religious dogmas which they
+could not comprehend, and which proclaimed with fire, sword, and gibbet
+that the Omnipotent especially forbade the nutmeg trade to all but the
+subjects, of the most Catholic king.
+
+In Atsgen or Achim, chief city of Sumatra, a treaty was likewise made
+with the government of the place, and it was arranged that the king of
+Atsgen should send over an embassy to the distant but friendly republic.
+Thus he might judge whether the Hollanders were enemies of all the world,
+as had been represented to him, or only of Spain; whether their knowledge
+of the arts and sciences, and their position among the western nations
+entitled them to respect, and made their friendship desirable; or whether
+they were only worthy of the contempt which their royal and aristocratic
+enemies delighted to heap upon their heads.  The envoys sailed from
+Sumatra on board the same little fleet which, under the command of
+Wolfert Hermann, had already done such signal service, and on their way
+to Europe they had an opportunity of seeing how these republican sailors
+could deal with their enemies on the ocean.
+
+Off St. Helena an immense Portuguese carrack richly laden and powerfully
+armed, was met, attacked, and overpowered by the little merchantmen with
+their usual audacity and skill.  A magnificent booty was equitably
+divided among the captors, the vanquished crew were set safely on shore;
+and the Hollanders then pursued their home voyage without further
+adventures.
+
+The ambassadors; with an Arab interpreter, were duly presented to Prince
+Maurice in the lines before the city of Grave.  Certainly no more
+favourable opportunity could have been offered them for contrasting the
+reality of military power, science, national vigour; and wealth, which
+made the republic eminent among the nations, with the fiction of a horde
+of insignificant and bloodthirsty savages which her enemies had made so
+familiar at the antipodes.  Not only were the intrenchments bastions,
+galleries, batteries, the discipline and equipment of the troops, a
+miracle in the eyes of these newly arrived Oriental ambassadors, but they
+had awakened the astonishment of Europe, already accustomed to such
+spectacles.  Evidently the amity of the stadholder and his commonwealth
+was a jewel of price, and the King of Achim would have been far more
+barbarous than he had ever deemed the Dutchmen to be, had he not well
+heeded the lesson which he had sent so far to learn.
+
+The chief of the legation, Abdulzamar, died in Zeeland, and was buried
+with honourable obsequies at Middleburg, a monument being raised to his
+memory.  The other envoys returned to Sumatra, fully determined to
+maintain close relations with the republic.
+
+There had been other visitors in Maurice's lines before Grave at about
+the same period.  Among others, Gaston Spinola, recently created by the
+archduke Count of Bruay, had obtained permission to make a visit to a
+wounded relative, then a captive in the republican camp, and was
+hospitably entertained at the stadholder's table.  Maurice, with
+soldierly bluntness, ridiculed the floating batteries, the castles on
+wheels, the sausages, and other newly-invented machines, employed before
+Ostend, and characterized them as rather fit to catch birds with than to
+capture a city, defended by mighty armies and fleets.
+
+"If the archduke has set his heart upon it, he had far better try to buy
+Ostend," he observed.
+
+"What is your price?"  asked the Italian; "will you take 200,000 ducats?"
+
+"Certainly not less than a million and a half," was the reply; so highly
+did Maurice rate the position and advantages of the city.  He would
+venture to prophesy, he added, that the siege of Ostend would last as
+long as the siege of Troy.
+
+"Ostend is no Troy," said Spinola with a courtly flourish, "although
+there are certainly not wanting an Austrian Agamemnon, a Dutch Hector,
+and an Italian Achilles."  The last allusion was to the speaker's
+namesake and kinsman, the Marquis Anibrose Spinola, of whom much was to
+be heard in the world from that time forth.
+
+Meantime, although so little progress had been made at Ostend, Maurice
+had thoroughly done his work before Grave.  On the 18th September the
+place surrendered, after sixty days' siege, upon the terms usually
+granted by the stadholder.  The garrison was to go out with the honours
+of war.  Those of the inhabitants who wished to leave were to leave;
+those who preferred staying were to stay; rendering due allegiance to the
+republic, and abstaining in public from the rites of the Roman Church,
+without being exposed, however, to any inquiries as to their religious
+opinions, or any interference within their households.
+
+The work went slowly on before Ostend.  Much effect had been produced,
+however, by the operations of the archduke's little naval force.  The
+galley of that day, although a child's toy as compared with the wonders
+of naval architecture of our own time, was an effective machine enough to
+harass fishing and coasting vessels in creeks and estuaries, and along
+the shores of Holland and Zeeland during tranquil weather.
+
+The locomotive force of these vessels consisted of galley-slaves,
+in which respect the Spaniards had an advantage over other nations;
+for they had no scruples in putting prisoners of war into chains and upon
+the benches of the rowers.  Humanity--"the law of Christian piety," in
+the words of the noble Grotius--forbade the Hollanders from reducing
+their captives to such horrible slavery, and they were obliged to content
+themselves with condemned criminals, and with the few other wretches whom
+abject poverty and the impossibility of earning other wages could induce
+to accept the service.  And as in the maritime warfare of our own day,
+the machinery--engines, wheels, and boilers--is the especial aim of the
+enemy's artillery, so the chain-gang who rowed in the waist of the
+galley, the living enginry, without which the vessel became a useless
+tub, was as surely marked out for destruction whenever a sea-fight took
+place.
+
+The Hollanders did not very much favour this species of war-craft, both
+by reason of the difficulty of procuring the gang, and because to a true
+lover of the ocean and of naval warfare the galley was about as clumsy
+and amphibious a production as could be hoped of human perverseness.
+High where it should be low.  Exposed, flat, and fragile, where elevation
+and strength were indispensable--encumbered and top-heavy where it should
+be level and compact, weak in the waist, broad at stem and stern, awkward
+in manoeuvre, helpless in rough weather, sluggish under sail, although
+possessing the single advantage of being able to crawl over a smooth sea
+when better and faster ships were made stationary by absolute calm, the
+galley was no match for the Dutch galleot, either at close quarters or in
+a breeze.
+
+Nevertheless for a long time there had been a certain awe produced by the
+possibility of some prodigious but unknown qualities in these outlandish
+vessels, and already the Hollanders had tried their hand at constructing
+them.  On a late occasion a galley of considerable size, built at Dort,
+had rowed past the Spanish forts on the Scheld, gone up to Antwerp, and
+coolly cut out from the very wharves of the city a Spanish galley of the
+first class, besides seven war vessels of lesser dimensions, at first
+gaining advantage by surprise, and then breaking down all opposition in a
+brilliant little fight.  The noise of the encounter summoned the citizens
+and garrison to the walls, only to witness the triumph achieved by Dutch
+audacity, and to see the victors dropping rapidly down the river, laden
+with booty and followed by their prizes.  Nor was the mortification of
+these unwilling spectators diminished when the clear notes of a bugle on
+board the Dutch galley brought to their ears the well-known melody of
+"Wilhelmus of Nassau," once so dear to every, patriotic heart in Antwerp,
+and perhaps causing many a renegade cheek on this occasion to tingle with
+shame.
+
+Frederic Spinola, a volunteer belonging to the great and wealthy Genoese
+family of that name, had been performing a good deal of privateer work
+with a small force of galleys which he kept under his command at Sluys.
+He had succeeded in inflicting so much damage upon the smaller
+merchantmen of the republic, and in maintaining so perpetual a panic in
+calm weather among the seafaring multitudes of those regions, that he was
+disposed to extend the scale of his operations.  On a visit to Spain he
+had obtained permission from Government to employ in this service eight
+great galleys, recently built on the Guadalquivir for the Royal Navy.
+He was to man and equip them at his own expense, and was to be allowed
+the whole of the booty that might result from his enterprise.  Early in
+the autumn he set forth with his eight galleys on the voyage to Flanders,
+but, off Cezimbra, on the Portuguese coast, unfortunately fell in with
+Sir Robert Mansell, who; with a compact little squadron of English
+frigates, was lying in wait for the homeward-bound India fleet on their
+entrance to Lisbon.  An engagement took place, in which Spinola lost two
+of his galleys.  His disaster might have been still greater, had not an
+immense Indian carrack, laden with the richest merchandize, just then
+hove in sight, to attract his conquerors with a hope of better prize-
+money than could be expected from the most complete victory over him and
+his fleet.
+
+With the remainder of his vessels Spinola crept out of sight while the
+English were ransacking the carrack.  On the 3rd of October he had
+entered the channel with a force which, according to the ideas of that
+day, was still formidable.  Each of his galleys was of two hundred and
+fifty slave power, and carried, beside the chain-gang, four hundred
+fighting men.  His flag-ship was called the St. Lewis; the names of the
+other vessels being the St. Philip, the Morning Star, the St. John, the
+Hyacinth, and the Padilla.  The Trinity and the Opportunity had been
+destroyed off Cezimbra.  Now there happened to be cruising just then in
+the channel, Captain Peter Mol, master of the Dutch war-ship Tiger, and
+Captain Lubbertson, commanding the Pelican.  These two espied the Spanish
+squadron, paddling at about dusk towards the English coast, and quickly
+gave notice to Vice-Admiral John Kant, who in the States' ship Half-moon,
+with three other war-galleots, was keeping watch in that neighbourhood.
+It was dead calm as the night fell, and the galleys of Spinola, which had
+crept close up to the Dover cliffs, were endeavouring to row their way
+across in the darkness towards the Flemish coast, in the hope of putting
+unobserved into the Gut of Sluys.  All went well with Spinola till the
+moon rose; but, with the moon, sprang up a steady breeze, so that the
+galleys lost all their advantage.  Nearly off Gravelines another States'
+ship, the Mackerel, came in sight, which forthwith attacked the St:
+Philip, pouring a broadside into her by which fifty men were killed.
+Drawing off from this assailant, the galley found herself close to the
+Dutch admiral in the Half-moon, who, with all sail set, bore straight
+down upon her, struck her amidships with a mighty crash, carrying off her
+mainmast and her poop, and then, extricating himself with difficulty from
+the wreck, sent a tremendous volley of cannon-shot and lesser missiles
+straight into the waist where sat the chain-gang.  A howl of pain and
+terror rang through the air, while oars and benches, arms, legs, and
+mutilated bodies, chained inexorably together, floated on the moonlit
+waves.  An instant later, and another galleot bore down to complete the
+work, striking with her iron prow the doomed St. Philip so straightly and
+surely that she went down like a stone, carrying with her galley slaves,
+sailors, and soldiers, besides all the treasure brought by Spinola for
+the use of his fleet.
+
+The Morning Star was the next galley attacked, Captain Sael, in a stout
+galleot, driving at her under full sail, with the same accuracy and
+solidity of shock as had been displayed in the encounter with the St.
+Philip and with the same result.  The miserable, top-heavy monster galley
+was struck between mainmast and stern, with a blow which carried away the
+assailant's own bowsprit and fore-bulwarks, but which--completely
+demolished the stem of the galley, and crushed out of existence the
+greater portion of the live machinery sitting chained and rowing on the
+benches.  And again, as the first enemy hauled off from its victim,
+Admiral pant came up once more in the Half-moon, steered straight at the
+floundering galley, and sent her with one crash to the bottom.  It was
+not very scientific practice perhaps.  It was but simple butting, plain
+sailing, good steering, and the firing of cannon at short pistol-shot.
+But after all, the work of those unsophisticated Dutch skippers was done
+very thoroughly, without flinching, and, as usual, at great odds of men
+and guns.  Two more of the Spanish galleys were chased into the shallows
+near Gravelines, where they went to pieces.  Another was wrecked near
+Calais.  The galley which bore Frederic Spinola himself and his fortunes
+succeeded in reaching Dunkirk, whence he made his way discomfited, to
+tell the tale of his disaster to the archduke at Brussels.  During the
+fight the Dutch admiral's boats had been active in picking up such of the
+drowning crews, whether galley-slaves or soldiers, as it was possible to
+save.  But not more than two hundred were thus rescued, while by far the
+greater proportion of those on board, probably three thousand in number,
+perished, and the whole fleet, by which so much injury was to have been
+inflicted on Dutch commerce, was, save one damaged galley, destroyed. Yet
+scarcely any lives were lost by the Hollanders, and it is certain that
+the whole force in their fleet did not equal the crew of a single one of
+the enemy's ships.  Neither Spinola nor the archduke seemed likely to
+make much out of the contract.  Meantime, the Genoese volunteer kept
+quiet in Sluy's, brooding over schemes to repair his losses and to renew
+his forays on the indomitable Zeelanders.
+
+Another winter had now closed in upon Ostend, while still the siege had
+scarcely advanced an inch.  During the ten months of Governor Dorp's
+administration, four thousand men had died of wounds or malady within the
+town, and certainly twice as many in the trenches of the besieging force.
+Still the patient Bucquoy went on, day after day, night after night,
+month after month, planting his faggots and fascines, creeping forward
+almost imperceptibly with his dyke, paying five florins each to the
+soldiers who volunteered to bring the materials, and a double ducat to
+each man employed in laying them.  So close were they under the fire of
+the town; that a life was almost laid down for every ducat, but the
+Gullet, which it was hoped to close, yawned as wide as ever, and the
+problem how to reduce a city, open by sea to the whole world, remained
+without solution.  On the last day of the year a splendid fleet of
+transports arrived in the town, laden with whole droves of beeves and
+flocks of sheep, besides wine and bread and beer enough to supply a
+considerable city; so that market provisions in the beleaguered town
+were cheaper than in any part of Europe.
+
+Thus skilfully did the States-General and Prince Maurice watch from the
+outside over Ostend, while the audacious but phlegmatic sea-captains
+brought their cargoes unscathed through the Gullet, although Bucquoy's
+batteries had now advanced to within seventy yards of the shore.
+
+On the west side, the besiegers were slowly eating their way through the
+old harbour towards the heart of the place.  Subterranean galleries,
+patiently drained of their water, were met by counter-galleries leading
+out from the town, and many were the desperate hand-to-hand encounters,
+by dim lanterns, or in total darkness, beneath the ocean and beneath the
+earth; Hollander, Spaniard, German, Englishman, Walloon, digging and
+dying in the fatal trenches, as if there had been no graves at home.
+Those insatiable sand-banks seemed ready to absorb all the gold and all
+the life of Christendom.  But the monotony of that misery it is useless
+to chronicle.  Hardly an event of these dreary days has been left
+unrecorded by faithful diarists and industrious soldiers, but time has
+swept us far away from them, and the world has rolled on to fresher
+fields of carnage and ruin.  All winter long those unwearied,
+intelligent, fierce, and cruel creatures toiled and fought in the
+stagnant waters, and patiently burrowed in the earth.  It seemed that
+if Ostend were ever lost it would be because at last entirely bitten
+away and consumed.  When there was no Ostend left, it might be that
+the archduke would triumph.
+
+As there was always danger that the movements on the east side might be
+at last successful, it was the command of Maurice that the labours to
+construct still another harbour should go on in case the Gullet should
+become useless, as the old haven had been since the beginning of the
+siege.  And the working upon that newest harbour was as dangerous to the
+Hollanders as Bucquoy's dike-building to the Spaniards, for the pioneers
+and sappers were perpetually under fire from the batteries which the
+count had at, last successfully established on the extremity of his work.
+It was a piteous sight to see those patient delvers lay down their spades
+and die, hour after hour, to be succeeded by their brethren only to share
+their fate.  Yet still the harbour building progressed; for the republic
+was determined that the city should be open to the sea so long as the
+States had a stiver, or a ship, or a spade.
+
+While this deadly industry went on, the more strictly military operations
+were not pretermitted day nor night.  The Catholics were unwearied in
+watching for a chance of attack, and the Hollanders stood on the ramparts
+and in the trenches, straining eyes and ears through the perpetual icy
+mists of that black winter to catch the sight and sound of a coming foe.
+Especially the by-watches, as they were called, were enough to break down
+constitutions of iron; for, all day and night, men were stationed in the
+inundated regions, bound on pain of death to stand in the water and watch
+for a possible movement of the enemy, until the waves should rise so high
+as to make it necessary to swim.  Then, until the tide fell again, there
+was brief repose.
+
+And so the dreary winter faded away at last into chill and blustering
+spring.  On the 13th of April a hurricane, such as had not occurred since
+the siege began; raged across the ocean, deluging and shattering the
+devoted town.  The waters rose over dyke and parapet, and the wind swept
+from the streets and ramparts every living thing.  Not a soldier or
+sailor could keep his feet, the chief tower of the church was blown into
+the square, chimneys and windows crashed on all sides, and the elements
+had their holiday, as if to prove how helpless a thing was man, however
+fierce and determined, when the powers of Nature arose in their strength.
+It was as if no siege existed, as if no hostile armies had been lying
+nearly two years long close to each other, and losing no opportunity to
+fly at each other's throats.  The strife of wind and ocean gave a respite
+to human rage.
+
+It was but a brief respite.  At nightfall there was a lull in the
+tempest, and the garrison crept again to the ramparts.  Instantly the
+departing roar of the winds and waters were succeeded by fainter but
+still more threatening sounds, and the sentinels and the drums and
+trumpets to rally the garrison, when the attack came.  The sleepless
+Spaniards were already upon them.  In the Porcupine fort, a blaze of
+wickerwork and building materials suddenly illuminated the gathering
+gloom of night; and the loud cries of the assailants, who had succeeded
+in kindling this fire by their missiles, proclaimed the fierceness of the
+attack.  Governor Dorp was himself in the fort, straining every nerve to
+extinguish the flames, and to hold this most important position.  He was
+successful.  After a brief but bloody encounter the Spaniards were
+repulsed with heavy loss.  All was quiet again, and the garrison in the
+Porcupine were congratulating themselves on their victory when suddenly
+the ubiquitous Philip Fleeting plunged, with a face of horror, into the
+governor's quarters, informing him that the attack on the redoubt had
+been a feint, and that the Spaniards were at that very moment swarming
+all over the three external forts, called the South Square, the West
+Square, and the Polder.  These points, which have been already described,
+were most essential to the protection of the place, as without them the
+whole counterscarp was in danger.  It was to save those exposed but vital
+positions that Sir Francis Vere had resorted to the slippery device of
+the last Christmas Eve but one.
+
+Dorp refused to believe the intelligence.  The squares were well guarded,
+the garrison ever alert.  Spaniards were not birds of prey to fly up
+those perpendicular heights, and for beings without wings the thing was
+impossible.  He followed Fleming through the darkness, and was soon
+convinced that the impossible was true.  The precious squares were in the
+hands of the enemy.  Nimble as monkeys, those yellow jerkined Italians,
+Walloons, and Spaniards--stormhats on their heads and swords in their
+teeth--had planted rope-ladders, swung themselves up the walls by
+hundreds upon hundreds, while the fight had been going on at the
+Porcupine, and were now rushing through the forts grinning defiance,
+yelling and chattering with fierce triumph, and beating down all
+opposition.  It was splendidly done.  The discomfited Dorp met small
+bodies of his men, panic-struck, reeling out from their stronghold,
+wounded, bleeding, shrieking for help and for orders.  It seemed as if
+the Spaniards had dropped from the clouds.  The Dutch commandant did his
+best to rally the fugitives, and to encourage those who had remained.
+All night long the furious battle raged, every inch of ground being
+contested; for both Catholics and Hollanders knew full well that this
+triumph was worth more than all that had been gained for the archduke in
+eighteen months of siege.  Pike to pike, breast to breast, they fought
+through the dark April night; the last sobs of the hurricane dying
+unheard, the red lanterns flitting to and fro, the fireworks hissing in
+every direction of earth and air, the great wicker piles, heaped up with
+pitch and rosin, flaming over a scene more like a dance of goblins than a
+commonplace Christian massacre.  At least fifteen hundred were killed--
+besiegers and besieged--during the storming of the forts and the
+determined but unsuccessful attempt of the Hollanders to retake them.
+And when at last the day had dawned, and the Spaniards could see the full
+extent of their victory, they set themselves with--unusual alacrity to
+killing such of the wounded and prisoners as were in their hands, while,
+at the same time, they turned the guns of their newly acquired works upon
+the main counterscarp of the town.
+
+Yet the besieged--discomfited but undismayed lost not a moment in
+strengthening their inner works, and in doing their best, day after day,
+by sortie, cannonade, and every possible device, to prevent the foe from
+obtaining full advantage of his success.  The triumph was merely a local
+one, and the patient Hollanders soon proved to the enemy that the town
+was not gained by carrying the three squares, but that every inch of the
+place was to be contested as hotly as those little redoubts had been.
+Ostend, after standing nearly two years of siege, was not to be carried
+by storm.  A goodly slice of it had been pared off that April night, and
+was now in possession of the archduke, but this was all.  Meantime the
+underground work was resumed on both sides.
+
+Frederic Spinola, notwithstanding the stunning defeat sustained by him
+in the preceding October, had not lost heart while losing all his ships.
+On the contrary, he had been busy during the winter in building other
+galleys.  Accordingly, one fine morning in May, Counsellor Flooswyk,
+being on board a war vessel convoying some empty transports from Ostend,
+observed signs of mischief brewing as he sailed past the Gut of Sluys;
+and forthwith gave notice of what he had seen to Admiral Joost de Moor,
+commanding the blockading squadron.  The counsellor was right.  Frederic
+Spinola meant mischief.  It was just before sunrise of a beautiful
+summer's day.  The waves were smooth--not a breath of wind stirring--and
+De Moor, who had four little war-ships of Holland, and was supported
+besides by a famous vessel called the Black Galley of Zeeland, under
+Captain Jacob Michelzoon, soon observed a movement from Sluys.
+
+Over the flat and glassy surface of the sea, eight galleys of the largest
+size were seen crawling slowly, like vast reptiles, towards his ..
+position.  Four lesser vessels followed in the wake of the great galleys.
+The sails of the admiral's little fleet flapped idly against the mast.
+He could only placidly await the onset.  The Black Galley, however, moved
+forward according to her kind; and was soon vigorously attacked by two
+galleys of the enemy.  With all the force that five hundred rowers could
+impart, these two huge vessels ran straight into the Zeeland ship, and
+buried their iron prows in her sides.  Yet the Black Galley was made of
+harder stuff than were those which had gone down in the channel the
+previous autumn under the blows of John Kant.  Those on board her, at
+least, were made of tougher material than were galley-slaves and land-
+soldiers.  The ramming was certainly not like that of a thousand horse-
+power of steam, and there was no very great display of science in the
+encounter; yet Captain Jacob Michelzoon, with two enemy's ships thus
+stuck to his sides, might well have given himself up for lost.  The
+disproportion of ships and men was monstrous.  Beside the chain-gang,
+each of Spinola's ships was manned by two hundred soldiers, while thirty-
+six musketeers from the Flushing garrison were the only men-at-arms in De
+Moor's whole squadron.  But those amphibious Zeelanders and Hollanders,
+perfectly at home in the water, expert in handling vessels, and excellent
+cannoneers, were more than a match for twenty times their number of
+landsmen.  It was a very simple-minded, unsophisticated contest.  The
+attempt to board the Black Galley was met with determined resistance, but
+the Zeeland sailors clambered like cats upon the bowsprits of the Spanish
+galleys, fighting with cutlass and handspike, while a broadside or two
+was delivered with terrible effect into the benches of the chained and
+wretched slaves.  Captain Michelzoon was killed, but his successor,
+Lieutenant Hart, although severely wounded, swore that he would blow up
+his ship with his own hands rather than surrender.  The decks of all the
+vessels ran with blood, but at last the Black Galley succeeded in beating
+off her assailants; the Zeelanders, by main force, breaking off the
+enemy's bowsprits, so that the two ships of Spinola were glad to sheer
+off, leaving their stings buried in the enemy's body.
+
+Next, four galleys attacked the stout little galleot of Captain Logier,
+and with a very similar result.  Their prows stuck fast in the bulwarks
+of the ship, but the boarders soon found themselves the boarded, and,
+after a brief contest, again the iron bowsprits snapped like pipe-stems,
+and again the floundering and inexperienced Spaniards shrank away from
+the terrible encounter which they had provoked.  Soon afterwards, Joost
+de Moor was assailed by three galleys.  He received them, however, with
+cannonade and musketry so warmly that they willingly obeyed a summons
+from Spinola, and united with the flag-ship in one more tremendous onset
+upon the Black Galley of Zeeland.  And it might have gone hard with that
+devoted ship, already crippled in the previous encounter, had not Captain
+Logier fortunately drifted with the current near enough to give her
+assistance, while the other sailing ships lay becalmed and idle
+spectators.  At last Spinola, conspicuous by his armour, and by
+magnificent recklessness of danger, fell upon the deck of his galley,
+torn to pieces with twenty-four wounds from a stone gun of the Black
+Galley, while at nearly the same, moment a gentle breeze began in the
+distance to ruffle the surface of the waters.  More than a thousand men
+had fallen in Spinola's fleet, inclusive of the miserable slaves, who
+were tossed overboard as often as wounds made them a cumbrous part of the
+machinery, and the galleys, damaged, discomfited, laden with corpses and
+dripping with blood, rowed off into Sluys as speedily as they could move,
+without waiting until the coming wind should bring all the sailing ships
+into the fight, together with such other vessels under Haultain as might
+be cruising in the distance.  They succeeded in getting into the Gut of
+Sluys, and so up to their harbour of refuge.  Meantime, baldheaded,
+weather-beaten Joost de Moor--farther pursuit being impossible--piped all
+hands on deck, where officers and men fell on their knees, shouting in
+pious triumph the 34th Psalm: "I will bless the Lord at all times, His
+praise shall continually be in my mouth .  .  .  .  .  O magnify the Lord
+with me, and let us exalt His name together."  So rang forth the notes of
+humble thanksgiving across the placid sea.  And assuredly those hardy
+mariners, having gained a victory with their little vessels over twelve
+ships and three thousand men--a numerical force of at least ten times
+their number,--such as few but Dutchmen could have achieved; had a right
+to give thanks to Him from whom all blessings flow.
+
+Thus ended the career of Frederic Spinola, a wealthy, gallant, high-born,
+brilliant youth, who might have earned distinction, and rendered
+infinitely better service to the cause of Spain and the archdukes, had he
+not persuaded himself that he had a talent for seamanship.  Certainly,
+never was a more misplaced ambition, a more unlucky career.  Not even in
+that age of rash adventure, when grandees became admirals and field-
+marshals because they were grandees, had such incapacity been shown by
+any restless patrician.  Frederic Spinola, at the age of thirty-two, a
+landsman and a volunteer, thinking to measure himself on blue water with
+such veterans as John Rant, Joost de Moor, and the other Dutchmen and
+Zeelanders whom it was his fortune to meet, could hardly escape the doom
+which so rapidly befel him.
+
+On board the Black Galley Captain Michelznon, eleven of his officers, and
+fifteen of his men were killed; Admiral de Moor was slightly wounded, and
+had five of his men killed and twenty wounded; Captain Logier was wounded
+in the foot, and lost fifteen killed and twelve wounded.
+
+The number of those killed in Spinola's fleet has been placed as high
+as fourteen hundred, including two hundred officers and gentlemen of
+quality, besides the crowds of galley-slaves thrown overboard.  This was
+perhaps an exaggeration.  The losses were, however, sufficient to put a
+complete atop to the enterprise out of which the unfortunate Spinola had
+conceived such extravagant hopes of fame and fortune.
+
+The herring-smacks and other coasters, besides the transports passing to
+and from Ostend, sailed thenceforth unmolested by any galleys from Sluys.
+One unfortunate sloop, however, in moving out from the beleaguered city,
+ran upon some shoals before getting out of the Gullet and thus fell a
+prize to the besiegers.  She was laden with nothing more precious than
+twelve wounded soldiers on their way to the hospitals at Flushing.
+These prisoners were immediately hanged, at the express command of the
+archduke, because they had been taken on the sea where, according to his
+highness, there were no laws of war.
+
+The stadholder, against his will--for Maurice was never cruel--felt
+himself obliged to teach the cardinal better jurisprudence and better
+humanity for the future.  In order to show him that there was but one
+belligerent law on sea and on land, he ordered two hundred Spanish
+prisoners within his lines to draw lots from an urn in which twelve of
+the tickets were inscribed with the fatal word gibbet.  Eleven of the
+twelve thus marked by ill luck were at once executed.  The twelfth, a
+comely youth, was pardoned at the intercession of a young girl.  It is
+not stated whether or not she became his wife.  It is also a fact worth
+mentioning, as illustrating the recklessness engendered by a soldier's
+life, that the man who drew the first blank sold it to one of his
+comrades and plunged his hand again into the fatal urn.  Whether he
+succeeded in drawing the gibbet at his second trial has not been
+recorded.  When these executions had taken place in full view of the
+enemy's camp, Maurice formally announced that for every prisoner
+thenceforth put to death by the archduke two captives from his own army
+should be hanged.  These stern reprisals, as usual, put an end to the
+foul system of martial murder.
+
+Throughout the year the war continued to be exclusively the siege of
+Ostend.  Yet the fierce operations, recently recorded, having been
+succeeded by a period of comparative languor, Governor Dorp at last
+obtained permission to depart to repair his broken health.  He was
+succeeded in command of the forces within the town by Charles Van der
+Noot, colonel of the Zeeland regiment which had suffered so much in the
+first act of the battle of Nieuport.  Previously to this exchange,
+however, a day of solemn thanksgiving and prayer was set apart on the
+anniversary of the beginning of the siege.  Since the 5th of July, 1601,
+two years had been spent by the whole power of the enemy in the attempt
+to reduce this miserable village, and the whole result thus far had been
+the capture of three little external forts.  There seemed cause for
+thanksgiving.
+
+Philip Fleming, too, obtained a four weeks' holiday--the first in eleven
+years--and went with his family outside the pestiferous and beleaguered
+town.  He was soon to return to his multifarious duties as auditor,
+secretary, and chronicler of the city, and unattached aide-de-camp to
+the commander-in-chief, whoever that might be; and to perform his duty
+with the same patient courage and sagacity that had marked him from the
+beginning.  "An unlucky cannon-ball of the enemy," as he observes,
+did some damage at this period to his diary, but it happened at a moment
+when comparatively little was doing, so that the chasm was of less
+consequence.
+
+"And so I, Philip Fleming, auditor to the Council of War," he says with
+homely pathos, "have been so continually employed as not to have obtained
+leave in all these years to refresh, for a few days outside this town,
+my troubled spirit after such perpetual work, intolerable cares, and
+slavery, having had no other pleasure allotted me than with daily
+sadness, weeping eyes, and heavy yearnings to tread the ramparts, and,
+like a poor slave laden with fetters, to look at so many others sailing
+out of the harbour in order to feast their souls in other provinces with
+green fields and the goodly works of God.  And thus it has been until it
+has nearly gone out of my memory how the fruits of the earth, growing
+trees, and dumb beasts appear to mortal eye."
+
+He then, with whimsical indignation, alludes to a certain author who
+pleaded in excuse for the shortcomings of the history of the siege the
+damage done to his manuscripts by a cannon-ball.  "Where the liar dreamt
+of or invented his cannon-ball," he says, "I cannot tell, inasmuch as he
+never saw the city of Ostend in his life; but the said cannon-ball, to my
+great sorrrow, did come one afternoon through my office, shot from the
+enemy's great battery, which very much damaged not his memoirs but mine;
+taking off the legs and arms at the same time of three poor invalid
+soldiers seated in the sun before my door and killing them on the spot,
+and just missing my wife, then great with child, who stood by me with
+faithfulness through all the sufferings of the bloody siege and presented
+me twice during its continuance, by the help of Almighty God, with young
+Amazons or daughters of war."
+
+And so honest Philip Fleming went out for a little time to look at
+the green trees and the dumb creatures feeding in the Dutch pastures.
+Meantime the two armies--outside and within Ostend--went moiling on
+in their monotonous work; steadily returning at intervals, as if by
+instinct, to repair the ruin which a superior power would often inflict
+in a half-hour on the results of laborious weeks.
+
+In the open field the military operations were very trifling, the wager
+of battle being by common consent fought out on the sands of Ostend, and
+the necessities for attack and defence absorbing, the resources of each
+combatant.  France, England, and Spain were holding a perpetual
+diplomatic tournament to which our eyes must presently turn, and the
+Sublime Realm of the Ottoman and the holy Roman Empire were in the
+customary equilibrium of their eternal strife.
+
+The mutiny of the veterans continued; the "Italian republic" giving the
+archduke almost as much trouble, despite his ban and edicts and outlawry,
+as the Dutch commonwealth itself.  For more than a twelvemonth the best
+troops of the Spanish army had been thus established as a separate
+empire, levying black-mail on the obedient provinces, hanging such of
+their old officers as dared to remonstrate, and obeying their elected
+chief magistrates with exemplary docility.
+
+They had become a force of five thousand strong, cavalry and infantry
+together, all steady, experienced veterans--the best and bravest soldiers
+of Europe.  The least of them demanded two thousand florins as owed to
+him by the King of Spain and the archduke.  The burghers of Bois-le-Duc
+and other neighbouring towns in the obedient provinces kept watch and
+ward, not knowing how soon the Spaniards might be upon them to reward
+them for their obedience.  Not a peasant with provisions was permitted by
+the mutineers to enter Bois-le-Duc, while the priests were summoned to
+pay one year's income of all their property on pain of being burned
+alive.  "Very much amazed are the poor priests at these proceedings,"
+said Ernest Nassau, "and there is a terrible quantity of the vile race
+within and around the city.  I hope one day to have the plucking of some
+of their feathers myself."
+
+The mutiny governed itself as a strict military democracy, and had caused
+an official seal to be engraved, representing seven snakes entwined in
+one, each thrusting forth a dangerous tongue, with the motto--
+
+                         "tutto in ore
+            E sua Eccelenza in nostro favore."
+
+"His Excellency" meant Maurice of Nassau, with whom formal articles of
+compact had been arranged.  It had become necessary for the archduke,
+notwithstanding the steady drain of the siege of Ostend, to detach a
+considerable army against this republic and to besiege them in their
+capital of Hoogstraaten.  With seven thousand foot and three thousand
+cavalry Frederic Van den Berg took the field against them in the latter
+part of July.  Maurice, with nine thousand five hundred infantry and
+three thousand horse, lay near Gertruydenberg.  When united with the
+rebel "squadron," two thousand five hundred strong, he would dispose of
+a force of fifteen thousand veterans, and he moved at once to relieve
+the besieged mutineers.  His cousin Frederic, however, had no desire to
+measure himself with the stadholder at such odds, and stole away from
+him in the dark without beat of drum.  Maurice entered Hoogstraaten, was
+received with rapture by the Spanish and Italian veterans, and excited
+the astonishment of all by the coolness with which he entered into the
+cage of these dangerous serpents--as they called themselves--handling
+them, caressing them, and being fondled by them in return.  But the
+veterans knew a soldier when they saw one, and their hearts warmed to
+the prince--heretic though he were--more than they had ever done to the
+unfrocked bishop who, after starving them for years, had doomed them to
+destruction in this world and the next.
+
+The stadholder was feasted and honoured by the mutineers during his brief
+visit to Hoogatraaten, and concluded with them a convention, according to
+which that town was to be restored to him, while they were to take
+temporary possession of the city of Grave.  They were likewise to assist,
+with all their strength, in his military operations until they should
+make peace on their own terms with the archduke.  For two weeks after
+such treaty they were not to fight against the States, and meantime,
+though fighting on the republican side, they were to act as an
+independent corps and in no wise to be merged in the stadholder's
+forces.  So much and no more had resulted from the archduke's
+excommunication of the best part of his army.  He had made a present
+of those troops to the enemy.  He had also been employing a considerable
+portion of his remaining forces in campaigning against their own
+comrades.  While at Grave, the mutineers, or the "squadron" as they were
+now called, were to be permitted to practise their own religious rites,
+without offering however, any interference with the regular Protestant
+worship of the place.  When they should give up Grave, Hoogstraaten was
+to be restored to them if still in possession of the States and they were
+to enter into no negotiations with the archduke except with full
+knowledge of the stadholder.
+
+There were no further military, operations of moment during the rest of
+the year.
+
+Much, more important, however, than siege, battle, or mutiny, to human
+civilization, were the steady movements of the Dutch skippers and
+merchants at this period.  The ears of Europe were stunned with the
+clatter of destruction going on all over Christendom, and seeming the
+only reasonable occupation of Christians; but the little republic; while
+fighting so heroically against the concentrated powers of despotism in
+the West, was most industriously building up a great empire in the East.
+In the new era just dawning, production was to become almost as
+honourable and potent, a principle as destruction.
+
+The voyages among the spicy regions of the equator--so recently wrested
+from their Catholic and Faithful Majesties by Dutch citizens who did not
+believe in Borgia--and the little treaties made with petty princes and
+commonwealths, who for the first time ware learning that there were
+other white men in the world beside the Portuguese, had already led to
+considerable results.  Before the close of, the previous year that great
+commercial corporation had been founded--an empire within an empire;
+a republic beneath a republic--a counting-house company which was to
+organize armies, conquer kingdoms, build forts and cities, make war
+and peace, disseminate and exchange among the nations of the earth the
+various products of civilization, more perfectly than any agency hitherto
+known, and bring the farthest disjoined branches of the human family
+into closer, connection than had ever existed before.  That it was a
+monopoly, offensive to true commercial principles, illiberal, unjust,
+tyrannical; ignorant of the very rudiments of mercantile philosophy;
+is plain enough.  For the sages of the world were but as clowns, at that
+period, in economic science.
+
+Was not the great financier of the age; Maximilian de Bethune, at that
+very moment exhausting his intellect in devices for the prevention of all
+international commerce even in Europe?  "The kingdom of France," he
+groaned, "is stuffed full of the manufactures of our neighbours, and it
+is incredible what a curse to us are these wares.  The import of all
+foreign goods has now been forbidden under very great penalties."  As a
+necessary corollary to this madhouse legislation an edict was issued,
+prohibiting the export of gold and silver from France, on pain, not only
+of confiscation of those precious metals, but of the whole fortune of
+such as engaged in or winked at the traffic.  The king took a public oath
+never to exempt the culprits from the punishment thus imposed, and, as
+the thrifty Sully had obtained from the great king a private grant of all
+those confiscations, and as he judiciously promised twenty-five per cent.
+thereof to the informer, no doubt he filled his own purse while
+impoverishing the exchequer.
+
+The United States, not enjoying the blessings, of a paternal government,
+against which they had been fighting almost half a century, could not be
+expected to rival the stupendous folly of such political economy,
+although certainly not emancipated from all the delusions of the age.
+
+Nor are we to forget how very recently, and even dimly, the idea of
+freedom in commerce has dawned upon nations, the freest of all in polity
+and religion.  Certainly the vices and shortcomings of the commercial
+system now inaugurated by the republic may be justly charged in great
+part to the epoch, while her vast share in the expanding and upward
+movement which civilization, under the auspices of self-government;
+self-help, political freedom, free thought, and unshackled science,
+was then to undertake--never more perhaps to be permanently checked
+--must be justly ascribed to herself.
+
+It was considered accordingly that the existence of so many private
+companies and copartnerships trading to the East was injurious to the
+interests of commerce.  Merchants arriving at the different Indian ports
+would often find that their own countrymen had been too quick for them,
+and that other fleets had got the wind out of their sails, that the
+eastern markets had been stripped, and that prices had gone up to a
+ruinous height, while on the other hand, in the Dutch cities, nutmegs and
+cinnamon, brocades and indigo, were as plentiful as red herrings.  It was
+hardly to be expected at that day to find this very triumph of successful
+traffic considered otherwise than as a grave misfortune, demanding
+interference on the part of the only free Government then existing in the
+world.  That already free competition and individual enterprise, had made
+such progress in enriching the Hollanders and the Javanese respectively
+with a superfluity of useful or agreeable things, brought from the
+farthest ends of the earth, seemed to the eyes of that day a condition
+of things likely to end in a general catastrophe.  With a simplicity,
+amazing only to those who are inclined to be vain of a superior wisdom--
+not their own but that of their wisest contemporaries--one of the chief
+reasons for establishing the East India Company was stated to be the
+necessity of providing against low prices of Oriental productions in
+Europe.
+
+But national instinct is often wiser than what is supposed to be high
+national statesmanship, and there can be no doubt that the true
+foundation of the East India Company was the simple recognition of an
+iron necessity.  Every merchant in Holland knew full well that the
+Portuguese and Spaniards could never be driven out of their commercial
+strongholds under the equator, except by a concentration of the private
+strength and wealth, of the mercantile community.  The Government had
+enough on its hands in disputing, inch by inch, at so prodigious an
+expenditure of blood and treasure, the meagre territory with which nature
+had endowed the little commonwealth.  Private organisation, self-help;
+union of individual purses and individual brains, were to conquer an
+empire at the antipodes if it were to be won at all.  By so doing, the
+wealth of the nation and its power to maintain the great conflict with
+the spirit of the past might be indefinitely increased, and the resources
+of Spanish despotism proportionally diminished.  It was not to be
+expected of Jacob Heemskerk, Wolfert Hermann, or Joris van Spilberg,
+indomitable skippers though they were, that each, acting on his own
+responsibility or on that of his supercargo, would succeed every day in
+conquering a whole Spanish fleet and dividing a million or two of prize-
+money among a few dozen sailors.  Better things even than this might be
+done by wholesome and practical concentration on a more extended scale.
+
+So the States-General granted a patent or charter to one great company
+with what, for the time, was an enormous paid-up capital, in order that
+the India trade might be made secure and the Spaniards steadily
+confronted in what they had considered their most impregnable
+possessions.  All former trading companies were invited to merge
+themselves in the Universal East India Company, which, for twenty-one
+years, should alone have the right to trade to the east of the Cape of
+Good Hope and to sail through the Straits of Magellan.
+
+The charter had been signed on 20th March, 1602, and was mainly to the
+following effect.
+
+The company was to pay twenty-five thousand florins to the States-General
+for its privilege.  The whole capital was to be six million six hundred
+thousand florins.  The chamber of Amsterdam was to have one half of the
+whole interest, the chamber of Zeeland one fourth; the chambers of the
+Meuse, namely, Delft, Rotterdam, and the north quarter; that is to say,
+Hoorn and Enkhuizen, each a sixteenth.  All the chambers were to be
+governed by the directors then serving, who however were to be allowed
+to die out, down to the number of twenty for Amsterdam, twelve for
+Zeeland, and seven for each of the other chambers.  To fill a vacancy
+occurring among the directors, the remaining members of the board were
+to nominate three candidates, from whom the estates of the province
+should choose one.  Each director was obliged, to have an interest in the
+company amounting to at least six thousand florins, except the directors
+for Hoorn and Enkhuizen, of whom only three thousand should be required.
+The general assembly of these chambers should consist of seventeen
+directors, eight for Amsterdam, four for Zeeland, two for the Meuse, and
+two for the north quarter; the seventeenth being added by turns from the
+chambers of Zeeland, the Meuse, and the north quarter.  This assembly was
+to be held six years at Amsterdam, and then two years in Zeeland.  The
+ships were always to return to the port from which they had sailed.  All
+the inhabitants of the provinces had the right, within a certain time, to
+take shares in the company.  Any province or city subscribing for forty
+thousand florins or upwards might appoint an agent to look after its
+affairs.
+
+The Company might make treaties with the Indian powers, in the name of
+the States-General of the United Netherlands or of the supreme
+authorities of the same, might build fortresses; appoint generals, and
+levy troops, provided such troops took oaths of fidelity to the States,
+or to the supreme authority, and to the Company.  No ships, artillery,
+or other munitions of war belonging to the Company were to be used in
+service of the country without permission of the Company.  The admiralty
+was to have a certain proportion of the prizes conquered from the enemy.
+
+The directors should not be liable in property or person for the debts
+of the Company.  The generals of fleets returning home were to make
+reports on the state of India to the States.
+
+Notification; of the union of all India companies with this great
+corporation was duly sent to the fleets cruising in those regions, where
+it arrived in the course of the year 1603.
+
+Meantime the first fleet of the Company, consisting of fourteen vessels
+under command of Admiral Wybrand van Warwyk, sailed before the end of
+1602, and was followed towards the close of 1603 by thirteen other ships,
+under Stephen van der Hagen?
+
+The equipment of these two fleets cost two million two hundred thousand
+florins.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Bestowing upon others what was not his property
+Four weeks' holiday--the first in eleven years
+Idea of freedom in commerce has dawned upon nations
+Impossible it is to practise arithmetic with disturbed brains
+Passion is a bad schoolmistress for the memory
+Prisoners were immediately hanged
+Unlearned their faith in bell, book, and candle
+World has rolled on to fresher fields of carnage and ruin
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v75
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 76, 1603-1604
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+     Death of Queen Elizabeth--Condition of Spain--Legations to James I.
+     --Union of England and Scotland--Characteristics of the new monarch
+     --The English Court and Government--Piratical practices of the
+     English--Audience of the States' envoy with king James--Queen
+     Elizabeth's scheme far remodelling Europe--Ambassador extraordinary
+     from Henry IV. to James--De Rosny's strictures on the English
+     people--Private interview of De Rosny with the States' envoy--De
+     Rosny's audience of the king--Objects of his mission--Insinuations
+     of the Duke of Northumberland--Invitation of the embassy to
+     Greenwich--Promise of James to protect the Netherlands against
+     Spain--Misgivings of Barneveld--Conference at Arundel House--Its
+     unsatisfactory termination--Contempt of De Rosny for the English
+     counsellors--Political aspect of Europe--De Rosny's disclosure to
+     the king of the secret object of his mission--Agreement of James to
+     the proposals of De Rosny--Ratification of the treaty of alliance--
+     Return of De Rosny and suite to France--Arrival of the Spanish
+     ambassador.
+
+On the 24th of March, 1603, Queen Elizabeth died at Richmond, having
+nearly completed her seventieth year.  The two halves of the little
+island of Britain were at last politically adjoined to each other by the
+personal union of the two crowns.
+
+A foreigner, son of the woman executed by Elizabeth, succeeded to
+Elizabeth's throne.  It was most natural that the Dutch republic and the
+French king, the archdukes and his Catholic Majesty, should be filled
+with anxiety as to the probable effect of this change of individuals upon
+the fortunes of the war.
+
+For this Dutch war of independence was the one absorbing and controlling
+interest in Christendom.  Upon that vast, central, and, as men thought,
+baleful constellation the fates of humanity, were dependent.  Around it
+lesser political events were forced to gravitate, and, in accordance to
+their relation to it, were bright or obscure.  It was inevitable that
+those whose vocation it was to ponder the aspects of the political
+firmament, the sages and high-priests who assumed to direct human action
+and to foretell human destiny, should now be more than ever perplexed.
+
+Spain, since the accession of Philip III. to his father's throne,
+although rapidly declining in vital energy, had not yet disclosed its
+decrepitude to the world.  Its boundless ambition survived as a political
+tradition rather than a real passion, while contemporaries still trembled
+at the vision of universal monarchy in which the successor of Charlemagne
+and of Charles V. was supposed to indulge.
+
+Meantime, no feebler nor more insignificant mortal existed on earth than
+this dreaded sovereign.
+
+Scarcely a hairdresser or lemonade-dealer in all Spain was less cognizant
+of the political affairs of the kingdom than was its monarch, for
+Philip's first care upon assuming the crown was virtually to abdicate
+in favour of the man soon afterwards known as the Duke of Lerma.
+
+It is therefore only by courtesy and for convenience that history
+recognizes his existence at all, as surely no human being in the reign of
+Philip III. requires less mention than Philip III. himself.
+
+I reserve for a subsequent chapter such rapid glances at the interior
+condition of that kingdom with which it seemed the destiny of the Dutch
+republic to be perpetually at war, as may be necessary to illustrate the
+leading characteristics of the third Philip's reign.
+
+Meantime, as the great queen was no more, who was always too sagacious to
+doubt that the Dutch cause was her own--however disposed she might be to
+browbeat the Dutchmen--it seemed possible to Spain that the republic
+might at last be deprived of its only remaining ally.  Tassis was
+despatched as chief of a legation, precursory to a more stately embassy
+to be confided to the Duke of Frias.  The archdukes sent the prince of
+Arenberg, while from the United States came young Henry of Nassau,
+associated with John of Olden-Barneveld, Falk, Brederode, and other
+prominent statesmen of the commonwealth.  Ministers from Denmark and
+Sweden, from the palatinate and from numerous other powers, small and
+great, were also collected to greet the rising sun in united Britain,
+while the, awkward Scotchman, who was now called upon to play that
+prominent part in the world's tragi-comedy which had been so long and so
+majestically sustained by the "Virgin Queen," already began to tremble at
+the plaudits and the bustle which announced how much was expected of the
+new performer.
+
+There was indeed a new sovereign upon the throne.  That most regal spirit
+which had well expressed so many of the highest characteristics of the
+nation had fled.  Mankind, has long been familiar with the dark, closing
+hours of the illustrious reign.  The great queen, moody, despairing,
+dying, wrapt in profoundest thought, with eyes fixed upon the ground or
+already gazing into infinity, was besought by the counsellors around her
+to name the man to whom she chose that the crown should devolve.
+
+"Not to a Rough," said Elizabeth, sententiously and grimly.
+
+When the King of France was named, she shook her head.  When Philip III.
+was suggested, she made a still more significant sign of dissent.  When
+the King of Scots was mentioned, she nodded her approval, and again
+relapsed into silent meditation.
+
+She died, and James was King of Great Britain and Ireland.  Cecil had
+become his prime minister long before the queen's eyes were closed.  The
+hard-featured, rickety, fidgety, shambling, learned, most preposterous
+Scotchman hastened to take possession of the throne.  Never--could there
+have been a more unfit place or unfit hour for such a man.
+
+England, although so small in dimensions, so meager in population, so
+deficient, compared to the leading nations of Europe, in material and
+financial strength, had already her great future swelling in her heart.
+Intellectually and morally she was taking the lead among the nations.
+Even at that day she had produced much which neither she herself nor any
+other nation seemed destined to surpass.
+
+Yet this most redoubtable folk only numbered about three millions, one-
+tenth of them inhabiting London.  With the Scots and Irish added they
+amounted to less than five millions of souls, hardly a third as many as
+the homogeneous and martial people of that dangerous neighbour France.
+
+Ireland was always rebellious; a mere conquered province, hating her
+tyrant England's laws, religion, and people; loving Spain, and believing
+herself closely allied by blood as well as sympathy to that most Catholic
+land.
+
+Scotland, on the accession of James, hastened to take possession of
+England.  Never in history had two races detested each other more
+fervently.  The leeches and locusts of the north, as they were
+universally designated in England, would soon have been swept forth
+from the country, or have left it of their own accord, had not the king
+employed all that he had of royal authority or of eloquent persuasion
+to retain them on the soil.  Of union, save the personal union of the
+sceptre, there was no thought.  As in Ireland there was hatred to England
+and adoration for Spain; so in Scotland, France was beloved quite as much
+as England was abhorred.  Who could have foretold, or even hoped, that
+atoms so mutually repulsive would ever have coalesced into a sympathetic
+and indissoluble whole?
+
+Even the virtues of James were his worst enemies.  As generous as the
+day, he gave away with reckless profusion anything and everything that he
+could lay his hands upon.  It was soon to appear that the great queen's
+most unlovely characteristic, her avarice; was a more blessed quality to
+the nation she ruled than the ridiculous prodigality of James.
+
+Two thousand gowns, of the most, expensive material, adorned with gold,
+pearls, and other bravery--for Elizabeth was very generous to herself--
+were found in the queen's wardrobe, after death.  These magnificent and
+costly robes, not one of which had she vouchsafed to bestow upon or to
+bequeath to any of her ladies of honour, were now presented by her
+successor to a needy Scotch lord, who certainly did not intend to adorn
+his own person therewith.  "The hat was ever held out," said a splenetic
+observer, "and it was filled in overflowing measure by the new monarch."
+
+In a very short period he had given away--mainly to Scotchmen--at least
+two millions of crowns, in various articles of personal property.  Yet
+England was very poor.
+
+The empire, if so it could be called, hardly boasted a regular revenue of
+more than two millions of dollars a year; less than that of a fortunate
+individual or two, in our own epoch, both in Europe and America; and not
+one-fifth part of the contemporary income of France.  The hundred
+thousand dollars of Scotland's annual budget did not suffice to pay its
+expenses, and Ireland was a constant charge upon the imperial exchequer.
+
+It is astounding, however, to reflect upon the pomp, extravagance, and
+inordinate pride which characterized the government and the court.
+
+The expenses of James's household were at least five hundred thousand
+crowns, or about one quarter of the whole revenue of the empire.  Henry
+IV., with all his extravagance, did not spend more than one-tenth of the
+public income of France upon himself and his court.
+
+Certainly if England were destined to grow great it would be in despite
+of its new monarch.  Hating the People, most intolerant in religion,
+believing intensely in royal prerogative, thoroughly convinced of his
+regal as well as his personal infallibility, loathing that inductive
+method of thought which was already leading the English nation so proudly
+on the road of intellectual advancement, shrinking from the love of free
+inquiry, of free action, of daring adventure, which was to be the real
+informing spirit of the great British nation; abhorring the Puritans--
+that is to say, one-third of his subjects--in whose harsh, but lofty.
+nature he felt instinctively that popular freedom was enfolded--even as
+the overshadowing tree in the rigid husk--and sending them forth into the
+far distant wilderness to wrestle with wild beasts and with savages more
+ferocious than beasts; fearing and hating the Catholics as the sworn
+enemies of his realm; his race, and himself, trampling on them as much as
+he dared, forcing them into hypocrisy to save themselves from persecution
+or at least pecuniary ruin--if they would worship God according to their
+conscience; at deadly feud, therefore, on religious grounds, with much
+more than half his subjects--Puritans or Papists--and yet himself a
+Puritan in dogma and a Papist in Church government, if only the king
+could be pope; not knowing, indeed, whether a Puritan, or a Jesuit whom
+he called a Papist-Puritan, should be deemed the more disgusting or
+dangerous animal; already preparing for his unfortunate successor a path
+to the scaffold by employing all the pedantry, both theological and
+philosophical at his command to bring parliaments into contempt, and to
+place the royal prerogative on a level with Divinity; at the head of a
+most martial, dauntless, and practical nation, trembling, with
+unfortunate physical timidity, at the sight of a drawn sword; ever
+scribbling or haranguing in Latin, French, or broad Scotch, when the
+world was arming, it must always be a special wonder that one who might
+have been a respectable; even a useful, pedagogue, should by the caprice
+of destiny have been permitted, exactly at that epoch to be one of the
+most contemptible and mischievous of kings.
+
+But he had a most effective and energetic minister.  Even as in Spain and
+in France at the same period, the administration of government was
+essentially in-one pair of hands.
+
+Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, ever since the termination of the
+splendid triumvirate of his father and Walsingham, had been in reality
+supreme.  The proud and terrible hunchback, who never forgave, nor forgot
+to destroy, his enemies, had now triumphed over the last passion of the
+doting queen.  Essex had gone to perdition.
+
+Son of the great minister who had brought the mother of James to the
+scaffold, Salisbury had already extorted forgiveness for that execution
+from the feeble king.  Before Elizabeth was in her grave, he was already
+as much the favourite of her successor as of herself, governing Scotland
+as well as England, and being Prime Minister of Great Britain before
+Great Britain existed.
+
+Lord High Treasurer and First Secretary of State, he was now all in all
+in the council.  The other great lords, highborn and highly titled as
+they were and served at their banquets by hosts of lackeys on their
+knees--Nottinghams, Northamptons, Suffolks--were, after all, ciphers or
+at best, mere pensioners of Spain.  For all the venality of Europe was
+not confined to the Continent.  Spain spent at least one hundred and
+fifty thousand crowns annually among the leading courtiers of James while
+his wife, Anne of Denmark, a Papist at heart, whose private boudoir was
+filled with pictures and images of the Madonna and the saints, had
+already received one hundred thousand dollars in solid cash from the
+Spanish court, besides much jewelry, and other valuable things.  To
+negotiate with Government in England was to bribe, even as at Paris or
+Madrid.  Gold was the only passkey to justice, to preferment, or to
+power.
+
+Yet the foreign subsidies to the English court were, after all, of but
+little avail at that epoch.  No man had influence but Cecil, and he was
+too proud, too rich, too powerful to be bribed.   Alone with clean
+fingers among courtiers and ministers, he had, however, accumulated a
+larger fortune than any.  His annual income was estimated at two hundred
+thousand crowns, and he had a vast floating capital, always well
+employed.  Among other investments, he had placed half a million on
+interest in Holland,' and it was to be expected, therefore, that he
+should favour the cause of the republic, rebellious and upstart though it
+were.
+
+The pigmy, as the late queen had been fond of nicknaming him, was the
+only giant in the Government.  Those crooked shoulders held up, without
+flinching, the whole burden of the State.  Pale, handsome, anxious,
+suffering, and intellectual of visage, with his indomitable spirit, ready
+eloquence, and nervous energy, he easily asserted supremacy over all the
+intriguers, foreign and domestic, the stipendiariea, the generals, the
+admirals, the politicians, at court, as well as over the Scotch Solomon
+who sat on the throne.
+
+But most certainly, it was for the public good of Britain, that Europe
+should be pacified.  It is very true that the piratical interest would
+suffer, and this was a very considerable and influential branch of
+business.  So long as war existed anywhere, the corsairs of England
+sailed with the utmost effrontery from English ports, to prey upon the
+commerce of friend and foe alike.  After a career of successful plunder,
+it was not difficult for the rovers to return to their native land, and,
+with the proceeds of their industry, to buy themselves positions of
+importance, both social and political.  It was not the custom to consider
+too curiously the source of the wealth.  If it was sufficient to dazzle
+the eyes of the vulgar, it was pretty certain to prove the respectability
+of the owner.
+
+It was in vain that the envoys of the Dutch and Venetian republics sought
+redress for the enormous damage inflicted on their commerce by English
+pirates, and invoked the protection of public law.  It was always easy
+for learned juris-consuls to prove such depredations to be consistent
+with international usage and with sound morality.  Even at that period,
+although England was in population and in wealth so insignificant, it
+possessed a lofty, insular contempt for the opinions and the doctrines
+of other nations, and expected, with perfect calmness, that her own
+principles should be not only admitted, but spontaneously adored.
+
+Yet the piratical interest was no longer the controlling one.  That city
+on the Thames, which already numbered more than three hundred thousand
+inhabitants, had discovered that more wealth was to be accumulated by her
+bustling shopkeepers in the paths of legitimate industry than by a horde
+of rovers over the seas, however adventurous and however protected by
+Government.
+
+As for France, she was already defending herself against piracy by what
+at the period seemed a masterpiece of internal improvement.  The Seine,
+the Loire, and the Rhone were soon to be united in one chain of
+communication.  Thus merchandise might be water-borne from the channel to
+the Mediterranean, without risking the five or six months' voyage by sea
+then required from Havre to Marseilles, and exposure along the whole
+coast to attack from the corsairs of England Spain and Barbary.
+
+The envoys of the States-General had a brief audience of the new
+sovereign, in which little more than phrases of compliment were
+pronounced.
+
+"We are here," said Barneveld, "between grief and joy.  We have lost her
+whose benefits to us we can never describe in words, but we have found a
+successor who is heir not only to her kingdom but to all her virtues."
+And with this exordium the great Advocate plunged at once into the depths
+of his subject, so far as was possible in an address of ceremony.  He
+besought the king not to permit Spain, standing on the neck of the
+provinces, to grasp from that elevation at other empires.  He reminded
+James of his duty to save those of his own religion from the clutch of a
+sanguinary superstition, to drive away those lurking satellites of the
+Roman pontiff who considered Britain their lawful prey.  He implored him
+to complete the work so worthily begun by Elizabeth.  If all those bound
+by one interest should now, he urged, unite their efforts, the Spaniard,
+deprived not only of the Netherlands, but, if he were not wise in time,
+banished from the ocean and stripped of all his transmarine possessions,
+would be obliged to consent to a peace founded on the only secure basis,
+equality of strength.  The envoy concluded by beseeching the king for
+assistance to Ostend, now besieged for two years long.
+
+But James manifested small disposition to melt in the fervour of the
+Advocate's eloquence.  He answered with a few cold commonplaces.
+Benignant but extremely cautious, he professed goodwill enough to the
+States but quite as much for Spain, a power with which, he observed, he
+had never quarrelled, and from which he had received the most friendly
+offices.  The archdukes, too, he asserted, had never been hostile to the
+realm, but only to the Queen of England.  In brief, he was new to English
+affairs, required time to look about him, but would not disguise that his
+genius was literary, studious, and tranquil, and much more inclined to
+peace than to war.
+
+In truth, James had cause to look very sharply about him.  It required an
+acute brain and steady nerves to understand and to control the whirl of
+parties and the conflict of interests and intrigues, the chameleon
+shiftings of character and colour, at this memorable epoch of transition
+in the realm which he had just inherited.  There was a Scotch party,
+favourable on the whole to France; there was a Spanish party, there was
+an English party, and, more busy than all, there was a party--not Scotch,
+nor French, nor English, nor Spanish--that un-dying party in all
+commonwealths or kingdoms which ever fights for itself and for the
+spoils.
+
+France and Spain had made peace with each other at Vervins five years
+before, and had been at war ever since.
+
+Nothing could be plainer nor more cynical than the language exchanged
+between the French monarch and the representative of Spain.  That Philip
+III.--as the Spanish Government by a convenient fiction was always
+called--was the head and front of the great Savoy-Biron conspiracy to
+take Henry's life and dismember his kingdom, was hardly a stage secret.
+Yet diplomatic relations were still preserved between the two countries,
+and wonderful diplomatic interviews had certainly been taking place in
+Paris.
+
+Ambassador Tassis had walked with lofty port into Henry's cabinet,
+disdaining to salute any of the princes of the blood or high
+functionaries of state in the apartments through which he passed, and
+with insolent defiance had called Henry to account for his dealing with
+the Dutch rebels.
+
+"Sire, the king my master finds it very strange," he said, "that you
+still continue to assist his rebels in Holland, and that you shoot at his
+troops on their way to the Netherlands.  If you don't abstain from such
+infractions of his rights he prefers open war to being cheated by such a
+pretended peace.  Hereupon I demand your reply."
+
+"Mr. Ambassador," replied the king, "I find it still more strange that
+your master is so impudent as to dare to make such complaints--he who is
+daily making attempts upon my life and upon this State.  Even if I do
+assist the Hollanders, what wrong is that to him?  It is an organized
+commonwealth, powerful, neighbourly, acknowledging no subjection to him.
+But your master is stirring up rebellion in my own kingdom, addressing
+himself to the princes of my blood and my most notable officers, so that
+I have been obliged to cut off the head of one of the most beloved of
+them all.  By these unchristian proceedings he has obliged me to take
+sides with the Hollanders, whom I know to be devoted to me; nor have I
+done anything for them except to pay the debts I owed them.  I know
+perfectly well that the king your master is the head of this conspiracy,
+and that the troops of Naples were meditating an attack upon my kingdom.
+I have two letters written by the hand of your master to Marshal Biron,
+telling him to trust Fuentes as if it were himself, and it is notorious
+that Fuentes has projected and managed all the attempts to assassinate
+me.  Do you, think you have a child to deal with?  The late King of Spain
+knew me pretty well.  If this one thinks himself wiser I shall let him
+see who I am.  Do you want peace or war?  I am ready for either."
+
+The ambassador, whose head had thus been so vigorously washed--as Henry
+expressed it in recounting the interview afterwards to the Dutch envoy,
+Dr. Aerssens--stammered some unintelligible excuses, and humbly begged
+his Majesty not to be offended.  He then retired quite crest-fallen, and
+took leave most politely of everybody as he went, down even to the very
+grooms of the chambers.
+
+"You must show your teeth to the Spaniard," said Henry to Aerssens, "if
+you wish for a quiet life."
+
+Here was unsophisticated diplomacy; for the politic Henry, who could
+forgive assassins and conspirators, crowned or otherwise, when it suited
+his purpose to be lenient, knew that it was on this occasion very prudent
+to use the gift of language, not in order to conceal, but to express his
+thoughts.
+
+"I left the king as red as a turkey-cock," said Tassis, as soon as he got
+home that morning, "and I was another turkey-cock.  We have been talking
+a little bit of truth to each other."
+
+In truth, it was impossible, as the world was then constituted, that
+France and Spain, in spite of many secret sympathies, should not be
+enemies; that France, England, and the Dutch commonwealth, although
+cordially disliking each other, should not be allies.
+
+Even before the death of Elizabeth a very remarkable interview had taken
+place at Dover, in which the queen had secretly disclosed the great
+thoughts with which that most imperial brain was filled just before its
+boundless activity was to cease for ever.
+
+She had wished for a personal interview with the French king, whose wit
+and valour she had always heartily admired, Henry, on his part, while
+unmercifully ridiculing that preterhuman vanity which he fed with
+fantastic adulation, never failed to do justice to her genius, and had
+been for a moment disposed to cross the channel, or even to hold council
+with her on board ship midway between the two countries.  It was however
+found impracticable to arrange any such meeting, and the gossips of the
+day hinted that the great Henry, whose delight was in battle, and who had
+never been known to shrink from danger on dry land, was appalled at the
+idea of sea-sickness, and even dreaded the chance of being kidnapped by
+the English pirates.
+
+The corsairs who drove so profitable a business at that period by
+plundering the merchantmen of their enemy, of their Dutch and French
+allies, and of their own nation, would assuredly have been pleased with
+such a prize.
+
+The queen had confided to De Bethune that she had some thing to say to
+the king which she could never reveal to other ears than his, but when
+the proposed visit of Henry was abandoned, it was decided that his
+confidential minister should slip across the channel before Elizabeth
+returned to her palace at Greenwich.
+
+De Bethune accordingly came incognito from Calais to Dover, in which port
+he had a long and most confidential interview with the queen.  Then and
+there the woman, nearly seventy years of age, who governed despotically
+the half of a small island, while the other half was in the possession of
+a man whose mother she had slain, and of a people who hated the English
+more than they hated the Spaniards or the French--a queen with some three
+millions of loyal but most turbulent subjects in one island, and with
+about half-a-million ferocious rebels in another requiring usually an
+army of twenty thousand disciplined soldiers to keep them in a kind of
+subjugation, with a revenue fluctuating between eight hundred thousand
+pounds sterling, and the half of that sum, and with a navy of a hundred
+privateersmen--disclosed to the French envoy a vast plan for regulating
+the polity and the religion of the civilized world, and for remodelling
+the map of Europe.
+
+There should be three religions, said Elizabeth--not counting the
+dispensation from Mecca, about which Turk and Hun might be permitted to
+continue their struggle on the crepuscular limits of civilization.
+Everywhere else there should be toleration only for the churches of
+Peter, of Luther, and of Calvin.  The house of Austria was to be humbled
+--the one branch driven back to Spain and kept there, the other branch to
+be deprived of the imperial crown, which was to be disposed of as in
+times past by the votes of the princely electors.  There should be two
+republics--the Swiss and the Dutch--each of those commonwealths to be
+protected by France and England, and each to receive considerable parings
+out of the possessions of Spain and the empire.
+
+Finally, all Christendom was to be divided off into a certain number of
+powers, almost exactly equal to each other; the weighing, measuring, and
+counting, necessary to obtain this international equilibrium, being of
+course the duty of the king and queen when they should sit some day
+together at table.
+
+Thus there were five points; sovereigns and politicians having always a
+fondness for a neat summary in five or six points.  Number one, to
+remodel the electoral system of the holy Roman empire.  Number two, to
+establish the republic of the United Provinces.  Number three, to do as
+much for Switzerland.  Number four, to partition Europe.  Number five, to
+reduce all religions to three.  Nothing could be more majestic, no plan
+fuller fraught with tranquillity for the rulers of mankind and their
+subjects.  Thrice happy the people, having thus a couple of heads with
+crowns upon them and brains within them to prescribe what was to be done
+in this world and believed as to the next!
+
+The illustrious successor of that great queen now stretches her benignant
+sceptre over two hundred millions of subjects, and the political revenues
+of her empire are more than a hundredfold those of Elizabeth; yet it
+would hardly now be thought great statesmanship or sound imperial policy
+for a British sovereign even to imagine the possibility of the five
+points which filled the royal English mind at Dover.
+
+But Henry was as much convinced as Elizabeth of the necessity and the
+possibility of establishing the five points, and De Bethune had been
+astonished at the exact similarity of the conclusion which those two
+sovereign intellects had reached, even before they had been placed in
+communion with each other.  The death of the queen had not caused any
+change in the far-reaching designs of which the king now remained the
+sole executor, and his first thought, on the accession of James, was
+accordingly to despatch De Bethune, now created Marquis de Rosny, as
+ambassador extraordinary to England, in order that the new sovereign
+might be secretly but thoroughly instructed as to the scheme for
+remodelling Christendom.
+
+As Rosny was also charged with the duty of formally congratulating King
+James, he proceeded upon his journey with remarkable pomp.  He was
+accompanied by two hundred gentlemen of quality, specially attached to
+his embassy--young city fops, as he himself described them, who were
+out of their element whenever they left the pavement of Paris--and
+by an equal number of valets, grooms, and cooks.  Such a retinue was
+indispensable to enable an ambassador to transact the public business and
+to maintain the public dignity in those days; unproductive consumption
+being accounted most sagacious and noble.
+
+Before reaching the English shore the marquis was involved in trouble.
+Accepting the offer of the English vice-admiral lying off Calais, he
+embarked with his suite in two English vessels, much to the
+dissatisfaction of De Vic, vice-admiral of France, who was anxious to
+convey the French ambassador in the war-ships of his country.  There had
+been suspicion afloat as to the good understanding between England and
+Spain, caused by the great courtesy recently shown to the Count of
+Arenberg, and there was intense irritation among all the seafaring people
+of France on account of the exploits of the English corsairs upon their
+coast.  Rosny thought it best to begin his embassy by an act of
+conciliation, but soon had cause to repent his decision.
+
+In mid-channel they were met by De Vic's vessels with the French banner
+displayed, at which sight the English commander was so wroth that he
+forthwith ordered a broadside to be poured into the audacious foreigner;
+--swearing with mighty oaths that none but the English flag should be
+shown in those waters.  And thus, while conveying a French ambassador and
+three hundred Frenchmen on a sacred mission to the British sovereign,
+this redoubtable mariner of England prepared to do battle with the ships
+of France.  It was with much difficulty and some prevarication that Rosny
+appeased the strife, representing that the French flag had only been
+raised in order that it might be dipped, in honour of the French
+ambassador, as the ships passed each other.  The full-shotted broadside
+was fired from fifty guns, but the English commander consented, at De
+Rosny's representations, that it should be discharged wide of the mark.
+
+A few shots, however, struck the side of one of the French vessels, and
+at the same time, as Cardinal Richelieu afterwards remarked, pierced the
+heart of every patriotic Frenchman.
+
+The ambassador made a sign, which De Vic understood; to lower his flag
+and to refrain from answering the fire.  Thus a battle between allies,
+amid the most amazing circumstances, was avoided, but it may well be
+imagined how long and how deeply the poison of the insult festered.
+
+Such an incident could hardly predispose the ambassador in favour of the
+nation he was about to visit, or strengthen his hope of laying, not only
+the foundation of a perpetual friendship between the two crowns, but of
+effecting the palingenesis of Europe.  Yet no doubt Sully--as the world
+has so long learned to call him--was actuated by lofty sentiments in many
+respects in advance of his age.  Although a brilliant and successful
+campaigner in his youth, he detested war, and looked down with contempt
+at political systems which had not yet invented anything better than
+gunpowder for the arbitrament of international disputes.  Instead of war
+being an occasional method of obtaining peace, it pained him to think
+that peace seemed only a process for arriving at war.  Surely it was no
+epigram in those days, but the simplest statement of commonplace fact,
+that war was the normal condition of Christians.  Alas will it be
+maintained that in the two and a half centuries which have since elapsed
+the world has made much progress in a higher direction?  Is there yet any
+appeal among the most civilized nations except to the logic of the
+largest battalions and the eloquence of the biggest guns?
+
+De Rosny came to be the harbinger of a political millennium, and he
+heartily despised war.  The schemes, nevertheless, which were as much his
+own as his master's, and which he was instructed to lay before the
+English monarch as exclusively his own, would have required thirty years
+of successful and tremendous warfare before they could have a beginning
+of development.
+
+It is not surprising that so philosophical a mind as his, while still
+inclining to pacific designs, should have been led by what met his eyes
+and ears to some rather severe generalizations.
+
+"It is certain that the English hate us," he said, "and with a hatred so
+strong and so general that one is tempted to place it among the natural
+dispositions of this people.  Yet it is rather the effect of their pride
+and their presumption; since there is no nation in Europe more haughty,
+more disdainful, more besotted with the idea of its own excellence.  If
+you were to take their word for it, mind and reason are only found with
+them; they adore all their opinions and despise those of all other
+nations; and it never occurs to them to listen to others, or to doubt
+themselves .  .  .  .  .  Examine what are called with them maxims of
+state; you will find nothing but the laws of pride itself, adopted
+through arrogance or through indolence."
+
+"Placed by nature amidst the tempestuous and variable ocean," he wrote to
+his sovereign, "they are as shifting, as impetuous, as changeable as its
+waves.  So self-contradictory and so inconsistent are their actions
+almost in the same instant as to make it impossible that they should
+proceed from the same persons and the same mind.  Agitated and urged by
+their pride and arrogance alone, they take all their imaginations and
+extravagances for truths and realities; the objects of their desires and
+affections for inevitable events; not balancing and measuring those
+desires with the actual condition of things, nor with the character of
+the people with whom they have to deal."
+
+When the ambassador arrived in London he was lodged at Arundel palace.
+He at once became the cynosure of all indigenous parties and of
+adventurous politicians from every part of Europe; few knowing how to
+shape their course since the great familiar lustre had disappeared from
+the English sky.
+
+Rosny found the Scotch lords sufficiently favourable to France; the
+English Catholic grandees, with all the Howards and the lord high admiral
+at their head, excessively inclined to Spain, and a great English party
+detesting both Spain and France with equal fervour and well enough
+disposed to the United Provinces, not as hating that commonwealth less
+but the two great powers more.
+
+The ambassador had arrived with the five points, not in his portfolio but
+in his heart, and they might after all be concentrated in one phrase--
+Down with Austria, up with the Dutch republic.  On his first interview
+with Cecil, who came to arrange for his audience with the king, he found
+the secretary much disposed to conciliate both Spain and the empire, and
+to leave the provinces to shift for themselves.
+
+He spoke of Ostend as of a town not worth the pains taken to preserve it,
+and of the India trade as an advantage of which a true policy required
+that the United Provinces should be deprived.   Already the fine
+commercial instinct of England had scented a most formidable rival
+on the ocean.
+
+As for the king, he had as yet declared himself for no party, while all
+parties were disputing among each other for mastery over him.  James
+found himself, in truth, as much, astray in English politics as he was a
+foreigner upon English earth.  Suspecting every one, afraid of every one,
+he was in mortal awe, most of all, of his wife, who being the daughter of
+one Protestant sovereign and wife of another, and queen of a united realm
+dependent for its very existence on antagonism to Spain and Rome, was
+naturally inclined to Spanish politics and the Catholic faith.
+
+The turbulent and intriguing Anne of Denmark was not at the moment in
+London, but James was daily expecting and De Bethune dreading her
+arrival.
+
+The ambassador knew very well that, although the king talked big in her
+absence about the forms which he intended to prescribe for her conduct,
+he would take orders from her as soon as she arrived, refuse her nothing,
+conceal nothing from her, and tremble before her as usual.
+
+The king was not specially prejudiced in favour of the French monarch or
+his ambassador, for he had been told that Henry had occasionally spoken
+of him as captain of arts and doctor of arms, and that both the Marquis
+de Rosny and his brother were known to have used highly disrespectful
+language concerning him.
+
+Before his audience, De Rosny received a private visit from Barneveld and
+the deputies of the States-General, and was informed that since his
+arrival they had been treated with more civility by the king.  Previously
+he had refused to see them after the first official reception, had not
+been willing to grant Count Henry of Nassau a private audience, and had
+spoken publicly of the States as seditious rebels.
+
+Oh the 21st June Barneveld had a long private interview with the
+ambassador at Arundel palace, when he exerted all his eloquence to prove
+the absolute necessity of an offensive and defensive alliance between
+France and the United Provinces if the independence of the republic were
+ever to be achieved.  Unless a French army took the field at once, Ostend
+would certainly fall, he urged, and resistance to the Spaniards would
+soon afterwards cease.
+
+It is not probable that the Advocate felt in his heart so much despair as
+his words indicated, but he was most anxious that Henry should openly
+declare himself the protector of the young commonwealth, and not
+indisposed perhaps to exaggerate the dangers, grave as they were without
+doubt, by which its existence was menaced.
+
+The ambassador however begged the Hollander to renounce any such hopes,
+assuring him that the king had no intention of publicly and singly taking
+upon his shoulders the whole burden of war with Spain, the fruits of
+which would not be his to gather.  Certainly before there had been time
+thoroughly to study the character and inclinations of the British monarch
+it would be impossible for De Rosny to hold out any encouragement in this
+regard.  He then asked Barneveld what he had been able to discover during
+his residence in London as to the personal sentiments of James.
+
+The Advocate replied that at first the king, yielding to his own natural
+tendencies, and to the advice of his counsellors, had refused the Dutch
+deputies every hope, but that subsequently reflecting, as it would seem,
+that peace would cost England very dear if English inaction should cause
+the Hollanders to fall again under the dominion of the Catholic king, or
+to find their only deliverance in the protection of France, and beginning
+to feel more acutely how much England had herself to fear from a power
+like Spain, he had seemed to awake out of a profound sleep, and promised
+to take these important affairs into consideration.
+
+Subsequently he had fallen into a dreary abyss of indecision, where he
+still remained.  It was certain however that he would form no resolution
+without the concurrence of the King of France, whose ambassador he had
+been so impatiently expecting, and whose proposition to him of a double
+marriage between their respective children had given him much
+satisfaction.
+
+De Rosny felt sure that the Dutch statesmen were far too adroit to put
+entire confidence in anything said by James, whether favourable or
+detrimental to their cause.  He conjured Barneveld therefore, by the
+welfare of his country, to conceal nothing from him in regard to the most
+secret resolutions that might have been taken by the States in the event
+of their being abandoned by England, or in case of their being
+embarrassed by a sudden demand on the part of that power for the
+cautionary towns offered to Elizabeth.
+
+Barneveld, thus pressed, and considering the ambassador as the
+confidential counsellor of a sovereign who was the republic's only
+friend, no longer hesitated.  Making a merit to himself of imparting an
+important secret, he said that the state-council of the commonwealth had
+resolved to elude at any cost the restoration of the cautionary towns.
+
+The interview was then abruptly terminated by the arrival of the Venetian
+envoy.
+
+The 22nd of June arrived.  The marquis had ordered mourning suits for his
+whole embassy and retinue, by particular command of his sovereign, who
+wished to pay this public tribute to the memory of the great queen.
+
+To his surprise and somewhat to his indignation, he was however informed
+that no one, stranger or native, Scotchman or Englishman, had been
+permitted to present himself to the king in black, that his appearance
+there in mourning would be considered almost an affront, and that it was
+a strictly enforced rule at court to abstain from any mention of
+Elizabeth, and to affect an entire oblivion of her reign.
+
+At the last moment, and only because convinced that he might otherwise
+cause the impending negotiations utterly to fail, the ambassador
+consented to attire himself, the hundred and twenty gentlemen selected
+from his diplomatic family to accompany him on this occasion, and all his
+servants, in gala costume.  The royal guards, with the Earl of Derby at
+their head, came early in the afternoon to Arundel House to escort him
+to the Thames, and were drawn up on the quay as the marquis and his
+followers embarked in the splendid royal barges provided to convey
+them to Greenwich.
+
+On arriving at their destination they were met at the landing by the Earl
+of Northumberland, and escorted with great pomp and through an infinite
+multitude of spectators to the palace.  Such was the crowd, without and
+within, of courtiers and common people, that it was a long time before
+the marquis, preceded by his hundred and twenty gentlemen, reached the
+hall of audience.
+
+At last he arrived at the foot of the throne, when James arose and
+descended eagerly two steps of the dais in order to greet the ambassador.
+He would have descended them all had not one of the counsellors plucked
+him by the sleeve, whispering that he had gone quite far enough.
+
+"And if I honour this ambassador," cried James, in a loud voice, "more
+than is usual, I don't intend that it shall serve as a precedent for
+others.  I esteem and love him particularly, because of the affection
+which I know he cherishes for me, of his firmness in our religion,
+and of his fidelity to his master."
+
+Much more that was personally flattering to the marquis was said thus
+emphatically by James.  To all this the ambassador replied, not by a set
+discourse, but only by a few words of compliment, expressing his
+sovereign's regrets at the death of Queen Elizabeth, and his joy at the
+accession of the new sovereign.  He then delivered his letters of
+credence, and the complimentary conversation continued; the king
+declaring that he had not left behind him in Scotland his passion for the
+monarch of France, and that even had he found England at war with that
+country on his accession he would have instantly concluded a peace with a
+prince whom he so much venerated.
+
+Thus talking, the king caused his guest to ascend with him to the
+uppermost steps of the dais, babbling on very rapidly and skipping
+abruptly from one subject to another.  De Rosny took occasion to express
+his personal esteem and devotion, and was assured by the king in reply
+that the slanders in regard to him which had reached the royal ears had
+utterly failed of their effect.  It was obvious that they were the
+invention of Spanish intriguers who wished to help that nation to
+universal monarchy.  Then he launched forth into general and cordial
+abuse of Spain, much to the satisfaction of Count Henry of Nassau, who
+stood near enough to hear a good deal of the conversation, and of the
+other Dutch deputies who were moving about, quite unknown, in the crowd.
+He denounced very vigorously the malignity of the Spaniards in lighting
+fires everywhere in their neighbours' possessions, protested that he
+would always oppose their wicked designs, but spoke contemptuously of
+their present king as too feeble of mind and body ever to comprehend
+or to carry out the projects of his predecessors.
+
+Among other gossip, James asked the envoy if he went to hear the
+Protestant preaching in London.  Being answered in the affirmative,
+he expressed surprise, having been told, he said, that it was Rosny's
+intention to repudiate his religion as De Sancy had done, in order to
+secure his fortunes.  The marquis protested that such a thought had
+never entered his head, but intimated that the reports might come
+from his familiar intercourse with the papal nuncius and many French
+ecclesiastics.  The king asked if, when speaking with the nuncius, he
+called the pope his Holiness, as by so doing he would greatly offend God,
+in whom alone was holiness.  Rosny replied that he commonly used the
+style prevalent at court, governing himself according to the rules
+adopted in regard to pretenders to crowns and kingdoms which they thought
+belonged to them, but the possession of which was in other hands,
+conceding to them, in order not to offend them, the titles which they
+claimed.
+
+James shook his head portentously, and changed the subject.
+
+The general tone of the royal-conversation was agreeable enough to the
+ambassador, who eagerly alluded to the perfidious conduct of a Government
+which, ever since concluding the peace of Vervins with Henry, had been
+doing its best to promote sedition and territorial dismemberment in his
+kingdom, and to assist all his open and his secret enemies.
+
+James assented very emphatically, and the marquis felt convinced that a
+resentment against Spain, expressed so publicly and so violently by
+James, could hardly fail to, be sincere.  He began seriously to, hope
+that his negotiations would be successful, and was for soaring at once
+into the regions of high politics, when the king suddenly began to talk
+of hunting.
+
+"And so you sent half the stag I sent you; to Count Arenberg," said
+James; "but he is very angry about it; thinking that you did so to show
+how much more I make of you than I do of him.  And so I do; for I know
+the difference between your king, my brother; and his masters who have
+sent me an ambassador who can neither walk nor talk, and who asked me to
+give him audience in a garden because he cannot go upstairs."
+
+The king then alluded to Tassis, chief courier of his Catholic Majesty
+and special envoy from Spain, asking whether the marquis had seen him on
+his passage through France.
+
+"Spain sends me a postillion-ambassador," said he, "that he may travel
+the faster and attend to business by post."
+
+It was obvious that James took a sincere satisfaction in abusing
+everything relating to that country from its sovereign and the Duke
+of Lerma downwards; but he knew very well that Velasco, constable of
+Castile, had been already designated as ambassador, and would soon
+be on his way to England.
+
+De Rosny on the termination of his audience, was escorted in great state
+by the Earl of Northumberland to the barges.
+
+A few days later, the ambassador had another private audience, in which
+the king expressed himself with apparent candour concerning the balance
+of power.
+
+Christendom, in his opinion, should belong in three equal shares to the
+families of Stuart, Bourbon, and Habsburg; but personal ambition and the
+force of events had given to the house of Austria more than its fair
+third.  Sound policy therefore required a combination between France and
+England, in order to reduce their copartner within proper limits.  This
+was satisfactory as far as it went, and the ambassador complimented the
+king on his wide views of policy and his lofty sentiments in regard to
+human rights.
+
+Warming with the subject, James held language very similar to that which
+De Rosny and his master had used in their secret conferences, and took
+the ground unequivocally that the secret war levied by Spain against
+France and England, as exemplified in the Biron conspiracy, the assault
+on Geneva, the aid of the Duke of Savoy, and in the perpetual fostering
+of Jesuit intrigues, plots of assassination, and other conspiracies in
+the British islands, justified a secret war on the part of Henry and
+himself against Philip.
+
+The ambassador would have been more deeply impressed with the royal
+language had he felt more confidence in the royal character.
+
+Highly applauding the sentiments expressed, and desiring to excite still
+further the resentment of James against Spain, he painted a vivid picture
+of the progress of that aggressive power in the past century.  She had
+devoured Flanders, Burgundy, Granada, Navarre, Portugal, the German
+Empire, Milan, Naples, and all the Indies.  If she had not swallowed
+likewise both France and England those two crowns were indebted for their
+preservation, after the firmness of Elizabeth and Henry, to the fortunate
+incident of the revolt of the Netherlands.
+
+De Rosny then proceeded to expound the necessity under which James
+would soon find himself of carrying on open war with Spain, and of the
+expediency of making preparations for the great struggle without loss
+of time.
+
+He therefore begged the king to concert with him some satisfactory
+measure for the preservation of the United Provinces.
+
+"But," said James, "what better assistance could we give the
+Netherlanders than to divide their territory between the States and
+Spain; agreeing at the same time to drive the Spaniard out altogether,
+if he violates the conditions which we should guarantee."
+
+This conclusion was not very satisfactory to De Rosny, who saw in the
+bold language of the king--followed thus by the indication of a policy
+that might last to the Greek Kalends, and permit Ostend, Dutch Flanders,
+and even the republic to fall--nothing but that mixture of timidity,
+conceit, and procrastination which marked the royal character.  He
+pointed out to him accordingly that Spanish statesmanship could beat the
+world in the art of delay, and of plucking the fruits of delay, and that
+when the United Provinces had been once subjugated, the turn of England
+would come.  It would be then too late for him to hope to preserve
+himself by such measures as, taken now, would be most salutary.
+
+A few days later the king invited De Rosny and the two hundred members of
+his embassy to dine at Greenwich, and the excursion down the Thames took
+place with the usual pomp.
+
+The two hundred dined with the gentlemen of the court; while at the
+king's table, on an elevated platform in the same hall, were no guests
+but De Rosny, and the special envoy of France, Count Beaumont.
+
+The furniture and decorations of the table were sumptuous, and the
+attendants, to the surprise of the Frenchmen, went on their knees
+whenever they offered wine or dishes to the king.  The conversation at
+first was on general topics, such as the heat of the weather, which
+happened to be remarkable, the pleasures of the chase, and the merits of
+the sermon which, as it was Sunday, De Rosny had been invited to hear
+before dinner in the royal chapel.
+
+Soon afterwards, however, some allusion being made to the late queen,
+James spoke of her with contempt.  He went so far as to say that, for a
+long time before her death, he had governed the councils, of England; all
+her ministers obeying and serving him much better than they did herself.
+He then called for wine, and, stretching out his glass towards his two.
+guests, drank to the health of the king and queen and royal family of
+France.
+
+De Rosny, replied by proposing the health of his august host, not
+forgetting the queen and their children, upon which the king, putting his
+lips close to the ambassador's ear, remarked that his next toast should
+be in honour of the matrimonial union which was proposed between the
+families of Britain and France.
+
+This was the first allusion made by James to the alliance; and the
+occasion did not strike the marquis as particularly appropriate to such a
+topic.  He however replied in a whisper that he was rejoiced to hear this
+language from the king, having always believed that there would be no
+hesitation on his part between King Henry and the monarch of Spain, who,
+as he was aware, had made a similar proposition.  James, expressing
+surprise that his guest was so well informed, avowed that he had in fact
+received the same offer of the Infanta for his son as had been made to
+his Christian Majesty for the Dauphin.  What more convenient counters in
+the great game of state than an infant prince and princess in each of the
+three royal families to which Europe belonged!  To how many grave
+political combinations were these unfortunate infants to give rise, and
+how distant the period when great nations might no longer be tied to the
+pinafores of children in the nursery!
+
+After this little confidential interlude, James expressed in loud voice,
+so that all might hear, his determination never to permit the subjugation
+of the Netherlands by Spain.  Measures should be taken the very next day,
+he promised, in concert with the ambassador, as to the aid to be given to
+the States.  Upon the faith of this declaration De Rosny took from his
+pocket the plan of a treaty, and forthwith, in the presence of all the
+ministers, placed it in the hands of the king, who meantime had risen
+from table.  The ambassador also took this occasion to speak publicly of
+the English piracies upon French commerce while the two nations were at
+peace.  The king, in reply, expressed his dissatisfaction at these
+depredations and at the English admiral who attempted to defend what had
+been done.
+
+He then took leave of his guests, and went off to bed, where it was his
+custom to pass his afternoons.
+
+It was certain that the Constable of Castile was now to arrive very soon,
+and the marquis had, meantime, obtained information on which he relied,
+that this ambassador would come charged with very advantageous offers to
+the English court.  Accounts had been got ready in council, of all the
+moneys due to England by France and by the States, and it was thought
+that these sums, payment of which was to be at once insisted upon,
+together with the Spanish dollars set afloat in London, would prove
+sufficient to buy up all resistance to the Spanish alliance.
+
+Such being the nature of the information furnished to De Rosny, he did
+not look forward with very high hopes to the issue of the conference
+indicated by King James at the Greenwich dinner.  As, after all, he would
+have to deal once more with Cecil, the master-spirit of the Spanish
+party, it did not seem very probable that the king's whispered
+professions of affection for France, his very loud denunciations of
+Spanish ambition, and his promises of support to the struggling
+provinces, would be brought into any substantial form for human
+nourishment.  Whispers and big words, touching of glasses at splendid
+banquets, and proposing of royal toasts, would not go far to help those
+soldiers in Ostend, a few miles away, fighting two years long already for
+a square half-mile of barren sand, in which seemed centred the world's
+hopes of freedom.
+
+Barneveld was inclined to take an even more gloomy view than that
+entertained by the French ambassador.  He had, in truth, no reason to be
+sanguine.  The honest republican envoys had brought no babies to offer in
+marriage.  Their little commonwealth had only the merit of exchanging
+buffets forty years long with a power which, after subjugating the
+Netherlands, would have liked to annihilate France and England too,
+and which, during that period, had done its best to destroy and dismember
+both.  It had only struggled as no nation in the world's history had ever
+done, for the great principle upon which the power and happiness of
+England were ever to depend.  It was therefore not to be expected that
+its representatives should be received with the distinction conferred
+upon royal envoys.  Barneveld and his colleagues accordingly were not
+invited, with two hundred noble hangers-on, to come down the Thames in
+gorgeous array, and dine at Greenwich palace; but they were permitted to
+mix in the gaping crowd of spectators, to see the fine folk, and to hear
+a few words at a distance which fell from august lips.  This was not very
+satisfactory, as Barneveld could rarely gain admittance to James or his
+ministers.  De Rosny, however, was always glad to confer with him, and
+was certainly capable of rendering justice both to his genius and to the
+sacredness of his cause.  The Advocate, in a long conference with the
+ambassador, thought it politic to paint the situation of the republic in
+even more sombre colours than seemed to De Rosny justifiable.  He was,
+indeed, the more struck with Barneveld's present despondency, because,
+at a previous conference, a few days before, he had spoken almost with
+contempt of the Spaniards, expressing the opinion that the mutinous and
+disorganized condition of the archduke's army rendered the conquest of
+Ostend improbable, and hinted at a plan, of which the world as yet knew
+nothing, which would save that place, or at any rate would secure such
+an advantage for the States as to more than counterbalance its possible
+loss?  This very sanguine demeanour had rather puzzled those who had
+conferred with the Advocate, although they were ere long destined to
+understand his allusions, and it was certainly a contrast to his present
+gloom.  He assured De Rosny that the Hollanders were becoming desperate,
+and that they were capable of abandoning their country in mass, and
+seeking an asylum beyond the seas?  The menace was borrowed from the
+famous project conceived by William the Silent in darker days, and seemed
+to the ambassador a present anachronism.
+
+Obviously it was thought desirable to force the French policy to extreme
+lengths, and Barneveld accordingly proposed that Henry should take the
+burthen upon his shoulders of an open war with Spain, in the almost
+certain event that England would make peace with that power.  De Rosny
+calmly intimated to the Advocate that this was asking something entirely
+beyond his power to grant, as the special object of his mission was to
+form a plan of concerted action with England.
+
+The cautionary towns being next mentioned, Barneveld stated that a demand
+had been made upon Envoy Caron by Cecil for the delivery of those places
+to the English Government, as England had resolved to make peace with
+Spain.
+
+The Advocate confided, however, to De Rosny that the States would
+interpose difficulties, and that it would be long before the towns were
+delivered.  This important information was given under the seal of
+strictest secrecy, and was coupled with an inference that a war between
+the republic and Britain would be the probable result, in which case the
+States relied upon the alliance with France.  The ambassador replied that
+in this untoward event the republic would have the sympathy of his royal
+master, but that it would be out of the question for him to go to war
+with Spain and England at the same time.
+
+On the same afternoon there was a conference at Arundel House between the
+Dutch deputies, the English counsellors, and De Rosny, when Barneveld
+drew a most dismal picture of the situation; taking the ground that now
+or never was the time for driving the Spaniards entirely out of the
+Netherlands.  Cecil said in a general way that his Majesty felt a deep
+interest in the cause of the provinces, and the French ambassador
+summoned the Advocate, now that he was assured of the sympathy of two
+great kings, to furnish some plan by which that sympathy might be turned
+to account.  Barneveld, thinking figures more eloquent than rhetoric,
+replied that the States, besides garrisons, had fifteen thousand
+infantry and three thousand cavalry in the field, and fifty warships in
+commission, with artillery and munitions in proportion, and that it would
+be advisable for France and England to furnish an equal force, military
+and naval, to the common cause.
+
+De Rosny smiled at the extravagance of the proposition.  Cecil, again
+taking refuge in commonplaces, observed that his master was disposed to
+keep the peace with all his neighbours, but that, having due regard to
+the circumstances, he was willing to draw a line between the wishes of
+the States and his own, and would grant them a certain amount of succour
+underhand.
+
+Thereupon the Dutch deputies withdrew to confer.  De Rosny, who had no
+faith in Cecil's sincerity--the suggestion being essentially the one
+which he had himself desired--went meantime a little deeper into the
+subject, and soon found that England, according to the Secretary of
+State, had no idea of ruining herself for the sake of the provinces,
+or of entering into any positive engagements in their behalf.  In case
+Spain should make a direct attack upon the two kings who were to
+constitute themselves protectors of Dutch liberty, it might be necessary
+to take up arms.  The admission was on the whole superfluous, it not
+being probable that Britain, even under a Stuart, would be converted to
+the doctrine of non-resistance.  Yet in this case it was suggested by
+Cecil that the chief reliance of his Government would be on the debts
+owed by the Dutch and French respectively, which would then be forthwith
+collected.
+
+De Rosny was now convinced that Cecil was trifling with him, and
+evidently intending to break off all practical negotiations.  He
+concealed his annoyance, however, as well as he could, and simply
+intimated that the first business of importance was to arrange for the
+relief of Ostend; that eventualities, such as the possible attack by
+Spain upon France and England, might for the moment be deferred, but that
+if England thought it a safe policy to ruin Henry by throwing on his
+shoulders the whole burthen of a war with the common enemy, she would
+discover and deeply regret her fatal mistake.  The time was a very ill-
+chosen one to summon France to pay old debts, and his Christian Majesty
+had given his ambassador no instructions contemplating such
+a liquidation.
+
+It was the intention to discharge the sum annually, little by little,
+but if England desired to exhaust the king by these peremptory demands,
+it was an odious conduct, and very different from any that France had
+ever pursued.
+
+The English counsellors were not abashed by this rebuke, but became, on
+the contrary, very indignant, avowing that if anything more was demanded
+of them, England would entirely abandon the United Provinces.  "Cecil
+made himself known to me in this conference," said De Rosny, "for
+exactly what he was.  He made use only of double meanings and vague
+propositions; feeling that reason was not on his side.  He was forced to
+blush at his own self-contradictions, when, with a single word, I made
+him feel the absurdity of his language.  Now, endeavouring to intimidate
+me, he exaggerated the strength of England, and again he enlarged upon
+the pretended offers made by Spain to that nation."
+
+The secretary, desirous to sow discord between the Dutch deputies and the
+ambassador, then observed that France ought to pay to England L50,000
+upon the nail, which sum would be at once appropriated to the necessities
+of the States.  "But what most enraged me," said De Rosny, "was to see
+these ministers, who had come to me to state the intentions of their
+king, thus impudently substitute their own; for I knew that he had
+commanded them to do the very contrary to that which they did."
+
+The conference ended with a suggestion by Cecil, that as France would
+only undertake a war in conjunction with England, and as England would
+only consent to this if paid by France and the States, the best thing for
+the two kings to do would be to do nothing, but to continue to live in
+friendship together, without troubling themselves about foreign
+complications.
+
+This was the purpose towards which the English counsellors had been
+steadily tending, and these last words of Cecil seemed to the ambassador
+the only sincere ones spoken by him in the whole conference.
+
+"If I kept silence," said the ambassador, "it was not because I
+acquiesced in their reasoning.  On the contrary, the manner in which they
+had just revealed themselves, and avowed themselves in a certain sort
+liars and impostors, had given me the most profound contempt for them.
+I thought, however, that by heating myself and contending with them so
+far from causing them to abandon a resolution which they had taken in
+concert--I might even bring about a total rupture.  On the other hand,
+matters remaining as they were, and a friendship existing between the
+two kings, which might perhaps be cemented by a double marriage, a more
+favourable occasion might present itself for negotiation.  I did not yet
+despair of the success of my mission, because I believed that the king
+had no part in the designs which his counsellors wished to carry out."
+
+That the counsellors, then struggling for dominion over the new king and
+his kingdom, understood the character of their sovereign better than did
+the ambassador, future events were likely enough to prove.  That they
+preferred peace to war, and the friendship of Spain to an alliance,
+offensive and defensive, with France in favour of a republic which they
+detested, is certain.  It is difficult, however, to understand why
+they were "liars and impostors" because, in a conference with the
+representative of France, they endeavoured to make their own opinions
+of public policy valid rather than content themselves simply with being
+the errand-bearers of the new king, whom they believed incapable of
+being stirred to an honourable action.
+
+The whole political atmosphere of Europe was mephitic with falsehood, and
+certainly the gales which blew from the English court at the accession of
+James were not fragrant, but De Rosny had himself come over from France
+under false pretences.  He had been charged by his master to represent
+Henry's childish scheme, which he thought so gigantic, for the
+regeneration of Europe, as a project of his own, which he was determined
+to bring to execution, even at the risk of infidelity to his sovereign,
+and the first element in that whole policy was to carry on war underhand
+against a power with which his master had just sworn to preserve peace.
+In that age at least it was not safe for politicians to call each other
+hard names.
+
+The very next day De Rosny had a long private interview with James at
+Greenwich.  Being urged to speak without reserve, the ambassador depicted
+the privy counsellors to the king as false to his instructions, traitors
+to the best interests of their country, the humble servants of Spain, and
+most desirous to make their royal master the slave of that power, under
+the name of its ally.  He expressed the opinion, accordingly, that James
+would do better in obeying only the promptings of his own superior
+wisdom, rather than the suggestions of the intriguers about him.  The
+adroit De Rosny thus softly insinuated to the flattered monarch that the
+designs of France were the fresh emanations of his own royal intellect.
+It was the whim of James to imagine himself extremely like Henry of
+Bourbon in character, and he affected to take the wittiest, bravest, most
+adventurous, and most adroit knight-errant that ever won and wore a crown
+as his perpetual model.
+
+It was delightful, therefore, to find himself in company with his royal
+brother; making and unmaking kings; destroying empires, altering the
+whole face of Christendom, and, better than all, settling then and for
+ever the theology of the whole world, without the trouble of moving from
+his easy chair, or of incurring any personal danger.
+
+He entered at once, with the natural tendency to suspicion of a timid
+man, into the views presented by De Rosny as to the perfidy of his
+counsellors.  He changed colour; and was visibly moved, as the ambassador
+gave his version of the recent conference with Cecil and the other
+ministers, and, being thus artfully stimulated, he was, prepared to
+receive with much eagerness the portentous communications now to be made.
+
+The ambassador, however, caused him to season his admiration until he had
+taken a most solemn oath, by the sacrament of the Eucharist, never to
+reveal a syllable of what he was about to hear.  This done, and the royal
+curiosity excited almost beyond endurance, De Rosny began to, unfold.
+the stupendous schemes which had been, concerted between Elizabeth and
+Henry at Dover, and which formed the secret object of his present
+embassy.  Feeling that the king was most malleable in the theological
+part of his structure, the wily envoy struck his first blows in that
+direction; telling him that his own interest in the religious, condition
+of Europe, and especially in the firm establishment of the Protestant
+faith, far surpassed in his mind all considerations of fortune, country,
+or even of fidelity to his sovereign.  Thus far, political considerations
+had kept Henry from joining in the great Catholic League, but it was
+possible that a change might occur in his system, and the Protestant form
+of worship, abandoned by its ancient protector, might disappear entirely
+from France and from Europe.  De Rosny had, therefore, felt the necessity
+of a new patron for the reformed religion in this great emergency, and
+had naturally fixed his eyes on the puissant and sagacious prince who now
+occupied, the British throne.  Now was the time, he urged, for James to
+immortalize his name by becoming the arbiter of the destiny of Europe.
+It would always seem his own design, although Henry was equally
+interested in it with himself.  The plan was vast but simple,
+and perfectly easy of execution.  There would be no difficulty in
+constructing an all-powerful league of sovereigns for the destruction of
+the house of Austria, the foundation-stones of which would of course be
+France, Great Britain, and the United Provinces.  The double marriage
+between the Bourbon and Stuart families would indissolubly unite the two
+kingdoms, while interest and gratitude; a common hatred and a common
+love, would bind the republic as firmly to the union.  Denmark and Sweden
+were certainly to be relied upon, as well as all other Protestant
+princes.  The ambitious and restless Duke of Savoy would be gained by
+the offer of Lombardy and a kingly crown, notwithstanding his matrimonial
+connection with Spain.  As for the German princes, they would come
+greedily into the arrangement, as the league, rich in the spoils of the
+Austrian house, would have Hungary, Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia, the
+archduchies, and other splendid provinces to divide among them.
+
+The pope would be bought up by a present, in fee-simple, of Naples, and
+other comfortable bits of property, of which he was now only feudal lord.
+Sicily would be an excellent sop for the haughty republic of Venice.
+The Franche Comte; Alsace, Tirol, were naturally to be annexed to
+Switzerland; Liege and the heritage of the Duke of Cleves and Juliers
+to the Dutch commonwealth.
+
+The King of France, who, according to De Rosny's solemn assertions, was
+entirely ignorant of the whole scheme, would, however, be sure to embrace
+it very heartily when James should propose it to him, and would be far
+too disinterested to wish to keep any of the booty for himself.  A
+similar self-denial was, of course, expected of James, the two great
+kings satisfying themselves with the proud consciousness of having saved
+society, rescued the world from the sceptre of an Austrian universal
+monarchy, and regenerated European civilization for all future time.
+
+The monarch listened with ravished ears, interposed here and there a
+question or a doubt, but devoured every detail of the scheme, as the
+ambassador slowly placed it before him.
+
+De Rosny showed that the Spanish faction was not in reality so powerful
+as the league which would be constructed for its overthrow.  It was not
+so much a religious as a political frontier which separated the nations.
+He undertook to prove this, but, after all, was obliged to demonstrate
+that the defection of Henry from the Protestant cause had deprived him of
+his natural allies, and given him no true friends in exchange for the old
+ones.
+
+Essentially the Catholics were ranged upon one side, and the Protestants
+on the other, but both religions were necessary to Henry the Huguenot:
+The bold free-thinker adroitly balanced himself upon each creed.  In
+making use of a stern and conscientious Calvinist, like Maximilian de
+Bethune, in his first assault upon the theological professor who now
+stood in Elizabeth's place, he showed the exquisite tact which never
+failed him.  Toleration for the two religions which had political power,
+perfect intolerance for all others; despotic forms of polity, except for
+two little republics which were to be smothered with protection and never
+left out of leading strings, a thorough recasting of governments and
+races, a palingenesis of Europe, a nominal partition of its hegemony
+between France and England, which was to be in reality absorbed by
+France, and the annihilation of Austrian power east and west, these were
+the vast ideas with which that teeming Bourbon brain was filled.  It is
+the instinct both of poetic and of servile minds to associate a sentiment
+of grandeur with such fantastic dreams, but usually on condition that the
+dreamer wears a crown.  When the regenerator of society appears with a
+wisp of straw upon his head, unappreciative society is apt to send him
+back to his cell.  There, at least, his capacity for mischief is limited.
+
+If to do be as grand as to imagine what it were good to do, then the
+Dutchmen in Hell's Mouth and the Porcupine fighting Universal Monarchy
+inch by inch and pike to pike, or trying conclusions with the ice-bears
+of Nova Zembla, or capturing whole Portuguese fleets in the Moluccas,
+were effecting as great changes in the world, and doing perhaps as much
+for the advancement of civilization, as James of the two Britains and
+Henry of France and Navarre in those his less heroic days, were likely to
+accomplish.  History has long known the results.
+
+The ambassador did his work admirably.  The king embraced him in a
+transport of enthusiasm, vowed by all that was most sacred to accept the
+project in all its details, and exacted from the ambassador in his turn
+an oath on the Eucharist never to reveal, except to his master, the
+mighty secrets of their conference.
+
+The interview had lasted four hours.  When it was concluded, James
+summoned Cecil, and in presence of the ambassador and of some of the
+counsellors, lectured him soundly on his presumption in disobeying the
+royal commands in his recent negotiations with De Rosny.  He then
+announced his decision to ally himself strictly with France against Spain
+in consequence of the revelations just made to him, and of course to
+espouse the cause of the United Provinces.  Telling the crest-fallen
+Secretary of State to make the proper official communications on the
+subject to the ambassadors of my lords the States-General,--thus giving
+the envoys from the republic for the first time that pompous designation,
+the king turned once more to the marquis with the exclamation, "Well, Mr.
+Ambassador, this time I hope that you are satisfied with me?"
+
+In the few days following De Rosny busied himself in drawing up a plan
+of a treaty embodying all that had been agreed upon between Henry and
+himself, and which he had just so faithfully rehearsed to James.  He felt
+now some inconvenience from his own artfulness, and was in a measure
+caught in his own trap.  Had he brought over a treaty in his pocket,
+James would have signed it on the spot, so eager was he for the
+regeneration of Europe.  It was necessary, however, to continue the
+comedy a little longer, and the ambassador, having thought it necessary
+to express many doubts whether his master could be induced to join in the
+plot, and to approve what was really his own most cherished plan, could
+now do no more than promise to use all his powers of persuasion unto that
+end.
+
+The project of a convention, which James swore most solemnly to sign,
+whether it were sent to him in six weeks or six months, was accordingly
+rapidly reduced to writing and approved.  It embodied, of course, most of
+the provisions discussed in the last secret interview at Greenwich.  The
+most practical portion of it undoubtedly related to the United Provinces,
+and to the nature of assistance to be at once afforded to that
+commonwealth, the only ally of the two kingdoms expressly mentioned in
+the treaty.  England was to furnish troops, the number of which was not
+specified, and France was to pay for them, partly out of her own funds,
+partly out of the amount due by her to England.  It was, however,
+understood, that this secret assistance should not be considered to
+infringe the treaty of peace which already existed between Henry and the
+Catholic king.  Due and detailed arrangements were made as to the manner
+in which the allies were to assist each other, in case Spain, not
+relishing this kind of neutrality, should think proper openly to attack
+either great Britain or France, or both.
+
+Unquestionably the Dutch republic was the only portion of Europe likely
+to be substantially affected by these secret arrangements; for, after
+all, it had not been found very easy to embody the splendid visions of
+Henry, which had so dazzled the imagination of James in the dry clauses
+of a protocol.
+
+It was also characteristic enough of the crowned conspirators, that the
+clause relating to the United Provinces provided that the allies would
+either assist them in the attainment of their independence, or--if it
+should be considered expedient to restore them to the domination of Spain
+or the empire--would take such precautions and lay down such conditions
+as would procure perfect tranquillity for them, and remove from the two
+allied kings the fear of a too absolute government by the house of
+Austria in those provinces.
+
+It would be difficult to imagine a more impotent conclusion.  Those Dutch
+rebels had not been fighting for tranquillity.  The tranquillity of the
+rock amid raging waves--according to the device of the father of the
+republic--they had indeed maintained; but to exchange their turbulent and
+tragic existence, ever illumined by the great hope of freedom, for repose
+under one despot guaranteed to them by two others, was certainly not
+their aim.  They lacked the breadth of vision enjoyed by the regenerators
+who sat upon mountain-tops.
+
+They were fain to toil on in their own way.  Perhaps, however, the future
+might show as large results from their work as from the schemes of those
+who were to begin the humiliation of the Austrian house by converting its
+ancient rebels into tranquil subjects.
+
+The Marquis of Rosny, having distributed 60,000 crowns among the leading
+politicians and distinguished personages at the English court, with ample
+promises of future largess if they remained true to his master, took an
+affectionate farewell of King James, and returned with his noble two
+hundred to recount his triumphs to the impatient Henry.  The treaty was
+soon afterwards duly signed and ratified by the high contracting parties.
+It was, however, for future history to register its results on the fate
+of pope, emperor, kings, potentates, and commonwealths, and to show the
+changes it would work in the geography, religion, and polity of the
+world.
+
+The deputies from the States-General, satisfied with the practical
+assistance promised them, soon afterwards took their departure with
+comparative cheerfulness, having previously obtained the royal consent
+to raise recruits in Scotland.  Meantime the great Constable of Castile,
+ambassador from his Catholic Majesty, had arrived in London, and was
+wroth at all that he saw and all that he suspected.  He, too, began to
+scatter golden arguments with a lavish hand among the great lords and
+statesmen of Britain,  but found that the financier of France had, on the
+whole; got before him in the business, and was skilfully maintaining his
+precedence from the other side of the channel.
+
+But the end of these great diplomatic manoeuvres had not yet come.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+     Siege of Ostend--The Marquis Spinola made commander-in-chief of the
+     besieging army--Discontent of the troops--General aspect of the
+     operations--Gradual encroachment of the enemy.
+
+The scene again shifts to Ostend.  The Spanish cabinet, wearied of the
+slow progress of the siege, and not entirely satisfied with the generals,
+now concluded almost without consent of the archdukes, one of the most
+extraordinary jobs ever made, even in those jobbing days.  The Marquis
+Spinola, elder brother of the ill-fated Frederic, and head of the
+illustrious Genoese family of that name, undertook to furnish a large sum
+of money which the wealth of his house and its connection with the great
+money-lenders of Genoa enabled him to raise, on condition that he should
+have supreme command of the operations against Ostend and of the foreign
+armies in the Netherlands.  He was not a soldier, but he entered into a
+contract, by his own personal exertions both on the exchange and in the
+field, to reduce the city which had now resisted all the efforts of the
+archduke for more than two years.  Certainly this was an experiment not
+often hazarded in warfare.  The defence of Ostend was in the hands of the
+best and moat seasoned fighting-men in Europe.  The operations were under
+the constant supervision of the foremost captain of the age; for Maurice,
+in consultation with the States-General, received almost daily reports
+from the garrison, and regularly furnished advice and instructions as to
+their proceedings.  He was moreover ever ready to take the field for a
+relieving campaign.  Nothing was known of Spinola save that he was a
+high-born and very wealthy patrician who had reached his thirty-fourth
+year without achieving personal distinction of any kind, and who, during
+the previous summer, like so many other nobles from all parts of Europe,
+had thought it worth his while to drawl through a campaign or two in the
+Low Countries.  It was the mode to do this, and it was rather a stigma
+upon any young man of family not to have been an occasional looker on at
+that perpetual military game.  His brother Frederic, as already narrated;
+had tried his chance for fame and fortune in the naval service, and had
+lost his life in the adventure without achieving the one or the other.
+This was not a happy augury for the head of the family.  Frederic had
+made an indifferent speculation.  What could the brother hope by taking
+the field against Maurice of Nassau and Lewis William and the Baxes and
+Meetkerkes?  Nevertheless the archduke eagerly accepted his services,
+while the Infanta, fully confident of his success before he had ordered a
+gun to be fired, protested that if Spinola did not take Ostend nobody
+would ever take it.  There was also, strangely enough, a general feeling
+through the republican ranks that the long-expected man had come.
+
+Thus a raw volunteer, a man who had never drilled a hundred men, who had
+never held an officer's commission in any army in the world, became, as
+by the waving of a wand, a field-marshal and commander-in-chief at a
+most critical moment in history, in the most conspicuous position in
+Christendom, and in a great war, now narrowed down to a single spot of
+earth, on which the eyes of the world were fixed, and the daily accounts
+from which were longed for with palpitating anxiety.  What but failure
+and disaster could be expected from such astounding policy?  Every
+soldier in the Catholic forces--from grizzled veterans of half a century
+who had commanded armies and achieved victories when this dainty young
+Italian was in his cradle, down to the simple musketeer or rider who had
+been campaigning for his daily bread ever since he could carry a piece or
+mount a horse was furious with discontent or outraged pride.
+
+Very naturally too, it was said that the position of the archdukes had
+become preposterous.  It was obvious, notwithstanding the pilgrimages of
+the Infanta to our Lady of Hall, to implore not only the fall of Ostend,
+but the birth of a successor to their sovereignty, that her marriage
+would for ever remain barren.  Spain was already acting upon this theory,
+it was said, for the contract with Spinola was made, not at Brussels,
+but at Madrid, and a foreign army of Spaniards and Italians, under the
+supreme command of a Genoese adventurer, was now to occupy indefinitely
+that Flanders which had been proclaimed an independent nation, and duly
+bequeathed by its deceased proprietor to his daughter.
+
+Ambrose Spinola, son of Philip, Marquis of Venafri, and his wife,
+Polyxena Grimaldi, was not appalled by the murmurs of hardly suppressed
+anger or public criticism.  A handsome, aristocratic personage, with an
+intellectual, sad, but sympathetic face, fair hair and beard, and
+imposing but attractive presence--the young volunteer, at the beginning
+of October, made his first visit of inspection in the lines before
+Ostend.  After studying the situation of affairs very thoroughly,
+he decided that the operations on the Gullet or eastern side, including
+Bucquoy's dike, with Pompey Targone's perambulatory castles and floating
+batteries, were of secondary importance.  He doubted the probability of
+closing up a harbour, now open to the whole world and protected by the
+fleets of the first naval power of Europe, with wickerwork, sausages, and
+bridges upon barrels.  His attention was at once concentrated on the
+western side, and he was satisfied that only by hard fighting and steady
+delving could he hope to master the place.  To gain Ostend he would be
+obliged to devour it piecemeal as he went on.
+
+Whatever else might be said of the new commander-in-chief, it was soon
+apparent that, although a volunteer and a patrician, he was no milksop.
+If he had been accustomed all his life to beds of down, he was as ready
+now to lie in the trenches, with a cannon for his pillow, as the most
+ironclad veteran in the ranks.  He seemed to require neither sleep nor
+food, and his reckless habit of exposing himself to unnecessary danger
+was the subject of frequent animadversion on the part both of the
+archdukes and of the Spanish Government.
+
+It was however in his case a wise temerity.  The veterans whom he
+commanded needed no encouragement to daring deeds, but they required
+conviction as to the valour and zeal of their new commander, and this
+was afforded them in overflowing measure.
+
+It is difficult to decide, after such a lapse of years, as to how much of
+the long series of daily details out of which this famous siege was
+compounded deserves to be recorded.  It is not probable that for military
+history many of the incidents have retained vital importance.  The world
+rang, at the beginning of the operations, with the skill and inventive
+talent of Targone, Giustiniani, and other Italian engineers, artificers,
+and pyrotechnists, and there were great expectations conceived of the
+effects to be produced by their audacious and original devices.  But time
+wore on.  Pompey's famous floating battery would not float, his moving
+monster battery would not move.  With the one; the subtle Italian had
+intended to close up the Gullet to the States' fleets.  It was to rest on
+the bottom at low water at the harbour's mouth, to rise majestically with
+the flood, and to be ever ready with a formidable broadside of fifty
+pounders against all comers.  But the wild waves and tempests of the
+North Sea soon swept the ponderous toy into space, before it had fired a
+gun.  The gigantic chariot, on which a moveable fort was constructed, was
+still more portentous upon paper than the battery.  It was directed
+against that republican work, defending the Gullet, which was called in
+derision the Spanish Half-moon.  It was to be drawn by forty horses, and
+armed with no man knew how many great guns, with a mast a hundred and
+fifty feet high in the centre of the fort, up and down which played
+pulleys raising and lowering a drawbridge long enough to span the Gullet.
+
+It was further provided with anchors, which were to be tossed over the
+parapet of the doomed redoubt, while the assailants, thus grappled to the
+enemy's work, were to dash over the bridge after having silenced the
+opposing fire by means of their own peripatetic battery.
+
+Unfortunately for the fame of Pompey, one of his many wheels was crushed
+on the first attempt to drag the chariot to the scene of anticipated
+triumph, the whole structure remained embedded in the sand, very much
+askew; nor did all the mules and horses that could be harnessed to it
+ever succeed in removing it an inch out of a position, which was anything
+but triumphant.
+
+It seemed probable enough therefore that, so far as depended on the
+operations from the eastern side, the siege of Ostend, which had now
+lasted two years and three months, might be protracted for two years and
+three months longer.  Indeed, Spinola at once perceived that if the
+archduke was ever to be put in possession of the place for which he had
+professed himself ready to wait eighteen years, it would be well to leave
+Bucquoy and Targone to build dykes and chariots and bury them on the east
+at their leisure, while more energy was brought to bear upon the line of
+fortifications of the west than had hitherto been employed.  There had
+been shooting enough, bloodshed enough, suffering enough, but it was
+amazing to see the slight progress made.  The occupation of what were
+called the external Squares has been described.  This constituted the
+whole result of the twenty-seven months' work.
+
+The town itself--the small and very insignificant kernel which lay
+enclosed in such a complicated series of wrappings and layers of
+defences--seemed as far off as if it were suspended in the sky.
+The old haven or canal, no longer navigable for ships, still served as
+an admirable moat which the assailants had not yet succeeded in laying
+entirely dry.  It protected the counterscarp, and was itself protected by
+an exterior aeries of works, while behind the counterscarp was still
+another ditch, not so broad nor deep as the canal, but a formidable
+obstacle even after the counterscarp should be gained.  There were nearly
+fifty forts and redoubts in these lines, of sufficient importance to have
+names which in those days became household words, not only in the
+Netherlands, but in Europe; the siege of Ostend being the one military
+event of Christendom, so long as it lasted.  These names are of course as
+much forgotten now as those of the bastions before Nineveh.  A very few
+of them will suffice to indicate the general aspect of the operations.
+On the extreme southwest of Ostend had been in peaceful times a polder--
+the general term to designate a pasture out of which the sea-water had
+been pumped--and the forts in that quarter were accordingly called by
+that name, as Polder Half-moon, Polder Ravelin, or great and little
+Polder Bulwark, as the case might be.  Farther on towards the west, the
+north-west, and the north, and therefore towards the beach, were the West
+Ravelin, West Bulwark, Moses's Table, the Porcupine, the Hell's Mouth,
+the old church, and last and most important of all, the Sand Hill.  The
+last-named work was protected by the Porcupine and Hell's Mouth, was the
+key to the whole series of fortifications, and was connected by a curtain
+with the old church, which was in the heart of the old town.
+
+Spinola had assumed command in October, but the winter was already
+closing in with its usual tempests and floods before there had been time
+for him to produce much effect.  It seemed plain enough to the besieged
+that the object of the enemy would be to work his way through the Polder,
+and so gradually round to the Porcupine and the Sand Hill.  Precisely in
+what directions his subterraneous passages might be tending, in what
+particular spot of the thin crust upon which they all stood an explosion
+might at any moment be expected, it was of course impossible to know.
+They were sure that the process of mining was steadily progressing, and
+Maurice sent orders to countermine under every bulwark, and to secretly
+isolate every bastion, so that it would be necessary for Spinola to make
+his way, fort by fort, and inch by inch.
+
+Thus they struggled drearily about under ground, friend and foe, often as
+much bewildered as wanderers in the catacombs.  To a dismal winter
+succeeded a ferocious spring.  Both in February and March were westerly
+storms, such as had not been recorded even on that tempest-swept coast
+for twenty years, and so much damage was inflicted on the precious Sand
+Hill and its curtain, that, had the enemy been aware of its plight, it is
+probable that one determined assault might have put him in possession of
+the place.  But Ostend was in charge of a most watchful governor, Peter
+van Gieselles, who had succeeded Charles van der Noot at the close of the
+year 1603.  A plain, lantern jawed, Dutch colonel; with close-cropped
+hair, a long peaked beard, and an eye that looked as if it had never been
+shut; always dressed in a shabby old jerkin with tarnished flowers upon
+it, he took command with a stout but heavy heart, saying that the place
+should never be surrendered by him, but that he should never live to see
+the close of the siege.  He lost no time in repairing the damages of the
+tempest, being ready to fight the west wind, the North Sea, and Spinola
+at any moment, singly or conjoined.  He rebuilt the curtain of the Sand
+Hill, added fresh batteries to the Porcupine and Hell's Mouth, and amused
+and distracted the enemy with almost daily sorties and feints.  His
+soldiers passed their days and nights up to the knees in mud and sludge
+and sea-water, but they saw that their commander never spared himself,
+and having a superfluity of food and drink, owing to the watchful care of
+the States-General, who sent in fleets laden with provisions faster than
+they could be consumed, they were cheerful and content.
+
+On the 12th March there was a determined effort to carry the lesser
+Polder Bulwark.  After a fierce and bloody action, the place was taken by
+storm, and the first success in the game was registered for Spinola.  The
+little fort was crammed full of dead, but such of the defenders as
+survived were at last driven out of it, and forced to take refuge in the
+next work.  Day after day the same bloody business was renewed, a mere
+monotony of assaults, repulses, sallies, in which hardly an inch of
+ground was gained on either side, except at the cost of a great pile of
+corpses.  "Men will never know, nor can mortal pen ever describe," said
+one who saw it all, "the ferocity and the pertinacity of both besiegers
+and besieged."  On the 15th of March, Colonel Catrice, an accomplished
+Walloon officer of engineers, commanding the approaches against the
+Polder, was killed.  On the 21st March, as Peter Orieselles was taking
+his scrambling dinner in company with Philip Fleming, there was a report
+that the enemy was out again in force.  A good deal of progress had been
+made during the previous weeks on the south-west and west, and more was
+suspected than was actually known.  It was felt that the foe was steadily
+nibbling his way up to the counterscarp.  Moreover, such was the
+emulation among the Germans, Walloons, Italians, and Spaniards for
+precedence in working across the canal, that a general assault and
+universal explosion were considered at any instant possible.  The
+governor sent Fleming to see if all was right in the Porcupine, while
+he himself went to see if a new battery, which he had just established
+to check the approaches of the enemy towards the Polder Half-moon and
+Ravelin in a point very near the counterscarp, was doing its duty.
+Being, as usual, anxious to reconnoitre with his own eyes, he jumped upon
+the rampart.  But there were sharp-shooters in the enemy's trenches, and
+they were familiar with the governor's rusty old doublet and haggard old
+face.  Hardly had he climbed upon the breastwork when a ball pierced his
+heart, and he fell dead without a groan.  There was a shout of triumph
+from the outside, while the tidings soon spread sadness through the
+garrison, for all loved and venerated the man.  Philip Fleming, so soon
+as he learned the heavy news, lost no time in unavailing regrets, but
+instantly sent a courier to Prince Maurice; meantime summoning a council
+of superior officers, by whom Colonel John van Loon was provisionally
+appointed commandant.
+
+A stately, handsome man, a good officer, but without extensive
+experience, he felt himself hardly equal to the immense responsibility of
+the post, but yielding to the persuasions of his comrades, proceeded to
+do his best.  His first care was to secure the all-important Porcupine,
+towards which the enemy had been slowly crawling with his galleries and
+trenches.  Four days after he had accepted the command he was anxiously
+surveying that fortification, and endeavouring to obtain a view of the
+enemy's works, when a cannon-ball struck him on the right leg, so that he
+died the next day.  Plainly the post of commandant of Ostend was no
+sinecure.  He was temporarily succeeded by Sergeant-Major Jacques de
+Bievry, but the tumults and confusion incident upon this perpetual change
+of head were becoming alarming.  The enemy gave the garrison no rest
+night nor day, and it had long become evident that the young volunteer,
+whose name was so potent on the Genoa Exchange, was not a man of straw
+nor a dawdler, however the superseded veterans might grumble.  At any
+rate the troops on either side were like to have their fill of work.
+
+On the 2nd April the Polder Ravelin was carried by storm.  It was a most
+bloody action.  Never were a few square feet of earth more recklessly
+assailed, more resolutely maintained.  The garrison did not surrender
+the place, but they all laid down their lives in its defence.  Scarcely
+an individual of them all escaped, and the foe, who paid dearly with
+heaps of dead and wounded for his prize, confessed that such serious work
+as this had scarce been known before in any part of that great slaughter-
+house, Flanders.
+
+A few days later, Colonel Bievry, provisional commandant, was desperately
+wounded in a sortie, and was carried off to Zeeland.  The States-General
+now appointed Jacques van der Meer, Baron of Berendrecht, to the post of
+honour and of danger.  A noble of Flanders, always devoted to the
+republican cause; an experienced middle-aged officer, vigilant,
+energetic, nervous; a slight wiry man, with a wizened little face, large
+bright eyes, a meagre yellow beard, and thin sandy hair flowing down upon
+his well-starched ruff, the new governor soon showed himself inferior to
+none of his predecessors in audacity and alertness.  It is difficult to
+imagine a more irritating position in many respects than that of
+commander in such an extraordinary leaguer.  It was not a formal siege.
+Famine, which ever impends over an invested place, and sickens the soul
+with its nameless horrors, was not the great enemy to contend against
+here.  Nor was there the hideous alternative between starving through
+obstinate resistance or massacre on submission, which had been the lot of
+so many Dutch garrisons in the earlier stages of the war.  Retreat by sea
+was ever open to the Ostend garrison, and there was always an ample
+supply of the best provisions and of all munitions of war.  But they had
+been unceasingly exposed to two tremendous enemies.  During each winter
+and spring the ocean often smote their bastions and bulwarks in an hour
+of wrath till they fell together like children's toys, and it was always
+at work, night and day, steadily lapping at the fragile foundations on
+which all their structures stood.  Nor was it easy to give the requisite
+attention to the devouring sea, because all the materials that could be
+accumulated seemed necessary to repair the hourly damages inflicted by
+their other restless foe.
+
+Thus the day seemed to draw gradually but inexorably nearer when the
+place would be, not captured, but consumed.  There was nothing for it,
+so long as the States were determined to hold the spot, but to meet the
+besieger at every point, above or below the earth, and sell every inch of
+that little morsel of space at the highest price that brave men could
+impose.
+
+So Berendrecht, as vigilant and devoted as even Peter Gieselles had ever
+been, now succeeded to the care of the Polders and the Porcupines, and
+the Hell's Mouths; and all the other forts, whose quaint designations had
+served, as usually is the case among soldiers, to amuse the honest
+patriots in the midst of their toils and danger.  On the 18th April, the
+enemy assailed the great western Ravelin, and after a sanguinary hand-to-
+hand action, in which great numbers of officers and soldiers were lost on
+both sides, he carried the fort; the Spaniards, Italians, Germans, and
+Walloons vieing with each other in deeds of extraordinary daring, and
+overcoming at last the resistance of the garrison.
+
+This was an important success.  The foe had now worked his way with
+galleries and ditches along the whole length of the counterscarp till he
+was nearly up with the Porcupine, and it was obvious that in a few days
+he would be master of the counterscarp itself.
+
+A less resolute commander, at the head of less devoted troops, might
+have felt that when that inevitable event should arrive all that honour
+demanded would have been done, and that Spinola was entitled to his city.
+Berendrecht simply decided that if the old counterscarp could no longer
+be held it was time to build a new counterscarp.  This, too, had been
+for some time the intention of Prince Maurice.  A plan for this work had
+already been sent into the place, and a distinguished English engineer,
+Ralph Dexter by name, arrived with some able assistants to carry it into
+execution.  It having been estimated that the labour would take three
+weeks of time, without more ado the inner line was carefully drawn,
+cutting off with great nicety and precision about one half the whole
+place.  Within this narrowed circle the same obstinate resistance was
+to be offered as before, and the bastions and redoubts of the new
+entrenchment were to be baptized with the same uncouth names which two
+long years of terrible struggle had made so precious.  The work was very
+laborious; for the line was drawn straight through the town, and whole
+streets had to be demolished and the houses to their very foundations
+shovelled away.  Moreover the men were forced to toil with spade in one
+hand and matchlock in the other, ever ready to ascend from the ancient
+dilapidated cellars in order to mount the deadly breach at any point in
+the whole circumference of the place.
+
+It became absolutely necessary therefore to send a sufficient force of
+common workmen into the town to lighten the labours of the soldiers.
+Moreover the thought, although whistled to the wind, would repeatedly
+recur, that, after all, there must be a limit to these operations, and
+that at last there would remain no longer any earth in which to find a
+refuge.
+
+The work of the new entrenchment went slowly on, but it was steadily
+done.  Meantime they were comforted by hearing that the stadholder had
+taken the field in Flanders, at the head of a considerable force, and
+they lived in daily expectation of relief.  It will be necessary, at the
+proper moment, to indicate the nature of Prince Maurice's operations.
+For the present, it is better that the reader should confine his
+attention within the walls of Ostend.
+
+By the 11th May, the enemy had effected a lodgment in a corner of
+the Porcupine, and already from that point might threaten the new
+counterscarp before it should be completed.  At the same time he had
+gnawed through to the West Bulwark, and was busily mining under the
+Porcupine itself.  In this fort friend and foe now lay together, packed
+like herrings, and profited by their proximity to each other to vary the
+monotony of pike and anaphance with an occasional encounter of epistolary
+wit.
+
+Thus Spanish letters, tied to sticks, and tossed over into the next
+entrenchment, were replied to by others, composed in four languages by
+the literary man of Ostend, Auditor Fleming, and shot into the enemy's
+trenches on cross-bow bolts.
+
+On the 29th May, a long prepared mine was sprung beneath the Porcupine.
+It did its work effectively, and the 29 May assailants did theirs no less
+admirably, crowding into the breach with headlong ferocity, and after a
+long and sanguinary struggle with immense lose on both sides, carrying
+the precious and long-coveted work by storm.  Inch by inch the defenders
+were thus slowly forced back toward their new entrenchment.  On the same
+day, however, they inflicted a most bloody defeat upon the enemy in an
+attempt to carry the great Polder.  He withdrew, leaving heaps of slain,
+so that the account current for the day would have balanced itself, but
+that the Porcupine, having changed hands, now bristled most formidably
+against its ancient masters.  The daily 'slaughter had become sickening
+to behold.  There were three thousand effective men in the garrison.
+More could have been sent in to supply the steady depletion in the ranks,
+but there was no room for more.  There was scarce space enough for the
+living to stand to their work, or for the dead to lie in their graves.
+And this was an advantage which could not fail to tell.  Of necessity the
+besiegers would always very far outnumber the garrison, so that the final
+success of their repeated assaults became daily more and more possible.
+
+Yet on the 2nd June the enemy met not only with another signal defeat,
+but also with a most bitter surprise.  On that day the mine which he had
+been so long and so laboriously constructing beneath the great Polder
+Bulwark was sprung with magnificent effect.  A breach, forty feet wide,
+was made in this last stronghold of the old defences, and the soldiers
+leaped into the crater almost before it had ceased to blaze, expecting
+by one decisive storm to make themselves masters at last of all the
+fortifications, and therefore of the town itself.  But as emerging
+from the mine, they sprang exulting upon the shattered bulwark,
+a transformation more like a sudden change in some holiday pantomime
+than a new fact in this three years' most tragic siege presented itself
+to their astonished eyes.  They had carried the last defence of the old
+counterscarp, and behold--a new one, which they had never dreamed of,
+bristling before their eyes, with a flanking battery turned directly upon
+them.  The musketeers and pikemen, protected by their new works, now
+thronged towards the assailants; giving them so hearty a welcome that
+they reeled back, discomfited, after a brief but severe struggle, from
+the spot of their anticipated triumph, leaving their dead and dying in
+the breach.
+
+Four days later, Berendrecht, with a picked party of English troops,
+stole out for a reconnaissance, not wishing to trust other eyes than his
+own in the imminent peril of the place.
+
+The expedition was successful.  A few prisoners were taken, and valuable
+information was obtained, but these advantages were counterbalanced by a
+severe disaster.  The vigilant and devoted little governor, before
+effecting his entrance into the sally port, was picked off by a
+sharpshooter, and died the next day.  This seemed the necessary fate
+of the commandants of Ostend, where the operations seemed more like a
+pitched battle lasting three years than an ordinary siege.  Gieselles,
+Van Loon, Bievry, and now Berendrecht, had successively fallen at the
+post of duty since the beginning of the year.  Not one of them was more
+sincerely deplored than Berendrecht.  His place was supplied by Colonel
+Uytenhoove, a stalwart, hirsute, hard-fighting Dutchman, the descendant
+of an ancient race, and seasoned in many a hard campaign.
+
+The enemy now being occupied in escarping and furnishing with batteries
+the positions he had gained, with the obvious intention of attacking the
+new counterscarp, it was resolved to prepare for the possible loss of
+this line of fortifications by establishing another and still narrower
+one within it.
+
+Half the little place had been shorn away by the first change.  Of the
+half which was still in possession of the besieged about one-third was
+now set off, and in this little corner of earth, close against the new
+harbour, was set up their last refuge.  They called the new citadel
+Little Troy, and announced, with pardonable bombast, that they would hold
+out there as long as the ancient Trojans had defended Ilium.  With
+perfect serenity the engineers set about their task with line, rule, and
+level, measuring out the bulwarks and bastions, the miniature salients,
+half-moons, and ditches, as neatly and methodically as if there were no
+ceaseless cannonade in their ears, and as if the workmen were not at
+every moment summoned to repel assaults upon the outward wall.  They.
+sent careful drawings of Little Troy to Maurice and the States, and
+received every encouragement to persevere, together with promises of
+ultimate relief.
+
+But there was one serious impediment to the contemplated construction of
+the new earth-works.  They had no earth.  Nearly everything solid had
+been already scooped away in the perpetual delving.  The sea-dykes had
+been robbed of their material, so that the coming winter might find
+besiegers and besieged all washed together into the German Ocean, and it
+was hard digging and grubbing among the scanty cellarages of the
+dilapidated houses.  But there were plenty of graves, filled with the
+results of three years' hard fighting.  And now, not only were all the
+cemeteries within the precincts shovelled and carted in mass to the inner
+fortifications, but rewards being offered of ten stivers for each dead
+body, great heaps of disinterred soldiers were piled into the new
+ramparts.  Thus these warriors, after laying down their lives for the
+cause of freedom, were made to do duty after death.  Whether it were just
+or no thus to disturb the repose--if repose it could be called--of the
+dead that they might once more protect the living, it can scarcely be
+doubted that they took ample revenge on the already sufficiently polluted
+atmosphere.
+
+On the 17th June the foe sprang a mine under the western bulwark; close
+to a countermine exploded by the garrison the day before.  The assailants
+thronged as merrily as usual to the breach, and were met with customary
+resolution by the besieged; Governor Uytenhoove, clad in complete armour,
+leading his troops.  The enemy, after an hour's combat, was repulsed with
+heavy loss, but the governor fell in the midst of the fight.  Instantly
+he was seized by the legs by a party of his own men, some English
+desperadoes among the number, who, shouting that the colonel was dead,
+were about to render him the last offices by plundering his body.  The
+ubiquitous Fleming, observing the scene, flew to the rescue and, with the
+assistance of a few officers, drove off these energetic friends, and
+taking off the governor's casque, discovered that he still breathed.
+That he would soon have ceased to do so, had he been dragged much farther
+in his harness over that jagged and precipitous pile of rubbish, was
+certain.  He was desperately wounded, and of course incapacitated for his
+post.  Thus, in that year, before the summer solstice, a fifth commandant
+had fallen.
+
+On the same day, simultaneously with this repulse in the West Bulwark,
+the enemy made himself at last completely master of the Polder.  Here,
+too, was a savage hand-to-hand combat with broadswords and pikes, and
+when the pikes were broken, with great clubs and stakes pulled from the
+fascines; but the besiegers were victorious, and the defenders sullenly
+withdrew with their wounded to the inner entrenchments.
+
+On the 27th June, Daniel de Hartaing, Lord of Marquette, was sent by the
+States-General to take command in Ostend.  The colonel of the Walloon
+regiment which had rendered such good service on the famous field of
+Nieuport, the new governor, with his broad, brown, cheerful face, and
+his Milan armour, was a familiar figure enough to the campaigners on
+both sides in Flanders or Germany.
+
+The stoutest heart might have sunk at the spectacle which the condition
+of the town presented at his first inspection.  The States-General were
+resolved to hold the place, at all hazards, and Marquette had come to do
+their bidding, but it was difficult to find anything that could be called
+a town.  The great heaps of rubbish, which had once been the outer walls,
+were almost entirely in the possession of the foe, who had lodged himself
+in all that remained of the defiant Porcupine, the Hell's Mouth, and
+other redoubts, and now pointed from them at least fifty great guns
+against their inner walls.  The old town, with its fortifications, was
+completely honeycombed, riddled, knocked to pieces, and, although the
+Sand Hill still held out, it was plain enough that its days were numbered
+unless help should soon arrive.  In truth, it required a clear head and a
+practised eye to discover among those confused masses of prostrate
+masonry, piles of brick, upturned graves, and mounds of sand and rubbish,
+anything like order and regularity.  Yet amid the chaos there was really
+form and meaning to those who could read aright, and Marquette saw, as
+well in the engineers' lines as in the indomitable spirit that looked out
+of the grim faces of the garrison, that Ostend, so long as anything of it
+existed in nature, could be held for the republic.  Their brethren had
+not been firmer, when keeping their merry Christmas, seven years before,
+under the North Pole, upon a pudding made of the gunner's cartridge
+paste, or the Knights of the Invincible Lion in the horrid solitudes of
+Tierra del Fuego, than were the defenders of this sandbank.
+
+Whether the place were worth the cost or not, it was for my lords the
+States-General to decide, not for Governor Marquette.  And the decision
+of those "high and mighty" magistrates, to whom even Maurice of Nassau
+bowed without a murmur, although often against his judgment, had been
+plainly enough announced.
+
+And so shiploads of deals and joists, bricks, nails, and fascines, with
+requisite building materials, were sent daily in from Zeeland, in order
+that Little Troy might be completed; and, with God's help, said the
+garrison, the republic shall hold its own.
+
+And now there were two months more of mining and countermining, of
+assaults and repulses, of cannonading and hand-to-hand fights with pikes
+and clubs.  Nearer and nearer, day by day, and inch by inch, the foe had
+crawled up to the verge of their last refuge, and the walls of Little
+Troy, founded upon fresh earth and dead men's bones, and shifting sands,
+were beginning to quake under the guns of the inexorable volunteer from
+Genoa.  Yet on the 27th August there was great rejoicing in the
+beleaguered town.  Cannon thundered salutes, bonfires blazed, trumpets
+rang jubilant blasts, and, if the church-bells sounded no merry peals, it
+was because the only church in the place had been cut off in the last
+slicing away by the engineers.  Hymns of thanksgiving ascended to heaven,
+and the whole garrison fell on their knees, praying fervently to Almighty
+God, with devout and grateful hearts.  It was not an ignoble spectacle to
+see those veterans kneeling where there was scarce room to kneel, amid
+ruin and desolation, to praise the Lord for his mercies.  But to explain
+this general thanksgiving it is now necessary for a moment to go back.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Began to scatter golden arguments with a lavish hand
+Certain number of powers, almost exactly equal to each other
+Conceit, and procrastination which marked the royal character
+Do you want peace or war?  I am ready for either
+Eloquence of the biggest guns
+Even the virtues of James were his worst enemies
+Gold was the only passkey to justice
+If to do be as grand as to imagine what it were good to do
+It is certain that the English hate us (Sully)
+Logic of the largest battalions
+Made peace--and had been at war ever since
+Nations tied to the pinafores of children in the nursery
+Natural tendency to suspicion of a timid man
+Not safe for politicians to call each other hard names
+One of the most contemptible and mischievous of kings (James I)
+Peace founded on the only secure basis, equality of strength
+Peace seemed only a process for arriving at war
+Repose under one despot guaranteed to them by two others
+Requires less mention than Philip III himself
+Rules adopted in regard to pretenders to crowns
+Served at their banquets by hosts of lackeys on their knees
+Take all their imaginations and extravagances for truths
+The expenses of James's household
+The pigmy, as the late queen had been fond of nicknaming him
+To negotiate with Government in England was to bribe
+Unproductive consumption being accounted most sagacious
+War was the normal condition of Christians
+We have been talking a little bit of truth to each other
+What was to be done in this world and believed as to the next
+You must show your teeth to the Spaniard
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v76
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 77, 1604-1605
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+     Policy of the King of France--Operations of Prince Maurice--Plans
+     for a Flemish Campaign--Passage into Flanders--Fort St. Catharine--
+     Flight of its garrison, and occupation by Maurice--Surrender of
+     Ysendyke and Aardenburg--Skirmish at Stamper's Hook--Siege of Sluys
+     by Prince Maurice--Ineffectual attempt of Spinola to relieve the
+     town--Its capitulation and restoration to the States--Death of Lewis
+     Gunther of Nassau--Operations at Ostend--Surrender of the garrison--
+     Desolation of the scene after its evacuation.
+
+The States-General had begun to forget the severe lesson taught them in
+the Nieuport campaign.  Being determined to hold Ostend, they became very
+impatient, in the early part of the present year, that Maurice should
+once more invade Flanders, at the head of a relieving army, and drive the
+archdukes from before the town.
+
+They were much influenced in this policy by the persistent advice of the
+French king.  To the importunities of their envoy at Paris, Henry had,
+during the past eighteen months, replied by urging the States to invade
+Flanders and seize its ports.  When they had thus something to place as
+pledges in his hands, he might accede to their clamour and declare war
+against Spain.  But he scarcely concealed his intention, in such case, to
+annex both the obedient and the United Netherlands to his own dominions.
+Meantime, before getting into the saddle, he chose to be guaranteed
+against loss.  "Assure my lords the States that I love them," he said,
+"and shall always do my best for them."  His affection for the territory
+of my lords was even warmer than the sentiments he entertained for
+themselves.  Moreover, he grudged the preliminary expenses which would be
+necessary even should he ultimately make himself sovereign of the whole
+country.  Rosny assured the envoy that he was mistaken in expecting a
+declaration of war against Spain.  "Not that he does not think it useful
+and necessary," said the minister, "but he wishes to have war and peace
+both at once--peace because he wishes to make no retrenchments in his
+pleasures of women, dogs, and buildings, and so war would be very
+inopportune.  In three months he would be obliged to turn tail for want
+of means (to use his own words), although I would furnish him funds
+enough, if he would make the use of them that he ought."
+
+The Queen of England, who, with all her parsimony and false pretences,
+never doubted in her heart that perpetual hostility to Spain was the
+chief bulwark of her throne, and that the republic was fighting her
+battles as well as its own, had been ready to make such a lively war in
+conjunction with France as would drive the Spaniard out of all the
+Netherlands.  But Henry was not to be moved.  "I know that if I should
+take her at her word," said he, "she would at once begin to screw me for
+money.  She has one object, I another."  Villeroy had said plainly to
+Aerssens, in regard to the prevalent system of Englishmen, Spaniards, and
+Frenchmen being at war with each other, while the Governments might be
+nominally at peace, "Let us take off our masks.  If the Spaniard has
+designs against our State, has he not cause?  He knows the aid we are
+giving you, and resents it.  If we should abstain, he would leave us in
+peace.  If the Queen of England expects to draw us into a league, she is
+mistaken.  Look to yourselves and be on your guard.  Richardot is
+intriguing with Cecil.  You give the queen securities, fortresses, seats
+in your council.  The king asks nothing but communication of your
+projects."
+
+In short, all the comfort that Aerssens had been able to derive from his
+experiences at the French court in the autumn of 1602, was that the
+republic could not be too suspicious both of England and France.  Rosny
+especially he considered the most dangerous of all the politicians in
+France.  His daughter was married to the Prince of Espinoy, whose 50,000
+livres a year would be safer the more the archduke was strengthened.
+"But for this he would be stiffer," said Aerssens.  Nevertheless there
+were strong motives at work, pressing France towards the support of the
+States.  There were strong political reasons, therefore, why they should
+carry the war into Flanders, in conformity with the wishes of the king.
+
+The stadholder, after much argument, yielded as usual to the authority
+of the magistrates, without being convinced as to the sagacity of their
+plans.  It was arranged that an army should make a descent upon the
+Flemish coast in the early spring, and make a demonstration upon Sluys.
+The effect of this movement, it was thought, would be to draw the enemy
+out of his entrenchments, in which case it would be in the power of
+Maurice to put an end at once to the siege.  It is unquestionable that
+the better alternative, in the judgment of the prince, was to take
+possession; if possible, of Sluys itself.  His preparations were,
+however, made with a view to either event, and by the middle of April he
+had collected at Willemstad a force of fifteen thousand foot and three
+thousand horse.  As on the former memorable expedition, he now again
+insisted that a considerable deputation of the States and of the States'
+council should accompany the army.  His brother Henry, and his cousins
+Lewis William, Lewis Gunther, and Ernest Casimir, were likewise with him,
+as well as the Prince of Anhalt and other distinguished personages.
+
+On the 25th April the army, having crossed the mouth of the West Scheld,
+from Zeeland, in numberless vessels of all sizes and degrees, effected
+their debarkation on the island of Cadzand.
+
+In the course of two days they had taken possession of the little town,
+and all the forts of that island, having made their entrance through what
+was called the Black Channel.  Had they steered boldly through the Swint
+or Sluys channel at once, it is probable that they might have proceeded
+straight up to Sluy's, and taken the place by surprise.  Maurice's
+habitual caution was, perhaps, on this occasion, a disadvantage to him,
+but he would have violated the rules of war, and what seemed the dictates
+of common sense, had he not secured a basis of operations, and a
+possibility of retreat, before plunging with his army into the heart
+of a hostile country.  The republic still shuddered at the possible
+catastrophe of four years before, when circumstances had forced him to
+take the heroic but dangerous resolution of sending off his ships from
+Nieuport.  Before he had completed his arrangements for supplies on the
+island of Cadzand, he learned from scouts and reconnoitring parties that
+Spinola had sent a thousand infantry, besides five hundred cavalry, under
+Trivulzio, to guard the passage across the Swint.  Maurice was thus on
+the wrong side of the great channel by which Sluy's communicated with the
+sea?
+
+The town of Sluy's and its situation have been described in a former
+chapter.  As a port, it was in those days considered a commodious and
+important one, capable of holding five hundred ships.  As a town, it was
+not so insignificant as geographical and historical changes have since
+made it, and was certainly far superior to Ostend, even if Ostend had
+not been almost battered out of existence.  It had spacious streets and
+squares, and excellent fortifications in perfectly good condition.  It
+was situate in a watery labyrinth, many slender streams from the interior
+and several saltwater creeks being complicated around it, and then
+flowing leisurely, in one deep sluggish channel, to the sea.  The wrath
+of Leicester, when all his efforts to relieve the place had been baffled
+by the superior skill of Alexander Farnese, has been depicted, and during
+the seventeen years which had elapsed since its capture, the republic had
+not ceased to deplore that disaster.  Obviously if the present expedition
+could end in the restoration of Sluy's to its rightful owners, it would
+be a remarkable success, even if Ostend should fall.  Sluy's and its
+adjacent domains formed a natural portion of the Zeeland archipelago, the
+geographical counterpart of Flushing.  With both branches of the stately
+Scheld in its control, the republic would command the coast, and might
+even dispense with Ostend, which, in the judgment of Maurice, was an
+isolated and therefore not a desirable military possession.  The States-
+General were of a different opinion.  They much desired to obtain Sluy's,
+but they would not listen to the abandonment of Ostend.  It was expected
+of the stadholder, therefore, that he should seize the one and protect
+the other.  The task was a difficult one.  A less mathematical brain than
+that of Maurice of Nassau would have reeled at the problem to be solved.
+To master such a plexus of canals, estuaries, and dykes, of passages
+through swamps, of fords at low water which were obliterated by flood-
+tide; to take possession of a series of redoubts built on the only firm
+points of land, with nothing but quaking morass over which to manoeuvre
+troops or plant batteries against them, would be a difficult study, even
+upon paper.  To accomplish it in the presence of a vigilant and anxious
+foe seemed bewildering enough.
+
+At first it was the intention of the stadholder, disappointed at learning
+the occupation of the Swint, to content himself with fortifying Cadzand,
+in view of future operations at some more favourable moment?  So meagre
+a result would certainly not have given great satisfaction to the States,
+nor added much to the military reputation of Maurice.  While he hesitated
+between plunging without a clue into the watery maze around him, and
+returning discomfited from the expedition on which such high hopes had
+been built, a Flemish boor presented himself.  He offered to guide the
+army around the east and south of Sluy's, and to point out passages where
+it would be possible to cross the waters, which, through the care of
+Spinola, now seemed to forbid access to the place.  Maurice lingered no
+longer.  On the 28th April, led by the friendly boor, he advanced towards
+Oostburg.  Next morning a small force of the enemy's infantry and cavalry
+was seen, showing that there must be foothold in that direction.  He sent
+out a few companies to skirmish with those troops, who fled after a very
+brief action, and, in flying, showed their pursuers the road.  Maurice
+marched in force, straight through the waters, on the track of the
+retreating foe.  They endeavoured to rally at the fort of Coxie, which
+stood upon and commanded a dyke, but the republicans were too quick for
+them, and drove them out of the place."  The stadholder, thus obtaining
+an unexpected passage into Flanders, conceived strong hopes of success,
+despite the broken nature of the ground. Continuing to feel his way
+cautiously through the wilderness of quagmire, he soon came upon a very
+formidable obstacle.  The well-built and well-equipped redoubt of St.
+Catharine rose frowning before him, overshadowing his path, and
+completely prohibiting all further progress.  Plainly it would be
+necessary to reduce this work at once, unless he were willing to abandon
+his enterprise.  He sent back to Cadzand for artillery, but it was flood-
+tide, the waters were out, and it was not till late in the afternoon that
+nine pieces arrived.  The stadholder ordered a cannonade, less with the
+hope of producing an impression by such inadequate means on so strong a
+work, than with the intention of showing the enemy that he had brought
+field-guns with him, and was not merely on an accidental foray.  At the
+same time, having learned that the garrison, which was commanded by
+Trivulzio, was composed of only a few regular troops, and a large force
+of guerillas, he gave notice that such combatants were not entitled to
+quarter, and that if captured they would be all put to the sword.  The
+reply to this threat was not evacuation but defiance.  Especially a
+volunteer ensign mounted upon a rampart, and danced about, waving his
+flag gaily in the face of the assailants.  Maurice bitterly remarked to
+his staff that such a man alone was enough to hold the fort.  As it was
+obvious that the place would require a siege in form, and that it would
+be almost impossible to establish batteries upon that quaking soil, where
+there was no dry land for cavalry or artillery to move, Maurice ordered
+the nine guns to be carried back to Cadzand that night, betaking himself,
+much disappointed, in the same direction."  Yet it so happened that the
+cannoneers, floundering through the bogs, made such an outcry--especially
+when one of their guns became so bemired that it was difficult for them
+to escape the disgrace of losing it--that the garrison, hearing a great
+tumult, which they could not understand, fell into one of those panics to
+which raw and irregular troops are liable.  Nothing would convince them
+that fresh artillery had not arrived, that the terrible stadholder with
+an immense force was not creating invincible batteries, and that they
+should be all butchered in cold blood, according to proclamation, before
+the dawn of day.  They therefore evacuated the place under cover of
+the night, so that this absurd accident absolutely placed Maurice in
+possession of the very fort--without striking a blow--which he was about
+to abandon in despair, and which formed the first great obstacle to his
+advance.
+
+Having occupied St. Catharine's, he moved forward to Ysendyke, a strongly
+fortified place three leagues to the eastward of Sluys and invested it in
+form.  Meantime a great danger was impending over him.  A force of well-
+disciplined troops, to the number of two thousand, dropped down in boats
+from Sluy's to Cadzand, for the purpose of surprising the force left to
+guard that important place.
+
+The expedition was partially successful.  Six hundred landed; beating
+down all opposition.  But a few Scotch companies held firm, and by hard
+fighting were able at last to drive the invaders back to their sloops,
+many of which were sunk in the affray, with all on board.  The rest
+ignominiously retreated.  Had the enterprise been as well executed as it
+was safely planned, it would have gone hard with the stadholder and his
+army.  It is difficult to see in what way he could have extricated
+himself from such a dilemma, being thus cut off from his supplies and his
+fleet, and therefore from all possibility of carrying out his design or
+effecting his escape to Zeeland.  Certainly thus far, fortune had
+favoured his bold adventure.
+
+He now sent his own trumpeter, Master Hans, to summon Ysendyke to a
+surrender.  The answer was a bullet which went through the head of
+unfortunate Master Hans.  Maurice, enraged at this barbarous violation of
+the laws of war, drew his lines closer.  Next day the garrison, numbering
+six hundred, mostly Italians, capitulated, and gave up the musketeer who
+had murdered the trumpeter.
+
+Two days later the army appeared before Aardenburg, a well-fortified
+town four miles south of Sluys.  It surrendered disgracefully, without
+striking a blow.  The place was a most important position for the
+investment of Sluys.  Four or five miles further towards the west, two
+nearly parallel streams, both navigable, called the Sweet and the Salt,
+ran from Dam to Sluys.  It was a necessary but most delicate operation,
+to tie up these two important arteries.  An expedition despatched in this
+direction came upon Trivulzio with a strong force of cavalry, posted at a
+pass called Stamper's Hook, which controlled the first of these streams.
+The narrowness of the pathway gave the advantage to the Italian
+commander.  A warm action took place, in which the republican cavalry
+were worsted, and Paul Bax severely wounded.  Maurice coming up with the
+infantry at a moment when the prospect was very black, turned defeat into
+victory and completely routed the enemy, who fled from the precious
+position with a loss of five hundred killed and three hundred prisoners,
+eleven officers among them.  The Sweet was now in the stadholder's
+possession.
+
+Next day he marched against the Salt, at a pass where fourteen hundred
+Spaniards were stationed.  Making very ostentatious preparations for an
+attack upon this position, he suddenly fell backwards down the stream to
+a point which he had discovered to be fordable at low water, and marched
+his whole army through the stream while the skirmishing was going on a
+few miles farther up.  The Spaniards, discovering their error, and
+fearing to be cut off, scampered hastily away to Dam.  Both streams were
+now in the control of the republican army, while the single fort of St.
+Joris was all that was now interposed between Maurice and the much-
+coveted Swint.  This redoubt, armed with nine guns, and provided with a
+competent, garrison, was surrendered on the 23rd May.
+
+The Swint, or great sea-channel of Sluys, being now completely in the
+possession of the stadholder, he deliberately proceeded to lay out his
+lines, to make his entrenched camp, and to invest his city with the
+beautiful neatness which ever characterized his sieges.  A groan came
+from the learned Lipsius, as he looked from the orthodox shades of
+Louvain upon the progress of the heretic prince.
+
+"Would that I were happier," he cried, "but things are not going on in
+Flanders as I could wish.  How easy it would have been to save Sluys,
+which we are now trying so hard to do, had we turned our attention
+thither in time!  But now we have permitted the enemy to entrench and
+fortify himself, and we are the less excusable because we know to our
+cost how felicitously he fights with the spade, and that he builds works
+like an ancient Roman .  .  .  .  .  Should we lose Sluys, which God
+forbid, how much strength and encouragement will be acquired by the foe,
+and by all who secretly or openly favour him!  Our neighbours are all
+straining their eyes, as from a watch-tower, eager to see the result of
+all these doings.  But what if they too should begin to move?  Where
+should we be?  I pray God to have mercy on the Netherlanders, whom He has
+been so many years chastising with heavy whips."
+
+It was very true.  The man with the spade had been allowed to work too
+long at his felicitous vocation.  There had been a successful effort made
+to introduce reinforcements to the garrison.  Troops, to the number of
+fifteen hundred, had been added to those already shut up there, but the
+attempts to send in supplies were not so fortunate.  Maurice had
+completely invested the town before the end of May, having undisputed
+possession of the harbour and of all the neighbouring country.  He was
+himself encamped on the west side of the Swint; Charles van der Noot
+lying on the south.  The submerged meadows, stretching all around in the
+vicinity of the haven, he had planted thickly with gunboats.  Scarcely a
+bird or a fish could go into or out of the place.  Thus the stadholder
+exhibited to the Spaniards who, fifteen miles off towards the west, had
+been pounding and burrowing three years long before Ostend without
+success, what he understood by a siege.
+
+On the 22nd of May a day of solemn prayer and fasting was, by command of
+Maurice, celebrated throughout the besieging camp.  In order that the day
+should be strictly kept in penance, mortification, and thanksgiving, it
+was ordered, on severe penalties, that neither the commissaries nor
+sutlers should dispense any food whatever, throughout the twenty-four
+hours.  Thus the commander-in-chief of the republic prepared his troops
+for the work before them.
+
+In the very last days of May the experiment was once more vigorously
+tried to send in supplies.  A thousand galley-slaves, the remnant of
+Frederic Spinola's unlucky naval forces, whose services were not likely
+very soon to be required at sea, were sent out into the drowned land,
+accompanied by five hundred infantry.  Simultaneously Count Berlaymont,
+at the head of four thousand men, conveying a large supply of provisions
+and munitions, started from Dam.  Maurice, apprised of the adventure,
+sallied forth with two thousand troops to meet them.  Near Stamper's Hook
+he came upon a detachment of Berlaymont's force, routed them, and took a
+couple of hundred prisoners.  Learning from them that Berlaymont himself,
+with the principal part of his force, had passed farther on, he started
+off in pursuit; but, unfortunately taking a different path through the
+watery wilderness from the one selected by the flying foe, he was not
+able to prevent his retreat by a circuitous route to Dam.  From the
+prisoners, especially from the galley-slaves, who had no reason for
+disguising the condition of the place, he now learned that there were
+plenty of troops in Sluys, but that there was already a great lack of
+provisions.  They had lost rather than gained by their success in
+introducing reinforcements without supplies.  Upon this information
+Maurice now resolved to sit quietly down and starve out the garrison.
+If Spinola, in consequence, should raise the siege of Ostend, in order
+to relieve a better town, he was prepared to give him battle.  If the
+marquis held fast to his special work, Sluys was sure to surrender.
+This being the position of affairs, the deputies of the States-General
+took their leave of the stadholder, and returned to the Hague.
+
+Two months passed.  It was midsummer, and the famine in the beleaguered
+town had become horrible.  The same hideous spectacle was exhibited as on
+all occasions where thousands of human beings are penned together without
+food.  They ate dogs, cats, and rats, the weeds from the churchyards, old
+saddles, and old shoes, and, when all was gone, they began to eat each
+other.  The small children diminished rapidly in numbers, while beacons
+and signals of distress were fired day and night, that the obdurate
+Spinola, only a few miles off, might at last move to their relief.
+
+The archdukes too were beginning to doubt whether the bargain were a
+good one.  To give a strong, new, well-fortified city, with the best of
+harbours, in exchange for a heap of rubbish which had once been Ostend,
+seemed unthrifty enough.  Moreover, they had not got Ostend, while sure
+to lose Sluys.  At least the cardinal could no longer afford to dispense
+with the service of his beat corps of veterans who had demanded their
+wages so insolently, and who had laughed at his offer of excommunication
+by way of payment so heartily.  Flinging away his pride, he accordingly
+made a treaty with the mutinous "squadron" at Grave, granting an entire
+pardon for all their offences, and promising full payment of their
+arrears.  Until funds should be collected sufficient for this purpose,
+they were to receive twelve stivers a day each foot-soldier, and twenty-
+four stivers each cavalryman, and were to have the city of Roermond in
+pledge.  The treaty was negotiated by Guerrera, commandant of Ghent
+citadel, and by the Archbishop of Roermond, while three distinguished
+hostages were placed in the keeping of the mutineers until the contract
+should be faithfully executed: Guerrera himself, Count Fontenoy, son of
+Marquis d'Havre, and Avalos, commander of a Spanish legion.  Thus, after
+making a present of the services of these veterans for a twelvemonth to
+the stadholder, and after employing a very important portion of his
+remaining forces in a vain attempt to reduce their revolt, the archduke
+had now been fain to purchase their submission by conceding all their
+demands.  It would have been better economy perhaps to come to this
+conclusion at an earlier day.
+
+It would likewise have been more judicious, according to the lamentations
+of Justus Lipsius, had the necessity of saving Sluys been thought of in
+time.  Now that it was thoroughly enclosed, so that a mouse could scarce
+creep through the lines, the archduke was feverish to send in a thousand
+wagon loads of provisions.  Spinola, although in reality commander-in-
+chief of a Spanish army, and not strictly subject to the orders of the
+Flemish sovereigns, obeyed the appeal of the archduke, but he obeyed most
+reluctantly.  Two-thirds of Ostend had been effaced, and it was hard to
+turn even for a moment from the spot until all should have been
+destroyed.
+
+Leaving Rivas and Bucquoy to guard the entrenchments, and to keep
+steadily to the work, Spinola took the field with a large force of all
+arms, including the late mutineers and the troops of Count Trivulzio.
+On the 8th August he appeared in the neighbourhood of the Salt and Sweet
+streams, and exchanged a few cannon-shots with the republicans.  Next day
+he made a desperate assault with three thousand men and some companies of
+cavalry, upon Lewis William's quarters, where he had reason to believe
+the lines were weakest.  He received from that most vigilant commander
+a hearty welcome, however, and after a long skirmish was obliged to
+withdraw, carrying off his dead and wounded, together with a few cart-
+horses which had been found grazing outside the trenches.  Not satisfied
+with these trophies or such results, he remained several days inactive,
+and then suddenly whirled around Aardenburg with his whole army, directly
+southward of Sluys, seized the forts of St. Catharine and St. Philip,
+which had been left with very small garrisons, and then made a furious
+attempt to break the lines at Oostburg, hoping to cross the fords at that
+place, and thus push his way into the isle of Cadzand.  The resistance to
+his progress was obstinate, the result for a time doubtful.  After severe
+fighting however he crossed the waters of Oostburg in the face of the
+enemy.  Maurice meantime had collected all his strength at the vital
+position of Cadzand, hoping to deal, or at least to parry, a mortal blow.
+
+On the 17th, on Cadzand dyke, between two redoubts, Spinola again met
+Lewis William, who had been transferred to that important position.
+A severe struggle ensued.  The Spaniards were in superior force, and
+Lewis William, commanding the advance only of the States troops, was hard
+pressed.  Moving always in the thickest of the fight, he would probably
+have that day laid down his life, as so many of his race had done before
+in the cause of the republic, had not Colonel van Dorp come to his
+rescue, and so laid about him with a great broad sword, that the dyke was
+kept until Maurice arrived with Eytzinga's Frisian regiment and other
+reserves.  Van Dorp then fell covered with wounds.  Here was the decisive
+combat.  The two commanders-in-chief met face to face for the first time,
+and could Spinola have gained the position of Cadzand the fate of Maurice
+must have been sealed.  But all his efforts were vain.  The stadholder,
+by coolness and promptness, saved the day, and inflicted a bloody repulse
+upon the Catholics.  Spinola had displayed excellent generalship, but it
+is not surprising that the young volunteer should have failed upon his
+first great field day to defeat Maurice of Nassau and his cousin Lewis
+William.  He withdrew discomfited at last, leaving several hundred dead
+upon the field, definitely renouncing all hope of relieving Sluys, and
+retiring by way of Dam to his camp before Ostend.  Next day the town
+capitulated.
+
+The garrison were allowed to depart with the honours of war, and the same
+terms were accorded to the inhabitants, both in secular and religious
+matters, as were usual when Maurice re-occupied any portion of the
+republic.  Between three and four thousand creatures, looking rather like
+ghosts from the churchyards than living soldiers, marched out, with drums
+beating, colours displayed, matches lighted, and bullet in mouth.  Sixty
+of them fell dead before the dismal procession had passed out of the
+gates.  Besides these troops were nearly fifteen hundred galley-slaves,
+even more like shadows than the rest, as they had been regularly sent
+forth during the latter days of the siege to browse upon soutenelle in
+the submerged meadows, or to drown or starve if unable to find a
+sufficient supply of that weed.  These unfortunate victims of Mahometan
+and Christian tyranny were nearly all Turks, and by the care of the Dutch
+Government were sent back by sea to their homes.  A few of them entered
+the service of the States.
+
+The evacuation of Sluys by Governor Serrano and his garrison was upon
+the 20th August.  Next day the stadholder took possession, bestowing the
+nominal government of the place upon his brother Frederic Henry.  The
+atmosphere, naturally enough, was pestiferous, and young Count Lewis
+Gunther of Nassau, who had so brilliantly led the cavalry on the famous
+day of Nieuport, died of fever soon after entering the town infinitely
+regretted by every one who wished well to the republic.
+
+Thus an important portion of Zeeland was restored, to its natural owners.
+A seaport which in those days was an excellent one, and more than a
+compensation for the isolated fishing village already beleaguered for
+upwards of three years, had been captured in three months.  The States-
+General congratulated their stadholder on such prompt and efficient work,
+while the garrison of Ostend, first learning the authentic news seven
+days afterwards, although at a distance of only fourteen miles, had cause
+to go upon their knees and sing praises to the Most High.
+
+The question now arose as to the relief of Ostend.  Maurice was decidedly
+opposed to any such scheme.  He had got a better Ostend in Slays, and he
+saw no motive for spending money and blood in any further attempt to gain
+possession of a ruin, which, even if conquered, could only with extreme
+difficulty be held.  The States were of a diametrically opposite opinion.
+They insisted that the stadholder, so soon he could complete his
+preparations, should march straight upon Spinola's works and break up the
+siege, even at the risk of a general action.  They were willing once more
+to take the terrible chance of a defeat in Flanders.  Maurice, with a
+heavy heart, bowed to their decision, showing by his conduct the very
+spirit of a republican soldier, obeying the civil magistrate, even when
+that obedience was like to bring disaster upon the commonwealth.  But
+much was to be done before he could undertake this new adventure.
+
+Meantime the garrison in Ostend were at their last gasp.  On being asked
+by the States-General whether it was possible to hold out for twenty days
+longer, Marquette called a council of officers, who decided that they
+would do their best, but that it was impossible to fix a day or hour when
+resistance must cease.  Obviously, however, the siege was in its extreme
+old age.  The inevitable end was approaching.
+
+Before the middle of September the enemy was thoroughly established in
+possession of the new Hell's Mouth, the new Porcupine, and all the other
+bastions of the new entrenchment.  On the 13th of that month the last
+supreme effort was made, and the Sand Hill, that all-important redoubt,
+which during these three dismal years had triumphantly resisted every
+assault, was at last carried by storm.  The enemy had now gained
+possession of the whole town except Little Troy.  The new harbour would
+be theirs in a few hours, and as for Troy itself, those hastily and
+flimsily constructed ramparts were not likely to justify the vaunts
+uttered when they were thrown up nor to hold out many minutes before the
+whole artillery of Spinola.  Plainly on this last morsel of the fatal
+sandbank the word surrender must be spoken, unless the advancing trumpets
+of Maurice should now be heard.  But there was no such welcome sound in
+the air.  The weather was so persistently rainy and stormy that the roads
+became impassable, and Maurice, although ready and intending to march
+towards Spinola to offer him battle, was unable for some days to move.
+Meantime a council, summoned by Marquette, of all the officers, decided
+that Ostend must be abandoned now that Ostend had ceased to exist.
+
+On the 20th September the Accord was signed with Spinola.  The garrison
+were to march out with their arms.  They were to carry off four cannon
+but no powder.  All clerical persons were to leave the place, with their
+goods and chattels.  All prisoners taken on both sides during the siege
+were to be released.  Burghers, sutlers, and others, to go whither they
+would, undisturbed.  And thus the archdukes, after three years and
+seventy-seven days of siege, obtained their prize.  Three thousand men,
+in good health, marched out of little Troy with the honours of war.  The
+officers were entertained by Spinola and his comrades at a magnificent
+banquet, in recognition of the unexampled heroism with which the town had
+been defended.  Subsequently the whole force marched to the headquarters
+of the States' army in and about Sluys.  They were received by Prince
+Maurice, who stood bareheaded and surrounded by his most distinguished
+officers; to greet them and to shake them warmly by the hand.  Surely no
+defeated garrison ever deserved more respect from friend or foe.
+
+The Archduke Albert and the Infants Isabella entered the place
+in triumph, if triumph it could be called.  It would be difficult to
+imagine a more desolate scene.  The artillery of the first years of the
+seventeenth century was not the terrible enginry of destruction that it
+has become in the last third of the nineteenth, but a cannonade,
+continued so steadily and so long, had done its work.  There were no
+churches, no houses, no redoubts, no bastions, no walls, nothing but a
+vague and confused mass of ruin.  Spinola conducted his imperial guests
+along the edge of extinct volcanoes, amid upturned cemeteries, through
+quagmires which once were moats, over huge mounds of sand, and vast
+shapeless masses of bricks and masonry, which had been forts.  He
+endeavoured to point out places where mines had been exploded, where
+ravelins had been stormed, where the assailants had been successful, and
+where they had been bloodily repulsed.  But it was all loathsome, hideous
+rubbish.  There were no human habitations, no hovels, no casemates.  The
+inhabitants had burrowed at last in the earth, like the dumb creatures of
+the swamps and forests.  In every direction the dykes had burst, and the
+sullen wash of the liberated waves, bearing hither and thither the
+floating wreck of fascines and machinery, of planks and building
+materials, sounded far and wide over what should have been dry land.  The
+great ship channel, with the unconquered Half-moon upon one side and the
+incomplete batteries and platforms of Bucquoy on the other, still
+defiantly opened its passage to the sea, and the retiring fleets of the
+garrison were white in the offing.  All around was the grey expanse of
+stormy ocean, without a cape or a headland to break its monotony, as the
+surges rolled mournfully in upon a desolation more dreary than their own.
+The atmosphere was mirky and surcharged with rain, for the wild
+equinoctial storm which had held Maurice spell-bound had been raging over
+land and sea for many days.  At every step the unburied skulls of brave
+soldiers who had died in the cause of freedom grinned their welcome to
+the conquerors.  Isabella wept at the sight.  She had cause to weep.
+Upon that miserable sandbank more than a hundred thousand men had laid
+down their lives by her decree, in order that she and her husband might
+at last take possession of a most barren prize.  This insignificant
+fragment of a sovereignty which her wicked old father had presented to
+her on his deathbed--a sovereignty which he had no more moral right or
+actual power to confer than if it had been in the planet Saturn--had at
+last been appropriated at the cost of all this misery.  It was of no
+great value, although its acquisition had caused the expenditure of at
+least eight millions of florins, divided in nearly equal proportions
+between the two belligerents.  It was in vain that great immunities were
+offered to those who would remain, or who would consent to settle in the
+foul Golgotha.  The original population left the place in mass.  No human
+creatures were left save the wife of a freebooter and her paramour, a
+journeyman blacksmith.  This unsavoury couple, to whom entrance into the
+purer atmosphere of Zeeland was denied, thenceforth shared with the
+carrion crows the amenities of Ostend.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+     Equation between the contending powers--Treaty of peace between King
+     James and the archdukes and the King of Spain--Position of the
+     Provinces--States envoy in England to be styled ambassador--Protest
+     of the Spanish ambassador--Effect of James's peace-treaty on the
+     people of England--Public rejoicings for the victory at Sluys--
+     Spinola appointed commander-in-chief of the Spanish forces--
+     Preparations for a campaign against the States--Seizure of Dutch
+     cruisers--International discord--Destruction of Sarmiento's fleet by
+     Admiral Haultain--Projected enterprise against Antwerp--Descent of
+     Spinola on the Netherland frontier--Oldenzaal and Lingen taken--
+     Movements of Prince Maurice--Encounter of the two armies--Panic of
+     the Netherlanders--Consequent loss and disgrace--Wachtendonk and
+     Cracow taken by Spinola--Spinola's reception in Spain--Effect of his
+     victories--Results of the struggle between Freedom and Absolutism--
+     Affairs in the East--Amboyna taken by Van der Hagen--Contest for
+     possession of the Clove Islands--Commercial treaty between the
+     States and the King of Ternate--Hostilities between the Kings of
+     Ternate and Tydor--Expulsion of the Portuguese from the Moluccas--
+     Du Terrail's attempted assault on Bergen-op-Zoom--Attack on the
+     Dunkirk pirate fleet--Practice of executing prisoners captured at
+     sea.
+
+I have invited the reader's attention to the details of this famous siege
+because it was not an episode, but almost the sum total, of the great war
+during the period occupied by its events.  The equation between the
+contending forces indicated the necessity of peace.  That equation seemed
+for the time to have established itself over all Europe.  France had long
+since withdrawn from the actual strife, and kept its idle thunders in a
+concealed although ever threatening hand.  In the East the Pacha of Buda
+had become Pacha of Pest.  Even Gran was soon to fall before the Turk,
+whose advancing horse-tails might thus almost be descried from the walls
+of Vienna.  Stephen Botschkay meantime had made himself master of
+Transylvania, concluded peace with Ahmet, and laughed at the Emperor
+Rudolph for denouncing him as a rebel.
+
+Between Spain and England a far different result had been reached than
+the one foreshadowed in the portentous colloquies between King James and
+Maximilian de Bethune.  Those conferences have been purposely described
+with some minuteness, in order that the difference often existing between
+vast projects and diametrically opposed and very insignificant
+conclusions might once more be exhibited.
+
+In the summer of 1603 it had been firmly but mysteriously arranged
+between the monarchs of France and Great Britain that the House of
+Austria should be crushed, its territories parcelled out at the
+discretion of those two potentates, the imperial crown taken from the
+Habsburgs, the Spaniards driven out of the Netherlands, an alliance
+offensive and defensive made with the Dutch republic, while the East and
+West Indies were, to be wrested by main force of the allies, from Spain,
+whose subjects were thenceforth to be for ever excluded from those
+lucrative regions.  As for the Jesuits, who were to James as loathsome
+as were the Puritans to Elizabeth, the British sovereign had implored the
+ambassador of his royal brother, almost with tears, never to allow that
+pestilential brood to regain an entrance into his dominions.
+
+In the summer of 1604 King James made a treaty of peace and amity with
+the archdukes and with the monarch of Spain, thus extending his friendly
+relations with the doomed house of Austria.  The republic of the
+Netherlands was left to fight her battles alone; her imaginary allies
+looking down upon her struggle with benevolent indifference.  As for the
+Indies, not a syllable of allusion in the treaty was permitted by Spain
+to that sacred subject; the ambassador informing the British Government
+that he gave them access to twelve kingdoms and two seas, while Spain
+acquired by the treaty access only to two kingdoms and one sea.  The new
+world, however, east or west, from the Antilles to the Moluccas, was the
+private and indefeasible property of his Catholic Majesty.  On religious
+matters, it was agreed that English residents in Spain should not be
+compelled to go to mass, but that they should kneel in the street to the
+Host unless they could get out of the ways. In regard to the Netherlands,
+it was agreed by the two contracting powers that one should never assist
+the rebels or enemies of the other.  With regard to the cities and
+fortresses of Brill, Flushing, Rammekens, and other cautionary places,
+where English garrisons were maintained, and which King James was bound
+according to the contracts of Queen Elizabeth never to restore except to
+those who had pledged them to the English crown--the king would uphold
+those contracts.  He would, however, endeavour to make an arrangement
+with the States by which they should agree within a certain period to
+make their peace with Spain.  Should they refuse or fail, he would then
+consider himself liberated from these previous engagements and free to
+act concerning those cities in an honourable and reasonable manner, as
+became a friendly king?  Meantime the garrisons should not in any way
+assist the Hollanders in their hostilities with Spain.  English subjects
+were forbidden to carry into Spain or the obedient Netherlands any
+property or merchandize belonging to the Hollanders, or to make use of
+Dutch vessels in their trade with Spain.  Both parties agreed to do their
+best to bring about a pacification in the Netherlands.
+
+No irony certainly could be more exquisite that this last-named article.
+This was the end of that magnificent conception, the great Anglo-French
+League against the house of Austria.  King James would combine his
+efforts with King Philip to pacify the Netherlands.  The wolf and the
+watchdog would unite to bring back the erring flock to the fold.
+Meantime James would keep the cautionary towns in his clutches, not
+permitting their garrisons or any of his subjects to assist the rebels on
+sea or shore.  As for the Jesuits, their triumphant re-appearance in
+France, and the demolition of the pyramid raised to their dishonour on
+the site of the house where John Castel, who had stabbed Henry IV., had
+resided, were events about to mark the opening year.  Plainly enough
+Secretary Cecil had out-generalled the French party.
+
+The secret treaty of Hampton Court, the result of the efforts of Rosny
+and Olden-Barneveld in July of the previous year, was not likely to be
+of much service in protecting the republic.  James meant to let the dead
+treaties bury their dead, to live in peace with all the world, and to
+marry his sons and daughters to Spanish Infantes and Infantas.  Meantime,
+although he had sheathed the sword which Elizabeth had drawn against the
+common enemy, and had no idea of fighting or spending money for the
+States, he was willing that their diplomatic agent should be called
+ambassador.  The faithful and much experienced Noel de Caron coveted that
+distinction, and moved thereby the spleen of Henry's envoy at the Hague,
+Buzanval, who probably would not have objected to the title himself.
+"'Twill be a folly," he said, "for him to present himself on the pavement
+as a prancing steed, and then be treated like a poor hack.  He has been
+too long employed to put himself in such a plight.  But there are
+lunatics everywhere and of all ages."
+
+Never had the Advocate seemed so much discouraged.  Ostend had fallen,
+and the defection of the British sovereign was an off-set for the
+conquest of Sluys.  He was more urgent with the French Government for
+assistance than he had ever been before.  "A million florins a year from
+France," he said "joined to two millions raised in the provinces, would
+enable them to carry on the war.  The ship was in good condition," he
+added, "and fit for a long navigation without danger of shipwreck if
+there were only biscuit enough on board."  Otherwise she was lost.
+Before that time came he should quit the helm which he had been holding
+the more resolutely since the peace of Vervins because the king had told
+him, when concluding it, that if three years' respite should be given him
+he would enter into the game afresh, and take again upon his shoulders
+the burthen which inevitable necessity had made him throw down.  "But,"
+added Olden-Barneveld, bitterly, "there is little hope of it now, after
+his neglect of the many admirable occasions during the siege of Ostend."
+
+So soon as the Spanish ambassador learned that Caron was to be
+accepted into the same diplomatic rank as his own, he made an infinite
+disturbance, protested moat loudly and passionately to the king at the
+indignity done to his master by this concession to the representative of
+a crew of traitors and rebels, and demanded in the name of the treaty
+just concluded that Caron should be excluded in such capacity from all
+access to court.
+
+As James was nearly forty years of age, as the Hollanders had been
+rebels ever since he was born, and as the King of Spain had exercised no
+sovereignty over them within his memory, this was naturally asking too
+much of him in the name of his new-born alliance with Spain.  So he
+assumed a position of great dignity, notwithstanding the Constable's
+clamour, and declared his purpose to give audience to the agents of the
+States by whatever title they presented themselves before him.  In so
+doing he followed the example, he said, of others who (a strange
+admission on his part) were as wise as himself.  It was not for him to
+censure the crimes and faults of the States, if such they had committed.
+He had not been the cause of their revolt from Spanish authority, and it
+was quite sufficient that he had stipulated to maintain neutrality
+between the two belligerents's.  And with this the ambassador of his
+Catholic Majesty, having obtained the substance of a very advantageous
+treaty, was fain to abandon opposition to the shadowy title by which
+James sought to indemnify the republic for his perfidy.
+
+The treaty of peace with Spain gave no pleasure to the English public.
+There was immense enthusiasm in London at the almost simultaneous fall of
+Sluys, but it was impossible for the court to bring about a popular
+demonstration of sympathy with the abandonment of the old ally and the
+new-born affection for the ancient enemy.  "I can assure your
+mightinesses," wrote Caron, "that no promulgation was ever received in
+London with more sadness.  No mortal has shown the least satisfaction in
+words or deeds, but, on the contrary, people have cried out openly, 'God
+save our good neighbours the States of Holland and Zeeland, and grant
+them victory!'  On Sunday, almost all the preachers gave thanks from
+their pulpits for the victory which their good neighbours had gained at
+Sluys, but would not say a word about the peace.  The people were
+admonished to make bonfires, but you may be very sure not a bonfire was
+to be seen.  But, in honour of the victory, all the vessels in St.
+Catharine's Docks fired salutes at which the Spaniards were like to burst
+with spite.  The English clap their hands and throw their caps in the air
+when they hear anything published favourable to us, but, it must be
+confessed, they are now taking very dismal views of affairs.  'Vox populi
+vox Dei.'"
+
+The rejoicing in Paris was scarcely less enthusiastic or apparently
+less sincere than in London.  "The news of the surrender of Sluys," wrote
+Aerasens, "is received with so much joy by small and great that one would
+have said it was their own exploit.  His Majesty has made such
+demonstrations in his actions and discourse that he has not only been
+advised by his council to dissemble in the matter, but has undergone
+reproaches from the pope's nuncius of having made a league with your
+Mightinesses to the prejudice of the King of Spain.  His Majesty wishes
+your Mightinesses prosperity with all his heart, yea so that he would
+rather lose his right arm than see your Mightinesses in danger.  Be
+assured that he means roundly, and we should pray God for his long life;
+for I don't see that we can expect anything from these regions after his
+death."
+
+It was ere long to be seen, however, roundly as the king meant it, that
+the republic was to come into grave peril without causing him to lose his
+right arm, or even to wag his finger, save in reproach of their
+Mightinesses.
+
+The republic, being thus left to fight its battles alone, girded its
+loins anew for the conflict.  During the remainder of the year 1604,
+however, there were no military operations of consequence.  Both
+belligerents needed a brief repose.
+
+The siege of Ostend had not been a siege.  It was a long pitched battle
+between the new system and the old, between absolutism and the spirit of
+religious, political and mercantile freedom.  Absolutism had gained the
+lists on which the long duel had been fought, but the republic had
+meantime exchanged that war-blasted spot for a valuable and commodious
+position.
+
+It was certainly an advantage, as hostilities were necessarily to have
+continued somewhere during all that period, that all the bloodshed and
+desolation had been concentrated upon one insignificant locality, and one
+more contiguous to the enemy's possessions than to those of the united
+States.  It was very doubtful, however, whether all that money and blood
+might not have been expended in some other manner more beneficial to the
+cause of the archdukes.  At least it could hardly be maintained that they
+took anything by the capitulation of Ostend but the most barren and
+worthless of trophies.  Eleven old guns, partly broken, and a small
+quantity of ammunition, were all the spoils of war found in the city
+after its surrender.
+
+The Marquis Spinola went to Spain.  On passing through Paris he was
+received with immense enthusiasm by Henry IV., whose friendship for the
+States, and whose desperate designs against the house of Austria, did not
+prevent him from warmly congratulating the great Spanish general on his
+victory.  It was a victory, said Henry, which he could himself have never
+achieved, and, in recognition of so great a triumph, he presented Spinola
+with a beautiful Thracian horse, valued at twelve hundred ducats.
+Arriving in Spain, the conqueror found himself at once the object of the
+open applause and the scarcely concealed hatred of the courtiers and
+politicians.  He ardently desired to receive as his guerdon the rank of
+grandee of Spain.  He met with a refusal.  To keep his hat on his head in
+presence of the sovereign was the highest possible reward.  Should that
+be bestowed upon him now, urged Lerma, what possible recompense could be
+imagined for the great services which all felt confident that he was
+about to render in the future?  He must continue to remove his hat in
+the monarch's company. Meantime, if he wished the title of prince, with
+considerable revenues attached to his principality, this was at his
+disposal. It must be confessed that in a monarchy where the sentiment
+of honour was supposed to be the foundation of the whole
+structure there is something chivalrous and stimulating to the
+imagination in this preference by the great general of a shadowy but
+rare distinction to more substantial acquisitions.  Nevertheless, as the
+grandeeship was refused, it is not recorded that he was displeased with
+the principality.  Meantime there was a very busy intrigue to deprive him
+of the command-in-chief of the Catholic forces in Flanders, and one so
+nearly successful that Mexia, governor of Antwerp citadel, was actually
+appointed in Spinola's stead.  It was only after long and anxious
+conferences at Valladolid with the king and the Duke of Lerma, and after
+repeated statements in letters from the archdukes that all their hopes of
+victory depended on retaining the Genoese commander-in-chief, that the
+matter was finally arranged.  Mexia received an annual pension of eight
+thousand ducats, and to Spinola was assigned five hundred ducats monthly,
+as commander-in-chief under the archduke, with an equal salary as agent
+for the king's affairs in Flanders.
+
+Early in the spring he returned to Brussels, having made fresh
+preparations for the new campaign in which he was to measure himself
+before the world against Maurice of Nassau.
+
+Spinola had removed the thorn from the Belgic lion's foot: "Ostendae
+erasit fatalis Spinola spinam."  And although it may be doubted whether
+the relief was as thorough as had been hoped, yet a freedom of movement
+had unquestionably been gained.  There was now at least what for a long
+time had not existed, a possibility for imagining some new and perhaps
+more effective course of campaigning.   The young Genoese commander-in-
+chief returned from Spain early in May, with the Golden Fleece around his
+neck, and with full powers from the Catholic king to lay out his work,
+subject only to the approbation of the archduke.  It was not probable
+that Albert, who now thoroughly admired and leaned upon the man of whom
+he had for a time been disposed to be jealous, would interfere with his
+liberty of action.  There had also been--thanks to Spinola's influence
+with the cabinet at Madrid and the merchants of Genoa--much more energy
+in recruiting and in providing the necessary sinews of war.  Moreover it
+had been resolved to make the experiment of sending some of the new
+levies by sea, instead of subjecting them all to the long and painful
+overland march through Spain, Italy, and Germany.  A terzo of infantry
+was on its way from Naples, and two more were expected from Milan, but it
+was decided that the Spanish troops should be embarked on board a fleet
+of transports, mainly German and English, and thus carried to the shores
+of the obedient Netherlands.
+
+The States-General got wind of these intentions, and set Vice-Admiral
+Haultain upon the watch to defeat the scheme.  That well-seasoned mariner
+accordingly, with a sufficient fleet of war-galleots, cruised thenceforth
+with great assiduity in the chops of the channel.  Already the late
+treaty between Spain and England had borne fruits of bitterness to the
+republic.  The Spanish policy had for the time completely triumphed in
+the council of James.  It was not surprising therefore that the partisans
+of that policy should occasionally indulge in manifestations of
+malevolence towards the upstart little commonwealth which had presumed
+to enter into commercial rivalry with the British realm, and to assert a
+place among the nations of the earth.  An order had just been issued by
+the English Government that none of its subjects should engage in the
+naval service of any foreign power.  This decree was a kind of corollary
+to the Spanish treaty, was levelled directly against the Hollanders, and
+became the pretext of intolerable arrogance, both towards their
+merchantmen and their lesser war-vessels.  Admiral Monson, an especial
+partisan of Spain, was indefatigable in exercising the right he claimed
+of visiting foreign vessels off the English coast, in search of English
+sailors violating the proclamation of neutrality.  On repeated occasions
+prizes taken by Dutch cruisers from the Spaniards, and making their way
+with small prize crews to the ports of the republic, were overhauled,
+visited, and seized by the English admiral, who brought the vessels into
+the harbours of his own country, liberated the crews, and handed ships
+and cargoes over to the Spanish ambassador.  Thus prizes fairly gained by
+nautical skill and hard fighting, off Spain, Portugal, Brazil, or even
+more distant parts of the world, were confiscated almost in sight of
+port, in utter disregard of public law or international decency.  The
+States-General remonstrated with bitterness.  Their remonstrances were
+answered by copious arguments, proving, of course, to the entire
+satisfaction of the party who had done the wrong, that no practice could
+be more completely in harmony with reason and justice.  Meantime the
+Spanish ambassador sold the prizes, and appropriated the proceeds towards
+carrying on the war against the republic; the Dutch sailors, thus set
+ashore against their will and against law on the neutral coast of
+England, being left to get home as they could, or to starve if they could
+do no better.  As for the States, they had the legal arguments of their
+late ally to console them for the loss of their ships.
+
+Simultaneously with these events considerable levies of troops were made
+in England by the archduke, in spite of all the efforts of the Dutch
+ambassador to prevent this one-sided; neutrality, while at the other ends
+of the world mercantile jealousy in both the Indies was fast combining
+with other causes already rife to increase the international discord.
+Out of all this fuel it was fated that a blaze of hatred between the two
+leading powers of the new era, the United Kingdom and the United
+Republic, should one day burst forth, which was to be fanned by passion,
+prejudice, and a mistaken sentiment of patriotism and self-interest on
+both sides, and which not all the bloodshed of more than one fierce war
+could quench.  The traces of this savage sentiment are burnt deeply into
+the literature, language, and traditions of both countries; and it is
+strange enough that the epoch at which chronic wrangling and
+international coolness changed into furious antipathy between the two
+great Protestant powers of Europe--for great they already both were,
+despite the paucity of their population and resources, as compared with
+nations which were less influenced by the spirit of the age or had less
+aptness in obeying its impulse--should be dated from the famous year of
+Guy Fawkes.
+
+Meantime the Spanish troops, embarked in eight merchant ships and a few
+pinnaces, were slowly approaching their destination.  They had been
+instructed, in case they found it impracticable to enter a Flemish port,
+to make for the hospitable shores of England, the Spanish ambassador and
+those whom he had bribed at the court of James having already provided
+for their protection.  Off Dover Admiral Haultain got sight of
+Sarmiento's little fleet.  He made short work with it.  Faithfully
+carrying out the strenuous orders of the States-General, he captured some
+of the ships, burned one, and ran others aground after a very brief
+resistance.  Some of the soldiers and crews were picked up by English
+vessels cruising in the neighbourhood and narrowly watching the conflict.
+A few stragglers escaped by swimming, but by far, the greater proportion
+of the newly-arrived troops were taken prisoners, tied together two and
+two, and then, at a given signal from the admiral's ship, tossed into the
+sea.
+
+Not Peter Titelmann, nor Julian Romero, nor the Duke of Alva himself,
+ever manifested greater alacrity in wholesale murder than was shown by
+this admiral of the young republic in fulfilling the savage decrees of
+the States-General.
+
+Thus at least one-half of the legion perished.  The pursuit of the ships
+was continued within English waters, when the guns of Dover Castle opened
+vigorously upon the recent allies of England, in order to protect her
+newly-found friends in their sore distress.  Doubtless in the fervour of
+the work the Dutch admiral had violated the neutral coast of England, so
+that the cannonade from the castle waw technically justified.  It was
+however a biting satire upon the proposed Protestant league against Spain
+and universal monarchy in behalf of the Dutch republic, that England was
+already doing her best to save a Spanish legion and to sink a Dutch
+fleet.  The infraction of English sovereignty was unquestionable if
+judged by the more scrupulous theory of modern days, but it was well
+remarked by the States-General, in answer to the remonstrances of James's
+Government, that the Dutch admiral, knowing that the pirates of Dunkirk
+roamed at will through English waters in search of their prey, might have
+hoped for some indulgence of a similar character to the ships of the
+republic.
+
+Thus nearly the whole of the Spanish legion perished.  The soldiers who
+escaped to the English coast passed the winter miserably in huts, which
+they were allowed to construct on the sands, but nearly all, including
+the lieutenant-colonel commanding, Pedro Cubiera, died of famine or of
+wounds.   A few small vessels of the expedition succeeded in reaching the
+Flemish coast, and landing a slight portion of the terzo.
+
+The campaign of 1605 opened but languidly.  The strain upon the resources
+of the Netherlands, thus unaided, was becoming severe, although there
+is no doubt that, as the India traffic slowly developed itself, the
+productive force of the commonwealth visibly increased, while the
+thrifty habits of its citizens, and their comparative abstinence from
+unproductive consumption, still enabled it to bear the tremendous burthen
+of the war.  A new branch of domestic industry had grown out of the India
+trade, great quantities of raw silk being now annually imported from the
+East into Holland, to be wrought into brocades, tapestries, damasks,
+velvets, satins, and other luxurious fabrics for European consumption.
+
+It is a curious phenomenon in the history of industry that while at this
+epoch Holland was the chief seat of silk manufactures, the great
+financier of Henry IV. was congratulating his sovereign and himself that
+natural causes had for ever prevented the culture or manufacture of silk
+in France.  If such an industry were possible, he was sure that the
+decline of martial spirit in France and an eternal dearth of good French
+soldiers would be inevitable, and he even urged that the importation of
+such luxurious fabrics should be sternly prohibited, in order to preserve
+the moral health of the people.  The practical Hollanders were more
+inclined to leave silk farthingales and brocaded petticoats to be dealt
+with by thunderers from the pulpit or indignant fathers of families.
+Meantime the States-General felt instinctively that the little
+commonwealth grew richer, the more useful or agreeable things its
+burghers could call into existence out of nothingness, to be exchanged
+for the powder and bullets, timber and cordage, requisite for its eternal
+fight with universal monarchy, and that the richer the burghers grew the
+more capable they were of paying their taxes.  It was not the fault of
+the States that the insane ambition of Spain and the archdukes compelled
+them to exhaust themselves annually by the most unproductive consumption
+that man is ever likely to devise, that of scientifically slaughtering
+his brethren, because to practise economy in that regard would be to
+cease to exist, or to accept the most intolerable form of slavery.
+
+The forces put into the field in the spring of 1605 were but meagre.
+There was also, as usual, much difference of opinion between Maurice and
+Barneveld as to the most judicious manner of employing them, and as usual
+the docile stadholder submitted his better judgment to the States.  It
+can hardly be too much insisted upon that the high-born Maurice always
+deported himself in fact, and as it were unconsciously, as the citizen
+soldier of a little republic, even while personally invested with many of
+the attributes of exalted rank, and even while regarded by many of his
+leading fellow-citizens as the legitimate and predestined sovereign of
+the newly-born state.
+
+Early in the spring a great enterprise against Antwerp was projected.  It
+failed utterly.  Maurice, at Bergen-op-Zoom, despatched seven thousand
+troops up the Scheld, under command of Ernest Casimir.  The flotilla was
+a long time getting under weigh, and instead of effecting a surprise, the
+army, on reaching the walls of Antwerp, found the burghers and garrison
+not in the least astonished, but on the contrary entirely prepared.
+Ernest returned after a few insignificant skirmishes, having accomplished
+nothing.
+
+Maurice next spent a few days in reducing the castle of Wouda, not far
+from Bergen, and then, transporting his army once more to the isle of
+Cadzand, he established his headquarters at Watervliet, near Ysendyke.
+Spinola followed him, having thrown a bridge across the Scheld.  Maurice
+was disposed to reduce a fort, well called Patience, lying over against
+the isle of Walcheren.  Spinola took up a position by which he defended
+the place as with an impenetrable buckler.  A game of skill now began.
+between these two adepts in the art of war, for already the volunteer had
+taken rank among the highest professors of the new school.  It was the
+object of Maurice, who knew himself on the whole outnumbered, to divine
+his adversary's intentions.  Spinola was supposed to be aiming at Sluys,
+at Grave, at Bergen-op-Zoom, possibly even at some more remote city, like
+Rheinberg, while rumours as to his designs, flying directly from his
+camp, were as thick as birds in the air.  They were let loose on purpose
+by the artful Genoese, who all the time had a distinct and definite plan
+which was not yet suspected.  The dilatoriness of the campaign was
+exasperating.  It might be thought that the war was to last another half
+century, from the excessive inertness of both parties.  The armies had
+all gone into winter quarters in the previous November, Spinola had spent
+nearly six months in Spain, midsummer had came and gone, and still
+Maurice was at Watervliet, guessing at his adversary's first move.  On
+the whole, he had inclined to suspect a design upon Rheinberg, and had
+accordingly sent his brother Henry with a detachment to strengthen the
+garrison of that place.  On the 1st of August however he learned that
+Spinola had crossed the Meuse and the Rhine, with ten thousand foot and
+three thousand horse, and that leaving Count Bucquoy with six thousand
+foot and one thousand five hundred horse in the neighbourhood of the
+Rhine, to guard a couple of redoubts which had been constructed for a
+basis at Kaiserswerth, he was marching with all possible despatch towards
+Friesland and Groningen.
+
+The Catholic general had concealed his design in a masterly manner.  He
+had detained Maurice in the isle of Cadzand, the States still dreaming of
+a victorious invasion on their part of obedient Flanders, and the
+stadholder hesitating to quit his position of inactive observation, lest
+the moment his back was turned the rapid Spinola might whirl down upon
+Sluys, that most precious and skilfully acquired possession of the
+republic, when lo! his formidable antagonist was marching in force upon
+what the prince well knew to be her most important and least guarded
+frontier.
+
+On the 8th August the Catholic general was before Olden-zaal which he
+took in three days, and then advanced to Lingen.  Should that place fall
+--and the city was known to be most inadequately garrisoned and supplied
+--it would be easy for the foe to reduce Coeworden, and so seize the
+famous pass over the Bourtanger Morass, march straight to Embden--then in
+a state of municipal revolution on account of the chronic feuds between
+its counts and the population, and therefore an easy prey--after which
+all Friesland and Groningen would be at his mercy, and his road open to
+Holland and Utrecht; in short, into the very bowels of the republic.
+
+On the 4th August Maurice broke up his camp in Flanders, and leaving five
+thousand men under Colonel Van der Noot, to guard the positions there,
+advanced rapidly to Deventer, with the intention of saving Lingen.
+It was too late.  That very important place had been culpably neglected.
+The garrison consisted of but one cannoneer, and he had but one arm.
+A burgher guard, numbering about three hundred, made such resistance as
+they could, and the one-armed warrior fired a shot or two from a rusty
+old demi-cannon. Such opposition to the accomplished Italian was
+naturally not very effective.  On the 18th August the place capitulated.
+Maurice, arriving at Deventer, and being now strengthened by his cousin
+Lewis William with such garrison troops as could be collected, learned
+the mortifying news with sentiments almost akin to despair.  It was now
+to be a race for Coeworden, and the fleet-footed Spinola was a day's
+march at least in advance of his competitor.  The key to the fatal morass
+would soon be in his hands.  To the inexpressible joy of the stadholder,
+the Genoese seemed suddenly struck with blindness.  The prize was almost
+in his hands and he threw away all his advantages.  Instead of darting at
+once upon Coeworden he paused for nearly a month, during which period he
+seemed intoxicated with a success so rapidly achieved, and especially
+with his adroitness in outwitting the great stadholder.  On the 14th
+September he made a retrograde movement towards the Rhine, leaving two
+thousand five hundred men in Lingen.  Maurice, giving profound thanks to
+God for his enemy's infatuation, passed by Lingen, and having now, with
+his cousin's reinforcements, a force of nine thousand foot and three
+thousand horse, threw himself into Coeworden, strengthened and garrisoned
+that vital fortress which Spinola would perhaps have taken as easily as
+he had done Lingen, made all the neighbouring positions secure, and then
+fell back towards Wesel on the Rhine, in order to watch his antagonist.
+Spinola had established his headquarters at Ruhrort, a place where the
+river Ruhr empties into the Rhine.  He had yielded to the remonstrances
+of the Archbishop of Cologne, to whom Kaiserwerth belonged, and had
+abandoned the forts which Bucquoy, under his directions, had constructed
+at that place.
+
+The two armies now gazed at each other, at a respectful distance, for a
+fortnight longer, neither commander apparently having any very definite
+purpose.  At last, Maurice having well reconnoitred his enemy, perceived
+a weak point in his extended lines.  A considerable force of Italian
+cavalry, with some infantry, was stationed at the village of Mulheim, on
+the Ruhr, and apparently out of convenient supporting distance from
+Spinola's main army.  The stadholder determined to deliver a sudden blow
+upon this tender spot, break through the lines, and bring on a general
+action by surprise.  Assembling his well-seasoned and veteran troopers in
+force, he divided them into two formidable bands, one under the charge of
+his young brother Frederic Henry, the other under that most brilliant of
+cavalry officers, Marcellus Bax, hero of Turnhout and many another
+well-fought field.
+
+The river Ruhr was a wide but desultory stream, easily fordable in many
+places.  On the opposite bank to Mulheim was the Castle of Brock, and
+some hills of considerable elevation.  Bax was ordered to cross the river
+and seize the castle and the heights, Count Henry to attack the enemy's
+camp in front, while Maurice himself, following rapidly with the advance
+of infantry and wagons, was to sustain the assault.
+
+Marcellus Bax, rapid and dashing as usual, crossed the Ruhr, captured
+Broek Castle with ease, and stood ready to prevent the retreat of the
+Spaniards.  Taken by surprise in front, they would naturally seek refuge
+on the other side of the river.  That stream was not difficult for
+infantry, but as the banks were steep, cavalry could not easily extricate
+themselves from the water, except at certain prepared landings.  Bax
+waited however for some time in vain for the flying Spaniards.  It was
+not destined that the stadholder should effect many surprises that year.
+The troopers under Frederic Henry had made their approaches through an
+intricate path, often missing their way, and in far more leisurely
+fashion than was intended, so that outlying scouts had brought in
+information of the coming attack.  As Count Henry approached the village,
+Trivulzio's cavalry was found drawn up in battle array, formidable in
+numbers, and most fully prepared for their visitors from Wesel.  The
+party most astonished was that which came to surprise.  In an instant one
+of those uncontrollable panics broke out to which even veterans are as
+subject as to dysentery or scurvy.  The best cavalry of Maurice's army
+turned their backs at the very sight of the foe, and galloped off much
+faster than they had come.
+
+Meantime, Marcellus Bax was assaulted, not only by his late handful of
+antagonists, who had now rallied, but by troops from Mulheim, who began
+to wade across the stream.  At that moment he was cheered by the sight of
+Count Henry coming on with a very few of his troopers who had stood to
+their colours.  A simultaneous charge from both banks at the enemy
+floundering in the river was attempted.  It might have been brilliantly
+successful, but the panic had crossed the river faster than the Spaniards
+could do, and the whole splendid picked cavalry force of the republic,
+commanded by the youngest son of William the Silent, and by the favourite
+cavalry commander of her armies, was, after a hot but brief action, in
+disgraceful and unreasonable flight.  The stadholder reached the bank of
+that fatal stream only to witness this maddening spectacle, instead of
+the swift and brilliant triumph which he was justified in expecting.  He
+did his best to stem the retreating tide.  He called upon the veterans,
+by the memory of Turnhout and Nieuport, and so many other victories, to
+pause and redeem their name before it was too late.  He taunted them with
+their frequent demands to be led to battle, and their expressed
+impatience at enforced idleness.  He denounced them as valiant only for
+plundering defenceless peasants, and as cowards against armed men; as
+trusting more to their horses' heels than to their own right hands.  He
+invoked curses upon them for deserting his young brother, who,
+conspicuous among them by his gilded armour, the orange-plumes upon his
+calque, and the bright orange-scarf across his shoulders, was now sorely
+pressed in the struggling throng.
+
+It was all in vain.  Could Maurice have thrown himself into the field,
+he might, as in the crisis of the republic's fate at Nieuport, have once
+more converted ruin into victory by the magic of his presence.  But the
+river was between him and the battle, and he was an enforced spectator of
+his country's disgrace.
+
+For a few brief moments his demeanour, his taunts, and his supplications
+had checked the flight of his troops.
+
+A stand was made by a portion of the cavalry and a few detached but
+fierce combats took place.  Count Frederic Henry was in imminent danger.
+Leading a mere handful of his immediate retainers, he threw himself into
+the thickest of the fight, with the characteristic audacity of his house.
+A Spanish trooper aimed his carbine full at his face. It missed fire, and
+Henry, having emptied his own pistol, was seized by the floating scarf
+upon his breast by more than one enemy.  There was a brief struggle, and
+death or capture seemed certain; when an unknown hand laid his nearest
+antagonist low, and enabled him to escape from over powering numbers.
+The soldier, whose devotion thus saved the career of the youngest
+Orange-Nassau destined to be so long and so brilliant, from being cut off
+so prematurely, was never again heard of, and doubtless perished in the
+fray.
+
+Meantime the brief sparkle of valour on the part of the States' troops
+had already vanished. The adroit Spinola, hurrying personally to the
+front, had caused such a clangor from all the drums and trumpets in Broek
+and its neighbourhood to be made as to persuade the restive cavalry that
+the whole force of the enemy was already upon them. The day was obviously
+lost, and Maurice, with a heavy heart, now him self gave the signal to
+retreat.  Drawing up the greater part of his infantry in solid mass upon
+the banks to protect the passage, he sent a force to the opposite side,
+Horace Vere being the first to wade the stream.   All that was then
+possible to do was accomplished, and the panic flight converted into
+orderly retreat, but it was a day of disaster and disgrace for the
+republic.
+
+About five hundred of the best States' cavalry were left dead on the
+field, but the stain upon his almost unsullied flag was more cutting to
+the stadholder's heart than the death of his veterans. The material
+results were in truth almost even. The famous cavalry general, Count
+Trivulzio, with at least three hundred Spaniards, fell in the combat,
+but the glory of having defeated the best cavalry of Europe in a stricken
+field and under the very eyes of the stadholder would have been
+sufficient compensation to Spinola for much greater losses.
+
+Maurice withdrew towards Wesel, sullen but not desponding.  His forces
+were meagre, and although he had been out-generalled, out-marched, and
+defeated in the open field, at least the Genoese had not planted the blow
+which he had meditated in the very heart of the republic.
+
+Autumn was now far advanced, and dripping with rain. The roads and fields
+were fast becoming impassable sloughs, and no further large operations
+could be expected in this campaign.  Yet the stadholder's cup was not
+full, and he was destined to witness two more triumphs of his rival, now
+fast becoming famous, before this year of disasters should close.  On the
+27th October, Spinola took the city of Wachtendonk, after ten days'
+siege, and on the 5th of November the strong place of Cracow.
+
+Maurice was forced to see these positions captured almost under his eyes,
+being now quite powerless to afford relief. His troops had dwindled by
+sickness and necessary detachments for garrison-work to a comparatively,
+insignificant force, and very soon afterwards both armies went into
+winter quarters.
+
+The States were excessively disappointed at the results of the year's
+work, and deep if not loud were the reproaches cast upon the stadholder.
+Certainly his military reputation had not been augmented by this
+campaign.  He had lost many places, and had not gained an inch of ground
+anywhere.  Already the lustre of Sluys, of Nieuport, and Turnhout were
+growing dim, for Maurice had so accustomed the republic to victories that
+his own past triumphs seemed now his greatest enemies.  Moreover he had
+founded a school out of which apt pupils had already graduated, and it
+would seem that the Genoese volunteer had rapidly profited by his
+teachings as only a man endowed with exquisite military genius could have
+done.
+
+Yet, after all, it seems certain that, with the stadholder's limited
+means, and with the awful consequences to the country of a total defeat
+in the open field, the Fabian tactics, which he had now deliberately
+adopted, were the most reasonable.  The invader of foreign domains, the
+suppressor of great revolts, can indulge in the expensive luxury of
+procrastination only at imminent peril.  For the defence, it is always
+possible to conquer by delay, and it was perfectly understood between
+Spinola and his ablest advisers at the Spanish court that the blows must
+be struck thick and fast, and at the most vulnerable places, or that the
+victory would be lost.
+
+Time was the ally not of the Spanish invaders, who came from afar, but of
+the Dutch burghers, who remained at home.  "Jam aut Nunquam," was the
+motto upon the Italian's banners.
+
+In proportion to the depression in the republic at the results of this
+year's campaigning was the elation at the Spanish court.  Bad news and
+false news had preceded the authentic intelligence of Spinola's
+victories.  The English envoy had received unquestionable information
+that the Catholic general had sustained an overwhelming defeat at the
+close of the campaign, with a loss of three thousand five hundred men.
+
+The tale was implicitly believed by king and cabinet, so that when,
+very soon afterwards, the couriers arrived bringing official accounts of
+the victory gained over the veteran cavalry of the States in the very
+presence of the stadholder, followed by the crowning triumph of
+Wachtendonk, the demonstrations of joy were all the more vivacious in
+consequence of the previous gloom.  Spinola himself followed hard upon
+the latest messengers, and was received with ovations.  Never, since the
+days of Alexander Farnese, had a general at the Spanish court been more
+cordially caressed or hated.  Had Philip the Prudent been still upon the
+throne, he would have felt it his duty to make immediate arrangements for
+poisoning him.  Certainly his plans and his popularity would have been
+undermined in the most artistic manner.
+
+But Philip III., more dangerous to rabbits than to generals, left the
+Genoese to settle the plans of his next campaign with Lerma and his
+parasites.
+
+The subtle Spinola, having, in his despatches, ascribed the chief merit
+of the victories to Louis Velasco, a Spaniard, while his own original
+conception of transferring the war to Friesland was attributed by him
+with magnificent effrontery to Lerma and to the king--who were probably
+quite ignorant of the existence of that remote province--succeeded in
+maintaining his favourable position at court, and was allowed, by what
+was called the war-council, to manage matters nearly at his pleasure.
+
+It is difficult however to understand how so much clamour should have
+been made over such paltry triumphs.  All Europe rang with a cavalry
+fight in which less than a thousand saddles on both sides had been
+emptied, leading to no result, and with the capture of a couple of
+insignificant towns, of which not one man in a thousand had ever heard.
+
+Spinola had doubtless shown genius of a subtle and inventive order, and
+his fortunate audacity in measuring himself, while a mere apprentice,
+against the first military leader living had been crowned with wonderful
+success.  He had nailed the stadholder fast to the island of Cadzand,
+while he was perfecting his arrangements and building boats on the Rhine;
+he had propounded riddles which Maurice had spent three of the best
+campaigning months in idle efforts to guess, and when he at last moved,
+he had swept to his mark with the swiftness and precision of a bird of
+prey.  Yet the greatest of all qualities in a military commander, that of
+deriving substantial fruits from victory instead of barren trophies, he
+had not manifested.  If it had been a great stroke of art to seize reach
+Deventer, it was an enormous blunder, worthy of a journeyman soldier, to
+fail to seize the Bourtange marshes, and drive his sword into the fiery
+vitals of the republic, thus placed at his mercy.
+
+Meantime, while there had been all these rejoicings and tribulations at
+the great doings on the Rhine and the shortcoming in Friesland, the real
+operations of the war had been at the antipodes.
+
+It is not a very unusual phenomenon in history that the events, upon
+whose daily development the contemporary world hangs with most
+palpitating interest, are far inferior in permanent influence upon the
+general movement of humanity to a series of distant and apparently
+commonplace transactions.
+
+Empires are built up or undermined by the ceaseless industry of obscure
+multitudes often slightly observed, or but dimly comprehended.
+
+Battles and sieges, dreadful marches, eloquent debates, intricate
+diplomacy--from time to time but only perhaps at rare intervals--have
+decided or modified the destiny of nations, while very often the clash of
+arms, the din of rhetoric, the whiz of political spindles, produce
+nothing valuable for human consumption, and made the world no richer.
+
+If the age of heroic and religious passion was rapidly fading away before
+the gradual uprising of a politico-mercantile civilization--as it
+certainly was--the most vital events, those in which the fate of coming
+generations was most deeply involved, were those inspired by the spirit
+of commercial-enterprise.
+
+Nor can it be denied that there is often a genial and poetic essence even
+among things practical or of almost vulgar exterior.  In those early
+expeditions of the Hollanders to the flaming lands of the equator there
+is a rhythm and romance of historical movement not less significant than
+in their unexampled defence of fatherland and of the world's liberty
+against the great despotism of the age.
+
+Universal monarchy was baffled by the little republic, not within its own
+populous cities only, or upon its own barren sands.  The long combat
+between Freedom and Absolutism had now become as wide as the world.  The
+greatest European states had been dragged by the iron chain of necessity
+into a conflict from which they often struggled to escape, and on every
+ocean, and on almost every foot of soil, where the footsteps of mankind
+had as yet been imprinted, the fierce encounters were every day renewed.
+In the east and the west, throughout that great vague new world, of which
+geographers had hardly yet made a sketch, which comprised both the
+Americas and something called the East Indies, and which Spain claimed
+as her private property, those humbly born and energetic adventurers were
+rapidly creating a symmetrical system out of most dismal chaos.
+
+The King of Spain warned all nations from trespassing upon those outlying
+possessions.
+
+His edicts had not however prevented the English in moderate numbers, and
+the Hollanders in steadily increasing swarms, from enlarging and making
+profitable use of these new domains of the world's commerce.
+
+The days were coming when the People was to have more to say than the
+pope in regard to the disposition and arrangements of certain large
+districts of this planet.  While the world-empire, which still excited so
+much dismay, was yielding to constant corrosion, another empire, created
+by well-directed toil and unflinching courage, was steadily rising out of
+the depths.  It has often been thought amazing that the little republic
+should so long and so triumphantly withstand the enormous forces brought
+forward for her destruction.  It was not, however, so very surprising.
+Foremost among nations, and in advance of the age, the republic had found
+the strength which comes from the spirit of association.  On a wider
+scale than ever before known, large masses of men, with their pecuniary
+means, had been intelligently banded together to advance material
+interests.  When it is remembered that, in addition to this force, the
+whole commonwealth was inspired by the divine influence of liberty, her
+power will no longer seem so wonderful.
+
+A sinister event in the Isle of Ceylon had opened the series of
+transactions in the East, and had cast a gloom over the public sentiment
+at home.  The enterprising voyager, Sebald de Weerdt, one of the famous
+brotherhood of the Invincible Lion which had wintered in the straits of
+Magellan, had been murdered through the treachery of the King of Candy.
+His countrymen had not taken vengeance on his assassins.  They were
+perhaps too fearful of losing their growing trade in those lucrative
+regions to take a becoming stand in that emergency.  They were also not
+as yet sufficiently powerful there.
+
+The East India Company had sent out in May of this year its third fleet
+of eleven large ships, besides some smaller vessels, under the general
+superintendence of Matelieff de Jonghe, one of the directors.  The
+investments for the voyage amounted to more than nineteen hundred
+thousand florins.
+
+Meantime the preceding adventurers under Stephen van der Hagen, who had
+sailed at the end of 1603, had been doing much thorough work.  A firm
+league had been made with one of the chief potentates of Malabar,
+enabling them to build forts and establish colonies in perpetual menace
+of Goa, the great oriental capital of the Portuguese.  The return of the
+ambassadors sent out from Astgen to Holland had filled not only the
+island of Sumatra but the Moluccas, and all the adjacent regions, with
+praises of the power, wealth, and high civilization of that distant
+republic so long depicted by rivals as a nest of uncouth and sanguinary
+savages.  The fleet now proceeded to Amboyna, a stronghold of the
+Spanish-Portuguese, and the seat of a most lucrative trade.
+
+On the arrival of those foreign well-armed ships under the guns of the
+fortress, the governor sent to demand, with Castilian arrogance, who the
+intruders were, and by whose authority and with what intent they presumed
+to show themselves in those waters.  The reply was that they came in the
+name and by the authority of their High Mightinesses the States-General,
+and their stadholder the Prince of Orange; that they were sworn enemies
+of the King of Spain and all his subjects, and that as to their intent,
+this would soon be made apparent.  Whereupon, without much more ado, they
+began a bombardment of the fort, which mounted thirty-six guns.  The
+governor, as often happened in those regions, being less valiant against
+determined European foes than towards the feebler oriental races on which
+he had been accustomed to trample, succumbed with hardly an effort at
+resistance.  The castle and town and whole island were surrendered to the
+fleet, and thenceforth became virtually a colony of the republic with
+which, nominally, treaties of alliance and defence were, negotiated.
+Thence the fleet, after due possession had been taken of these new
+domains, sailed partly to Bands and partly to two small but most
+important islands of the Moluccas.
+
+In that multitude of islands which make up the Eastern Archipelago there
+were but five at that period where grew the clove--Ternate, Tydor,
+Motiel, Makian, and Bacia.
+
+Pepper and ginger, even nutmegs, cassia, and mace, were but vulgar drugs,
+precious as they were already to the world and the world's commerce,
+compared with this most magnificent spice.
+
+It is wonderful to reflect upon the strange composition of man.  The
+world had lived in former ages very comfortably without cloves.  But by
+the beginning of the seventeenth century that odoriferous pistil had been
+the cause of so many pitched battles and obstinate wars, of so much
+vituperation, negotiation, and intriguing, that the world's destiny
+seemed to have almost become dependent upon the growth of a particular
+gillyflower.  Out of its sweetness had grown such bitterness among great
+nations as not torrents of blood could wash away.  A commonplace
+condiment enough it seems to us now, easily to be dispensed with, and not
+worth purchasing at a thousand human lives or so the cargo, but it was
+once the great prize to be struggled for by civilized nations.  From that
+fervid earth, warmed from within by volcanic heat, and basking ever
+beneath the equatorial sun, arose vapours as deadly to human life as the
+fruits were exciting and delicious to human senses.  Yet the atmosphere
+of pestiferous fragrance had attracted, rather than repelled.  The
+poisonous delights of the climate, added to the perpetual and various
+warfare for its productions, spread a strange fascination around those
+fatal isles.
+
+Especially Ternate and Tydor were objects of unending strife.
+Chinese, Malays, Persians, Arabs, had struggled centuries long for their
+possession; those races successively or simultaneously ruling these and
+adjacent portions of the Archipelago.  The great geographical discoveries
+at the close of the fifteenth century had however changed the aspect of
+India and of the world.  The Portuguese adventurers found two rival
+kings--in the two precious islands, and by ingeniously protecting one of
+these potentates and poisoning the other, soon made themselves masters of
+the field.  The clove trade was now entirely in the hands of the
+strangers from the antipodes.  Goa became the great mart of the lucrative
+traffic, and thither came Chinese, Arabs, Moors, and other oriental
+traders to be supplied from the Portuguese monopoly: Two-thirds of the
+spices however found their way directly to Europe.
+
+Naturally enough, the Spaniards soon penetrated into these seas, and
+claimed their portion of the spice trade. They insisted that the coveted
+islands were included in their portion of the great Borgian grant.  As
+there had hardly yet been time to make a trigonometrical survey of an
+unknown world, so generously divided by the pope, there was no way of
+settling disputed boundary questions save by apostolic blows.  These were
+exchanged with much earnestness, year after year, between Spaniards,
+Portuguese, and all who came in their way.  Especially the unfortunate
+natives, and their kings most of all, came in for a full share.  At last
+Charles V. sold out his share of the spice islands to his Portuguese
+rival and co-proprietor, for three hundred and fifty thousand ducats.
+The emperor's very active pursuits caused him to require ready money more
+than cloves.  Yet John III.  had made an excellent bargain, and the
+monopoly thenceforth brought him in at least two hundred thousand ducats
+annually.  Goa became more flourishing, the natives more wretched,
+the Portuguese more detested than ever.  Occasionally one of the royal
+line of victims would consent to put a diadem upon his head, but the
+coronation was usually the prelude to a dungeon or death.  The treaties
+of alliance, which these unlucky potentates had formed with their
+powerful invaders, were, as so often is the case, mere deeds to convey
+themselves and their subjects into slavery.
+
+Spain and Portugal becoming one, the slender weapon of defence which
+these weak but subtle Orientals sometimes employed with success--the
+international and commercial jealousy between their two oppressors--was
+taken away.  It was therefore with joy that Zaida, who sat on the throne
+of Ternate at the end of the sixteenth century, saw the sails of a Dutch
+fleet arriving in his harbours.  Very soon negotiations were opened, and
+the distant republic undertook to protect the Mahometan king against his
+Catholic master.  The new friendship was founded upon trade monopoly, of
+course, but at that period at least the islanders were treated with
+justice and humanity by their republican allies.  The Dutch undertook to
+liberate their friends from bondage, while the King of Ternate, panting
+under Portuguese oppression, swore to have no traffic, no dealings of any
+kind, with any other nation than Holland; not even with the English.  The
+Dutch, they declared, were the liberators of themselves, of their
+friends, and of the seas.
+
+The international hatred, already germinating between England and
+Holland, shot forth in these flaming regions like a tropical plant.  It
+was carefully nurtured and tended by both peoples.  Freedom of commerce,
+freedom of the seas, meant that none but the Dutch East India Company--
+so soon as the Portuguese and Spaniards were driven out--should trade in
+cloves and nutmegs.  Decrees to that effect were soon issued, under very
+heavy penalties, by the States-General to the citizens of the republic
+and to the world at large.  It was natural therefore that the English
+traders should hail the appearance of the Dutch fleets with much less
+enthusiasm than was shown by the King of Ternate.
+
+On the other hand, the King of Tydor, persisting in his oriental hatred
+towards the rival potentate in the other island, allowed the Portuguese
+to build additional citadels, and generally to strengthen their positions
+within his dominions.  Thus when Cornelius Sebastian, with his division
+of Ver Hagen's fleet, arrived in the Moluccas in the summer of 1605, he
+found plenty of work prepared for him.  The peace recently concluded by
+James with Philip and the archdukes placed England in a position of
+neutrality in the war now waging in the clove islands between Spain and
+the republic's East India Company.  The English in those regions were not
+slow to avail themselves of the advantage.  The Portuguese of Tydor
+received from neutral sympathy a copious supply of powder and of
+pamphlets.  The one explosive material enabled them to make a more
+effective defence of their citadel against the Dutch fleet; the other
+revealed to the Portuguese and their Mussulman allies that "the
+Netherlanders could not exist without English protection, that they were
+the scum of nations, and that if they should get possession of this clove
+monopoly, their insolence would become intolerable."  Samples of polite
+literature such as these, printed but not published, flew about in
+volleys.  It was an age of pamphleteering, and neither the English nor
+the Dutch were behind their contemporaries in the science of attack and
+self-defence.  Nevertheless Cornelius Sebastian was not deterred by paper
+pellets, nor by the guns of the citadel, from carrying out his purpose.
+It was arranged with King Zaida that the islanders of Ternate should make
+a demonstration against Tydor, being set across the strait in Dutch
+vessels.  Sebastian, however, having little faith in oriental tenacity,
+entrusted the real work of storming the fortress to his own soldiers and
+sailors.  On a fine morning in May the assault was delivered in
+magnificent style.  The resistance was obstinate; many of the assailants
+fell, and Captain Mol, whom we have once before seen as master of the
+Tiger, sinking the galleys of Frederic Spinola off the Gat of Sluys,
+found himself at the head of only seven men within the interior defences
+of the citadel.  A Spanish soldier, Torre by name, rushed upon him with a
+spear.  Avoiding the blow, Mol grappled with his antagonist, and both
+rolled to the ground.  A fortunate carbine-shot from one of the Dutch
+captain's comrades went through the Spaniard's head.  Meantime the little
+band, so insignificant in numbers, was driven out of the citadel.  Mol
+fell to the ground with a shattered leg, and reproached his companions,
+who sought to remove him, for neglecting their work in order to save his
+life.  Let them take the fort, he implored them, and when that was done
+they might find leisure to pick him up if they chose.  While he was
+speaking the principal tower of the fortress blew up, and sixty of the
+garrison were launched into the air.  A well-directed shot had set fire
+to the magazine.  The assault was renewed with fresh numbers, and the
+Dutch were soon masters of the place.  Never was a stronghold more
+audaciously or more successfully stormed.  The garrison surrendered.
+The women and children, fearing to be at the mercy of those who had been
+depicted to them as cannibals, had already made their escape, and were
+scrambling like squirrels among the volcanic cliffs.  Famine soon
+compelled them to come down, however, when they experienced sufficiently
+kind treatment, but were all deported in Dutch vessels to the Philippine
+islands.  The conquerors not only spared the life of the King of Tydor,
+but permitted him to retain his crown.  At his request the citadel was
+razed to the ground.  It would have been better perhaps to let it stand,
+and it was possible that in the heart of the vanquished potentate some
+vengeance was lurking which might bear evil fruit at a later day.
+Meantime the Portuguese were driven entirely out of the Moluccas,
+save the island of Timos, where they still retained a not very
+important citadel.
+
+The East India Company was now in possession of the whole field.  The
+Moluccas and the clove trade were its own, and the Dutch republic had
+made manifest to the world that more potent instruments had now been
+devised for parcelling out the new world than papal decrees, although
+signed by the immaculate hand of a Borgia.
+
+During the main operations already sketched in the Netherlands, and
+during those vastly more important oriental movements to which the
+reader's attention has just been called, a detached event or two
+deserves notice.
+
+Twice during the summer campaign of this year Du Terrail, an enterprising
+French refugee in the service of the archdukes, had attempted to surprise
+the important city of Bergen-op-Zoom.  On the 21st August the intended
+assault had been discovered in time to prevent any very serious conflict
+on, either side.  On the 20th September the experiment was renewed at an
+hour after midnight.  Du Terrail, having arranged the attack at three
+different points, had succeeded in forcing his way across the moat and
+through one of the gates.  The trumpets of the foremost Spaniards already
+sounded in, the streets.  It was pouring with rain; the town was pitch
+dark.  But the energetic Paul Bax was governor of the place, a man who
+was awake at any hour of the twenty-four, and who could see in the
+darkest night.  He had already informed himself of the enemy's project,
+and had strengthened his garrison by a large intermixture of the most
+trustworthy burgher guards, so that the advance of Du Terrail at the
+southern gate was already confronted by a determined band.  A fierce
+battle began in the darkness.  Meantime Paul Bax, galloping through the
+city, had aroused the whole population for the defence.  At the Steinberg
+gate, where the chief assault had been prepared, Bax had caused great
+fires of straw and pitch barrels to be lighted, so that the invaders,
+instead of finding, as they expected, a profound gloom through the
+streets, saw themselves approaching a brilliantly illuminated city, fully
+prepared to give their uninvited guests a warm reception.  The garrison,
+the townspeople, even the women, thronged to the ramparts, saluting the
+Spaniards with a rain of bullets, paving-stones, and pitch hoops, and
+with a storm of gibes and taunts.  They were asked why they allowed their
+cardinal thus to send them to the cattle market, and whether Our Lady of
+Hall, to whom Isabella was so fond of making pilgrimages, did not live
+rather too far off to be of much use just then to her or to them.
+Catholics and Protestants all stood shoulder to shoulder that night to
+defend their firesides against the foreign foe, while mothers laid their
+sleeping children on the ground that they might fill their cradles with
+powder and ball, which they industriously brought to the soldiers.  The
+less energetic women fell upon their knees in the street, and prayed
+aloud through the anxious night.  The attack was splendidly repulsed.
+As morning dawned the enemy withdrew, leaving one hundred dead outside
+the walls or in the town, and carrying off thirty-eight wagon loads of
+wounded.  Du Terrail made no further attempts that summer, although the
+list of his surprises was not yet full.  He was a good engineer, and a
+daring partisan officer.  He was also inspired by an especial animosity
+to the States-General, who had refused the offer of his services before
+he made application to the archdukes.
+
+At sea there was no very important movement in European waters, save that
+Lambert Heinrichzoon, commonly called Pretty Lambert, a Rotterdam
+skipper, whom we have seen the sea-fights with Frederic Spinola, of the
+Dunkirk pirate fleet, Adrian Dirkzoon.  It was a desperate fight.--Pretty
+Lambent, sustained at a distance by Rear-Admiral Gerbrantzon, laid
+himself yard-arm to yard-arm alongside the pirate vessel, boarded her,
+and after beating down all resistance made prisoners such of the crew as
+remained alive, and carried them into Rotterdam.  Next day they were
+hanged, to the number of sixty.  A small number were pardoned on account
+of their youth, and a few individuals who effected their escape when led
+to the gallows, were not pursued.  The fact that the townspeople almost
+connived at the escape of these desperadoes showed that there had been a
+surfeit of hangings in Rotterdam.  It is moreover not easy to distinguish
+with exactness the lines which in those days separated regular sea
+belligerents, privateers, and pirates from each other.  It had been laid
+down by the archdukes that there was no military law at sea, and that
+sick soldiers captured on the water should be hanged.  Accordingly they
+were hanged.  Admiral Fazardo, of the Spanish royal navy, not only
+captured all the enemy's merchant vessels which came in his way, but
+hanged, drowned, and burned alive every man found on board.  Admiral
+Haultain, of the republican navy, had just been occupied in drowning a
+whole regiment of Spanish soldiers, captured in English and German
+transports.  The complaints brought against the English cruisers by the
+Hollanders for capturing and confiscating their vessels, and banging,
+maiming, and torturing their crews--not only when England was neutral,
+but even when she was the ally of the republic--had been a standing topic
+for diplomatic discussion, and almost a standing joke.  Why, therefore,
+these Dunkirk sea-rovers should not on the same principle be allowed to
+rush forth from their very convenient den to plunder friend and foe, burn
+ships, and butcher the sailors at pleasure, seems difficult to
+understand.  To expect from the inhabitants of this robbers' cave--
+this "church on the downs"--a code of maritime law so much purer and
+sterner than the system adopted by the English, the Spaniards, and the
+Dutch, was hardly reasonable.  Certainly the Dunkirkers, who were mainly
+Netherlanders--rebels to the republic and partisans of the Spanish crown
+--did their best to destroy the herring fishery and to cut the throats of
+the fishermen, but perhaps they received the halter more often than other
+mariners who had quite as thoroughly deserved it.  And this at last
+appeared the prevailing opinion in Rotterdam.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Abstinence from unproductive consumption
+Defeated garrison ever deserved more respect from friend or foe
+His own past triumphs seemed now his greatest enemies
+Hundred thousand men had laid down their lives by her decree
+John Castel, who had stabbed Henry IV.
+Looking down upon her struggle with benevolent indifference
+No retrenchments in his pleasures of women, dogs, and buildings
+Sick soldiers captured on the water should be hanged
+The small children diminished rapidly in numbers
+When all was gone, they began to eat each other
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v77
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 78, 1605-1607
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+     Preparations for the campaign of 1606--Diminution of Maurice's
+     popularity--Quarrel between the pope and the Venetian republic--
+     Surprise of Sluys by Du Terrail--Dilatoriness of the republic's
+     operations--Movements of Spinola--Influence of the weather on the
+     military transactions of the year--Endeavours of Spinola to obtain
+     possession of the Waal and Yssel--Surrender of Lochem to Spinola--
+     Siege of Groll--Siege and loss of Rheinberg--Mutiny in the Catholic
+     army--Recovery of Lochem by Maurice--Attempted recovery of Groll--
+     Sudden appearance of the enemy--Withdrawal of the besieging army
+     Close of the campaign--End of the war of independence--Motives of
+     the Prince in his actions before Groll--Cruise of Admiral Haultain
+     to the coast of Spain and Portugal--His encounter with the war--
+     ships of Fazardo--Courageous conduct of the vice-admiral--Deaths of
+     Justus Lipsius, Hohenlo, and Count John of Nassau.
+
+After the close of the campaign of 1605 Spinola had gone once more to
+Spain.  On his passage through Paris he had again been received with
+distinguished favour by that warm ally of the Dutch republic, Henry IV.,
+and on being questioned by that monarch as to his plans for the next
+campaign had replied that he intended once more to cross the Rhine, and
+invade Friesland.  Henry, convinced that the Genoese would of course not
+tell him the truth on such an occasion, wrote accordingly to the States-
+General that they might feel safe as to their eastern frontier.  Whatever
+else might happen, Friesland and the regions adjacent would be safe next
+year from attack.  The immediate future was to show whether the subtle
+Italian had not compassed as neat a deception by telling the truth as
+coarser politicians could do by falsehood.
+
+Spinola found the royal finances in most dismal condition.  Three hundred
+thousand dollars a month were the least estimate of the necessary
+expenses for carrying on the Netherland war, a sum which could not
+possibly be spared by Lerma, Uceda, the Marquis of the Seven Churches,
+and other financiers then industriously occupied in draining dry the
+exchequer for their own uses.  Once more the general aided his sovereign
+with purse and credit, as well as with his sword.  Once more the exchange
+at Genoa was glutted with the acceptances of Marquis Spinola.  Here at
+least was a man of a nature not quite so depraved as that of the
+parasites bred out of the corruption of a noble but dying commonwealth,
+and doubtless it was with gentle contempt that the great favourite and
+his friends looked at the military and financial enthusiasm of the
+volunteer.  It was so much more sagacious to make a princely fortune than
+to sacrifice one already inherited, in the service of one's country.
+
+Spinola being thus ready not only to fight but to help to pay for the
+fighting, found his plans of campaigns received with great benignity by
+the king and his ministers.  Meantime there was much delay.  The enormous
+labours thus devolved upon one pair of shoulders by the do-nothing king
+and a mayor of the palace whose soul was absorbed by his own private
+robberies, were almost too much for human strength.  On his return to the
+Netherlands Spinola fell dangerously ill in Genoa.
+
+Meantime, during his absence and the enforced idleness of the Catholic
+armies, there was an opportunity for the republicans to act with
+promptness and vigour.  They displayed neither quality.  Never had there
+been so much sluggishness as in the preparations for the campaign of
+1606.  The States' exchequer was lower than it had been for years.  The
+republic was without friends.  Left to fight their battle for national
+existence alone, the Hollanders found themselves perpetually subjected to
+hostile censure from their late allies, and to friendly advice still more
+intolerable.  There were many brave Englishmen and Frenchmen sharing in
+the fatigues of the Dutch war of independence, but the governments of
+Henry and of James were as protective, as severely virtuous, as
+offensive, and, in their secret intrigues with the other belligerent, as
+mischievous as it was possible for the best-intentioned neutrals to be.
+
+The fame and the popularity of the stadholder had been diminished by the
+results of the past campaign.  The States-General were disappointed,
+dissatisfied, and inclined to censure very unreasonably the public
+servant who had always obeyed their decrees with docility.  While Henry
+IV. was rapidly transferring his admiration from Maurice to Spinola, the
+disagreements at home between the Advocate and the Stadholder were
+becoming portentous.
+
+There was a want of means and of soldiers for the new campaign.  Certain
+causes were operating in Europe to the disadvantage of both belligerents.
+In the south, Venice had almost drawn her sword against the pope in her
+settled resolution to put down the Jesuits and to clip the wings of the
+church party, before, with bequests and donations, votive churches and
+magnificent monasteries, four-fifths of the domains of the republic
+should fall into mortmain, as was already the case in Brabant.
+
+Naturally there was a contest between the ex-Huguenot, now eldest son of
+the Church, and the most Catholic king, as to who should soonest defend
+the pope.  Henry offered thorough protection to his Holiness, but only
+under condition that he should have a monopoly of that protection.
+He lifted his sword, but meantime it was doubtful whether the blow was to
+descend upon Venice or upon Spain.  The Spanish levies, on their way to
+the Netherlands, were detained in Italy by this new exigency.  The
+States-General offered the sister republic their maritime assistance, and
+notwithstanding their own immense difficulties, stood ready  to send a
+fleet to the Mediterranean.  The offer was gratefully declined, and the
+quarrel with the pope arranged, but the incident laid the foundation of
+a lasting friendship between the only two important republics then
+existing.  The issue of the Gunpowder Plot, at the close of the preceding
+year, had confirmed James in his distaste for Jesuits, and had effected
+that which all the eloquence of the States-General and their ambassador
+had failed to accomplish, the prohibition of Spanish enlistments in his
+kingdom.  Guido Fawkes had served under the archduke in Flanders.
+
+Here then were delays additional to that caused by Spinola's illness.
+On the other hand, the levies of the republic were for a season paralysed
+by the altercation, soon afterwards adjusted, between Henry IV. and the
+Duke of Bouillon, brother-in-law of the stadholder and of the Palatine,
+and by the petty war between the Duke and Hanseatic city of Brunswick,
+in which Ernest of Nassau was for a time employed.
+
+During this period of almost suspended animation the war gave no signs of
+life, except in a few spasmodic efforts on the part of the irrepressible
+Du Terrail.  Early in the spring, not satisfied with his double and
+disastrous repulse before Bergen-op-Zoom, that partisan now determined to
+surprise Sluy's.  That an attack was impending became known to the
+governor of that city, the experienced Colonel Van der Noot.  Not
+dreaming, however, that any mortal--even the most audacious of Frenchmen
+and adventurers--would ever think of carrying a city like Sluy's by
+surprise, defended as it was by a splendid citadel and by a whole chain
+of forts and water-batteries, and capable of withstanding three months
+long, as it had so recently done, a siege in form by the acknowledged
+master of the beleaguering science, the methodical governor event calmly
+to bed one fine night in June.  His slumbers were disturbed before
+morning by the sound of trumpets sounding Spanish melodies in the
+streets, and by a, great uproar and shouting.  Springing out of bed, he
+rushed half-dressed to the rescue.  Less vigilant than Paul Bax had been
+the year before in Bergen, he found that Du Terrail had really effected a
+surprise.  At the head of twelve hundred Walloons and Irishmen, that
+enterprising officer had waded through the drowned land of Cadzand, with
+the promised support of a body of infantry under Frederic Van den Berg,
+from Damm, had stolen noiselessly by the forts of that island
+unchallenged and unseen, had effected with petards a small breach through
+the western gate of the city, and with a large number of his followers,
+creeping two and two through the gap, had found himself for a time master
+of Sluys.
+
+The profound silence of the place had however somewhat discouraged the
+intruders.  The whole population were as sound asleep as was the
+excellent commandant, but the stillness in the deserted streets suggested
+an ambush, and they moved stealthily forward, feeling their way with
+caution towards the centre of the town.
+
+It so happened, moreover, that the sacristan had forgotten to wind up the
+great town clock.  The agreement with the party first entering and making
+their way to the opposite end of the city, had been that at the striking
+of a certain hour after midnight they should attack simultaneously and
+with a great outcry all the guardhouses, so that the garrison might be
+simultaneously butchered.  The clock never struck, the signal was never
+given, and Du Terrail and his immediate comrades remained near the
+western gate, suspicious and much perplexed.  The delay was fatal.  The
+guard, the whole garrison, and the townspeople flew to arms, and half-
+naked, but equipped with pike and musket, and led on by Van der Noot in
+person, fell upon the intruders.  A panic took the place of previous
+audacity in the breasts of Du Terrail's followers.  Thinking only of
+escape, they found the gap by which they had crept into the town much
+less convenient as a means of egress in the face of an infuriated
+multitude.  Five hundred of them were put to death in a very few minutes.
+Almost as many were drowned or suffocated in the marshes, as they
+attempted to return by the road over which they had come.  A few
+stragglers June, of the fifteen hundred were all that were left to tell
+the tale.
+
+It would seem scarcely worth while to chronicle such trivial incidents in
+this great war--the all-absorbing drama of Christendom--were it not that
+they were for the moment the whole war.  It might be thought that
+hostilities were approaching their natural termination, and that the war
+was dying of extreme old age, when the Quixotic pranks of a Du Terrail
+occupied so large a part of European attention.
+
+The winter had passed, another spring had come and gone, and Maurice had
+in vain attempted to obtain sufficient means from the States to take the
+field in force.  Henry, looking on from the outside, was becoming more
+and more exasperated with the dilatoriness which prevented the republic
+from profiting by the golden moments of Spinola's enforced absence.  Yet
+the best that could be done seemed to be to take measures for defensive
+operations.
+
+Spinola never reached Brussels until the beginning of June, yet, during
+all the good campaigning weather which had been fleeting away, not a blow
+had been struck, nor a wholesome counsel taken by the stadholder or the
+States.  It was midsummer before the armies were in the field.  The plans
+of the Catholic general however then rapidly developed themselves.
+Having assembled as large a force as had ever been under his command, he
+now divided it into two nearly equal portions.  Bucquoy, with ten
+thousand foot, twelve hundred cavalry, and twelve guns, arrived on the
+18th July at Nook, on the Meuse.  Spinola, with eleven thousand infantry,
+two thousand horse, and eight guns, crossed the Rhine at the old redoubts
+of Ruhrort, and on the same 18th July took position at Goor, in
+Overyssel.  The first plan of the commander-in-chief was to retrace
+exactly his campaign of the previous year, even as he had with so much
+frankness stated to Henry.  But the republic, although deserted by her
+former friends, and looked upon askance by the monarch of Britain, and
+by the most Christian king, had this year a most efficient ally in the
+weather.  Jupiter Pluvius had descended from on high to the rescue of the
+struggling commonwealth, and his decrees were omnipotent as to the course
+of the campaign.  The seasons that year seemed all fused into one.  It
+was difficult to tell on midsummer day whether it were midwinter, spring,
+or autumn.  The rain came down day after day, week after week, as if the
+contending armies and the very country which was to be invaded and
+defended were to be all washed out of existence together.  Friesland
+resolved itself into a vast quagmire; the roads became fluid, the rivers
+lakes.  Spinola turned his face from the east, and proceeded to carry out
+a second plan which he had long meditated, and even a more effective one,
+in the west.
+
+The Waal and the Yssel formed two sides of a great quadrilateral; and
+furnished for the natural fortress, thus enclosed, two vast and admirable
+moats.  Within lay Good-meadow and Foul-meadow--Bet-uwe and Vel-uwe--one,
+the ancient Batavian island which from time immemorial had given its name
+to the commonwealth, the other, the once dismal swamp which toil and
+intelligence had in the course of centuries transformed into the wealthy
+and flowery land of Gueldres.
+
+Beyond, but in immediate proximity, lay the ancient episcopal city and
+province of Utrecht, over which lay the road to the adjacent Holland and
+Zeeland.  The very heart of the republic would be laid bare to the
+conqueror's sword if he could once force the passage, and obtain the
+control of these two protecting streams.  With Utrecht as his base, and
+all Brabant and Flanders--obedient provinces--at his back, Spinola might
+accomplish more in one season than Alva, Don John, and Alexander Farnese
+had compassed in forty years, and destroy at a blow what was still called
+the Netherland rebellion.  The passage of the rivers once effected, the
+two enveloping wings would fold themselves together, and the conquest
+would be made.
+
+Thus reasoned the brilliant young general, and his projects, although
+far-reaching, did not seem wild.  The first steps were, however, the most
+important as well as the most difficult, and he had to reckon with a wary
+and experienced antagonist.  Maurice had at last collected and reviewed
+at Arnhem an army of nearly fifteen thousand men, and was now watching
+closely from Doesburg and Deventer every movement of the foe.
+
+Having been forced to a defensive campaign, in which he was not likely at
+best to gain many additional laurels, he was the more determined to lay
+down his own life, and sacrifice every man he could bring into the field,
+before Spinola should march into the cherished domains of Utrecht and
+Holland.  Meantime the rain, which had already exerted so much influence
+on the military movements of the year, still maintained the supremacy
+over human plans.  The Yssel and the Waal, always deep, broad, sluggish,
+but dangerous rivers--the Rhine in its old age--were swollen into
+enormous proportions, their currents flowing for the time with the vigour
+of their far away youth.
+
+Maurice had confided the defence of the Waal to Warner Du Bois, under
+whose orders he placed a force of about seven thousand men, and whose
+business it was to prevent Bucquoy's passage.  His own task was to baffle
+Spinola.
+
+Bucquoy's ambition was to cross the Waal at a point as near as possible
+to the fork of that stream with the true Rhine, seize the important city
+of Nymegen, and then give the hand to Spinola, so soon as he should be on
+the other side of the Yssel.  At the village of Spardorp or Kekerdom, he
+employed Pompeio Giustiniani to make a desperate effort, having secured a
+large number of barges in which he embarked his troops.  As the boatmen
+neared the opposite bank, however, they perceived that Warner Du Bois had
+made effective preparations for their reception.  They lost heart, and,
+on pretence that the current of the river was too rapid to allow them to
+reach the point proposed for their landing, gradually dropped down the
+stream, and, in spite of the remonstrances of the commanders, pushed
+their way back to the shore which they had left.  From that time forth,
+the States' troops, in efficient numbers, fringed the inner side of the
+Waal, along the whole length of the Batavian island, while armed vessels
+of the republic patrolled the stream itself.  In vain Count Bucquoy
+watched an opportunity, either by surprise or by main strength, to effect
+a crossing.  The Waal remained as impassable as if it were a dividing
+ocean.
+
+On the other side of the quadrilateral, Maurice's dispositions were as
+effective as those of his lieutenant on the Waal.  The left shore of the
+Yssel, along its whole length, from Arnhem and Doesburg quite up to Zwoll
+and Campen, where the river empties itself into the Zuyder Zee, was now
+sprinkled thickly with forts, hastily thrown up, but strong enough to
+serve the temporary purpose of the stadholder.  In vain the fleet-footed
+and audacious Spinola moved stealthily or fiercely to and fro, from one
+point to another, seeking an opening through which to creep, or a weak
+spot where he might dash himself against the chain.  The whole line was
+securely guarded.  The swollen river, the redoubts, and the musketeers of
+Maurice, protected the heart of the republic from the impending danger.
+
+Wearied of this fruitless pacing up and down, Spinola, while apparently
+intending an assault upon Deventer, and thus attracting his adversary's
+attention to that important city, suddenly swerved to the right, and came
+down upon Lochem.  The little town, with its very slender garrison,
+surrendered at once.  It was not a great conquest, but it might possibly
+be of use in the campaign.  It was taken before the stadholder could move
+a step to its assistance, even had he deemed it prudent to leave Yssel-
+side for an hour.  The summer was passing away, the rain was still
+descending, and it was the 1st of August before Spinola left Lochem.
+He then made a rapid movement to the north, between Zwoll and Hasselt,
+endeavouring to cross the Blackwater, and seize Geelmuyden, on the Zuyder
+Zee.  Had he succeeded, he might have turned Maurice's position.  But the
+works in that direction had been entrusted to an experienced campaigner,
+Warmelo, sheriff of Zalant, who received the impetuous Spinola and his
+lieutenant, Count Solre, so warmly, that they reeled backwards at last,
+after repeated assaults and great loss of men, and never more attempted
+to cross the Yssel.
+
+Obviously, the campaign had failed.  Utrecht and Holland were as far out
+of the Catholic general's reach as the stars in the sky, but at least,
+with his large armies, he could earn a few trophies, barren or
+productive, as it might prove, before winter, uniting with the deluge,
+should drive him from the field.
+
+On the 3rd August, he laid siege to Groll (or Groenlo), a fortified town
+of secondary importance in the country of Zutphen, and, squandering his
+men with much recklessness, in his determination not to be baffled,
+reduced the place in eleven days.  Here he paused for a breathing spell,
+and then, renouncing all his schemes upon the inner defences of the
+republic, withdrew once more to the Rhine and laid siege to Rheinberg.
+
+This frontier place had been tossed to and fro so often between the
+contending parties in the perpetual warfare, that its inhabitants must
+have learned to consider themselves rather as a convenient circulating
+medium for military operations than as burghers who had any part in the
+ordinary business of life.  It had old-fashioned defences of stones
+which, during the recent occupation by the States, had been much
+improved, and had been strengthened with earthworks.
+
+Before it was besieged, Maurice sent his brother Frederic Henry, with
+some picked companies, into the place, so that the garrison amounted to
+three thousand effective men.
+
+The Prince de Soubise, brother of the Duc de Rohan, and other French
+volunteers of quality, also threw themselves into the place, in order to
+take lessons in the latest methods of attack and defence.  It was now
+admitted that no more accomplished pupil of the stadholder in the
+beleaguering art had appeared in Europe than his present formidable
+adversary.  On this occasion, however, there was no great display of
+science.  Maurice obstinately refused to move to the relief of the place,
+despite all the efforts of a deputation of the States-General who visited
+his camp in September, urging him strenuously to take the chances of a
+stricken field.
+
+Nothing could induce the stadholder, who held an observing position at
+Wesel, with his back against the precious watery quadrilateral, to risk
+the defence of those most vital lines of the Yssel and the Waal.  While
+attempting to save Rheinberg, he felt it possible that he might lose
+Nymegen, or even Utrecht.  The swift but wily Genoese was not to be
+trifled with or lost sight of an instant.  The road to Holland might
+still be opened, and the destiny of the republic might hang on the
+consequences of a single false move.  That destiny, under God, was in his
+hands alone, and no chance of winning laurels, even from his greatest
+rival's head, could induce him to shrink from the path of duty, however
+obscure it might seem.  There were a few brilliant assaults and sorties,
+as in all sieges, the French volunteers especially distinguishing
+themselves; but the place fell at the end of forty days.  The garrison
+marched out with the honours of war.  In the modern practice, armies were
+rarely captured in strongholds, nor were the defenders, together with the
+population, butchered.
+
+The loss, after a six weeks' siege, of Rheinberg, which six years before,
+with far inferior fortifications, had held out a much longer time against
+the States, was felt as a bitter disappointment throughout the republic.
+Frederic Henry, on leaving the place, made a feeble and unsuccessful
+demonstration against Yenlo, by which the general dissatisfaction was
+not diminished.  Soon afterwards, the war became more languid than ever.
+News arrived of a great crisis on the Genoa exchange.  A multitude of
+merchants, involved in pecuniary transactions with Spinola, fell with
+one tremendous crash.  The funds of the Catholic commander-in-chief were
+already exhausted, his acceptances could no longer be negotiated.
+
+His credit was becoming almost as bad as the king's own.  The inevitable
+consequence of the want of cash and credit followed.  Mutiny, for the
+first time in Spinola's administration, raised its head once more, and
+stalked about defiant.  Six hundred veterans marched to Breda, and
+offered their services to Justinus of Nassau.  The proposal was accepted.
+Other bands, established their quarters in different places, chose their
+Elettos and lesser officers, and enacted the scenes which have been so
+often depicted in these pages.  The splendid army of Spinola melted like
+April snow.  By the last week of October there hardly seemed a Catholic
+army in the field.  The commander-in-chief had scattered such companies
+as could still be relied upon in the villages of the friendly arch-
+episcopate of Cologne, and had obtained, not by murders and blackmail--
+according to the recent practice of the Admiral of Arragon, at whose grim
+name the whole country-side still shuddered--but from the friendship of
+the leading inhabitants and by honest loans, a sufficient sum to put
+bread into the mouths of the troops still remaining faithful to him.
+
+The opportunity had at last arrived for the stadholder to strike a blow
+before the season closed.  Bankruptcy and mutiny had reduced his enemy to
+impotence in the very season of his greatest probable success.  On the
+24th October Maurice came before Lochem, which he recaptured in five
+days.  Next in the order of Spinola's victories was Groll, which the
+stadholder at once besieged.  He had almost fifteen thousand infantry and
+three thousand horse.  A career of brief triumph before winter should
+close in upon those damping fields, seemed now assured.  But the rain,
+which during nearly the whole campaign had been his potent ally, had of
+late been playing him false.  The swollen Yssel, during a brief period of
+dry weather, had sunk so low in certain shallows as not to be navigable
+for his transports, and after his trains of artillery and munitions had
+been dragged wearily overland as far as Groll, the deluge had returned in
+such force, that physical necessity as well as considerations of humanity
+compelled him to defer his entrenching operations until the weather
+should moderate.  As there seemed no further danger to be apprehended
+from the broken, mutinous, and dispersed forces of the enemy, the siege
+operations were conducted in a leisurely manner.  What was the
+astonishment, therefore, among the soldiers, when a rumour flew about the
+camp in the early days of November that the indomitable Spinola was again
+advancing upon them!  It was perfectly true.  With extraordinary
+perseverance he had gathered up six or seven thousand infantry and twelve
+companies of horse--all the remnants of the splendid armies with which he
+had taken the field at midsummer--and was now marching to the relief of
+Groll, besieged as it was by a force at least doubly as numerous as his
+own.  It was represented to the stadholder, however, that an impassable
+morass lay between him and the enemy, and that there would therefore be
+time enough to complete his entrenchments before Spinola could put his
+foolhardy attempt into execution.  But the Catholic general, marching
+faster than rumour itself, had crossed the impracticable swamp almost
+before a spadeful of earth had been turned in the republican camp.  His
+advance was in sight even while the incredulous were sneering at the
+absurdity of his supposed project.  Informed by scouts of the weakest
+point in the stadholder's extended lines, Spinola was directing himself
+thither with beautiful precision.  Maurice hastily contracted both his
+wings, and concentrated himself in the village of Lebel.  At last the
+moment had come for a decisive struggle.  There could be little doubt of
+the result.  All the advantage was with the republican army.  The
+Catholics had arrived in front of the enemy fatigued by forced marches
+through quagmires, in horrible weather, over roads deemed impassable.
+The States' troops were fresh, posted on ground of their own choosing,
+and partially entrenched.  To the astonishment, even to the horror of the
+most eager portion of the army, the stadholder deliberately, and despite
+the groans of his soldiers, refused the combat, and gave immediate orders
+for raising the siege and abandoning the field.
+
+On the 12th of November he broke up his camp and withdrew to a village
+called Zelem.  On the same day the marquis, having relieved the city,
+without paying the expected price, retired in another direction, and
+established what was left of his army in the province of Munster.  The
+campaign was closed.   And thus the great war which had run its stormy
+course for nearly forty years, dribbled out of existence, sinking away
+that rainy November in the dismal fens of Zutphen.  The long struggle for
+independence had come, almost unperceived, to an end.
+
+Peace had not arrived, but the work of the armies was over for many a
+long year.  Freedom and independence were secured.  A deed or two, never
+to be forgotten by Netherland hearts, was yet to be done on the ocean,
+before the long and intricate negotiations for peace should begin, and
+the weary people permit themselves to rejoice; but the prize was already
+won.
+
+Meantime, the conduct of Prince Maurice in these last days of the
+campaign was the subject of biting censure by friend and foe.  The
+military fame of Spinola throughout Europe grew apace; and the fame of
+his great rival seemed to shrink in the same proportion.
+
+Henry of France was especially indignant at what he considered the
+shortcomings of the republic and of its chief.  Already, before the close
+of the summer, the agent Aerssens had written from Paris that his Majesty
+was very much displeased with Spinola's prosperity, ascribing it to the
+want of good councils on the part of the States' Government that so fine
+an army should lie idle so long, without making an attempt to relieve the
+beleaguered places, so that Spinola felt assured of taking anything as
+soon as he made his appearance.  "Your Mightinesses cannot believe,"
+continued the agent, "what a trophy is made by the Spanish ministers out
+of these little exploits, and they have so much address at this court,
+that if such things continue they may produce still greater results."
+
+In December he wrote that the king was so malcontent concerning the siege
+of Groll as to make it impossible to answer him with arguments, that he
+openly expressed regret at not having employed the money lent to the
+States upon strengthening his own frontiers, so distrustful was he of
+their capacity for managing affairs, and that he mentioned with disgust
+statements received from his ambassador at Brussels and from the Duc de
+Rohan, to the effect that Spinola had between five and six thousand men
+only at the relief of Groll, against twelve thousand in the stadholder's
+army.
+
+The motives of the deeds and the omissions of the prince at this supreme
+moment must be pondered with great caution.  The States-General had
+doubtless been inclined for vigorous movements, and Olden-Barneveld, with
+some of his colleagues, had visited the camp late in September to urge
+the relief of Rheinberg.  Maurice was in daily correspondence with the
+Government, and regularly demanded their advice, by which, on many former
+occasions, he had bound himself, even when it was in conflict with his
+own better judgment.
+
+But throughout this campaign, the responsibility was entirely, almost
+ostentatiously, thrown by the States-General upon their commander-in-
+chief, and, as already indicated, their preparations in the spring and
+early summer had been entirely inadequate.  Should he lose the army with
+which he had so quietly but completely checked Spinola in all his really
+important moves during the summer and autumn, he might despair of putting
+another very soon into the field.  That his force in that November week
+before Groll was numerically far superior to the enemy is certain, but he
+had lost confidence in his cavalry since their bad behaviour at Mulheim
+the previous year, and a very large proportion of his infantry was on the
+sick-list at the moment of Spinola's approach.  "Lest the continual bad
+weather should entirely consume the army," he said, "we are resolved,
+within a day or two after we have removed the sick who are here in great
+numbers, to break up, unless the enemy should give us occasion to make
+some attempt upon him."
+
+Maurice was the servant of a small republic, contending single-handed
+against an empire still considered the most formidable power in the
+world.  His cue was not necessarily to fight on all occasions; for delay
+often fights better than an army against a foreign invader.  When a
+battle and a victory were absolutely necessary we have seen the
+magnificent calmness which at Nieuport secured triumph under the shadow
+of death.  Had he accepted Spinola's challenge in November, he would
+probably have defeated him and have taken Groll.  He might not, however,
+have annihilated his adversary, who, even when worsted, would perhaps
+have effected his escape.  The city was of small value to the republic.
+The principal advantage of a victory would have been increased military
+renown for himself.  Viewed in this light, there is something almost
+sublime in the phlegmatic and perfectly republican composure with which
+he disdained laurels, easily enough, as it would stem, to have been
+acquired, and denied his soldiers the bloodshed and the suffering for
+which they were clamouring.
+
+And yet, after thoroughly weighing and measuring all these circumstances,
+it is natural to regret that he did not on that occasion rise upon
+Spinola and smite him to the earth.  The Lord had delivered him into
+his hands.  The chances of his own defeat were small, its probable
+consequences, should it occur, insignificant.  It is hardly conceivable
+that he could have been so completely overthrown as to allow the Catholic
+commander to do in November what he had tried all summer in vain to
+accomplish, cross the Yssel and the Waal, with the dregs of his army, and
+invade Holland and Zeeland in midwinter, over the prostrate bodies of
+Maurice and all his forces.  On the other hand, that the stadholder would
+have sent the enemy reeling back to his bogs, with hardly the semblance
+of an army at his heels, was almost certain: The effect of such a blow
+upon impending negotiations, and especially upon the impressible
+imagination of Henry and the pedantic shrewdness of James, would have
+been very valuable.  It was not surprising that the successful soldier
+who sat on the French throne, and who had been ever ready to wager life
+and crown on the results of a stricken field, should be loud in his
+expressions of disapprobation and disgust.  Yet no man knew better than
+the sagacious Gascon that fighting to win a crown, and to save a
+republic, were two essentially different things.
+
+In the early summer of this year Admiral Haultain, whom we lately saw
+occupied with tossing Sarmiento's Spanish legion into the sea off the
+harbour of Dover, had been despatched to the Spanish coast on a still
+more important errand.  The outward bound Portuguese merchantmen and the
+home returning fleets from America, which had been absent nearly two
+years, might be fallen in with at any moment, in the latitude of 36-38
+deg.  The admiral, having received orders, therefore, to cruise carefully
+in those regions, sailed for the shores of Portugal with a squadron of
+twenty-four war-ships.  His expedition was not very successful.  He
+picked up a prize or two here and there, and his presence on the coast
+prevented the merchant-fleet from sailing out of Lisbon for the East
+Indies, the merchandise already on board being disembarked and the voyage
+postponed to a more favourable opportunity.
+
+He saw nothing, however, of the long-expected ships from the golden West
+Indies--as Mexico, Peru, and Brazil were then indiscriminately called--
+and after parting company with six of his own ships, which were dispersed
+and damaged in a gale, and himself suffering from a dearth of provisions,
+he was forced to return without much gain or glory.
+
+In the month of September he was once more despatched on the same
+service.  He had nineteen war-galleots of the first class, and two
+yachts, well equipped and manned.  Vice-admiral of the fleet was Regnier
+Klaaszoon (or Nicholson), of Amsterdam, a name which should always be
+held fresh in remembrance, not only by mariners and Netherlanders, but
+by all men whose pulses can beat in sympathy with practical heroism.
+
+The admiral coasted deliberately along the shores of Spain and Portugal.
+It seemed impossible that the golden fleets, which, as it was
+ascertained, had not yet arrived, could now escape the vigilance of the
+Dutch cruisers.  An occasional merchant-ship or small war-galley was met
+from time to time and chased into the harbours.  A landing was here and
+there effected and a few villages burned.  But these were not the prizes
+nor the trophies sought.  On the 19th September a storm off the
+Portuguese coast scattered the fleet; six of the best and largest ships
+being permanently lost sight of and separated from the rest.  With the
+other thirteen Haultain now cruised off Cape St. Vincent directly across
+the ordinary path of the homeward-bound treasure ships.
+
+On the 6th October many sails were descried in the distance, and the
+longing eyes of the Hollanders were at last gratified with what was
+supposed to be the great West India commercial squadrons.  The delusion
+was brief.  Instead of innocent and richly Freighted merchantmen, the new
+comers soon proved to be the war-ships of Admiral Dan Luis de Fazardo,
+eighteen great galleons and eight galleys strong, besides lesser vessels
+--the most formidable fleet that for years had floated in those waters.
+There had been time for Admiral Haultain to hold but a very brief
+consultation with his chief officers.  As it was manifest that the
+Hollanders were enormously over-matched, it was decided to manoeuvre as
+well as possible for the weather-gage, and then to fight or to effect an
+escape, as might seem most expedient after fairly testing the strength of
+the enemy.  It was blowing a fresh gale, and the Netherland fleet had as
+much as they could stagger with under close-reefed topsails.  The war-
+galleys, fit only for fair weather, were soon forced to take refuge under
+the lee of the land, but the eighteen galleons, the most powerful vessels
+then known to naval architecture, were bearing directly down, full before
+the wind, upon the Dutch fleet.
+
+It must be admitted that Admiral Haultain hardly displayed as much energy
+now as he had done in the Straits of Dover against the unarmed transports
+the year before.  His ships were soon scattered, right and left, and the
+manoeuvres for the weather-gage resolved themselves into a general
+scramble for escape.  Vice-Admiral Klaaszoon alone held firm, and met the
+onset of the first comers of the Spanish fleet.  A fierce combat, yard-
+arm to yard-arm, ensued.  Klaaszoon's mainmast went by the board, but
+Haultain, with five ships, all that could be rallied, coming to the
+rescue, the assailants for a moment withdrew.  Five Dutch vessels of
+moderate strength were now in action against the eighteen great galleons
+of Fazardo.  Certainly it was not an even game, but it might have been
+played with more heart and better skill.  There was but a half-hour of
+daylight left when Klaaszoon's crippled ship was again attacked.  This
+time there was no attempt to offer him assistance; the rest of the Dutch
+fleet crowding all the sails their masts would bear, and using all the
+devices of their superior seamanship, not to harass the enemy, but to
+steal as swiftly as possible out of his way.  Honestly confessing that
+they dared not come into the fight, they bore away for dear life in every
+direction.  Night came on, and the last that the fugitives knew of the
+events off Cape St. Vincent was that stout Regnier Klaaszoon had been
+seen at sunset in the midst of the Spanish fleet; the sound of his
+broadsides saluting their ears as they escaped.
+
+Left to himself, alone in a dismasted ship, the vice-admiral never
+thought of yielding to the eighteen Spanish galleons.  To the repeated
+summons of Don Luis Fazardo that he should surrender he remained
+obstinately deaf.  Knowing that it was impossible for him to escape, and
+fearing that he might blow up his vessel rather than surrender, the enemy
+made no attempt to board.  Spanish chivalry was hardly more conspicuous
+on this occasion than Dutch valour, as illustrated by Admiral Haultain.
+Two whole days and nights Klaaszoon drifted about in his crippled ship,
+exchanging broadsides with his antagonists, and with his colours flying
+on the stump of his mast.  The fact would seem incredible, were it not
+attested by perfectly trustworthy contemporary accounts.  At last his
+hour seemed to have come.  His ship was sinking; a final demand for
+surrender, with promise of quarter, was made.  Out of his whole crew but
+sixty remained alive; many of them badly wounded.
+
+He quietly announced to his officers and men his decision never to
+surrender, in which all concurred.  They knelt together upon the deck,
+and the admiral made a prayer, which all fervently joined.  With his own
+hand Klaaszoon then lighted the powder magazine, and the ship was blown
+into the air.  Two sailors, all that were left alive, were picked out of
+the sea by the Spaniards and brought on board one of the vessels of the
+fleet.  Desperately mutilated, those grim Dutchmen lived a few minutes to
+tell the tale, and then died defiant on the enemy's deck.
+
+Yet it was thought that a republic, which could produce men like Regnier
+Klaaszoon and his comrades, could be subjected again to despotism, after
+a war for independence of forty years, and that such sailors could be
+forbidden to sail the eastern and western seas.  No epigrammatic phrase
+has been preserved of this simple Regnier, the son of Nicholas.  He only
+did what is sometimes talked about in phraseology more or less melo-
+dramatic, and did it in a very plain way.
+
+Such extreme deeds may have become so much less necessary in the world,
+that to threaten them is apt to seem fantastic.  Exactly at that crisis
+of history, however, and especially in view of the Dutch admiral
+commanding having refused a combat of one to three, the speechless self-
+devotion of the vice-admiral was better than three years of eloquent
+arguments and a ship-load of diplomatic correspondence, such as were
+already impending over the world.
+
+Admiral Haultain returned with all his ships uninjured--the six missing
+vessels having found their way at last safely back to the squadron--but
+with a very great crack to his reputation.  It was urged very justly,
+both by the States-General and the public, that if one ship under a
+determined commander could fight the whole Spanish fleet two days and
+nights, and sink unconquered at last, ten ships more might have put the
+enemy to flight, or at least have saved the vice-admiral from
+destruction.
+
+But very few days after the incidents just described, the merchant fleet
+which, instead of Don Luis Fazardo's war galleons, Admiral Haultain had
+so longed to encounter, arrived safely at San Lucar.  It was the most
+splendid treasure-fleet that had ever entered a Spanish port, and the
+Dutch admiral's heart might well have danced for joy, had he chanced to
+come a little later on the track.  There were fifty ships, under charge
+of General Alonzo de Ochares Galindo and General Ganevaye.  They had on
+board, according to the registers, 1,914,176 dollars worth of bullion for
+the king, and 6,086,617 dollars for merchants, or 8,000,000 dollars in
+all, besides rich cargoes of silk, cochineal, sarsaparilla, indigo,
+Brazil wood, and hides; the result of two years of pressure upon
+Peruvians, Mexicans, and Brazilians.  Never had Spanish finances been
+at so low an ebb.  Never was so splendid an income more desirable.  The
+king's share of the cargo was enough to pay half the arrearages due to
+his mutinous troops; and for such housekeeping this was to be in funds.
+
+There were no further exploits on land or sea that year.  There were,
+however, deaths of three personages often mentioned in this history.  The
+learned Justus Lipsius died in Louvain, a good editor and scholar, and as
+sincere a Catholic at last as he had been alternately a bigoted Calvinist
+and an earnest Lutheran.  His reputation was thought to have suffered by
+his later publications, but the world at large was occupied with sterner
+stuff than those classic productions, and left the final decision to
+posterity.
+
+A man of a different mould, the turbulent, high-born, hard fighting,
+hard-drinking Hohenlo, died also this year, brother-in-law and military
+guardian, subsequently rival and political and personal antagonist, of
+Prince Maurice.  His daring deeds and his troublesome and mischievous
+adventures have been recounted in these pages.  His name will be always
+prominent in the history of the republic, to which he often rendered
+splendid service, but he died, as he had lived, a glutton and a
+melancholy sot.
+
+The third remarkable personage who passed away was one whose name will be
+remembered as long as the Netherlands have a history, old Count John of
+Nassau, only surviving brother of William the Silent.  He had been ever
+prominent and deeply interested in the great religious and political
+movements of upper and lower Germany, and his services in the foundation
+of the Dutch commonwealth were signal, and ever generously acknowledged.
+At one period, as will be recollected, he was stadholder of Gelderland,
+and he was ever ready with sword, purse, and counsel to aid in the great
+struggle for independence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+     General desire for peace--Political aspect of Europe--Designs of the
+     kings of England, France, and Spain concerning the United Provinces
+     --Matrimonial schemes of Spain--Conference between the French
+     ministers and the Dutch envoy--Confidential revelations--Henry's
+     desire to annex the Netherlands to France--Discussion of the
+     subject--Artifice of Barneveld--Impracticability of a compromise
+     between the Provinces and Spain--Formation of a West India Company--
+     Secret mission from the archdukes to the Hague--Reply of the States-
+     General--Return of the archdukes' envoy--Arrangement of an eight
+     months' armistice.
+
+The general tendency towards a pacification in Europe at the close of the
+year could hardly be mistaken.  The languor of fatigue, rather than any
+sincere desire for peace seemed to make negotiations possible.  It was
+not likely that great truths would yet be admitted, or that ruling
+individuals or classes would recognise the rise of a new system out of
+the rapidly dissolving elements of the one which had done its work.  War
+was becoming more and more expensive, while commerce, as the world slowly
+expanded itself, and manifested its unsuspected resources, was becoming
+more and more lucrative.  It was not, perhaps, that men hated each other
+less, but that they had for a time exhausted their power and their love
+for slaughter.  Meanwhile new devices for injuring humanity and retarding
+its civilization were revealing themselves out of that very intellectual
+progress which ennobled the new era.  Although war might still be
+regarded as the normal condition of the civilized world, it was possible
+for the chosen ones to whom the earth and its fulness belonged, to
+inflict general damage otherwise than by perpetual battles.
+
+In the east, west, north, and south of Europe peace was thrusting itself
+as it were uncalled for and unexpected upon the general attention.
+Charles and his nephew Sigismund, and the false Demetrius, and the
+intrigues of the Jesuits, had provided too much work for Sweden, Poland,
+and Russia to leave those countries much leisure for mingling in the more
+important business of Europe at this epoch, nor have their affairs much
+direct connection with this history.  Venice, in its quarrels with the
+Jesuits, had brought Spain, France, and all Italy into a dead lock, out
+of which a compromise had been made not more satisfactory to the various
+parties than compromises are apt to prove.  The Dutch republic still
+maintained the position which it had assumed, a quarter of a century
+before, of actual and legal independence; while Spain, on the other hand,
+still striving after universal monarchy, had not, of course, abated one
+jot of its pretensions to absolute dominion over its rebellious subjects
+in the Netherlands.
+
+The holy Roman and the sublime Ottoman empires had also drifted into
+temporary peace; the exploits of the Persians and other Asiatic movements
+having given Ahmed more work than was convenient on his eastern frontier,
+while Stephen Botshkay had so completely got the better of Rudolph in
+Transylvania as to make repose desirable.  So there was a treaty between
+the great Turk and the great Christian on the basis of what each
+possessed; Stephen Botshkay was recognized as prince of Transylvania with
+part of Hungary, and, when taken off soon afterwards by family poison, he
+recommended on his death-bed the closest union between Hungary and
+Transylvania, as well as peace with the emperor, so long as it might be
+compatible with the rights of the Magyars.
+
+France and England, while suspecting each other, dreading each other, and
+very sincerely hating each other, were drawn into intimate relations by
+their common detestation of Spain, with which power both had now formal
+treaties of alliance and friendship.  This was the result of their mighty
+projects for humbling the house of Austria and annihilating its power.
+England hated the Netherlands because of the injuries she had done them,
+the many benefits she had conferred upon them, and more than all on
+account of the daily increasing commercial rivalry between the two most
+progressive states in Christendom, the two powers which, comparatively
+weak as they were in territory, capital, and population, were most in
+harmony with the spirit of the age.
+
+The Government of England was more hostile than its people to the United
+Provinces.  James never spoke of the Netherlanders but as upstarts and
+rebels, whose success ought to be looked upon with horror by the Lord's
+anointed everywhere.  He could not shut his eyes to the fact that, with
+the republic destroyed, and a Spanish sacerdotal despotism established
+in Holland and Zeeland, with Jesuit seminaries in full bloom in Amsterdam
+and the Hague, his own rebels in Ireland might prove more troublesome
+than ever, and gunpowder plots in London become common occurrences.
+
+The Earl of Tyrone at that very moment was receiving enthusiastic
+hospitality at the archduke's court, much to the disgust of the
+Presbyterian sovereign of the United Kingdom, who nevertheless, despite
+his cherished theology, was possessed with an unconquerable craving for a
+close family alliance with the most Catholic king.  His ministers were
+inclined to Spain, and the British Government was at heart favourable to
+some kind of arrangement by which the Netherlands might be reduced to the
+authority of their former master, in case no scheme could be carried
+into, effect for acquiring a virtual sovereignty over those provinces by
+the British crown.  Moreover, and most of all, the King of France being
+supposed to contemplate the annexation of the Netherlands to his own
+dominions, the jealousy excited by such ambition made it even possible
+for James's Government to tolerate the idea of Dutch independence.  Thus
+the court and cabinet of England were as full of contradictory hopes and
+projects as a madman's brain.
+
+The rivalry between the courts of England and France for the Spanish
+marriages and by means of them to obtain ultimately the sovereignty
+of all the Netherlands, was the key to most of the diplomacy and
+interpalatial intrigue of the several first years of the century.  The
+negotiations of Cornwallis at Madrid were almost simultaneous with the
+schemes of Villeroy and Rosny at Paris.
+
+A portion of the English Government, so soon as its treaty with Spain had
+been signed, seemed secretly determined to do as much injury to the
+republic as might lie in its power.  While at heart convinced that the
+preservation of the Netherlands was necessary for England's safety, it
+was difficult for James and the greater part of his advisers to overcome
+their repugnance to the republic, and their jealousy of the great
+commercial successes which the republic had achieved.
+
+It was perfectly plain that a continuance of the war by England and the
+Netherlands united would have very soon ended in the entire humiliation
+of Spain.  Now that peace had been made, however, it was thought possible
+that England might make a bargain with her late enemy for destroying the
+existence and dividing the territory of her late ally.  Accordingly the
+Spanish cabinet lost no time in propounding, under seal of secrecy, and
+with even more mystery than was usually employed by the most Catholic
+court, a scheme for the marriage of the Prince of Wales with the Infanta;
+the bridal pair, when arrived at proper age, to be endowed with all the
+Netherlands, both obedient and republican, in full sovereignty.  One
+thing was necessary to the carrying out of this excellent plot, the
+reduction of the republic into her ancient subjection to Spain before her
+territory could be transferred to the future Princess of Wales.
+
+It was proposed by the Spanish Government that England should undertake
+this part of the job, and that King James for such service should receive
+an annual pension of one million ducats a year.  It was also stipulated
+that certain cities in the republican dominions should be pledged to him
+as security for the regular payment of that stipend.  Sir Charles
+Cornwallis, English ambassador in Spain, lent a most favourable ear to
+these proposals, and James eagerly sanctioned them so soon as they were
+secretly imparted to that monarch.  "The king here," said Cornwallis,
+"hath need of the King of Great Britain's arm.  Our king .  .  .  hath
+good occasion to use the help of the King of Spain's purse.  The
+assistance of England to help that nation out of that quicksand of the
+Low Countries, where so long they have struggled to tread themselves out,
+and by proof find that deeper in, will be a sovereign medicine to the
+malady of this estate.  The addition of a million of ducats to the
+revenue of our sovereign will be a good help to his estate."
+
+The Spanish Government had even the effrontery to offer the English envoy
+a reward of two hundred thousand crowns if the negotiations should prove
+successful.  Care was to be taken however that Great Britain, by this
+accession of power, both present and in prospect, should not grow too
+great, Spain reserving to herself certain strongholds and maritime
+positions in the Netherlands, for the proper security of her European and
+Indian commerce.
+
+It was thought high time for the bloodshed to cease in the provinces; and
+as England, by making a treaty of peace with Spain when Spain was at the
+last gasp, had come to the rescue of that power, it was logical that she
+should complete the friendly work by compelling the rebellious provinces
+to awake from their dream of independence.  If the statesmen of Holland
+believed in the possibility of that independence, the statesmen of
+England knew better.  If the turbulent little republic was not at
+last convinced that it had no right to create so much turmoil and
+inconvenience for its neighbours and for Christendom in general in order
+to maintain its existence, it should be taught its duty by the sovereigns
+of Spain and Britain.
+
+It was observed, however, that the more greedily James listened day after
+day to the marriage propositions, the colder became the Spanish cabinet
+in regard to that point, the more disposed to postpone those nuptials "to
+God's providence and future event."
+
+The high hopes founded on these secret stratagems were suddenly dashed to
+the earth before the end of the year; the explosion of the Gunpowder Plot
+blowing the castles in Spain into the air.
+
+Of course the Spanish politicians vied with each other in expressions of
+horror and indignation at the Plot, and the wicked contrivers thereof,
+and suggested to Cornwallis that the King of France was probably at the
+bottom of it.
+
+They declined to give up Owen and Baldwin, however, and meantime the
+negotiations for the marriage of the Prince of Wales and the Infanta, the
+million ducats of yearly pension for the needy James, and the reduction
+of the Dutch republic to its ancient slavery to Spain "under the eye and
+arm of Britain," faded indefinitely away.  Salisbury indeed was always
+too wise to believe in the possibility of the schemes with which James
+and some of his other counsellors had been so much infatuated.
+
+It was almost dramatic that these plottings between James and the
+Catholic king against the life of the republic should have been signally
+and almost simultaneously avenged by the conspiracy of Guido Fawkes.
+
+On the other hand, Rosny had imparted to the Dutch envoy the schemes of
+Henry and his ministers in regard to the same object, early in 1605.
+"Spain is more tired of the war," said he to Aerssens, under seal of
+absolute secrecy, "than you are yourselves.  She is now negotiating for a
+marriage between the Dauphin and the Infanta, and means to give her the
+United Provinces, as at present constituted, for a marriage portion.
+Villeroy and Sillery believe the plan feasible, but demand all the
+Netherlands together.  As for me I shall have faith in it if they send
+their Infanta hither at once, or make a regular cession of the territory.
+Do you believe that my lords the States will agree to the proposition?"
+
+It would be certainly difficult to match in history the effrontery of
+such a question.  The republican envoy was asked point blank whether his
+country would resign her dearly gained liberty and give herself as a
+dowry for Philip the Second's three-years-old grand daughter.  Aerssens
+replied cautiously that he had never heard the matter discussed in the
+provinces.  It had always been thought that the French king had no
+pretensions to their territory, but had ever advocated their
+independence.  He hinted that such a proposition was a mere apple of
+discord thrown between two good allies by Spain.  Rosny admitted the
+envoy's arguments, and said that his Majesty would do nothing without the
+consent of the Dutch Government, and that he should probably be himself
+sent ere long to the Hague to see if he could not obtain some little
+recognition from the States.
+
+Thus it was confidentially revealed to the agent of the republic that her
+candid adviser and ally was hard at work, in conjunction with her ancient
+enemy, to destroy her independence, annex her territory, and appropriate
+to himself all the fruits of her great war, her commercial achievements,
+and her vast sacrifices; while, as we have just seen, English politicians
+at the same moment were attempting to accomplish the same feat for
+England's supposed advantage.  All that was wished by Henry to begin with
+was a little, a very little, recognition of his sovereignty.  "You will
+do well to reflect on this delicate matter in time," wrote Aerssens to
+the Advocate; "I know that the King of Spain is inclined to make this
+offer, and that they are mad enough in this place to believe the thing
+feasible.  For me, I reject all such talk until they have got the
+Infanta--that is to say, until the Greek Kalends.  I am ashamed that they
+should believe it here, and fearful that there is still more evil
+concealed than I know of."
+
+Towards the close of the year 1606 the French Government became still
+more eager to carry out their plans of alliance and absorption.
+Aerssens, who loved a political intrigue better than became a republican
+envoy, was perfectly aware of Henry's schemes.  He was disposed to humour
+them, in order to make sure of his military assistance, but with the
+secret intention of seeing them frustrated by the determined opposition
+of the States.
+
+The French ministers, by command of their sovereign, were disposed to
+deal very plainly.  They informed the Dutch diplomatist, with very little
+circumlocution, that if the republic wished assistance from France she
+was to pay a heavy price for it.  Not a pound of flesh only, but the
+whole body corporate, was to be surrendered if its destruction was to be
+averted by French arms.
+
+"You know," said Sillery, "that princes in all their actions consider
+their interests, and his Majesty has not so much affection for your
+conservation as to induce him to resign his peaceful position.  Tell me,
+I pray you, what would you do for his Majesty in case anything should be
+done for you?  You were lately in Holland.  Do you think that they would
+give themselves to the king if he assisted them?  Do you not believe that
+Prince Maurice has designs on the sovereignty, and would prevent the
+fulfilment of the king's hopes?  What will you do for us in return for
+our assistance?"
+
+Aerssens was somewhat perplexed, but he was cunning at fence.  "We will
+do all we can," said he, "for any change is more supportable than the
+yoke of Spain."
+
+"What can you do then?" persisted Sillery.  "Give us your opinion in
+plain French, I beg of you, and lay aside all passion; for we have both
+the same object--your preservation.  Besides interest, his Majesty has
+affection for you.  Let him only see some advantage for himself to induce
+to assist you more powerfully.  Suppose you should give us what you have
+and what you may acquire in Flanders with the promise to treat secretly
+with us when the time comes.  Could you do that?"
+
+The envoy replied that this would be tearing the commonwealth in pieces.
+If places were given away, the jealousy of the English would be excited.
+Certainly it would be no light matter to surrender Sluys, the fruit of
+Maurice's skill and energy, the splendidly earned equivalent for the loss
+of Ostend.  "As to Sluys and other places in Flanders," said Aerssens,
+"I don't know if towns comprised in our Union could be transferred or
+pledged without their own consent and that of the States.  Should such a
+thing get wind we might be ruined.  Nevertheless I will write to learn
+what his Majesty may hope."
+
+"The people," returned Sillery, "need know nothing of this transfer; for
+it might be made secretly by Prince Maurice, who could put the French
+quietly into Sluys and other Flemish places.  Meantime you had best make
+a journey to Holland to arrange matters so that the deputies, coming
+hither, may be amply instructed in regard to Sluys, and no time be lost.
+His Majesty is determined to help you if you know how to help
+yourselves."
+
+The two men then separated, Sillery enjoining it upon the envoy to see
+the king next morning, "in order to explain to his Majesty, as he had
+just been doing to himself, that this sovereignty could not be
+transferred, without the consent of the whole people, nor the people
+be consulted in secret."
+
+"It is necessary therefore to be armed," continued Henry's minister very
+significantly, "before aspiring to the sovereignty."
+
+Thus there was a faint glimmer of appreciation at the French court of the
+meaning of popular sovereignty.  It did not occur to the minister that
+the right of giving consent was to be respected.  The little obstacle was
+to be overcome by stratagem and by force.  Prince Maurice was to put
+French garrisons stealthily into Sluys and other towns conquered by the
+republic in Flanders.  Then the magnanimous ally was to rise at the right
+moment and overcome all resistance by force of arms.  The plot was a good
+one.  It is passing strange, however, that the character of the Nassaus
+and of the Dutch nation should after the last fifty years have been still
+so misunderstood.  It seemed in France possible that Maurice would thus
+defile his honour and the Netherlanders barter their liberty, by
+accepting a new tyrant in place of the one so long ago deposed.
+
+"This is the marrow of our conference," said Aerssens to Barneveld,
+reporting the interview, "and you may thus perceive whither are tending
+the designs of his Majesty.  It seems that they are aspiring here to the
+sovereignty, and all my letters have asserted the contrary.  If you will
+examine a little more closely, however, you will find that there is no
+contradiction.  This acquisition would be desirable for France if it
+could be made peacefully.  As it can only be effected by war you may make
+sure that it will not be attempted; for the great maxim and basis of this
+kingdom is to preserve repose, and at the same time give such occupation
+to the King of Spain that his means shall be consumed and his designs
+frustrated.  All this will cease if we make peace.
+
+"Thus in treating with the king we must observe two rules.  The first is
+that we can maintain ourselves no longer unless powerfully assisted, and
+that, the people inclining to peace, we shall be obliged to obey the
+people.  Secondly, we must let no difficulty appear as to the desire
+expressed by his Majesty to have the sovereignty of these provinces.
+We ought to let him hope for it, but to make him understand that by
+ordinary and legitimate means he cannot aspire to it.  We will make him
+think that we have an equal desire with himself, and we shall thus take
+from those evil-disposed counsellors the power to injure us who are
+always persuading him that he is only making us great for ourselves, and
+thus giving us the power to injure him.  In short, the king can hope
+nothing from us overtly, and certainly nothing covertly.  By explaining
+to him that we require the authorization of the people, and by showing
+ourselves prompt to grant his request, he will be the very first to
+prevent us from taking any steps, in order that his repose may not be
+disturbed.  I know that France does not wish to go to war with Spain.
+Let us then pretend that we wish to be under the dominion of France, and
+that we will lead our people to that point if the king desires it, but
+that it cannot be done secretly.  Believe me, he will not wish it on such
+conditions, while we shall gain much by this course.  Would to God that
+we could engage France in war with Spain.  All the utility would be ours;
+and the accidents of arms would so press them to Spain, Italy, and other
+places, that they would have little leisure to think of us.  Consider all
+this and conceal it from Buzanval."
+
+Buzanval, it is well known, was the French envoy at the Hague, and it
+must be confessed that these schemes and paltry falsehoods on the part of
+the Dutch agent were as contemptible as any of the plots contrived every
+day in Paris or Madrid.  Such base coin as this was still circulating in
+diplomacy as if fresh from the Machiavellian mint; but the republican
+agent ought to have known that his Government had long ago refused to
+pass it current.
+
+Soon afterwards this grave matter was discussed at the Hague between
+Henry's envoy and Barneveld.  It was a very delicate negotiation.  The
+Advocate wished to secure the assistance of a powerful but most
+unscrupulous ally, and at the same time to conceal his real intention to
+frustrate the French design upon the independence of the republic.
+
+Disingenuous and artful as his conduct unquestionably was, it may at
+least be questioned whether in that age of deceit any other great
+statesman would have been more frank.  If the comparatively weak
+commonwealth, by openly and scornfully refusing all the insidious and
+selfish propositions of the French king, had incurred that monarch's
+wrath, it would have taken a noble position no doubt, but it would have
+perhaps been utterly destroyed.  The Advocate considered himself
+justified in using the artifices of war against a subtle and dangerous
+enemy who wore the mask of a friend.  When the price demanded for
+military protection was the voluntary abandonment of national
+independence in favour of the protector, the man who guided the affairs
+of the Netherlands did not hesitate to humour and to outwit the king who
+strove to subjugate the republic.  At the same time--however one may be
+disposed to censure the dissimulation from the standing-ground of a lofty
+morality--it should not be forgotten that Barneveld never hinted at any
+possible connivance on his part with an infraction of the laws.  Whatever
+might be the result of time, of persuasion, of policy, he never led
+Henry or his ministers to believe that the people of the Netherlands
+could be deprived of their liberty by force or fraud.  He was willing to
+play a political game, in which he felt himself inferior to no man,
+trusting to his own skill and coolness for success.  If the tyrant were
+defeated, and at the same time made to serve the cause of the free
+commonwealth, the Advocate believed this to be fair play.
+
+Knowing himself surrounded by gamblers and tricksters, he probably did
+not consider himself to be cheating because he did not play his cards
+upon the table.
+
+So when Buzanval informed him early in October that the possession of
+Sluys and other Flemish towns would not be sufficient for the king, but
+that they must offer the sovereignty on even more favourable conditions
+than had once been proposed to Henry III., the Advocate told him roundly
+that my lords the States were not likely to give the provinces to any
+man, but meant to maintain their freedom and their rights.  The envoy
+replied that his Majesty would be able to gain more favour perhaps with
+the common people of the country.
+
+When it is remembered that the States had offered the sovereignty of the
+provinces to Henry III., abjectly and as it were without any conditions
+at all, the effrontery of Henry IV. may be measured, who claimed the same
+sovereignty, after twenty years of republican independence, upon even
+more favourable terms than those which his predecessor had rejected.
+
+Barneveld, in order to mitigate the effect of his plump refusal of the
+royal overtures, explained to Buzanval, what Buzanval very well knew,
+that the times had now changed; that in those days, immediately after the
+death of William the Silent, despair and disorder had reigned in the
+provinces, "while that dainty delicacy--liberty--had not so long been
+sweetly tickling the appetites of the people; that the English had not
+then acquired their present footing in the country, nor the house of
+Nassau the age, the credit, and authority to which it had subsequently
+attained."
+
+He then intimated--and here began the deception, which certainly did not
+deceive Buzanval--that if things were handled in the right way, there was
+little doubt as to the king's reaching the end proposed, but that all
+depended on good management.  It was an error, he said, to suppose that
+in one, two, or three months, eight provinces and their principal
+members, to wit, forty good cities all enjoying liberty and equality,
+could be induced to accept a foreign sovereign.
+
+Such language was very like irony, and probably not too subtle to escape
+the fine perception of the French envoy.
+
+The first thing to be done, continued the Advocate, is to persuade the
+provinces to aid the king with all their means to conquer the disunited
+provinces--to dispose of the archdukes, in short, and to drive the
+Spaniards from the soil--and then, little by little, to make it clear
+that there could be no safety for the States except in reducing the whole
+body of the Netherlands under the authority of the king.  Let his Majesty
+begin by conquering and annexing to his crown the provinces nearest him,
+and he would then be able to persuade the others to a reasonable
+arrangement.
+
+Whether the Advocate's general reply was really considered by Buzanval
+as a grave sarcasm, politely veiled, may be a question.  That envoy,
+however, spoke to his Government of the matter as surrounded with
+difficulties, but not wholly desperate.  Barneveld was, he said, inclined
+to doubt whether the archdukes would be able, before any negotiations
+were begun, to comply with the demand which he had made upon them to have
+a declaration in writing that the United Provinces were to be regarded as
+a free people over whom they pretended to no authority.  If so, the
+French king would at once be informed of the fact.  Meantime the envoy
+expressed the safe opinion that, if Prince Maurice and the Advocate
+together should take the matter of Henry's sovereignty in hand with zeal,
+they might conduct the bark to the desired haven.  Surely this was an
+'if' with much virtue in it.  And notwithstanding that he chose to
+represent Barneveld as, rich, tired, at the end of his Latin, and willing
+enough to drop his anchor in a snug harbour, in order to make his fortune
+secure, it was obvious enough that Buzanval had small hope at heart of
+seeing his master's purpose accomplished.
+
+As to Prince Maurice, the envoy did not even affect to believe him
+capable of being made use of, strenuous as the efforts of the French
+Government in that direction had been.  "He has no private designs that
+I can find out," said Buzanval, doing full justice to the straightforward
+and sincere character of the prince.  "He asks no change for himself or
+for his country."  The envoy added, as a matter of private opinion
+however, that if an alteration were to be made in the constitution of
+the provinces, Maurice would prefer that it should be made in favour
+of France than of any other Government.
+
+He lost no opportunity, moreover, of impressing it upon his Government
+that if the sovereignty were to be secured for France at all, it could
+only be done by observing great caution, and by concealing their desire
+to swallow the republic of which they were professing themselves the
+friends.  The jealousy of England was sure to be awakened if France
+appeared too greedy at the beginning.  On the other hand, that power
+"might be the more easily rocked into a profound sleep if France did not
+show its appetite at the very beginning of the banquet."  That the policy
+of France should be steadily but stealthily directed towards getting
+possession of as many strong places as possible in the Netherlands had
+long been his opinion.  "Since we don't mean to go to war," said he a
+year before to Villeroy, "let us at least follow the example of the
+English, who have known how to draw a profit out of the necessities of
+this state.  Why should we not demand, or help ourselves to, a few good
+cities.  Sluys, for example, would be a security for us, and of great
+advantage."
+
+Suspicion was rife on this subject at the court of Spain.  Certainly
+it would be less humiliating to the Catholic crown to permit the
+independence of its rebellious subjects than to see them incorporated
+into the realms of either France or England.  It is not a very striking
+indication of the capacity of great rulers to look far into the future
+that both, France and England should now be hankering after the
+sovereignty of those very provinces, the solemn offer of which by the
+provinces themselves both France and England had peremptorily and almost
+contemptuously refused.
+
+In Spain itself the war was growing very wearisome.  Three hundred
+thousand dollars a month could no longer be relied upon from the royal
+exchequer, or from the American voyages, or from the kite-flying
+operations of the merchant princes on the Genoa exchange.
+
+A great fleet, to be sure, had recently arrived, splendidly laden, from
+the West Indies, as already stated.  Pagan slaves, scourged to their
+dreadful work, continued to supply to their Christian taskmasters the
+hidden treasures of the New World in exchange for the blessings of the
+Evangel as thus revealed; but these treasures could never fill the
+perpetual sieve of the Netherland war, rapidly and conscientiously as
+they were poured into it, year after year.
+
+The want of funds in the royal exchequer left the soldiers in Flanders
+unpaid, and as an inevitable result mutiny admirably organized and calmly
+defiant was again established throughout the obedient provinces.  This
+happened regularly once a year, so that it seemed almost as business-like
+a proceeding for an Eletto to proclaim mutiny as for a sovereign to
+declare martial law.  Should the whole army mutiny at once, what might
+become of the kingdom of Spain?
+
+Moreover, a very uneasy feeling was prevalent that, as formerly, the
+Turks had crossed the Hellespont into Europe by means of a Genoese
+alliance and Genoese galleys, so now the Moors were contemplating the
+reconquest of Granada, and of their other ancient possessions in Spain,
+with the aid of the Dutch republic and her powerful fleets.--[Grotius,
+xv. 715]
+
+The Dutch cruisers watched so carefully on the track of the homeward-
+bound argosies, that the traffic was becoming more dangerous than
+lucrative, particularly since the public law established by Admiral
+Fazardo, that it was competent for naval commanders to hang, drown, or
+burn the crews of the enemy's merchantmen.
+
+The Portuguese were still more malcontent than the Spaniards.  They had
+gained little by the absorption of their kingdom by Spain, save
+participation in the war against the republic, the result of which had
+been to strip them almost entirely of the conquests of Vasco de Gama and
+his successors, and to close to them the ports of the Old World and the
+New.
+
+In the republic there was a party for peace, no doubt, but peace only
+with independence.  As for a return to their original subjection to Spain
+they were unanimously ready to accept forty years more of warfare rather
+than to dream of such a proposition.  There were many who deliberately
+preferred war to peace.  Bitter experience had impressed very deeply on
+the Netherlanders the great precept that faith would never be kept with
+heretics.  The present generation had therefore been taught from their
+cradles to believe that the word peace in Spanish mouths simply meant the
+Holy Inquisition.  It was not unnatural, too, perhaps, that a people who
+had never known what it was to be at peace might feel, in regard to that
+blessing, much as the blind or the deaf towards colour or music; as
+something useful and agreeable, no doubt, but with which they might the
+more cheerfully dispense, as peculiar circumstances had always kept them
+in positive ignorance of its nature.  The instinct of commercial
+greediness made the merchants of Holland and Zeeland, and especially
+those of Amsterdam, dread the revival of Antwerp in case of peace, to the
+imagined detriment of the great trading centres of the republic.  It was
+felt also to be certain that Spain, in case of negotiations, would lay
+down as an indispensable preliminary the abstinence on the part of the
+Netherlanders from all intercourse with the Indies, East or West; and
+although such a prohibition would be received by those republicans with
+perfect contempt, yet the mere discussion of the subject moved their
+spleen.  They had already driven the Portuguese out of a large portion of
+the field in the east, and they were now preparing by means of the same
+machinery to dispute the monopoly of the Spaniards in the west.  To talk
+of excluding such a people as this from intercourse with any portion of
+the Old World or the New was the mumbling of dotage; yet nothing could be
+more certain than that such would be the pretensions of Spain.
+
+As for the stadholder, his vocation was war, his greatness had been
+derived from war, his genius had never turned itself to pacific pursuits.
+Should a peace be negotiated, not only would his occupation be gone, but
+he might even find himself hampered for means.  It was probable that his
+large salaries, as captain and admiral-general of the forces of the
+republic, would be seriously curtailed, in case his services in the field
+were no longer demanded, while such secret hopes as he might entertain of
+acquiring that sovereign power which Barneveld had been inclined to
+favour, were more likely to be fulfilled if the war should be continued.
+At the same time, if sovereignty were to be his at all, he was distinctly
+opposed to such limitations of his authority as were to have been
+proposed by the States to his father.  Rather than reign on those
+conditions, he avowed that he would throw himself head foremost
+from the great tower of Hague Castle.
+
+Moreover, the prince was smarting under the consciousness of having lost
+military reputation, however undeservedly, in the latter campaigns, and
+might reasonably hope to gain new glory in the immediate future.  Thus,
+while his great rival, Marquis Spinola, whose fame had grown to so
+luxuriant a height in so brief a period, had many reasons to dread the
+results of future campaigning, Maurice seemed to have personally much to
+lose and nothing to hope for in peace.  Spinola was over head and ears in
+debt.  In the past two years he had spent millions of florins out of his
+own pocket.  His magnificent fortune and boundless credit were seriously
+compromised.  He had found it an easier task to take Ostend and relieve
+Grol than to bolster up the finances of Spain.
+
+His acceptances were becoming as much a drug upon the exchanges of
+Antwerp, Genoa, or Augsburg, as those of the most Catholic king or their
+Highnesses the archdukes.  Ruin stared him in the face, notwithstanding
+the deeds with which he had startled the world, and he was therefore
+sincerely desirous of peace, provided, of course, that all those
+advantages for which the war had been waged in vain could now be
+secured by negotiation.
+
+There had been, since the arrival of the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands,
+just forty years of fighting.  Maurice and the war had been born in the
+same year, and it would be difficult for him to comprehend that his whole
+life's work had been a superfluous task, to be rubbed away now with a
+sponge.  Yet that Spain, on the entrance to negotiations, would demand
+of the provinces submission to her authority, re-establishment of the
+Catholic religion, abstinence from Oriental or American commerce, and the
+toleration of Spanish soldiers over all the Netherlands, seemed
+indubitable.
+
+It was equally unquestionable that the seven provinces would demand
+recognition of their national independence by Spain, would refuse public
+practice of the Roman religion within their domains, and would laugh to
+scorn any proposed limitations to their participation in the world's
+traffic.  As to the presence of Spanish troops on their soil, that was,
+of course, an inconceivable idea.
+
+Where, then, could even a loophole be found through which the possibility
+of a compromise could be espied?  The ideas of the contending parties
+were as much opposed to each other as fire and snow.  Nevertheless, the
+great forces of the world seemed to have gradually settled into such an
+equilibrium as to make the continuance of the war for the present
+impossible.
+
+Accordingly, the peace-party in Brussels had cautiously put forth its
+tentacles late in 1606, and again in the early days of the new year.
+Walrave van Wittenhorst and Doctor Gevaerts had been allowed to come to
+the Hague, ostensibly on private business, but with secret commission
+from the archdukes to feel and report concerning the political
+atmosphere.  They found that it was a penal offence in the republic to
+talk of peace or of truce.  They nevertheless suspected that there might
+be a more sympathetic layer beneath the very chill surface which they
+everywhere encountered.  Having intimated in the proper quarters that the
+archdukes would be ready to receive or to appoint commissioners for peace
+or armistice, if becoming propositions should be made, they were allowed
+on the 10th of January, 1607, to make a communication to the States-
+General.  They indulged in the usual cheap commonplaces on the effusion
+of blood, the calamities of war, and the blessings of peace, and assured
+the States of the very benignant disposition of their Highnesses at
+Brussels.
+
+The States-General, in their reply, seventeen days afterwards, remarking
+that the archdukes persisted in their unfounded pretensions of authority
+over them, took occasion to assure their Highnesses that they had no
+chance to obtain such authority except by the sword.  Whether they
+were like to accomplish much in that way the history of the past might
+sufficiently indicate, while on the other hand the States would always
+claim the right, and never renounce the hope, of recovering those
+provinces which had belonged to their free commonwealth since the
+union of Utrecht, and which force and fraud had torn away.
+
+During twenty-five years that union had been confirmed as a free state by
+solemn decrees, and many public acts and dealings with the mightiest
+potentates of Europe, nor could any other answer now be made to the
+archdukes than the one always given to his holy Roman Imperial Majesty,
+and other princes, to wit, that no negotiations could be had with powers
+making any pretensions in conflict with the solemn decrees and well-
+maintained rights of the United Netherlands.
+
+It was in this year that two words became more frequent in the mouths of
+men than they had ever been before; two words which as the ages rolled on
+were destined to exercise a wider influence over the affairs of this
+planet than was yet dreamed of by any thinker in Christendom.  Those
+words were America and Virginia.  Certainly both words were known before,
+although India was the more general term for these auriferous regions of
+the west, which, more than a century long, had been open to European
+adventure, while the land, baptized in honour of the throned Vestal, had
+been already made familiar to European ears by the exploits of Raleigh.
+But it was not till 1607 that Jamestown was founded, that Captain John
+Smith's adventures with Powhattan, "emperor of Virginia," and his
+daughter the Princess Pocahontas, became fashionable topics in England,
+that the English attempts to sail up the Chickahominy to the Pacific
+Ocean--as abortive as those of the Netherlanders to sail across the North
+Pole to Cathay--were creating scientific discussion in Europe, and that
+the first cargo of imaginary gold dust was exported from the James River.
+
+With the adventurous minds of England all aflame with enthusiasm for
+those golden regions, with the thick-coming fancies for digging, washing,
+refining the precious sands of Virginia rivers, it was certain that a
+great rent was now to be made in the Borgian grant.  It was inevitable
+that the rivalry of the Netherlanders should be excited by the
+achievements and the marvellous tales of Englishmen beyond the Atlantic,
+and that they too should claim their share of traffic with that golden
+and magnificent Unknown which was called America.  The rivalry between
+England and Holland, already so conspicuous in the spicy Archipelagos of
+the east, was now to be extended over the silvery regions of the west.
+The two leading commercial powers of the Old World were now to begin
+their great struggle for supremacy in the western hemisphere.
+
+A charter for what was called a West India Company was accordingly
+granted by the States-General.  West India was understood to extend from
+the French settlements in Newfoundland or Acadia, along the American
+coast to the Straits of Magellan, and so around to the South Sea,
+including the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, besides all of Africa lying
+between the tropic of Cancer and the Cape of Good Hope.  At least, within
+those limits the West India Company was to have monopoly of trade, all
+other Netherlanders being warned off the precincts.  Nothing could be
+more magnificent, nor more vague.
+
+The charter was for thirty-six years.  The company was to maintain armies
+and fleets, to build forts and cities, to carry on war, to make treaties
+of peace and of commerce.  It was a small peripatetic republic of
+merchants and mariners, evolved out of the mother republic--which had at
+last established its position among the powers of Christendom--and it was
+to begin its career full grown and in full armour.
+
+The States-General were to furnish the company at starting with one
+million of florins and with twenty ships of war.  The company was to add
+twenty other ships.  The Government was to consist of four chambers of
+directors.  One-half the capital was to be contributed by the chamber of
+Amsterdam, one-quarter by that of Zeeland, one-eighth respectively by the
+chambers of the Meuse and of North Holland.  The chambers of Amsterdam,
+of Zeeland, of the Meuse, and of North Holland were to have respectively
+thirty, eighteen, fifteen, and fifteen directors.  Of these seventy-
+eight, one-third were to be replaced every sixth year by others, while
+from the whole number seventeen persons were to be elected as a permanent
+board of managers.  Dividends were to be made as soon as the earnings
+amounted to ten per cent. on the capital.  Maritime judges were to decide
+upon prizes, the proceeds of which were not to be divided for six years,
+in order that war might be self-sustaining.  Afterwards, the treasury of
+the United Provinces should receive one-tenth, Prince Maurice one-
+thirtieth, and the merchant stockholders the remainder.  Governors and
+generals were to take the oath of fidelity to the States-General.  The
+merchandize of the company was to be perpetually free of taxation, so far
+as regarded old duties, and exempt from war-taxes for the first twenty
+years.
+
+Very violent and conflicting were the opinions expressed throughout the
+republic in regard to this project.  It was urged by those most in favour
+of it that the chief sources of the greatness of Spain would be thus
+transferred to the States-General; for there could be no doubt that the
+Hollanders, unconquerable at sea, familiar with every ocean-path, and
+whose hardy constitutions defied danger and privation and the extremes of
+heat and cold, would easily supplant the more delicately organized
+adventurers from Southern Europe, already enervated by the exhausting
+climate of America.  Moreover, it was idle for Spain to attempt the
+defence of so vast a portion of the world.  Every tribe over which she
+had exercised sway would furnish as many allies for the Dutch company as
+it numbered men; for to obey and to hate the tyrannical Spaniard were
+one.  The republic would acquire, in reality, the grandeur which with
+Spain was but an empty boast, would have the glory of transferring the
+great war beyond the limits of home into those far distant possessions,
+where the enemy deemed himself most secure, and would teach the true
+religion to savages sunk in their own superstitions, and still further
+depraved by the imported idolatries of Rome.  Commerce was now world-
+wide, and the time had come for the Netherlanders, to whom the ocean
+belonged, to tear out from the pompous list of the Catholic king's titles
+his appellation of Lord of the Seas.
+
+There were others, however, whose language was not so sanguine.  They
+spoke with a shiver of the inhabitants of America, who hated all men,
+simply because they were men, or who had never manifested any love for
+their species except as an article of food.  To convert such cannibals to
+Christianity and Calvinism would be a hopeless endeavour, and meanwhile
+the Spaniards were masters of the country.  The attempt to blockade half
+the globe with forty galleots was insane; for, although the enemy had not
+occupied the whole territory, he commanded every harbour and position of
+vantage.  Men, scarcely able to defend inch by inch the meagre little
+sandbanks of their fatherland, who should now go forth in hopes to
+conquer the world, were but walking in their sleep.  They would awake to
+the consciousness of ruin.
+
+Thus men in the United Provinces spake of America.  Especially Barneveld
+had been supposed to be prominent among the opponents of the new Company,
+on the ground that the more violently commercial ambition excited itself
+towards wider and wilder fields of adventure, the fainter grew
+inclinations for peace.  The Advocate, who was all but omnipotent in
+Holland and Zeeland, subsequently denied the imputation of hostility to
+the new corporation, but the establishment of the West India Company,
+although chartered, was postponed.
+
+The archdukes had not been discouraged by the result of their first
+attempts at negotiation, for Wittenhorst had reported a disposition
+towards peace as prevalent in the rebellious provinces, so far as he had
+contrived, during his brief mission, to feel the public pulse.
+
+On the 6th February, 1607, Werner Cruwel, an insolvent tradesman of
+Brussels, and a relative of Recorder Aerssens, father of the envoy at
+Paris, made his appearance very unexpectedly at the house of his kinsman
+at the Hague.  Sitting at the dinner-table, but neither eating nor
+drinking, he was asked by his host what troubled him.  He replied that
+he had a load on his breast.  Aerssens begged him, if it was his recent
+bankruptcy that oppressed him, to use philosophy and patience.  The
+merchant answered that he who confessed well was absolved well.  He then
+took from his pocket-book a letter from President Richardot, and said he
+would reveal what he had to say after dinner.  The cloth being removed,
+and the wife and children of Aerssens having left the room, Cruwel
+disclosed that he had been sent by Richardot and Father Neyen on a secret
+mission.  The recorder, much amazed and troubled, refused to utter a
+word, save to ask if Cruwel would object to confer with the Advocate.
+The merchant expressing himself as ready for such an interview, the
+recorder, although it was late, immediately sent a message to the great
+statesman.  Barneveld was in bed and asleep, but was aroused to receive
+the communication of Aerssens.  "We live in such a calumnious time," said
+the recorder, "that many people believe that you and I know more of the
+recent mission of Wittenhorst than we admit.  You had best interrogate
+Cruwel in the presence of witnesses.  I know not the man's humour, but it
+seems to me since his failure, that, in spite of his shy and lumpish
+manner, he is false and cunning."
+
+The result was a secret interview, on the 8th February, between Prince
+Maurice, Barneveld, and the recorder, in which Cruwel was permitted to
+state the object of his mission.  He then produced a short memorandum,
+signed by Spinola and by Father Neyen, to the effect that the archdukes
+were willing to treat for a truce of ten or twelve years, on the sole
+condition that the States would abstain from the India navigation.  He
+exhibited also another paper, signed only by Neyen, in which that friar
+proposed to come secretly to the Hague, no one in Brussels to know of the
+visit save the archdukes and Spinola; and all in the United Provinces to
+be equally ignorant except the prince, the Advocate, and the recorder.
+Cruwel was then informed that if Neyen expected to discuss such grave
+matters with the prince, he must first send in a written proposal that
+could go on all fours and deserve attention.  A week afterwards Cruwel
+came back with a paper in which Neyen declared himself authorized by the
+archdukes to treat with the States on the basis of their liberty and
+independence, and to ask what they would give in return for so great a
+concession as this renunciation of all right to "the so-called United
+Provinces."
+
+This being a step in advance, it was decided to permit the visit of
+Neyen.  It was, however, the recorded opinion of the distinguished
+personages to whom the proposal was made that it was a trick and a
+deception.  The archdukes would, no doubt, it was said, nominally
+recognise the provinces as a free State, but without really meaning it.
+Meantime, they would do their best to corrupt the Government and to renew
+the war after the republic had by this means been separated from its
+friends.
+
+John Neyen, father commissary of the Franciscans, who had thus invited
+himself to the momentous conference, was a very smooth Flemish friar, who
+seemed admirably adapted, for various reasons, to glide into the rebel
+country and into the hearts of the rebels.  He was a Netherlander, born
+at Antwerp, when Antwerp was a portion of the united commonwealth, of a
+father who had been in the confidential service of William the Silent.
+He was eloquent in the Dutch language, and knew the character of the
+Dutch people.  He had lived much at court, both in Madrid and Brussels,
+and was familiar with the ways of kings and courtiers.  He was a holy
+man, incapable of a thought of worldly advancement for himself, but he
+was a master of the logic often thought most conclusive in those days;
+no man insinuating golden arguments more adroitly than he into half-
+reluctant palms.  Blessed with a visage of more than Flemish frankness,
+he had in reality a most wily and unscrupulous disposition.  Insensible
+to contumely, and incapable of accepting a rebuff, he could wind back to
+his purpose when less supple negotiators would have been crushed.
+
+He was described by his admirers as uniting the wisdom of the serpent
+with the guilelessness of the dove.  Who better than he then, in this
+double capacity, to coil himself around the rebellion, and to carry the
+olive-branch in his mouth?
+
+On the 25th February the monk, disguised in the dress of a burgher,
+arrived at Ryswick, a village a mile and a half from the Hague.  He was
+accompanied on the journey by Cruwel, and they gave themselves out as
+travelling tradesmen.  After nightfall, a carriage having been sent to
+the hostelry, according to secret agreement, by Recorder Aerssens, John
+Neyen was brought to the Hague.  The friar, as he was driven on through
+these hostile regions, was somewhat startled, on looking out, to find
+himself accompanied by two mounted musketeers on each side of the
+carriage, but they proved to have been intended as a protective escort.
+He was brought to the recorder's house, whence, after some delay, he was
+conveyed to the palace.  Here he was received by an unknown and silent
+attendant, who took him by the hand and led him through entirely deserted
+corridors and halls.  Not a human being was seen nor a sound heard until
+his conductor at last reached the door of an inner apartment through
+which he ushered him, without speaking a syllable.  The monk then found
+himself in the presence of two personages, seated at a table covered with
+books and papers.  One was in military undress, with an air about him of
+habitual command, a fair-complexioned man of middle age, inclining to
+baldness, rather stout, with a large blue eye, regular features, and a
+mouse-coloured beard.  The other was in the velvet cloak and grave
+habiliments of a civil functionary, apparently sixty years of age, with a
+massive features, and a shaggy beard.  The soldier was Maurice of Nassau,
+the statesman was John of Olden-Barneveld.
+
+Both rose as the friar entered, and greeted him with cordiality.
+
+"But," said the prince, "how did you dare to enter the Hague, relying
+only on the word of a Beggar?"
+
+"Who would not confide," replied Neyen, "in the word of so exalted, so
+respectable a Beggar as you, O most excellent prince?"
+
+With these facetious words began the negotiations through which an
+earnest attempt was at last to be made for terminating a seemingly
+immortal war.  The conversation, thus begun, rolled amicably and
+informally along.  The monk produced letters from the archdukes, in
+which, as he stated, the truly royal soul of the writers shone
+conspicuously forth.  Without a thought for their own advantage, he
+observed, and moved only by a contemplation of the tears shed by so many
+thousands of beings reduced to extreme misery, their Highnesses, although
+they were such exalted princes, cared nothing for what would be said by
+the kings of Europe and all the potentates of the universe about their
+excessive indulgence."
+
+"What indulgence do you speak of?"  asked the stadholder.
+
+"Does that seem a trifling indulgence," replied John Neyen, "that they
+are willing to abandon the right which they inherited from their
+ancestors over these provinces, to allow it so easily to slip from their
+fingers, to declare these people to be free, over whom, as their subjects
+refusing the yoke, they have carried on war so long?"
+
+"It is our right hands that have gained this liberty," said Maurice, "not
+the archdukes that have granted it.  It has been acquired by our
+treasure, poured forth how freely! by the price of our blood, by so many
+thousands of souls sent to their account.  Alas, how dear a price have
+we paid for it!  All the potentates of Christendom, save the King of
+Spain alone, with his relatives the archdukes, have assented to our
+independence.  In treating for peace we ask no gift of freedom from the
+archdukes.  We claim to be regarded by them as what we are--free men.
+If they are unwilling to consider us as such, let them subject us to
+their dominion if they can.  And as we have hitherto done, we shall
+contend more fiercely for liberty than for life."
+
+With this, the tired monk was dismissed to sleep off the effects of his
+journey and of the protracted discussion, being warmly recommended to the
+captain of the citadel, by whom he was treated with every possible
+consideration.
+
+Several days of private discussion ensued between Neyen and the leading
+personages of the republic.  The emissary was looked upon with great
+distrust.  All schemes of substantial negotiation were regarded by the
+public as visions, while the monk on his part felt the need of all his
+tact and temper to wind his way out of the labyrinth into which he felt
+that he had perhaps too heedlessly entered.  A false movement on his part
+would involve himself and his masters in a hopeless maze of suspicion,
+and make a pacific result impossible.
+
+At length, it having been agreed to refer the matter to the States-
+General, Recorder Aerssens waited upon Neyen to demand his credentials
+for negotiation.  He replied that he had been forbidden to deliver his
+papers, but that he was willing to exhibit them to the States-General.
+
+He came accordingly to that assembly, and was respectfully received.
+All the deputies rose, and he was placed in a seat near the presiding
+officer.  Olden-Barneveld then in a few words told him why he had been
+summoned.  The monk begged that a want of courtesy might not be imputed
+to him, as he had been sent to negotiate with three individuals, not with
+a great assembly.
+
+Thus already the troublesome effect of publicity upon diplomacy was
+manifesting itself.  The many-headed, many-tongued republic was a
+difficult creature to manage, adroit as the negotiator had proved himself
+to be in gliding through the cabinets and council-chambers of princes and
+dealing with the important personages found there.
+
+The power was, however, produced, and handed around the assembly, the
+signature and seals being duly inspected by the members.  Neyen was then
+asked if he had anything to say in public.  He replied in the negative,
+adding only a few vague commonplaces about the effusion of blood and the
+desire of the archdukes for the good of mankind.  He was then dismissed.
+
+A few days afterwards a committee of five from the States-General, of
+which Barneveld was chairman, conferred with Neyen.  He was informed that
+the paper exhibited by him was in many respects objectionable, and that
+they had therefore drawn up a form which he was requested to lay before
+the archdukes for their guidance in making out a new power.  He was asked
+also whether the king of Spain was a party to these proposals for
+negotiation.  The monk answered that he was not informed of the fact,
+but that he considered it highly probable.
+
+John Neyen then departed for Brussels with the form prescribed by the
+States-General in his pocket.  Nothing could exceed the indignation with
+which the royalists and Catholics at the court of the archdukes were
+inspired by the extreme arrogance and obstinacy thus manifested by the
+rebellious heretics.  That the offer on the part of their master to
+negotiate should be received by them with cavils, and almost with
+contempt, was as great an offence as their original revolt.  That the
+servant should dare to prescribe a form for the sovereign to copy seemed
+to prove that the world was coming to an end.  But it was ever thus with
+the vulgar, said the courtiers and church dignitaries, debating these
+matters.  The insanity of plebeians was always enormous, and never more
+so than when fortune for a moment smiled.  Full of arrogance and temerity
+when affairs were prosperous, plunged in abject cowardice when dangers
+and reverses came--such was the People--such it must ever be.
+
+Thus blustered the priests and the parasites surrounding the archduke,
+nor need their sentiments amaze us.  Could those honest priests and
+parasites have ever dreamed, before the birth of this upstart republic,
+that merchants, manufacturers, and farmers, mechanics and advocates--the
+People, in short--should presume to meddle with affairs of state?  Their
+vocation had been long ago prescribed--to dig and to draw, to brew and to
+bake, to bear burdens in peace and to fill bloody graves in war--what
+better lot could they desire?
+
+Meantime their superiors, especially endowed with wisdom by the
+Omnipotent, would direct trade and commerce, conduct war and diplomacy,
+make treaties, impose taxes, fill their own pockets, and govern the
+universe.  Was not this reasonable and according to the elemental laws?
+If the beasts of the field had been suddenly gifted with speech, and had
+constituted themselves into a free commonwealth for the management of
+public affairs, they would hardly have caused more profound astonishment
+at Brussels and Madrid than had been excited by the proceedings of the
+rebellious Dutchmen.
+
+Yet it surely might have been suggested, when the lament of the courtiers
+over the abjectness of the People in adversity was so emphatic, that Dorp
+and Van Loon, Berendrecht and Gieselles, with the men under their
+command, who had disputed every inch of Little Troy for three years and
+three months, and had covered those fatal sands with a hundred thousand
+corpses, had not been giving of late such evidence of the People's
+cowardice in reverses as theory required.  The siege of Ostend had been
+finished only three years before, and it is strange that its lessons
+should so soon have been forgotten.
+
+It was thought best, however, to dissemble.  Diplomacy in those days--
+certainly the diplomacy of Spain and Rome--meant simply dissimulation.
+Moreover, that solid apothegm, 'haereticis non servanda fides,' the most
+serviceable anchor ever forged for true believers, was always ready to be
+thrown out, should storm or quicksand threaten, during the intricate
+voyage to be now undertaken.
+
+John Neyen soon returned to the Hague, having persuaded his masters
+that it was best to affect compliance with the preliminary demand of
+the States.  During the discussions in regard to peace, it would not be
+dangerous to treat with the rebel provinces as with free states, over
+which the archdukes pretended to no authority, because--so it was
+secretly argued--this was to be understood with a sense of similitude.
+"We will negotiate with them as if they were free," said the greyfriar to
+the archduke and his counsellors, "but not with the signification of true
+and legitimate liberty.  They have laid down in their formula that we are
+to pretend to no authority over them.  Very well.  For the time being we
+will pretend that we do not pretend to any such authority.  To negotiate
+with them as if they were free will not make them free.  It is no
+recognition by us that they are free.  Their liberty could never be
+acquired by their rebellion.  This is so manifest that neither the king
+nor the archdukes can lose any of their rights over the United Provinces,
+even should they make this declaration."
+
+Thus the hair-sputters at Brussels--spinning a web that should be stout
+enough to entrap the noisy, blundering republicans at the Hague, yet so
+delicate as to go through the finest dialectical needle.  Time was to
+show whether subtilty or bluntness was the best diplomatic material.
+
+The monk brought with him three separate instruments or powers, to be
+used according to his discretion.  Admitted to the assembly of the
+States-General, he produced number one.
+
+It was instantly rejected.  He then offered number two, with the same
+result.  He now declared himself offended, not on his own account, but
+for the sake of his masters, and asked leave to retire from the assembly,
+leaving with them the papers which had been so benignantly drawn up, and
+which deserved to be more carefully studied.
+
+The States, on their parts, were sincerely and vehemently indignant.
+What did all this mean, it was demanded, this producing one set of
+propositions after another?  Why did the archdukes not declare their
+intentions openly and at once?  Let the States depart each to the several
+provinces, and let John Neyen be instantly sent out of the country.  Was
+it thought to bait a trap for the ingenuous Netherlanders, and catch them
+little by little, like so many wild animals?  This was not the way the
+States dealt with the archdukes.  What they meant they put in front--
+first, last, and always.  Now and in the future they said and they would
+say exactly what they wished, candidly and seriously.  Those who pursued
+another course would never come into negotiation with them.
+
+The monk felt that he had excited a wrath which it would be difficult
+to assuage.  He already perceived the difference between a real and an
+affected indignation, and tried to devise some soothing remedy.  Early
+next morning he sent a petition in writing to the States for leave to
+make an explanation to the assembly.  Barneveld and Recorder Aerssens, in
+consequence, came to him immediately, and heaped invectives upon his head
+for his duplicity.
+
+Evidently it was a different matter dealing with this many-headed roaring
+beast, calling itself a republic, from managing the supple politicians
+with whom he was more familiar.  The noise and publicity of these
+transactions were already somewhat appalling to the smooth friar who was
+accustomed to negotiate in comfortable secrecy.  He now vehemently
+protested that never man was more sincere than he, and implored for time
+to send to Brussels for another power.  It is true that number three was
+still in his portfolio, but he had seen so much indignation on the
+production of number two as to feel sure that the fury of the States
+would know no bounds should he now confess that he had come provided with
+a third.
+
+It was agreed accordingly to wait eight days, in which period he might
+send for and receive the new power already in his possession.  These
+little tricks were considered masterly diplomacy in those days, and by
+this kind of negotiators; and such was the way in which it was proposed
+to terminate a half century of warfare.
+
+     [The narrative is the monk's own, as preserved by his admirer,
+     the Jesuit Gallucci, (ubi sup.)]
+
+The friar wrote to his masters, not of course to ask for a new power, but
+to dilate on the difficulties to be anticipated in procuring that which
+the losing party is always most bent upon in circumstances like these,
+and which was most ardently desired by the archdukes--an armistice.  He
+described Prince Maurice as sternly opposed to such a measure, believing
+that temporary cessation of hostilities was apt to be attended with
+mischievous familiarity between the opposing camps, with relaxation of
+discipline, desertion, and various kinds of treachery, and that there was
+no better path to peace than that which was trampled by contending hosts.
+
+Seven days passed, and then Neyen informed the States that he had at last
+received a power which he hoped would prove satisfactory.  Being admitted
+accordingly to the assembly, he delivered an eloquent eulogy upon the
+sincerity of the archdukes, who, with perhaps too little regard for their
+own dignity and authority, had thus, for the sake of the public good, so
+benignantly conceded what the States had demanded.
+
+Barneveld, on receiving the new power, handed to Neyen a draught of an
+agreement which he was to study at his leisure, and in which he might
+suggest alterations.  At the same time it was demanded that within three
+months the written consent of the King of Spain to the proposed
+negotiations should be produced.  The Franciscan objected that it did
+not comport with the dignity of the archdukes to suppose the consent of
+any other sovereign needful to confirm their acts.  Barneveld insisted
+with much vehemence on the necessity of this condition.  It was perfectly
+notorious, he said, that the armies commanded by the archdukes were
+subject to the King of Spain, and were called royal armies.  Prince
+Maurice observed that all prisoners taken by him had uniformly called
+themselves soldiers of the Crown, not of the archdukes, nor of Marquis
+Spinola.
+
+Barneveld added that the royal power over the armies in the Netherlands
+and over the obedient provinces was proved by the fact that all
+commanders of regiments, all governors of fortresses, especially of
+Antwerp, Ghent, Cambray, and the like, were appointed by the King of
+Spain.  These were royal citadels with royal garrisons.  That without the
+knowledge and consent of the King of Spain it would be impossible to
+declare the United Provinces free, was obvious; for in the cession by
+Philip II. of all the Netherlands it was provided that, without the
+consent of the king, no part of that territory could be ceded, and this
+on pain of forfeiting all the sovereignty.  To treat without the king
+was therefore impossible.
+
+The Franciscan denied that because the sovereigns of Spain sent funds and
+auxiliary troops to Flanders, and appointed military commanders there of
+various degrees, the authority of the archdukes was any the less supreme.
+Philip II. had sent funds and troops to sustain the League, but he was
+not King of France.
+
+Barneveld probably thought it not worth his while to reply that Philip,
+with those funds and those troops, had done his best to become King of
+France, and that his failure proved nothing for the argument either way.
+
+Neyen then returned once more to Brussels, observing as he took leave
+that the decision of the archdukes as to the king's consent was very
+doubtful, although he was sure that the best thing for all parties
+would be to agree to an armistice out of hand.
+
+This, however, was far from being the opinion of the States or the
+stadholder.
+
+After conferring with his masters, the monk came down by agreement from
+Antwerp to the Dutch ships which lay in the, Scheld before Fort Lillo.
+On board one of these, Dirk van der Does had been stationed with a
+special commission from the States to compare documents.  It was
+expressly ordered that in these preliminary negotiations neither party
+was to go on shore.  On a comparison of the agreement brought by Neyen
+from Brussels with the draught furnished by Barneveld, of which Van der
+Does had a copy, so many discrepancies appeared that the document of the
+archdukes was at once rejected.  But of course the monk had a number two,
+and this, after some trouble, was made to agree with the prescribed form.
+Brother John then, acting upon what he considered the soundest of
+principles--that no job was so difficult as not to be accomplished with
+the help of the precious metals--offered his fellow negotiator a valuable
+gold chain as a present from the archdukes.  Dirk van der Does accepted
+the chain, but gave notice of the fact to his Government.
+
+The monk now became urgent to accompany his friend to the Hague, but this
+had been expressly forbidden by the States.  Neyen felt sure, he said,
+of being able by arguments, which he could present by word of mouth, to
+overcome the opposition to the armistice were he once more to be admitted
+to the assembly.  Van der Does had already much overstaid his appointed
+time, bound to the spot, as it were, by the golden chain thrown around
+him by the excellent friar, and he now, in violation of orders, wrote to
+the Hague for leave to comply with this request.  Pending the answer, the
+persuasive Neyen convinced him, much against his will, that they might
+both go together as far as Delft.  To Delft they accordingly went; but,
+within half a league of that place, met a courier with strict orders that
+the monk was at once to return to Brussels.  Brother John was in great
+agitation.  Should he go back, the whole negotiation might come to
+nought; should he go on, he might be clapped into prison as a spy.  Being
+conscious, however, that his services as a spy were intended to be the
+most valuable part of his mission, he resolved to proceed in that
+capacity.  So he persuaded his friend Dirk to hide him in the hold of a
+canal-boat.  Van der Does was in great trepidation himself, but on
+reaching the Hague and giving up his gold chain to Barneveld, he made his
+peace, and obtained leave for the trembling but audacious friar to come
+out of his hiding-place.
+
+Appearing once more before the States-General on the afternoon of 7th
+May,  Neyen urged with much eloquence the propriety of an immediate
+armistice both by sea and land, insisting that it would be a sanguinary
+farce to establish a cessation of hostilities upon one element while
+blood and treasure were profusely flowing on the oceans.  There were
+potent reasons for this earnestness on the part of the monk to procure a
+truce to maritime operations, as very soon was to be made evident to the
+world.  Meantime, on this renewed visit, the negotiator expressed himself
+as no longer doubtful in regard to the propriety of requesting the
+Spanish king's consent to the proposed negotiations.  That consent,
+however, would in his opinion depend upon the earnestness now to be
+manifested by the States in establishing the armistice by sea and land,
+and upon their promptness in recalling the fleets now infesting the coast
+of Spain.  No immediate answer was given to these representations, but
+Neyen was requested to draw up his argument in writing, in order that it
+might be duly pondered by the States of the separate provinces.
+
+The radical defect of the Dutch constitution--the independent sovereignty
+claimed by each one of the provinces composing the confederation, each of
+those provinces on its part being composed of cities, each again claiming
+something very like sovereignty for itself--could not fail to be
+manifested whenever, great negotiations with foreign powers were to be
+undertaken.  To obtain the unanimous consent of seven independent little
+republics was a work of difficulty, requiring immense expenditure of time
+in comparatively unimportant contingencies.  How intolerable might become
+the obstructions, the dissensions, and the delays, now that a series of
+momentous and world-wide transactions was beginning, on the issue of
+which the admission of a new commonwealth into the family of nations,
+the international connections of all the great powers of Christendom,
+the commerce of the world, and the peace of Europe depended.
+
+Yet there was no help for it but to make the best present use of the
+institutions which time and great events had bestowed upon the young
+republic, leaving to a more convenient season the task of remodelling the
+law.  Meanwhile, with men who knew their own minds, who meant to speak
+the truth, and who were resolved to gather in at last the harvest
+honestly and bravely gained by nearly a half-century of hard fighting, it
+would be hard for a legion of friars, with their heads full of quirks and
+their wallets full of bills of exchange, to carry the day for despotism.
+
+Barneveld was sincerely desirous of peace.  He was well aware that his
+province of Holland, where he was an intellectual autocrat, was
+staggering under the burden of one half the expenses of the whole
+republic.  He knew that Holland in the course of the last nine years,
+notwithstanding the constantly heightened rate of impost on all objects
+of ordinary consumption, was twenty-six millions of florins behindhand,
+and that she had reason therefore to wish for peace.  The great Advocate,
+than whom no statesman in Europe could more accurately scan the world's
+horizon, was convinced that the propitious moment for honourable
+straightforward negotiations to secure peace, independence, and free
+commerce, free religion and free government, had come, and he had
+succeeded in winning the reluctant Maurice into a partial adoption,
+at least, of his opinions.
+
+The Franciscan remained at Delft, waiting, by direction of the States,
+for an answer to his propositions, and doing his best according to the
+instructions of his own Government to espy the condition and sentiments
+of the enemy.  Becoming anxious after the lapse of a fortnight, he wrote
+to Barneveld.  In reply the Advocate twice sent a secret messenger,
+urging, him to be patient, assuring him that the affair was working well;
+that the opposition to peace came chiefly from Zeeland and from certain
+parties in Amsterdam vehemently opposed to peace or truce; but that the
+rest of Holland was decidedly in favour of the negotiations.
+
+A few days passed, and Neyen was again summoned before the assembly.
+Barneveld now informed him that the Dutch fleet would be recalled from
+the coast of Spain so soon as the consent of his Catholic Majesty to
+the negotiations arrived, but that it would be necessary to confine the
+cessation of naval warfare within certain local limits.  Both these
+conditions were strenuously opposed by the Franciscan, who urged that
+the consent of the Spanish king was certain, but that this new
+proposition to localize the maritime armistice would prove to be fraught
+with endless difficulties and dangers.  Barneveld and the States
+remaining firm, however, and giving him a formal communication of their
+decision in writing, Neyen had nothing for it but to wend his way back
+rather malcontent to Brussels.
+
+It needed but a brief deliberation at the court of the archdukes to bring
+about the desired arrangement.  The desire for an armistice, especially
+for a cessation of hostilities by sea, had been marvellously stimulated
+by an event to be narrated in the next chapter.  Meantime, more than the
+first three months of the year had been passed in these secret
+preliminary transactions, and so softly had the stealthy friar sped to
+and fro between Brussels and the Hague, that when at last the armistice
+was announced it broke forth like a sudden flash of fine weather in the
+midst of a raging storm.  No one at the archduke's court knew of the
+mysterious negotiations save the monk himself, Spinola, Richardot,
+Verreycken, the chief auditor, and one or two others.  The great Belgian
+nobles, from whom everything had been concealed, were very wroth, but the
+Belgian public was as much delighted as amazed at the prospects of peace.
+In the United Provinces opinions were conflicting, but doubtless joy and
+confidence were the prevailing emotions.
+
+Towards the middle of April the armistice was publicly announced.  It was
+to last for eight months from the 4th of May.  During this period no
+citadels were to be besieged, no camps brought near a city, no new
+fortifications built, and all troops were to be kept carefully within
+walls.  Meantime commissioners were to be appointed by the archdukes to
+confer with an equal number of deputies of the United Provinces for peace
+or for a truce of ten, fifteen, or twenty years, on the express ground
+that the archdukes regarded the United Provinces as free countries, over
+which their Highnesses pretended to no authority.
+
+The armistice on land was absolute.  On sea, hostilities were to cease in
+the German Ocean and in the channel between England and France, while it
+was also provided that the Netherland fleet should, within a certain
+period, be recalled from the Spanish coast.
+
+A day of public fast, humiliation, thanksgiving, and prayer was ordered
+throughout the republic for the 9th of May, in order to propitiate the
+favour of Heaven on the great work to be undertaken; and, as a further
+precaution, Prince Maurice ordered all garrisons in the strong places to
+be doubled, lest the slippery enemy should take advantage of too much
+confidence reposed in his good faith.  The preachers throughout the
+commonwealth, each according to his individual bias, improved the
+occasion by denouncing the Spaniard from their pulpits and inflaming the
+popular hatred against the ancient enemy, or by dilating on the blessings
+of peace and the horrors of war.  The peace party and the war party, the
+believers in Barneveld and the especial adherents of Prince Maurice,
+seemed to divide the land in nearly equal portions.
+
+While the Netherlands, both rebellious and obedient, were filled with
+these various emotions, the other countries of Europe were profoundly
+amazed at the sudden revelation.  It was on the whole regarded as a
+confession of impotence on the part of Spain that the archdukes should
+now prepare to send envoys to the revolted provinces as to a free and
+independent people.  Universal monarchy, brought to such a pass as this,
+was hardly what had been expected after the tremendous designs and the
+grandiloquent language on which the world had so long been feeding as its
+daily bread.  The spectacle of anointed monarchs thus far humbling
+themselves to the people of rebellion dictating terms, instead of
+writhing in dust at the foot of the throne--was something new in history.
+The heavens and earth might soon be expected to pass away, now that such
+a catastrophe was occurring.
+
+The King of France had also been kept in ignorance of these events.  It
+was impossible, however, that the negotiations could go forward without
+his consent and formal participation.  Accordingly on receiving the news
+he appointed an especial mission to the Hague--President Jeannin and De
+Russy, besides his regular resident ambassador Buzanval.  Meantime
+startling news reached the republic in the early days of May.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+A penal offence in the republic to talk of peace or of truce
+Accepting a new tyrant in place of the one so long ago deposed
+As if they were free will not make them free
+As neat a deception by telling the truth
+Cargo of imaginary gold dust was exported from the James River
+Delay often fights better than an army against a foreign invader
+Diplomacy of Spain and Rome--meant simply dissimulation
+Draw a profit out of the necessities of this state
+England hated the Netherlands
+Friendly advice still more intolerable
+Haereticis non servanda fides
+He who confessed well was absolved well
+Insensible to contumely, and incapable of accepting a rebuff
+Languor of fatigue, rather than any sincere desire for peace
+Much as the blind or the deaf towards colour or music
+Subtle and dangerous enemy who wore the mask of a friend
+Word peace in Spanish mouths simply meant the Holy Inquisition
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v78
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 79, 1607
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+     A Dutch fleet under Heemskerk sent to the coast of Spain and
+     Portugal--Encounter with the Spanish war fleet under D'Avila--Death
+     of both commanders-in-chief--Victory of the Netherlanders--Massacre
+     of the Spaniards.
+
+The States-General had not been inclined to be tranquil under the check
+which Admiral Haultain had received upon the coast of Spain in the autumn
+of 1606.  The deed of terrible self-devotion by which Klaaszoon and his
+comrades had in that crisis saved the reputation of the republic, had
+proved that her fleets needed only skilful handling and determined
+leaders to conquer their enemy in the Western seas as certainly as they
+had done in the archipelagos of the East.  And there was one pre-eminent
+naval commander, still in the very prime of life, but seasoned by an
+experience at the poles and in the tropics such as few mariners in that
+early but expanding maritime epoch could boast.  Jacob van Heemskerk,
+unlike many of the navigators and ocean warriors who had made and were
+destined to make the Orange flag of the United Provinces illustrious over
+the world, was not of humble parentage.  Sprung of an ancient, knightly
+race, which had frequently distinguished itself in his native province of
+Holland, he had followed the seas almost from his cradle.  By turns a
+commercial voyager, an explorer, a privateer's-man, or an admiral of war-
+fleets, in days when sharp distinctions between the merchant service and
+the public service, corsairs' work and cruisers' work, did not exist, he
+had ever proved himself equal to any emergency--a man incapable of
+fatigue, of perplexity, or of fear.  We have followed his career during
+that awful winter in Nova Zembla, where, with such unflinching cheerful
+heroism, he sustained the courage of his comrades--the first band of
+scientific martyrs that had ever braved the dangers and demanded the
+secrets of those arctic regions.  His glorious name--as those of so many
+of his comrades and countrymen--has been rudely torn from cape,
+promontory, island, and continent, once illustrated by courage and
+suffering, but the noble record will ever remain.
+
+Subsequently he had much navigated the Indian ocean; his latest
+achievement having been, with two hundred men, in a couple of yachts,
+to capture an immense Portuguese carrack, mounting thirty guns, and
+manned with eight hundred sailors, and to bring back a prodigious booty
+for the exchequer of the republic.  A man with delicate features, large
+brown eyes, a thin high nose, fair hair and beard, and a soft, gentle
+expression, he concealed, under a quiet exterior, and on ordinary
+occasions a very plain and pacific costume, a most daring nature,
+and an indomitable ambition for military and naval distinction.
+
+He was the man of all others in the commonwealth to lead any new
+enterprise that audacity could conceive against the hereditary enemy.
+
+The public and the States-General were anxious to retrace the track of
+Haultain, and to efface the memory of his inglorious return from the
+Spanish coast.  The sailors of Holland and Zeeland were indignant that
+the richly freighted fleets of the two Indies had been allowed to slip so
+easily through their fingers.  The great East India Corporation was
+importunate with Government that such blunders should not be repeated,
+and that the armaments known to be preparing in the Portuguese ports,
+the homeward-bound fleets that might be looked for at any moment off the
+peninsular coast, and the Spanish cruisers which were again preparing to
+molest the merchant fleets of the Company, should be dealt with
+effectively and in season.
+
+Twenty-six vessels of small size but of good sailing qualities, according
+to the idea of the epoch, were provided, together with four tenders.  Of
+this fleet the command was offered to Jacob van Heemskerk.  He accepted
+with alacrity, expressing with his usual quiet self-confidence the hope
+that, living or dead, his fatherland would have cause to thank him.
+Inspired only by the love of glory, he asked for no remuneration for his
+services save thirteen per cent. of the booty, after half a million
+florins should have been paid into the public treasury.  It was hardly
+probable that this would prove a large share of prize money, while
+considerable victories alone could entitle him to receive a stiver.
+
+The expedition sailed in the early days of April for the coast of Spain
+and Portugal, the admiral having full discretion to do anything that
+might in his judgment redound to the advantage of the republic.  Next in
+command was the vice-admiral of Zeeland, Laurenz Alteras.  Another famous
+seaman in the fleet was Captain Henry Janszoon of Amsterdam, commonly
+called Long Harry, while the weather-beaten and well-beloved Admiral
+Lambert, familiarly styled by his countrymen "Pretty Lambert," some of
+whose achievements have already been recorded in these pages, was the
+comrade of all others upon whom Heemskerk most depended.  After the 10th
+April the admiral, lying off and on near the mouth of the Tagus, sent a
+lugger in trading disguise to reconnoitre that river.  He ascertained by
+his spies, sent in this and subsequently in other directions, as well as
+by occasional merchantmen spoken with at sea, that the Portuguese fleet
+for India would not be ready to sail for many weeks; that no valuable
+argosies were yet to be looked for from America, but that a great war-
+fleet, comprising many galleons of the largest size, was at that very
+moment cruising in the Straits of Gibraltar.  Such of the Netherland
+traders as were returning from the Levant, as well as those designing to
+enter the Mediterranean, were likely to fall prizes to this formidable
+enemy.  The heart of Jacob Heemskerk danced for joy.  He had come forth
+for glory, not for booty, and here was what he had scarcely dared to hope
+for--a powerful antagonist instead of peaceful, scarcely resisting, but
+richly-laden merchantmen.  The accounts received were so accurate as to
+assure him that the Gibraltar fleet was far superior to his own in size
+of vessels, weight of metal, and number of combatants.  The circumstances
+only increased his eagerness.  The more he was over-matched, the greater
+would be the honour of victory, and he steered for the straits, tacking
+to and fro in the teeth of a strong head-wind.
+
+On the morning of the 25th April he was in the narrowest part of the
+mountain-channel, and learned that the whole Spanish fleet was in the Bay
+of Gibraltar.
+
+The marble pillar of Hercules rose before him.  Heemskerk was of a poetic
+temperament, and his imagination was inflamed by the spectacle which met
+his eyes.  Geographical position, splendour of natural scenery, immortal
+fable, and romantic history, had combined to throw a spell over that
+region.  It seemed marked out for perpetual illustration by human valour.
+The deeds by which, many generations later, those localities were to
+become identified with the fame of a splendid empire--then only the most
+energetic rival of the young republic, but destined under infinitely
+better geographical conditions to follow on her track of empire, and with
+far more prodigious results--were still in the womb of futurity.  But St.
+Vincent, Trafalgar, Gibraltar--words which were one day to stir the
+English heart, and to conjure heroic English shapes from the depths so
+long as history endures--were capes and promontories already familiar to
+legend and romance.
+
+Those Netherlanders had come forth from their slender little fatherland
+to offer battle at last within his own harbours and under his own
+fortresses to the despot who aspired to universal monarchy, and who
+claimed the lordship of the seas.  The Hollanders and Zeelanders had
+gained victories on the German Ocean, in the Channel, throughout the
+Indies, but now they were to measure strength with the ancient enemy in
+this most conspicuous theatre, and before the eyes of Christendom.  It
+was on this famous spot that the ancient demigod had torn asunder by main
+strength the continents of Europe and Africa.  There stood the opposite
+fragments of the riven mountain-chain, Calpe and Abyla, gazing at each
+other, in eternal separation, across the gulf, emblems of those two
+antagonistic races which the terrible hand of Destiny has so ominously
+disjoined.  Nine centuries before, the African king, Moses son of Nuzir,
+and his lieutenant, Tarik son of Abdallah, had crossed that strait and
+burned the ships which brought them.  Black Africa had conquered a
+portion of whiter Europe, and laid the foundation of the deadly mutual
+repugnance which nine hundred years of bloodshed had heightened into
+insanity of hatred.  Tarik had taken the town and mountain, Carteia and
+Calpe, and given to both his own name.  Gib-al-Tarik, the cliff of Tarik,
+they are called to this day.
+
+Within the two horns of that beautiful bay, and protected by the fortress
+on the precipitous rock, lay the Spanish fleet at anchor.  There were ten
+galleons of the largest size, besides lesser war-vessels and carracks,
+in all twenty-one sail.  The admiral commanding was Don Juan Alvarez
+d'Avila, a veteran who had fought at Lepanto under Don John of Austria.
+His son was captain of his flag-ship, the St. Augustine.  The vice-
+admiral's galleon was called 'Our Lady of La Vega,' the rear-admiral's
+was the 'Mother of God,' and all the other ships were baptized by the
+holy names deemed most appropriate, in the Spanish service, to deeds of
+carnage.
+
+On the other hand, the nomenclature of the Dutch ships suggested a
+menagerie.  There was the Tiger, the Sea Dog, the Griffin, the Red Lion,
+the Golden Lion, the Black Bear, the White Bear; these, with the AEolus
+and the Morning Star, were the leading vessels of the little fleet.
+
+On first attaining a distant view of the enemy, Heemskerk summoned all
+the captains on board his flag-ship, the AEolus, and addressed them in a
+few stirring words.
+
+"It is difficult," he said, "for Netherlanders not to conquer on salt
+water.  Our fathers have gained many a victory in distant seas, but it is
+for us to tear from the enemy's list of titles his arrogant appellation
+of Monarch of the Ocean.  Here, on the verge of two continents, Europe is
+watching our deeds, while the Moors of Africa are to learn for the first
+time in what estimation they are to hold the Batavian republic.  Remember
+that you have no choice between triumph and destruction.  I have led you
+into a position whence escape is impossible--and I ask of none of you
+more than I am prepared to do myself--whither I am sure that you will
+follow.  The enemy's ships are far superior to ours in bulk; but remember
+that their excessive size makes them difficult to handle and easier to
+hit, while our own vessels are entirely within control.  Their decks are
+swarming with men, and thus there will be more certainty that our shot
+will take effect.  Remember, too, that we are all sailors, accustomed
+from our cradles to the ocean; while yonder Spaniards are mainly soldiers
+and landsmen, qualmish at the smell of bilgewater, and sickening at the
+roll of the waves.  This day begins a long list of naval victories, which
+will make our fatherland for ever illustrious, or lay the foundation of
+an honourable peace, by placing, through our triumph, in the hands of the
+States-General, the power of dictating its terms."
+
+His comrades long remembered the enthusiasm which flashed from the man,
+usually so gentle and composed in demeanour, so simple in attire.  Clad
+in complete armour, with the orange-plumes waving from his casque and
+the orange-scarf across his breast, he stood there in front of the
+mainmast of the AEolus, the very embodiment of an ancient Viking.
+
+He then briefly announced his plan of attack.  It was of antique
+simplicity.  He would lay his own ship alongside that of the Spanish
+admiral.  Pretty Lambert in the Tiger was to grapple with her on the
+other side.  Vice-admiral Alteras and Captain Bras were to attack the
+enemy's vice-admiral in the same way.  Thus, two by two, the little
+Netherland ships were to come into closest quarters with each one of the
+great galleons.  Heemskerk would himself lead the way, and all were to
+follow, as closely as possible, in his wake.  The oath to stand by each
+other was then solemnly renewed, and a parting health was drunk.  The
+captains then returned to their ships.
+
+As the Lepanto warrior, Don Juan d'Avila, saw the little vessels slowly
+moving towards him, he summoned a Hollander whom he had on board, one
+Skipper Gevaerts of a captured Dutch trading bark, and asked him whether
+those ships in the distance were Netherlanders.
+
+"Not a doubt of it," replied the skipper.
+
+The admiral then asked him what their purpose could possibly be, in
+venturing so near Gibraltar.
+
+"Either I am entirely mistaken in my countrymen," answered Gevaerta, "or
+they are coming for the express purpose of offering you battle."
+
+The Spaniard laughed loud and long.  The idea that those puny vessels
+could be bent on such a purpose seemed to him irresistibly comic, and he
+promised his prisoner, with much condescension, that the St. Augustine
+alone should sink the whole fleet.
+
+Gevaerts, having his own ideas on the subject, but not being called upon
+to express them, thanked the admiral for his urbanity, and respectfully
+withdrew.
+
+At least four thousand soldiers were in D'Avila's ships, besides seamen.
+there were seven hundred in the St. Augustine, four hundred and fifty in
+Our Lady of Vega, and so on in proportion.  There were also one or two
+hundred noble volunteers who came thronging on board, scenting the battle
+from afar, and desirous of having a hand in the destruction of the
+insolent Dutchmen.
+
+It was about one in the afternoon.  There was not much wind, but the
+Hollanders, slowly drifting on the eternal river that pours from the
+Atlantic into the Mediterranean, were now very near.  All hands had been
+piped on board every one of the ships, all had gone down on their knees
+in humble prayer, and the loving cup had then been passed around.
+
+Heemskerk, leading the way towards the Spanish admiral, ordered the
+gunners of the bolus not to fire until the vessels struck each other.
+"Wait till you hear it crack," he said, adding a promise of a hundred
+florins to the man who should pull down the admiral's flag.  Avila,
+notwithstanding his previous merriment, thought it best, for the moment,
+to avoid the coming collision.  Leaving to other galleons, which he
+interposed between himself and the enemy, the task of summarily sinking
+the Dutch fleet, he cut the cable of the St.  Augustine and drifted
+farther into the bay.  Heemskerk, not allowing himself to be foiled in
+his purpose, steered past two or three galleons, and came crashing
+against the admiral.  Almost simultaneously, Pretty Lambert laid himself
+along her quarter on the other side.  The St. Augustine fired into the
+AEolus as she approached, but without doing much damage.  The Dutch
+admiral, as he was coming in contact, discharged his forward guns, and
+poured an effective volley of musketry into his antagonist.
+
+The St. Augustine fired again, straight across the centre of the bolus,
+at a few yards' distance.  A cannon-ball took off the head of a sailor,
+standing near Heemskerk, and carried away the admiral's leg, close to the
+body.  He fell on deck, and, knowing himself to be mortally wounded,
+implored the next in command on board, Captain Verhoef, to fight his ship
+to the last, and to conceal his death from the rest of the fleet.  Then
+prophesying a glorious victory for republic, and piously commending his
+soul to his Maker, he soon breathed his last.  A cloak was thrown over
+him, and the battle raged.  The few who were aware that the noble
+Heemskerk was gone, burned to avenge his death, and to obey the dying
+commands of their beloved chief.  The rest of the Hollanders believed
+themselves under his directing influence, and fought as if his eyes were
+upon them.  Thus the spirit of the departed hero still watched over and
+guided the battle.
+
+The AEolus now fired a broadside into her antagonist, making fearful
+havoc, and killing Admiral D'Avila.  The commanders-in-chief of both
+contending fleets had thus fallen at the very beginning of the battle.
+While the St. Augustine was engaged in deadly encounter, yardarm and
+yardarm, with the AEolus and the Tiger, Vice-admiral Alteras had,
+however, not carried out his part of the plan.  Before he could succeed
+in laying himself alongside of the Spanish vice-admiral, he had been
+attacked by two galleons.  Three other Dutch ships, however, attacked the
+vice-admiral, and, after an obstinate combat, silenced all her batteries
+and set her on fire.  Her conquerors were then obliged to draw off rather
+hastily, and to occupy themselves for a time in extinguishing their own
+burning sails, which had taken fire from the close contact with their
+enemy.  Our Lady of Vega, all ablaze from top-gallant-mast to
+quarterdeck, floated helplessly about, a spectre of flame, her guns going
+off wildly, and her crew dashing themselves into the sea, in order to
+escape by drowning from a fiery death.  She was consumed to the water's
+edge.
+
+Meantime, Vice-admiral Alteras had successively defeated both his
+antagonists; drifting in with them until almost under the guns of the
+fortress, but never leaving them until, by his superior gunnery and
+seamanship, he had sunk one of them, and driven the other a helpless
+wreck on shore.
+
+Long Harry, while Alteras had been thus employed, had engaged another
+great galleon, and set her on fire.  She, too, was thoroughly burned to
+her hulk; but Admiral Harry was killed.
+
+By this time, although it was early of an April afternoon, and heavy
+clouds of smoke, enveloping the combatants pent together in so small a
+space, seemed to make an atmosphere of midnight, as the flames of the
+burning galleons died away.  There was a difficulty, too, in bringing all
+the Netherland ships into action--several of the smaller ones having been
+purposely stationed by Heemskerk on the edge of the bay to prevent the
+possible escape of any of the Spaniards.  While some of these distant
+ships were crowding sail, in order to come to closer quarters, now that
+the day seemed going against the Spaniards, a tremendous explosion
+suddenly shook the air.  One of the largest galleons, engaged in combat
+with a couple of Dutch vessels, had received a hot shot full in her
+powder magazine, and blew up with all on board.  The blazing fragments
+drifted about among the other ships, and two more were soon on fire,
+their guns going off and their magazines exploding.  The rock of
+Gibraltar seemed to reel.  To the murky darkness succeeded the
+intolerable glare of a new and vast conflagration.  The scene in that
+narrow roadstead was now almost infernal.  It seemed, said an eye-
+witness, as if heaven and earth were passing away.  A hopeless panic
+seized the Spaniards.  The battle was over.  The St. Augustine still lay
+in the deadly embrace of her antagonists, but all the other galleons were
+sunk or burned.  Several of the lesser war-ships had also been destroyed.
+It was nearly sunset.  The St. Augustine at last ran up a white flag, but
+it was not observed in the fierceness of the last moments of combat; the
+men from the bolus and the Tiger making a simultaneous rush on board the
+vanquished foe.
+
+The fight was done, but the massacre was at its beginning.  The
+trumpeter, of Captain Kleinsorg clambered like a monkey up the mast of
+the St. Augustine, hauled down the admiral's flag, the last which was
+still waving, and gained the hundred florins.  The ship was full of dead
+and dying; but a brutal, infamous butchery now took place.  Some
+Netherland prisoners were found in the hold, who related that two
+messengers had been successively despatched to take their lives, as they
+lay there in chains, and that each had been shot, as he made his way
+towards the execution of the orders.
+
+This information did not chill the ardour of their victorious countrymen.
+No quarter was given.  Such of the victims as succeeded in throwing
+themselves overboard, out of the St.  Augustine, or any of the burning or
+sinking ships, were pursued by the Netherlanders, who rowed about among
+them in boats, shooting, stabbing, and drowning their victims by
+hundreds.  It was a sickening spectacle.  The bay, said those who were
+there, seemed sown with corpses.  Probably two or three thousand were
+thus put to death, or had met their fate before.  Had the chivalrous
+Heemskerk lived, it is possible that he might have stopped the massacre.
+But the thought of the grief which would fill the commonwealth when the
+news should arrive of his death--thus turning the joy of the great
+triumph into lamentations--increased the animosity of his comrades.
+Moreover, in ransacking the Spanish admiral's ship, all his papers had
+been found, among them many secret instructions from Government signed
+"the King;" ordering most inhuman persecutions, not only of the
+Netherlanders, but of all who should in any way assist them, at sea or
+ashore.  Recent examples of the thorough manner in which the royal
+admirals could carry out these bloody instructions had been furnished by
+the hangings, burnings, and drownings of Fazardo.  But the barbarous
+ferocity of the Dutch on this occasion might have taught a lesson even to
+the comrades of Alva.
+
+The fleet of Avila was entirely destroyed.  The hulk of the St.
+Augustine drifted ashore, having been abandoned by the victors, and was
+set on fire by a few Spaniards who had concealed themselves on board,
+lest she might fall again into the enemy's hands.
+
+The battle had lasted from half-past three until sunset.  The Dutch
+vessels remained all the next day on the scene of their triumph.  The
+townspeople were discerned, packing up their goods, and speeding panic-
+struck into the interior.  Had Heemskerk survived he would doubtless have
+taken Gibraltar--fortress and town--and perhaps Cadiz, such was the
+consternation along the whole coast.
+
+But his gallant spirit no longer directed the fleet.  Bent rather upon
+plunder than glory, the ships now dispersed in search of prizes towards
+the Azores, the Canaries, or along the Portuguese coast; having first
+made a brief visit to Tetuan, where they were rapturously received by the
+Bey.
+
+The Hollanders lost no ships, and but one hundred seamen were killed.
+Two vessels were despatched homeward directly, one with sixty wounded
+sailors, the other with the embalmed body of the fallen Heemskerk.  The
+hero was honoured with a magnificent funeral in Amsterdam at the public
+expense--the first instance in the history of the republic--and his name
+was enrolled on the most precious page of her records.
+
+     [The chief authorities for this remarkable battle are Meteren, 547,
+     548.  Grotius, xvi. 731-738.  Wagenaar, ix. 251-258.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+     Internal condition of Spain--Character of the people--Influence of
+     the Inquisition--Population and Revenue--Incomes of Church and
+     Government--Degradation of Labour--Expulsion of the Moors and its
+     consequences--Venality the special characteristic of Spanish polity
+     --Maxims of the foreign polity of Spain--The Spanish army and navy--
+     Insolvent state of the Government--The Duke of Lerma--His position
+     in the State--Origin of his power--System of bribery and
+     trafficking--Philip III. His character--Domestic life of the king
+     and queen.
+
+
+A glance at the interior condition of Spain, now that there had been more
+than nine years of a new reign, should no longer be deferred.
+Spain was still superstitiously regarded as the leading power of the
+world, although foiled in all its fantastic and gigantic schemes.  It was
+still supposed, according to current dogma, to share with the Ottoman
+empire the dominion of the earth.  A series of fortunate marriages having
+united many of the richest and fairest portions of Europe under a single
+sceptre, it was popularly believed in a period when men were not much
+given as yet to examine very deeply the principles of human governments
+or the causes of national greatness, that an aggregation of powers which
+had resulted from preposterous laws of succession really constituted a
+mighty empire, founded by genius and valour.
+
+The Spanish people, endowed with an acute and exuberant genius, which had
+exhibited itself in many paths of literature, science, and art; with a
+singular aptitude for military adventure, organization, and achievement;
+with a great variety, in short, of splendid and ennobling qualities; had
+been, for a long succession of years, accursed with almost the very worst
+political institutions known to history.  The depth of their misery and
+of their degradation was hardly yet known to themselves, and this was
+perhaps the most hideous proof of the tyranny of which they had been the
+victims.  To the outward world, the hollow fabric, out of which the whole
+pith and strength had been slowly gnawed away, was imposing and
+majestic still.  But the priest, the soldier, and the courtier had been
+busy too long, and had done their work too thoroughly, to leave much hope
+of arresting the universal decay.
+
+Nor did there seem any probability that the attempt would be made.
+
+It is always difficult to reform wide-spread abuses, even when they are
+acknowledged to exist, but when gigantic vices are proudly pointed to as
+the noblest of institutions and as the very foundations of the state,
+there seems nothing for the patriot to long for but the deluge.
+
+It was acknowledged that the Spanish population--having a very large
+admixture of those races which, because not Catholic at heart, were
+stigmatized as miscreants, heretics, pagans, and, generally, as accursed-
+-was by nature singularly prone to religious innovation.
+Had it not been for the Holy Inquisition, it was the opinion of acute
+and thoughtful observers in the beginning of the seventeenth century,
+that the infamous heresies of Luther, Calvin, and the rest, would have
+long before taken possession of the land.  To that most blessed
+establishment it was owing that Spain had not polluted itself in the
+filth and ordure of the Reformation, and had been spared the horrible
+fate which had befallen large portions of Germany, France, Britain, and
+other barbarous northern nations.  It was conscientiously and thankfully
+believed in Spain, two centuries ago, that the state had been saved from
+political and moral ruin by that admirable machine which detected
+heretics with unerring accuracy, burned them when detected, and consigned
+their descendants to political incapacity and social infamy to the
+remotest generation.
+
+As the awful consequences of religious freedom, men pointed with a
+shudder to the condition of nations already speeding on the road to ruin,
+from which the two peninsulas at least had been saved.  Yet the British
+empire, with the American republic still an embryo in its bosom, France,
+North Germany, and other great powers, had hardly then begun their
+headlong career.  Whether the road of religious liberty was leading
+exactly to political ruin, the coming centuries were to judge.
+
+Enough has been said in former chapters for the characterization of
+Philip II.  and his polity.  But there had now been nearly ten years of
+another reign.  The system, inaugurated by Charles and perfected by his
+son, had reached its last expression under Philip III.
+
+The evil done by father and son lived and bore plentiful fruit in the
+epoch of the grandson.  And this is inevitable in history.  No generation
+is long-lived enough to reap the harvest, whether of good or evil, which
+it sows.
+
+Philip II.  had been indefatigable in evil, a thorough believer in his
+supernatural mission as despot, not entirely without capacity for
+affairs, personally absorbed by the routine of his bureau.
+
+He was a king, as he understood the meaning of the kingly office.  His
+policy was continued after his death; but there was no longer a king.
+That important regulator to the governmental machinery was wanting.  How
+its place was supplied will soon appear.
+
+Meantime the organic functions were performed very much in the old way.
+There was, at least, no lack of priests or courtiers.
+
+Spain at this epoch had probably less than twelve millions of
+inhabitants, although the statistics of those days cannot be relied upon
+with accuracy.  The whole revenue of the state was nominally sixteen or
+seventeen millions of dollars, but the greater portion of that income was
+pledged for many coming years to the merchants of Genoa.  All the little
+royal devices for increasing the budget by debasing the coin of the
+realm, by issuing millions of copper tokens, by lowering the promised
+rate of interest on Government loans, by formally repudiating both
+interest and principal, had been tried, both in this and the preceding
+reign, with the usual success.  An inconvertible paper currency,
+stimulating industry and improving morals by converting beneficent
+commerce into baleful gambling--that fatal invention did not then exist.
+Meantime, the legitimate trader and innocent citizen were harassed, and
+the general public endangered, as much as the limited machinery of the
+epoch permitted.
+
+The available, unpledged revenue of the kingdom hardly amounted to five
+millions of dollars a-year.  The regular annual income of the church was
+at least six millions.  The whole personal property of the nation was
+estimated in a very clumsy and unsatisfactory way, no doubt--at sixty
+millions of dollars.  Thus the income of the priesthood was ten per cent.
+of the whole funded estate of the country, and at least a million a year
+more than the income of the Government.  Could a more biting epigram be
+made upon the condition to which the nation had been reduced?
+
+Labour was more degraded than ever.  The industrious classes, if such
+could be said to exist, were esteemed every day more and more infamous.
+Merchants, shopkeepers, mechanics, were reptiles, as vilely, esteemed as
+Jews, Moors, Protestants, or Pagans.  Acquiring wealth by any kind of
+production was dishonourable.  A grandee who should permit himself to
+sell the wool from his boundless sheep-walks disgraced his caste, and was
+accounted as low as a merchant.  To create was the business of slaves and
+miscreants: to destroy was the distinguishing attribute of Christians and
+nobles.  To cheat, to pick, and to steal, on the most minute and the most
+gigantic scale--these were also among the dearest privileges of the
+exalted classes.  No merchandize was polluting save the produce of honest
+industry.  To sell places in church and state, the army, the navy, and
+the sacred tribunals of law, to take bribes from rich and poor, high and
+low; in sums infinitesimal or enormous, to pillage the exchequer in,
+every imaginable form, to dispose of titles of honour, orders of
+chivalry, posts in municipal council, at auction; to barter influence,
+audiences, official interviews against money cynically paid down in
+rascal counters--all this was esteemed consistent with patrician dignity.
+
+The ministers, ecclesiastics, and those about court, obtaining a monopoly
+of such trade, left the business of production and circulation to their
+inferiors, while, as has already been sufficiently indicated, religious
+fanaticism and a pride of race, which nearly amounted to idiocy, had
+generated a scorn for labour even among the lowest orders.  As a natural
+consequence, commerce and the mechanical arts fell almost exclusively
+into the hands of foreigners--Italians, English, and French--who resorted
+in yearly increasing numbers to Spain for the purpose of enriching.
+themselves by the industry which the natives despised.
+
+The capital thus acquired was at regular intervals removed from the
+country to other lands, where wealth resulting from traffic or
+manufactures was not accounted infamous.
+
+Moreover, as the soil of the country was held by a few great proprietors
+--an immense portion in the dead-hand of an insatiate and ever-grasping
+church, and much of the remainder in vast entailed estates--it was nearly
+impossible for the masses of the people to become owners of any portion
+of the land.  To be an agricultural day-labourer at less than a beggar's
+wage could hardly be a tempting pursuit for a proud and indolent race.
+It was no wonder therefore that the business of the brigand, the
+smuggler, the professional mendicant became from year to year more
+attractive and more overdone; while an ever-thickening swarm of priests,
+friars, and nuns of every order, engendered out of a corrupt and decaying
+society, increasing the general indolence, immorality, and unproductive
+consumption, and frightfully diminishing the productive force of the
+country, fed like locusts upon what was left in the unhappy land.
+"To shirk labour, infinite numbers become priests and friars,"
+said, a good Catholic, in the year 1608--[Gir. Soranzo].
+
+Before the end of the reign of Philip III. the peninsula, which might
+have been the granary of the world, did not produce food enough for its
+own population.  Corn became a regular article of import into Spain, and
+would have come in larger quantities than it did had the industry of the
+country furnished sufficient material to exchange for necessary food.
+
+And as if it had been an object of ambition with the priests and
+courtiers who then ruled a noble country, to make at exactly this epoch
+the most startling manifestation of human fatuity that the world had ever
+seen, it was now resolved by government to expel by armed force nearly
+the whole stock of intelligent and experienced labour, agricultural and
+mechanical, from the country.  It is unnecessary to dwell long upon an
+event which, if it were not so familiarly known to mankind, would seem
+almost incredible.  But the expulsion of the Moors is, alas! no
+exaggerated and imaginary satire, but a monument of wickedness and
+insanity such as is not often seen in human history.
+
+Already, in the very first years of the century, John Ribera, archbishop
+of Valencia, had recommended and urged the scheme.
+
+It was too gigantic a project to be carried into execution at once, but
+it was slowly matured by the aid of other ecclesiastics.  At last there
+were indications, both human and divine, that the expulsion of these
+miscreants could no longer be deferred.  It was rumoured and believed
+that a general conspiracy existed among the Moors to rise upon the
+Government, to institute a general massacre, and, with the assistance of
+their allies and relatives on the Barbary coast, to re-establish the
+empire of the infidels.
+
+A convoy of eighty ass-loads of oil on the way to Madrid had halted at a
+wayside inn.  A few flasks were stolen, and those who consumed it were
+made sick.  Some of the thieves even died, or were said to have died, in
+consequence.   Instantly the rumour flew from mouth to mouth, from town
+to town, that the royal family, the court, the whole capital, all Spain,
+were to be poisoned with that oil.  If such were the scheme it was
+certainly a less ingenious one than the famous plot by which the Spanish
+Government was suspected but a few years before to have so nearly
+succeeded in blowing the king, peers, and commons of England into the
+air.
+
+The proof of Moorish guilt was deemed all-sufficient, especially as it
+was supported by supernatural evidence of the most portentous and
+convincing kind.  For several days together a dark cloud, tinged with
+blood-red, had been seen to hang over Valencia.
+
+In the neighbourhood of Daroca, a din of, drums and trumpets and the
+clang of arms had been heard in the sky, just as a procession went out
+of a monastery.
+
+At Valencia the image of the Virgin had shed tears.  In another place her
+statue had been discovered in a state of profuse perspiration.
+
+What more conclusive indications could be required as to the guilt of the
+Moors?  What other means devised for saving crown, church, and kingdom
+from destruction but to expel the whole mass of unbelievers from the soil
+which they had too long profaned?
+
+Archbishop Ribera was fully sustained by the Archbishop of Toledo, and
+the whole ecclesiastical body received energetic support from Government.
+
+Ribera had solemnly announced that the Moors were so greedy of money,
+so determined to keep it, and so occupied with pursuits most apt for
+acquiring it, that they had come to be the sponge of Spanish wealth.  The
+best proof of this, continued the reverend sage, was that, inhabiting in
+general poor little villages and sterile tracts of country, paying to the
+lords of the manor one third of the crops, and being overladen with
+special taxes imposed only upon them, they nevertheless became rich,
+while the Christians, cultivating the most fertile land, were in abject
+poverty.
+
+It seems almost incredible that this should not be satire.  Certainly
+the most delicate irony could not portray the vicious institutions under
+which the magnificent territory and noble people of Spain were thus
+doomed to ruin more subtly end forcibly than was done by the honest
+brutality of this churchman.  The careful tillage, the beautiful system
+of irrigation by aqueduct and canal, the scientific processes by which
+these "accursed" had caused the wilderness to bloom with cotton, sugar,
+and every kind of fruit and grain; the untiring industry, exquisite
+ingenuity, and cultivated taste by which the merchants, manufacturers,
+and mechanics, guilty of a darker complexion than that of the peninsular
+Goths, had enriched their native land with splendid fabrics in cloth,
+paper, leather, silk, tapestry, and by so doing had acquired fortunes
+for themselves, despite iniquitous taxation, religious persecution, and
+social contumely--all these were crimes against a race of idlers, steeped
+to the lips in sloth which imagined itself to be pride.
+
+The industrious, the intelligent, the wealthy, were denounced as
+criminals, and hunted to death or into exile as vermin, while the Lermas,
+the Ucedas, and the rest of the brood of cormorants, settled more thickly
+than ever around their prey.
+
+Meantime, Government declared that the piece of four maravedis should be
+worth eight maravedis; the piece of two maravedis being fixed at four.
+Thus the specie of the kingdom was to be doubled, and by means of this
+enlightened legislation, Spain, after destroying agriculture, commerce,
+and manufacture, was to maintain great armies and navies, and establish
+universal monarchy.
+
+This measure, which a wiser churchman than Ribera, Cardinal Richelieu,
+afterwards declared the most audacious and barbarous ever recorded by
+history, was carried out with great regularity of organization.  It was
+ordained that the Moors should be collected at three indicated points,
+whence they were not to move on pain of death, until duly escorted by
+troops to the ports of embarkation.  The children under the age of four
+years were retained, of course without their parents, from whom they were
+forever separated.  With admirable forethought, too, the priests took
+measures, as they supposed, that the arts of refining sugar, irrigating
+the rice-fields, constructing canals and aqueducts, besides many other
+useful branches of agricultural and mechanical business, should not die
+out with the intellectual, accomplished, and industrious race, alone
+competent to practise them, which was now sent forth to die.  A very
+small number, not more than six in each hundred, were accordingly
+reserved to instruct other inhabitants of Spain in those useful arts
+which they were now more than ever encouraged to despise.
+
+Five hundred thousand full-grown human beings, as energetic, ingenious,
+accomplished, as any then existing in the world, were thus thrust forth
+into the deserts beyond sea, as if Spain had been overstocked with
+skilled labour; and as if its native production had already outgrown the
+world's power of consumption.
+
+Had an equal number of mendicant monks, with the two archbishops who had
+contrived this deed at their head, been exported instead of the Moors,
+the future of Spain might have been a more fortunate one than it was
+likely to prove.  The event was in itself perhaps of temporary advantage
+to the Dutch republic, as the poverty and general misery, aggravated by
+this disastrous policy, rendered the acknowledgment of the States'
+independence by Spain almost a matter of necessity.
+
+It is superfluous to enter into any farther disquisiton as to the various
+branches of the royal revenue.  They remained essentially the same as
+during the preceding reign, and have been elaborately set forth in a
+previous chapter.  The gradual drying up of resources in all the wide-
+spread and heterogeneous territories subject to the Spanish sceptre is
+the striking phenomenon of the present epoch.  The distribution of such
+wealth as was still created followed the same laws which had long
+prevailed, while the decay and national paralysis, of which the
+prognostics could hardly be mistaken, were a natural result of the
+system.
+
+The six archbishops had now grown to eleven, and still received gigantic
+revenues; the income of the Archbishop of Toledo, including the fund of
+one hundred thousand destined for repairing the cathedral, being
+estimated at three hundred thousand dollars a year, that of the
+Archbishop of Seville and the others varying from one hundred and fifty
+thousand dollars to fifty thousand.  The sixty-three bishops perhaps
+averaged fifty thousand a year each, and there were eight more in Italy.
+
+The commanderies of chivalry, two hundred at least in number, were
+likewise enormously profitable.  Some of them were worth thirty thousand
+a year; the aggregate annual value being from one-and-a-half to two
+millions, and all in Lerma's gift, upon his own terms.
+
+Chivalry, that noblest of ideals, without which, in some shape or
+another, the world would be a desert and a sty; which included within
+itself many of the noblest virtues which can adorn mankind--generosity,
+self-denial, chastity, frugality, patience, protection to the feeble, the
+downtrodden, and the oppressed; the love of daring adventure, devotion to
+a pure religion and a lofty purpose, most admirably pathetic, even when
+in the eyes of the vulgar most fantastic--had been the proudest and most
+poetical of Spanish characteristics, never to be entirely uprooted from
+the national heart.
+
+Alas! what was there in the commanderies of Calatrava, Alcantara,
+Santiago, and all the rest of those knightly orders, as then existing, to
+respond to the noble sentiments on which all were supposed to be founded?
+Institutions for making money, for pillaging the poor of their hard-
+earned pittance, trafficked in by greedy ministers and needy courtiers
+with a shamelessness which had long ceased to blush at vices however
+gross, at venality however mean.
+
+Venality was in truth the prominent characteristic of the Spanish polity
+at this epoch.  Everything political or ecclesiastical, from highest to
+lowest, was matter of merchandize.
+
+It was the autocrat, governing king and kingdom, who disposed of
+episcopal mitres, cardinals' hats, commanders' crosses, the offices of
+regidores or municipal magistrates in all the cities, farmings of
+revenues, collectorships of taxes, at prices fixed by himself.
+
+It was never known that the pope refused to confirm the ecclesiastical
+nominations which were made by the Spanish court.
+
+The nuncius had the privilege of dispensing the small cures from thirty
+dollars a year downwards, of which the number was enormous.  Many of
+these were capable, in careful hands, of becoming ten times as valuable
+as their nominal estimate, and the business in them became in consequence
+very extensive and lucrative.  They were often disposed of for the
+benefit of servants and the hangers-on of noble families, to laymen, to
+women, children, to babes unborn.
+
+When such was the most thriving industry in the land, was it wonderful
+that the poor of high and low degree were anxious in ever-increasing
+swarms to effect their entrance into convent, monastery, and church, and
+that trade, agriculture, and manufactures languished?
+
+The foreign polity of the court remained as it had been established by
+Philip II.
+
+Its maxims were very simple.  To do unto your neighbour all possible
+harm, and to foster the greatness of Spain by sowing discord and
+maintaining civil war in all other nations, was the fundamental precept.
+To bribe and corrupt the servants of other potentates, to maintain a
+regular paid bode of adherents in foreign lands, ever ready to engage in
+schemes of assassination, conspiracy, sedition, and rebellion against the
+legitimate authority, to make mankind miserable, so far as it was in the
+power of human force or craft to produce wretchedness, were objects still
+faithfully pursued.
+
+They had not yet led to the entire destruction of other realms and their
+submission to the single sceptre of Spain, nor had they developed the
+resources, material or moral, of a mighty empire so thoroughly as might
+have been done perhaps by a less insidious policy, but they had never
+been abandoned.
+
+It was a steady object of policy to keep such potentates of Italy as
+were not already under the dominion of the Spanish crown in a state
+of internecine feud with each other and of virtual dependence on the
+powerful kingdom.  The same policy pursued in France, of fomenting civil
+war by subsidy, force, and chicane, during a long succession of years in
+order to reduce that magnificent realm under the sceptre of Philip, has
+been described in detail.  The chronic rebellion of Ireland against the
+English crown had been assisted and inflamed in every possible mode, the
+system being considered as entirely justified by the aid and comfort
+afforded by the queen to the Dutch rebels.
+
+It was a natural result of the system according to which kingdoms and
+provinces with the populations dwelling therein were transferable like
+real estate by means of marriage-settlements, entails, and testaments,
+that the proprietorship of most of the great realms in Christendom was
+matter of fierce legal dispute.  Lawsuits, which in chancery could last
+for centuries before a settlement of the various claims was made, might
+have infinitely enriched the gentlemen of the long robe and reduced all
+the parties to beggary, had there been any tribunal but the battle-field
+to decide among the august litigants.  Thus the King of Great Britain
+claimed the legal proprietorship and sovereignty of Brittany, Normandy,
+Anjou, Gascony, Calais, and Boulogne in France, besides the whole kingdom
+by right of conquest.  The French king claimed to be rightful heir of
+Castile, Biscay, Guipuscoa, Arragon, Navarre, nearly all the Spanish
+peninsula in short, including the whole of Portugal and the Balearic
+islands to boot.  The King of Spain claimed, as we have seen often
+enough, not only Brittany but all France as his lawful inheritance.
+Such was the virtue of the prevalent doctrine of proprietorship.  Every
+potentate was defrauded of his rights, and every potentate was a criminal
+usurper.  As for the people, it would have excited a smile of superior
+wisdom on regal, legal, or sacerdotal lips, had it been suggested that by
+any possibility the governed could have a voice or a thought in regard to
+the rulers whom God in His grace had raised up to be their proprietors
+and masters.
+
+The army of Spain was sunk far below the standard at which it had been
+kept when it seemed fit to conquer and govern the world.  Neither by
+Spain nor Italy could those audacious, disciplined, and obedient legions
+be furnished, at which the enemies of the mighty despot trembled from one
+extremity of earth to the other.  Peculation, bankruptcy, and mutiny had
+done their work at last.  We have recently had occasion to observe the
+conduct of the veterans in Flanders at critical epochs.  At this moment,
+seventy thousand soldiers were on the muster and pay roll of the army
+serving in those provinces, while not thirty thousand men existed in the
+flesh.
+
+The navy was sunk to fifteen or twenty old galleys, battered, dismantled,
+unseaworthy, and a few armed ships for convoying the East and West
+Indiamen to and from their destinations.
+
+The general poverty was so great that it was often absolutely impossible
+to purchase food for the royal household.  "If you ask me," said a cool
+observer, "how this great show of empire is maintained, when the funds
+are so small, I answer that it is done by not paying at all."  The
+Government was shamelessly, hopelessly bankrupt.  The noble band of
+courtiers were growing enormously rich.  The state was a carcase which
+unclean vultures were picking to the bones.
+
+The foremost man in the land--the autocrat, the absolute master in State
+and Church--was the Duke of Lerma.
+
+Very rarely in human history has an individual attained to such unlimited
+power under a monarchy, without actually placing the crown upon his own
+head.  Mayors of the palace, in the days of the do-nothing kings, wielded
+nothing like the imperial control which was firmly held by this great
+favourite.  Yet he was a man of very moderate capacity and limited
+acquirements, neither soldier, lawyer, nor priest.
+
+The duke was past sixty years of age, a tall, stately, handsome man,
+of noble presence and urbane manner.  Born of the patrician house of
+Sandoval, he possessed, on the accession of Philip, an inherited income
+of ten or twelve thousand dollars.  He had now, including what he had
+bestowed on his son, a funded revenue of seven hundred thousand a year.
+He had besides, in cash, jewels, and furniture, an estimated capital of
+six millions.  All this he had accumulated in ten years of service, as
+prime minister, chief equerry, and first valet of the chamber to the
+king.
+
+The tenure of his authority was the ascendancy of a firm character over a
+very weak one.  At this moment he was doubtless the most absolute ruler
+in Christendom, and Philip III. the most submissive and uncomplaining of
+his subjects.
+
+The origin of his power was well known.  During the reign of Philip II.,
+the prince, treated with great severity by his father, was looked upon
+with contempt by every one about court.  He was allowed to take no part
+in affairs, and, having heard of the awful tragedy of his eldest half-
+brother, enacted ten years before his own birth, he had no inclination to
+confront the wrath of that terrible parent and sovereign before whom all
+Spain trembled.  Nothing could have been more humble, more effaced, more
+obscure, than his existence as prince.  The Marquis of Denia, his
+chamberlain, alone was kind to him, furnished him with small sums of
+money, and accompanied him on the shooting excursions in which his father
+occasionally permitted him to indulge.  But even these little attentions
+were looked upon with jealousy by the king; so that the marquis was sent
+into honourable exile from court as governor of Valencia.  It was hoped
+that absence would wean the prince of his affection for the kind
+chamberlain.  The calculation was erroneous.  No sooner were the eyes of
+Philip II. closed in death than the new king made haste to send for
+Denia, who was at once created Duke of Lerma, declared of the privy
+council, and appointed master of the horse and first gentleman of the
+bed-chamber.  From that moment the favourite became supreme.  He was
+entirely without education, possessed little experience in affairs of
+state, and had led the life of a commonplace idler and voluptuary until
+past the age of fifty.  Nevertheless he had a shrewd mother-wit, tact in
+dealing with men, aptitude to take advantage of events.  He had
+directness of purpose, firmness of will, and always knew his own
+mind.  From the beginning of his political career unto its end, he
+conscientiously and without swerving pursued a single aim.  This was to
+rob the exchequer by every possible mode and at every instant of his
+life.  Never was a more masterly financier in this respect.  With a
+single eye to his own interests, he preserved a magnificent unity in all
+his actions.  The result had been to make him in ten years the richest
+subject in the world, as well as the most absolute ruler.
+
+He enriched his family, as a matter of course.  His son was already made
+Duke of Uceda, possessed enormous wealth, and was supposed by those who
+had vision in the affairs of court to be the only individual ever likely
+to endanger the power of the father.  Others thought that the young
+duke's natural dulness would make it impossible for him to supplant the
+omnipotent favourite.  The end was not yet, and time was to show which
+class of speculators was in the right.  Meantime the whole family was
+united and happy.  The sons and daughters had intermarried with the
+Infantados, and other most powerful and wealthy families of grandees.
+The uncle, Sandoval, had been created by Lerma a cardinal and archbishop
+of Toledo; the king's own schoolmaster being removed from that dignity,
+and disgraced and banished from court for having spoken disrespectfully
+of the favourite.  The duke had reserved for himself twenty thousand a
+year from the revenues of the archbishopric, as a moderate price for thus
+conducting himself as became a dutiful nephew.  He had ejected Rodrigo de
+Vasquez from his post as president of the council.  As a more conclusive
+proof of his unlimited sway than any other of his acts had been, he had
+actually unseated and banished the inquisitor-general, Don Pietro Porto
+Carrero, and supplanted him in that dread office, before which even
+anointed sovereigns trembled, by one of his own creatures.
+
+In the discharge of his various functions, the duke and all his family
+were domesticated in the royal palace, so that he was at no charges for
+housekeeping.  His apartments there were more sumptuous than those of the
+king and queen.  He had removed from court the Dutchess of Candia, sister
+of the great Constable of Castile, who had been for a time in attendance
+on the queen, and whose possible influence he chose to destroy in the
+bud.  Her place as mistress of the robes was supplied by his sister, the
+Countess of Lemos; while his wife, the terrible Duchess of Lerma, was
+constantly with the queen, who trembled at her frown.  Thus the royal
+pair were completely beleaguered, surrounded, and isolated from all
+except the Lermas.  When the duke conferred with the king, the doors
+were always double locked.
+
+In his capacity as first valet it was the duke's duty to bring the king's
+shirt in the morning, to see to his wardrobe and his bed, and to supply
+him with ideas for the day.  The king depended upon him entirely and
+abjectly, was miserable when separated from him four-and-twenty hours,
+thought with the duke's thoughts and saw with the duke's eyes.  He was
+permitted to know nothing of state affairs, save such portions as were
+communicated to him by Lerma.  The people thought their monarch
+bewitched, so much did he tremble before the favourite, and so
+unscrupulously did the duke appropriate for his own benefit and that of
+his creatures everything that he could lay his hands upon.  It would have
+needed little to bring about a revolution, such was the universal hatred
+felt for the minister, and the contempt openly expressed for the king.
+
+The duke never went to the council.  All papers and documents relating to
+business were sent to his apartments.  Such matters as he chose to pass
+upon, such decrees as he thought proper to issue, were then taken by him
+to the king, who signed them with perfect docility.  As time went on,
+this amount of business grew too onerous for the royal hand, or this
+amount of participation by the king in affairs of state came to be
+esteemed superfluous and inconvenient by the duke, and his own signature
+was accordingly declared to be equivalent to that of the sovereign's
+sign-manual.  It is doubtful whether such a degradation of the royal
+prerogative had ever been heard of before in a Christian monarch.
+
+It may be imagined that this system of government was not of a nature to
+expedite business, however swiftly it might fill the duke's coffers.
+High officers of state, foreign ambassadors, all men in short charged
+with important affairs, were obliged to dance attendance for weeks and
+months on the one man whose hands grasped all the business of the
+kingdom, while many departed in despair without being able to secure a
+single audience.  It was entirely a matter of trade.  It was necessary to
+bribe in succession all the creatures of the duke before getting near
+enough to headquarters to bribe the duke himself.  Never were such
+itching palms.  To do business at court required the purse of Fortunatus.
+There was no deception in the matter.  Everything was frank and above
+board in that age of chivalry.  Ambassadors wrote to their sovereigns
+that there was no hope of making treaties or of accomplishing any
+negotiation except by purchasing the favour of the autocrat; and Lerma's
+price was always high.  At one period the republic of Venice wished to
+put a stop to the depredations by Spanish pirates upon Venetian commerce,
+but the subject could not even be approached by the envoy until he had
+expended far more than could be afforded out of his meagre salary in
+buying an interview.
+
+When it is remembered that with this foremost power in the world affairs
+of greater or less importance were perpetually to be transacted by the
+representatives of other nations as well as by native subjects of every
+degree; that all these affairs were to pass through the hands of Lerma,
+and that those hands had ever to be filled with coin, the stupendous
+opulence of the one man can be easily understood.  Whether the foremost
+power of the world, thus governed, were likely to continue the foremost
+power, could hardly seem doubtful to those accustomed to use their reason
+in judging of the things of this world.
+
+Meantime the duke continued to transact business; to sell his interviews
+and his interest; to traffic in cardinals' hats, bishops' mitres, judges'
+ermine, civic and magisterial votes in all offices, high or humble, of
+church, army, or state.
+
+He possessed the art of remembering, or appearing to remember, the
+matters of business which had been communicated to him.  When a
+negotiator, of whatever degree, had the good fortune to reach the
+presence, he found the duke to all appearance mindful of the particular
+affair which led to the interview, and fully absorbed by its importance.
+There were men who, trusting to the affability shown by the great
+favourite, and to the handsome price paid down in cash for that urbanity,
+had been known to go away from their interview believing that their
+business was likely to be accomplished, until the lapse of time revealed
+to them the wildness of their dream.
+
+The duke perhaps never manifested his omnipotence on a more striking
+scale than when by his own fiat he removed the court and the seat of
+government to Valladolid, and kept it there six years long.  This was
+declared by disinterested observers to be not only contrary to common
+sense, but even beyond the bounds of possibility.  At Madrid the king had
+splendid palaces, and in its neighbourhood beautiful country residences,
+a pure atmosphere, and the facility of changing the air at will.  At
+Valladolid there were no conveniences of any kind, no sufficient palace,
+no summer villa, no park, nothing but an unwholesome climate.  But most
+of the duke's estates were in that vicinity, and it was desirable for him
+to overlook them in person.  Moreover, he wished to get rid of the
+possible influence over the king of the Empress Dowager Maria, widow of
+Maximilian II. and aunt and grandmother of Philip III.  The minister
+could hardly drive this exalted personage from court, so easily as he had
+banished the ex-Archbishop of Toledo, the Inquisitor General, the Duchess
+of Candia, besides a multitude of lesser note.  So he did the next best
+thing, and banished the court from the empress, who was not likely to put
+up with the inconveniences of Valladolid for the sake of outrivalling the
+duke.  This Babylonian captivity lasted until Madrid was nearly ruined,
+until the desolation of the capital, the moans of the trades-people, the
+curses of the poor, and the grumblings of the courtiers, finally produced
+an effect even upon the arbitrary Lerma.  He then accordingly re-
+emigrated, with king and Government, to Madrid, and caused it to be
+published that he had at last overcome the sovereign's repugnance to the
+old capital, and had persuaded him to abandon Valladolid.
+
+There was but one man who might perhaps from his position have competed
+with the influence of Lerma.  This was the king's father-confessor, whom
+Philip wished--although of course his wish was not gratified--to make a
+member of the council of state.  The monarch, while submitting in
+everything secular to the duke's decrees, had a feeble determination to
+consult and to be guided by his confessor in all matters of conscience.
+As it was easy to suggest that high affairs of state, the duties of
+government, the interests of a great people, were matters not entirely
+foreign to the conscience of anointed kings, an opening to power might
+have seemed easy to an astute and ambitious churchman.  But the Dominican
+who kept Philip's conscience, Gasparo de Cordova by name, was,
+fortunately for the favourite, of a very tender paste, easily moulded to
+the duke's purpose.  Dull and ignorant enough, he was not so stupid as to
+doubt that, should he whisper any suggestions or criticisms in regard to
+the minister's proceedings, the king would betray him and he would lose
+his office.  The cautious friar accordingly held his peace and his place,
+and there was none to dispute the sway of the autocrat.
+
+What need to dilate further upon such a minister and upon such a system
+of government?  To bribe and to be bribed, to maintain stipendiaries in
+every foreign Government, to place the greatness of the empire upon the
+weakness, distraction, and misery of other nations, to stimulate civil
+war, revolts of nobles and citizens against authority; separation of
+provinces, religious discontents in every land of Christendom--such were
+the simple rules ever faithfully enforced.
+
+The other members of what was called the council were insignificant.
+
+Philip III., on arriving at the throne, had been heard to observe that
+the day of simple esquires and persons of low condition was past, and
+that the turn of great nobles had come.  It had been his father's policy
+to hold the grandees in subjection, and to govern by means of ministers
+who were little more than clerks, generally of humble origin; keeping the
+reins in his own hands.  Such great personages as he did employ, like
+Alva, Don John of Austria, and Farnese, were sure at last to excite his
+jealousy and to incur his hatred.  Forty-three years of this kind of work
+had brought Spain to the condition in which the third Philip found it.
+The new king thought to have found a remedy in discarding the clerks, and
+calling in the aid of dukes.  Philip II. was at least a king.  The very
+first act of Philip III. at his father's death was to abdicate.
+
+It was, however, found necessary to retain some members of the former
+Government.  Fuentes, the best soldier and accounted the most dangerous
+man in the empire, was indeed kept in retirement as governor of Milan,
+while Cristoval di Mora, who had enjoyed much of the late king's
+confidence, was removed to Portugal as viceroy.  But Don John of
+Idiaquez, who had really been the most efficient of the old
+administration, still remained in the council.  Without the subordinate
+aid of his experience in the routine of business, it would have been
+difficult for the favourite to manage the great machine with his single
+hand.  But there was no disposition on the part of the ancient minister
+to oppose the new order of things.  A cautious, caustic, dry old
+functionary, talking more with his shoulders than with his tongue,
+determined never to commit himself, or to risk shipwreck by venturing
+again into deeper waters than those of the harbour in which he now hoped
+for repose, Idiaquez knew that his day of action was past.  Content to be
+confidential clerk to the despot duke, as he had been faithful secretary
+to the despot king, he was the despair of courtiers and envoys who came
+to pump, after having endeavoured to fill an inexhaustible cistern.  Thus
+he proved, on the whole, a useful and comfortable man, not to the
+country, but to its autocrat.
+
+Of the Count of Chinchon, who at one time was supposed to have court
+influence because a dabbler in architecture, much consulted during the
+building of the Escorial by Philip II. until the auditing of his accounts
+brought him into temporary disgrace, and the Marquises of Velada,
+Villalonga, and other ministers, it is not necessary to speak.  There was
+one man in the council, however, who was of great importance, wielding a
+mighty authority in subordination to the duke.  This was Don Pietro de
+Franqueza.  An emancipated slave, as his name indicated, and subsequently
+the body-servant of Lerma, he had been created by that minister secretary
+of the privy council.  He possessed some of the virtues of the slave,
+such as docility and attachment to the hand that had fed and scourged
+him, and many vices of both slave and freedman.  He did much of the work
+which it would have been difficult for the duke to accomplish in person,
+received his fees, sold and dispensed his interviews, distributed his
+bribes.  In so doing, as might be supposed, he did not neglect his own
+interest.  It was a matter of notoriety, no man knowing it better than
+the king, that no business, foreign or domestic, could be conducted or
+even begun at court without large preliminary fees to the secretary of
+the council, his wife, and his children.  He had, in consequence, already
+accumulated an enormous fortune.  His annual income, when it was stated,
+excited amazement.  He was insolent and overbearing to all comers until
+his dues had been paid, when he became at once obliging, supple, and
+comparatively efficient.  Through him alone lay the path to the duke's
+sanctuary.
+
+The nominal sovereign, Philip III., was thirty years of age.  A very
+little man, with pink cheeks, flaxen hair, and yellow beard, with a
+melancholy expression of eye, and protruding under lip and jaw, he was
+now comparatively alert and vigorous in constitution, although for the
+first seven years of his life it had been doubtful whether he would live
+from week to week.  He had been afflicted during that period with a
+chronic itch or leprosy, which had undermined his strength, but which
+had almost entirely disappeared as he advanced in life.
+
+He was below mediocrity in mind, and had received scarcely any education.
+He had been taught to utter a few phrases, more or less intelligible, in
+French, Italian, and Flemish, but was quite incapable of sustaining a
+conversation in either of those languages.  When a child, he had learned
+and subsequently forgotten the rudiments of the Latin grammar.
+
+These acquirements, together with the catechism and the offices of the
+Church, made up his whole stock of erudition.  That he was devout as a
+monk of the middle ages, conforming daily and hourly to religious
+ceremonies, need scarcely be stated.  It was not probable that the son of
+Philip II. would be a delinquent to church observances.  He was not
+deficient in courage, rode well, was fond of hunting, kept close to the
+staghounds, and confronted, spear in hand, the wild-boar with coolness
+and success.  He was fond of tennis, but his especial passion and chief
+accomplishment was dancing.  He liked to be praised for his proficiency
+in this art, and was never happier than when gravely leading out the
+queen or his daughter, then four or five years of age--for he never
+danced with any one else--to perform a stately bolero.
+
+He never drank wine, but, on the other hand, was an enormous eater; so
+that, like his father in youth, he was perpetually suffering from
+stomach-ache as the effect of his gluttony.  He was devotedly attached to
+his queen, and had never known, nor hardly looked at, any other woman.
+He had no vice but gambling, in which he indulged to a great extent, very
+often sitting up all night at cards.  This passion of the king's was much
+encouraged by Lerma, for obvious reasons.  Philip had been known to lose
+thirty thousand dollars at a sitting, and always to some one of the
+family or dependents of the duke, who of course divided with them the
+spoils.  At one time the Count of Pelbes, nephew of Lerma, had won two
+hundred thousand dollars in a very few nights from his sovereign.
+
+For the rest, Philip had few peculiarities or foibles.  He was not
+revengeful, nor arrogant, nor malignant.  He was kind and affectionate to
+his wife and children, and did his best to be obedient to the Duke of
+Lerma.  Occasionally he liked to grant audiences, but there were few to
+request them.  It was ridiculous and pathetic at the same time to see the
+poor king, as was very frequently the case, standing at a solemn green
+table till his little legs were tired, waiting to transact business with
+applicants who never came; while ushers, chamberlains, and valets were
+rushing up and down the corridors, bawling for all persons so disposed to
+come and have an audience of their monarch.  Meantime, the doors of the
+great duke's apartments in the same palace would be beleaguered by an
+army of courtiers, envoys, and contractors, who had paid solid gold for
+admission, and who were often sent away grumbling and despairing without
+entering the sacred precincts.
+
+As time wore on, the king, too much rebuked for attempting to meddle in
+state affairs, became solitary and almost morose, moping about in the
+woods by himself, losing satisfaction in his little dancing and ball-
+playing diversions, but never forgetting his affection for the queen
+nor the hours for his four daily substantial repasts of meats and pastry.
+It would be unnecessary and almost cruel to dwell so long upon a picture
+of what was after all not much better than human imbecility, were it not
+that humanity is, a more sacred thing than royalty.  A satire upon such
+an embodiment of kingship is impossible, the simple and truthful
+characteristics being more effective than fiction or exaggeration.  It
+would be unjust to exhume a private character after the lapse of two
+centuries merely to excite derision, but if history be not powerless to
+instruct, it certainly cannot be unprofitable to ponder the merits of a
+system which, after bestowing upon the world forty-three years of Philip
+the tyrant, had now followed them up with a decade of Philip the
+simpleton.
+
+In one respect the reigning sovereign was in advance of his age.  In his
+devotion to the Madonna he claimed the same miraculous origin for her
+mother as for herself.  When the prayer "O Sancta Maria sine labe
+originali concepta" was chanted, he would exclaim with emotion that the
+words embodied his devoutest aspirations.  He had frequent interviews
+with doctors of divinity on the subject, and instructed many bishops to
+urge upon the pope the necessity of proclaiming the virginity of the
+Virgin's mother.  Could he secure this darling object of his ambition,
+he professed himself ready to make a pilgrimage on foot to Rome.  The
+pilgrimage was never made, for it may well be imagined that Lerma would
+forbid any such adventurous scheme.  Meantime, the duke continued to
+govern the empire and to fill his coffers, and the king to shoot rabbits.
+
+The queen was a few years younger than her husband, and far from
+beautiful.  Indeed, the lower portion of her face was almost deformed.
+She was graceful, however, in her movements, and pleasing and gentle in
+manner.  She adored the king, looking up to him with reverence as the
+greatest and wisest of beings.  To please him she had upon her marriage
+given up drinking wine, which, for a German, was considered a great
+sacrifice.  She recompensed herself, as the king did, by eating to an
+extent which, according to contemporary accounts, excited amazement.
+Thus there was perfect sympathy between the two in the important article
+of diet.  She had also learned to play at cards, in order to take a hand
+with him at any moment, feebly hoping that an occasional game for love
+might rescue the king from that frantic passion by which his health was
+shattered and so many courtiers were enriched.
+
+Not being deficient in perception, the queen was quite aware of the
+greediness of all who surrounded the palace.  She had spirit enough
+too to feel the galling tyranny to which the king was subjected.  That
+the people hated the omnipotent favourite, and believed the king to be
+under the influence of sorcery, she was well aware.  She had even a dim
+notion that the administration of the empire was not the wisest nor the
+noblest that could be devised for the first power in Christendom.  But
+considerations of high politics scarcely troubled her mind.  Of a People
+she had perhaps never heard, but she felt that the king was oppressed.
+She knew that he was helpless, and that she was herself his only friend.
+But of what avail were her timid little flutterings of indignation and
+resistance?  So pure and fragile a creature could accomplish little good
+for king or people.  Perpetually guarded and surrounded by the Countess
+of Lemos and the Duchess of Lerma, she lived in mortal awe of both.  As
+to the duke himself, she trembled at his very name.  On her first
+attempts to speak with Philip on political matters--to hint at the
+unscrupulous character of his government, to arouse him to the necessity
+of striking for a little more liberty and for at least a trifling
+influence in the state--the poor little king instantly betrayed her to
+the favourite and she was severely punished.  The duke took the monarch
+off at once on a long journey, leaving her alone for weeks long with the
+terrible duchess and countess.  Never before had she been separated for
+a day from her husband, it having been the king's uniform custom to take
+her with him in all his expeditions.  Her ambition to interfere was thus
+effectually cured.  The duke forbade her thenceforth ever to speak of
+politics to her husband in public or in private--not even in bed--and the
+king was closely questioned whether these orders had been obeyed.  She
+submitted without a struggle.  She saw how completely her happiness was
+at Lerma's mercy.  She had no one to consult with, having none but
+Spanish people about her, except her German father-confessor, whom,
+as a great favour, and after a severe struggle, she had beep allowed to
+retain, as otherwise her ignorance of the national language would have
+made it impossible for her to confess her little sins.  Moreover her
+brothers, the archdukes at Gratz, were in receipt of considerable annual
+stipends from the Spanish exchequer, and the duke threatened to stop
+those pensions at once should the queen prove refractory.  It is painful
+to dwell any longer on the abject servitude in which the king and queen
+were kept.  The two were at least happy in each other's society, and were
+blessed with mutual affection, with pretty and engaging children, and
+with a similarity of tastes.  It is impossible to imagine anything more
+stately, more devout, more regular, more innocent, more utterly dismal
+and insipid, than the lives of this wedded pair.
+
+This interior view of the court and council of Spain will suffice to
+explain why, despite the languor and hesitations with which the
+transactions were managed, the inevitable tendency was towards a peace.
+The inevitable slowness, secrecy, and tergiversations were due to the
+dignity of the Spanish court, and in harmony with its most sacred
+traditions.
+
+But what profit could the Duke of Lerma expect by the continuance of the
+Dutch war, and who in Spain was to be consulted except the Duke of Lerma?
+
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+A man incapable of fatigue, of perplexity, or of fear
+Converting beneficent commerce into baleful gambling
+Gigantic vices are proudly pointed to as the noblest
+No generation is long-lived enough to reap the harvest
+Proclaiming the virginity of the Virgin's mother
+Steeped to the lips in sloth which imagined itself to be pride
+To shirk labour, infinite numbers become priests and friars
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v79
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 80, 1607
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+     Peace deliberations in Spain--Unpopularity of the project--
+     Disaffection of the courtiers--Complaints against Spinola--
+     Conference of the Catholic party--Position of Henry IV. towards the
+     republic--State of France Further peace negotiations--Desire of King
+     James of England for the restoration of the States to Spain--Arrival
+     of the French commissioners President Jeannin before the States-
+     General--Dangers of a truce with Spain--Dutch legation to England--
+     Arrival of Lewis Verreyken at the Hague with Philip's ratification--
+     Rejection of the Spanish treaty--Withdrawal of the Dutch fleet from
+     the Peninsula--The peace project denounced by the party of Prince
+     Maurice--Opposition of Maurice to the plans of Barneveld--Amended
+     ratification presented to the States-General--Discussion of the
+     conditions--Determination to conclude a peace--Indian trade--
+     Exploits of Admiral Matelieff in the Malay peninsula--He lays siege
+     to Malacca--Victory over the Spanish fleet--Endeavour to open a
+     trade with China--Return of Matelieff to Holland.
+
+The Marquis Spinola had informed the Spanish Government that if 300,000
+dollars a month could be furnished, the war might be continued, but that
+otherwise it would be better to treat upon the basis of 'uti possidetis,'
+and according to the terms proposed by the States-General.  He had
+further intimated his opinion that, instead of waiting for the king's
+consent, it more comported with the king's dignity for the archdukes to
+enter into negotiations, to make a preliminary and brief armistice with
+the enemy, and then to solicit the royal approval of what had been done.
+
+In reply, the king--that is to say the man who thought, wrote, and signed
+in behalf of the king--had plaintively observed that among evils the
+vulgar rule was to submit to the least.  Although, therefore, to grant to
+the Netherland rebels not only peace and liberty, but to concede to them
+whatever they had obtained by violence and the most abominable outrages,
+was the worst possible example to all princes; yet as the enormous sum
+necessary for carrying on the war was not to be had, even by attempting
+to scrape it together from every corner of the earth, he agreed with the
+opinion of the archdukes that it was better to put an end to this eternal
+and exhausting war by peace or truce, even under severe conditions.  That
+the business had thus far proceeded without consulting him, was publicly
+known, and he expressed approval of the present movements towards a peace
+or a long truce, assuring Spinola that such a result would be as grateful
+to him as if the war had been brought to a successful issue.
+
+When the Marquis sent formal notice of the armistice to Spain there were
+many complaints at court.  Men said that the measure was beneath the
+king's dignity, and contrary to his interests.  It was a cessation of
+arms under iniquitous conditions, accorded to a people formerly subject
+and now rebellious.  Such a truce was more fatal than any conflict, than
+any amount of slaughter.  During this long and dreadful war, the king had
+suffered no disaster so terrible as this, and the courtiers now declared
+openly that the archduke was the cause of the royal and national
+humiliation.  Having no children, nor hope of any, he desired only to
+live in tranquillity and selfish indulgence, like the indolent priest
+that he was, not caring what detriment or dishonour might accrue to the
+crown after his life was over.
+
+Thus murmured the parasites and the plunderers within the dominions of
+the do-nothing Philip, denouncing the first serious effort to put an end
+to a war which the laws of nature had proved to be hopeless on the part
+of Spain.
+
+Spinola too, who had spent millions of his own money, who had plunged
+himself into debt and discredit, while attempting to sustain the
+financial reputation of the king, who had by his brilliant services in
+the field revived the ancient glory of the Spanish arms, and who now saw
+himself exposed with empty coffers to a vast mutiny, which was likely to
+make his future movements as paralytic as those of his immediate
+predecessors--Spinola, already hated because he was an Italian, because
+he was of a mercantile family, and because he had been successful, was
+now as much the object of contumely with the courtiers as with the
+archduke himself.
+
+The splendid victory of Heemskerk had struck the government with dismay
+and diffused a panic along the coast.  The mercantile fleets, destined
+for either India, dared not venture forth so long as the terrible Dutch
+cruisers, which had just annihilated a splendid Spanish fleet, commanded
+by a veteran of Lepanto, and under the very guns of Gibraltar, were
+supposed to be hovering off the Peninsula.  Very naturally, therefore,
+there was discontent in Spain that the cessation of hostilities had not
+originally been arranged for sea as well as land, and men said openly at
+court that Spinola ought to have his head cut off for agreeing to such an
+armistice.  Quite as reasonably, however, it was now felt to be necessary
+to effect as soon as possible the recal of this very inconvenient Dutch
+fleet from the coast of Spain.
+
+The complaints were so incessant against Spinola that it was determined
+to send Don Diego d'Ybarra to Brussels, charged with a general
+superintendence of the royal interests in the present confused condition
+of affairs.  He was especially instructed to convey to Spinola the most
+vehement reproaches in regard to the terms of the armistice, and to
+insist upon the cessation of naval hostilities, and the withdrawal of the
+cruisers.
+
+Spinola, on his part, was exceedingly irritated that the arrangements
+which he had so carefully made with the archduke at Brussels should
+be so contumaciously assailed, and even disavowed, at Madrid.  He was
+especially irritated that Ybarra should now be sent as his censor and
+overseer, and that Fuentes should have received orders to levy seven
+thousand troops in the Milanese for Flanders, the arrival of which
+reinforcements would excite suspicion, and probably break off
+negotiations.
+
+He accordingly sent his private secretary Biraga, posthaste to Spain with
+two letters.  In number one he implored his Majesty that Ybarra might not
+be sent to Brussels.  If this request were granted, number two was to be
+burned.  Otherwise, number two was to be delivered, and it contained a
+request to be relieved from all further employment in the king's service.
+The marquis was already feeling the same effects of success as had been
+experienced by Alexander Farnese, Don John of Austria, and other
+strenuous maintainers of the royal authority in Flanders.  He was railed
+against, suspected, spied upon, put under guardianship, according to the
+good old traditions of the Spanish court.  Public disgrace or secret
+poison might well be expected by him, as the natural guerdons of his
+eminent deeds.
+
+Biraga also took with him the draught of the form in which the king's
+consent to the armistice and pending negotiations was desired, and he was
+particularly directed to urge that not one letter or comma should be
+altered, in order that no pretext might be afforded to the suspicious
+Netherlanders for a rupture.
+
+In private letters to his own superintendent Strata, to Don John of
+Idiaquez, to the Duke of Lerma, and to Stephen Ybarra, Spinola enlarged
+upon the indignity about to be offered him, remonstrated vehemently
+against the wrong and stupidity of the proposed policy, and expressed his
+reliance upon the efforts of these friends of his to prevent its
+consummation.  He intimated to Idiaquez that a new deliberation would be
+necessary to effect the withdrawal of the Dutch fleet--a condition not
+inserted in the original armistice--but that within the three months
+allowed for the royal ratification there would be time enough to procure
+the consent of the States to that measure.  If the king really desired to
+continue the war, he had but to alter a single comma in the draught, and,
+out of that comma, the stadholder's party would be certain to manufacture
+for him as long a war as he could possibly wish.
+
+In a subsequent letter to the king, Spinola observed that he was well
+aware of the indignation created in Spain by the cessation of land
+hostilities without the recal of the fleet, but that nevertheless John
+Neyen had confidentially represented to the archdukes the royal assent
+as almost certain.  As to the mission of Ybarra, the marquis reminded
+his master that the responsibility and general superintendence of the
+negotiations had been almost forced upon him.  Certainly he had not
+solicited them.  If another agent were now interposed, it was an
+advertisement to the world that the business had been badly managed.
+If the king wished a rupture, he had but to lift his finger or his pen;
+but to appoint another commissioner was an unfit reward for his faithful
+service.  He was in the king's hands.  If his reputation were now to be
+destroyed, it was all over with him and his affairs.  The man, whom
+mortals had once believed incapable, would be esteemed incapable until
+the end of his days.
+
+It was too late to prevent the mission of Ybarra, who, immediately after
+his arrival in Brussels, began to urge in the king's name that the words
+in which the provinces had been declared free by the archdukes might be
+expunged.  What could be more childish than such diplomacy?  What greater
+proof could be given of the incapacity of the Spanish court to learn the
+lesson which forty years had been teaching?  Spinola again wrote a most
+earnest remonstrance to the king, assuring him that this was simply to
+break off the negotiation.  It was ridiculous to suppose, he said, that
+concessions already made by the archdukes, ratification of which on the
+part of the king had been guaranteed, could now be annulled.  Those
+acquainted with Netherland obstinacy knew better.  The very possibility
+of the king's refusal excited the scorn of the States-General.
+
+Ybarra went about, too, prating to the archdukes and to others of
+supplies to be sent from Spain sufficient to carry on the war for many
+years, and of fresh troops to be forwarded immediately by Fuentes.  As
+four millions of crowns a year were known to be required for any
+tolerable campaigning, such empty vaunts as these were preposterous.  The
+king knew full well, said Spinola, and had admitted the fact in his
+letters, that this enormous sum could not be furnished.  Moreover, the
+war cost the Netherlanders far less in proportion.  They had river
+transportation, by which they effected as much in two days as the
+Catholic army could do in a fortnight, so that every siege was managed
+with far greater rapidity and less cost by the rebels than by their
+opponents.  As to sending troops from Milan, he had already stated that
+their arrival would have a fatal effect.  The minds of the people were
+full of suspicion.  Every passing rumour excited a prodigious sensation,
+and the war party was already gaining the upper hand.  Spinola warned the
+king, in the most solemn manner, that if the golden opportunity were now
+neglected the war would be eternal.  This, he said, was more certain than
+certain.  For himself, he had strained every nerve, and would continue to
+do his best in the interest of peace.  If calamity must come, he at least
+would be held blameless.
+
+Such vehement remonstrances from so eminent a source produced the needful
+effect.  Royal letters were immediately sent, placing full powers of
+treating in the hands of the marquis, and sending him a ratification of
+the archduke's agreement.  Government moreover expressed boundless
+confidence in Spinola, and deprecated the idea that Ybarra's mission was
+in derogation of his authority.  He had been sent, it was stated, only to
+procure that indispensable preliminary to negotiations, the withdrawal of
+the Dutch fleet, but as this had now been granted, Ybarra was already
+recalled.
+
+Spinola now determined to send the swift and sure-footed friar, who had
+made himself so useful in opening the path to discussion, on a secret
+mission to Spain.  Ybarra objected; especially because it would be
+necessary for him to go through France, where he would be closely
+questioned by the king.  It would be equally dangerous, he said,
+for the Franciscan in that case to tell the truth or to conceal it.
+But Spinola replied that a poor monk like him could steal through France
+undiscovered.  Moreover, he should be disguised as a footman, travelling
+in the service of Aurelio Spinola, a relative of the marquis, then
+proceeding to Madrid.  Even should Henry hear of his presence and send
+for him, was it to be supposed that so practised a hand would not easily
+parry the strokes of the French king--accomplished fencer as he
+undoubtedly was?  After stealing into and out of Holland as he had so
+recently done, there was nothing that might not be expected of him.  So
+the wily friar put on the Spinola livery, and, without impediment,
+accompanied Don Aurelio to Madrid.
+
+Meantime, the French commissioners--Pierre Jeannin, Buzanval, regular
+resident at the Hague, and De Russy, who was destined to succeed that
+diplomatist--had arrived in Holland.
+
+The great drama of negotiation, which was now to follow the forty years'
+tragedy, involved the interests and absorbed the attention of the great
+Christian powers.  Although serious enough in its substance and its
+probable consequences, its aspect was that of a solemn comedy.  There was
+a secret disposition on the part of each leading personage--with a few
+exceptions--to make dupes of all the rest.  Perhaps this was a necessary
+result of statesmanship, as it had usually been taught at that epoch.
+
+Paul V., who had succeeded Clement VIII. in 1605, with the brief
+interlude of the twenty-six days of Leo XI.'s pontificate, was zealous,
+as might be supposed, to check the dangerous growth of the pestilential
+little republic of the north.  His diplomatic agents, Millino at Madrid,
+Barberini at Paris, and the accomplished Bentivoglio, who had just been
+appointed to the nunciatura at Brussels, were indefatigable in their
+efforts to suppress the heresy and the insolent liberty of which the
+upstart commonwealth was the embodiment.
+
+Especially Barberini exerted all the powers at his command to bring about
+a good understanding between the kings of France and Spain.  He pictured
+to Henry, in darkest colours, the blight that would come over religion
+and civilization if the progress of the rebellious Netherlands could not
+be arrested.  The United Provinces were becoming dangerous, if they
+remained free, not only to the French kingdom, but to the very existence
+of monarchy throughout the world.
+
+No potentate was ever more interested, so it was urged, than Henry IV.
+to bring down the pride of the Dutch rebels.  There was always sympathy
+of thought and action between the Huguenots of France and their co-
+religionists in Holland.  They were all believers alike in Calvinism--
+a sect inimical not less to temporal monarchies than to the sovereign
+primacy of the Church--and the tendency and purposes of the French rebels
+were already sufficiently manifest in their efforts, by means of the so-
+called cities of security, to erect a state within a state; to introduce,
+in short, a Dutch republic into France.
+
+A sovereign remedy for the disease of liberty, now threatening to become
+epidemic in Europe, would be found in a marriage between the second son
+of the King of Spain and a daughter of France.  As the archdukes were
+childless, it might be easily arranged that this youthful couple should
+succeed them--the result of which would of course be the reduction of all
+the Netherlands to their ancient obedience.
+
+It has already been seen, and will become still farther apparent, that
+nostrums like this were to be recommended in other directions.  Meantime,
+Jeannin and his colleagues made their appearance at the Hague.
+
+If there were a living politician in Europe capable of dealing with
+Barneveld on even terms, it was no doubt President Jeannin.  An ancient
+Leaguer, an especial adherent of the Duke of Mayenne, he had been deep in
+all the various plots and counter-plots of the Guises, and often employed
+by the extinct confederacy in various important intrigues.  Being
+secretly sent to Spain to solicit help for the League after the disasters
+of Ivry and Arques, he found Philip II. so sincerely imbued with the
+notion that France was a mere province of Spain, and so entirely bent
+upon securing the heritage of the Infanta to that large property, as to
+convince him that the maintenance of the Roman religion was with that
+monarch only a secondary condition.  Aid and assistance for the
+confederacy were difficult of attainment, unless coupled with the
+guarantee of the Infanta's rights to reign in France.
+
+The Guise faction being inspired solely by religious motives of the
+loftiest kind, were naturally dissatisfied with the lukewarmness of
+his most Catholic Majesty.  When therefore the discomfited Mayenne
+subsequently concluded his bargain with the conqueror of Ivry, it was a
+matter of course that Jeannin should also make his peace with the
+successful Huguenot, now become eldest son of the Church.  He was very
+soon taken into especial favour by Henry, who recognised his sagacity,
+and who knew his hands to be far cleaner than those of the more exalted
+Leaguers with whom he had dealt.  The "good old fellow," as Henry
+familiarly called him, had not filled his pockets either in serving or
+when deserting the League.  Placed in control of the exchequer at a later
+period, he was never accused of robbery or peculation.  He was a hard-
+working, not overpaid, very intelligent public functionary.  He was made
+president of the parliament, or supreme tribunal of Burgundy, and
+minister of state, and was recognised as one of the ablest jurists and
+most skilful politicians in the kingdom.  An elderly man, with a tall,
+serene forehead, a large dark eye and a long grey beard, he presented an
+image of vast wisdom and reverend probity.  He possessed--an especial
+treasure for a statesman in that plotting age--a singularly honest
+visage.  Never was that face more guileless, never was his heart more
+completely worn upon his sleeve, than when he was harbouring the deepest
+or most dangerous designs.  Such was the "good fellow," whom that skilful
+reader of men, Henry of France, had sent to represent his interests and
+his opinions at the approaching conferences.  What were those opinions?
+Paul V. and his legates Barberini, Millino, and the rest, were well
+enough aware of the secret strings of the king's policy, and knew how to
+touch them with skill.  Of all things past, Henry perhaps most regretted
+that not he, but the last and most wretched of the Valois line, was
+sovereign of France when the States-General came to Paris with that
+offer of sovereignty which had been so contumaciously refused.
+
+If the object were attainable, the ex-chief of the Huguenots still
+meant to be king of the Netherlands as sincerely as Philip II. had
+ever intended to be monarch of France.  But Henry was too accurate
+a calculator of chances, and had bustled too much in the world of
+realities, to exhaust his strength in striving, year after year, for
+a manifest impossibility.  The enthusiast, who had passed away at last
+from the dreams of the Escorial into the land of shadows, had spent a
+lifetime, and melted the wealth of an empire; but universal monarchy had
+never come forth from his crucible.  The French king, although possessed
+likewise of an almost boundless faculty for ambitious visions, was
+capable of distinguishing cloud-land from substantial empire.
+Jeannin, as his envoy, would at any rate not reveal his master's secret
+aspirations to those with whom he came to deal, as openly as Philip had
+once unveiled himself to Jeannin.
+
+There could be no doubt that peace at this epoch was the real interest of
+France.  That kingdom was beginning to flourish again, owing to the very
+considerable administrative genius of Bethune, an accomplished financier
+according to the lights of the age, and still more by reason of the
+general impoverishment of the great feudal houses and of the clergy.
+The result of the almost interminable series of civil and religious wars
+had been to cause a general redistribution of property.  Capital was
+mainly in the hands of the middle and lower classes, and the consequence
+of this general circulation of wealth through all the channels of society
+was precisely what might have been expected, an increase of enterprise
+and of productive industry in various branches.  Although the financial
+wisdom of the age was doing its best to impede commerce, to prevent the
+influx of foreign wares, to prohibit the outflow of specie--in obedience
+to the universal superstition, which was destined to survive so many
+centuries, that gold and silver alone constituted wealth--while,
+at the same time, in deference to the idiotic principle of sumptuary
+legislation, it was vigorously opposing mulberry culture, silk
+manufactures, and other creations of luxury, which, in spite of the
+hostility of government sages, were destined from that time forward to
+become better mines of wealth for the kingdom than the Indies had been
+for Spain, yet on the whole the arts of peace were in the ascendant in
+France.
+
+The king, although an unscrupulous, self-seeking despot and the coarsest
+of voluptuaries, was at least a man of genius.  He had also too much
+shrewd mother-wit to pursue such schemes as experience had shown to
+possess no reality.  The talisman "Espoir," emblazoned on his shield, had
+led him to so much that it was natural for him at times to think all
+things possible.
+
+But he knew how to renounce as well as how to dare.  He had abandoned his
+hope to be declared Prince of Wales and successor to the English crown,
+which he had cherished for a brief period, at the epoch of the Essex
+conspiracy; he had forgotten his magnificent dream of placing the crown
+of the holy German empire upon his head, and if he still secretly
+resolved to annex the Netherlands to his realms, and to destroy his
+excellent ally, the usurping, rebellious, and heretic Dutch republic,
+he had craft enough to work towards his aim in the dark, and the common
+sense to know that by now throwing down the mask he would be for ever
+baffled of his purpose.
+
+The history of France, during the last three-quarters of a century, had
+made almost every Frenchman, old enough to bear arms, an accomplished
+soldier.  Henry boasted that the kingdom could put three hundred thousand
+veterans into the field--a high figure, when it is recollected that its
+population certainly did not exceed fifteen millions.  No man however
+was better aware than he, that in spite, of the apparent pacification
+of parties, the three hundred thousand would not be all on one side, even
+in case of a foreign war.  There were at least four thousand great feudal
+lords as faithful to the Huguenot faith and cause as he had been false to
+both; many of them still wealthy, notwithstanding the general ruin which
+had swept over the high nobility, and all of them with vast influence and
+a splendid following, both among the lesser gentry and the men of lower
+rank.
+
+Although he kept a Jesuit priest ever at his elbow, and did his best
+to persuade the world and perhaps himself that he had become a devout
+Catholic, in consequence of those memorable five hours' instruction from
+the Bishop of Bourges, and that there was no hope for France save in
+its return to the bosom of the Church, he was yet too politic and too
+farseeing to doubt that for him to oppress the Protestants would
+be not only suicidal, but, what was worse in his eyes, ridiculous.
+
+He knew, too, that with thirty or forty thousand fighting-men in the
+field, with seven hundred and forty churches in the various provinces for
+their places of worship, with all the best fortresses in France in their
+possession, with leaders like Rohan, Lesdiguieres, Bouillon, and many
+others, and with the most virtuous, self-denying, Christian government,
+established and maintained by themselves, it would be madness for him
+and his dynasty to deny the Protestants their political and religious
+liberty, or to attempt a crusade against their brethren in the
+Netherlands.
+
+France was far more powerful than Spain, although the world had not yet
+recognised the fact.  Yet it would have been difficult for both united to
+crush the new commonwealth, however paradoxical such a proposition seemed
+to contemporaries.
+
+Sully was conscientiously in favour of peace, and Sully was the one great
+minister of France.  Not a Lerma, certainly; for France was not Spain,
+nor was Henry IV. a Philip III.  The Huguenot duke was an inferior
+financier to his Spanish contemporary, if it were the height of financial
+skill for a minister to exhaust the resources of a great kingdom in
+order to fill his own pocket.  Sully certainly did not neglect his own
+interests, for be had accumulated a fortune of at least seventy thousand
+dollars a year, besides a cash capital estimated at a million and a half.
+But while enriching himself, he had wonderfully improved the condition of
+the royal treasury.  He had reformed many abuses and opened many new
+sources of income.  He had, of course, not accomplished the whole Augean
+task of purification.  He was a vigorous Huguenot, but no Hercules, and
+demigods might have shrunk appalled at the filthy mass of corruption
+which great European kingdoms everywhere presented to the reformer's eye.
+Compared to the Spanish Government, that of France might almost have been
+considered virtuous, yet even there everything was venal.
+
+To negotiate was to bribe right and left, and at every step.  All the
+ministers and great functionaries received presents, as a matter of
+course, and it was necessary to pave the pathway even of their ante-
+chambers with gold.
+
+The king was fully aware of the practice, but winked at it, because
+his servants, thus paid enormous sums by the public and by foreign
+Governments, were less importunate for rewards and salaries from himself.
+
+One man in the kingdom was said to have clean hands, the venerable and
+sagacious chancellor, Pomponne de Bellievre.  His wife, however, was less
+scrupulous, and readily disposed of influence and court-favour for a
+price, without the knowledge, so it was thought, of the great judge.
+
+Jeannin, too, was esteemed a man of personal integrity, ancient Leaguer
+and tricky politician though he were.
+
+Highest offices of magistracy and judicature, Church and State, were
+objects of a traffic almost as shameless as in Spain.  The ermine was
+sold at auction, mitres were objects of public barter, Church preferments
+were bestowed upon female children in their cradles.  Yet there was hope
+in France, notwithstanding that the Pragmatic Sanction of St. Louis, the
+foundation of the liberties of the Gallican Church, had been annulled by
+Francis, who had divided the seamless garment of Church patronage with
+Leo.
+
+Those four thousand great Huguenot lords, those thirty thousand hard-
+fighting weavers, and blacksmiths, and other plebeians, those seven
+hundred and forty churches, those very substantial fortresses in every
+province of the kingdom, were better facts than the Holy Inquisition to
+preserve a great nation from sinking into the slough of political
+extinction.
+
+Henry was most anxious that Sully should convert himself to the ancient
+Church, and the gossips of the day told each other that the duke had
+named his price for his conversion.  To be made high constable of France,
+it was said would melt the resolve of the stiff Huguenot.  To any other
+inducement or blandishment he was adamant.  Whatever truth may have been
+in such chatter, it is certain that the duke never gratified his master's
+darling desire.
+
+Yet it was for no lack of attempts and intrigues on the part of the king,
+although it is not probable that he would have ever consented to bestow
+that august and coveted dignity upon a Bethune.
+
+The king did his best by intrigue, by calumny, by talebearing, by
+inventions, to set the Huguenots against each other, and to excite the
+mutual jealousy of all his most trusted adherents, whether Protestant or
+Catholic.  The most good-humoured, the least vindictive, the most
+ungrateful, the falsest of mankind, he made it his policy, as well as his
+pastime, to repeat, with any amount of embroidery that his most florid
+fancy could devise, every idle story or calumny that could possibly
+create bitter feeling and make mischief among those who surrounded him.
+Being aware that this propensity was thoroughly understood, he only
+multiplied fictions, so cunningly mingled with truths, as to leave his
+hearers quite unable to know what to believe and what to doubt.  By
+such arts, force being impossible, he hoped one day to sever the band
+which held the conventicles together, and to reduce Protestantism to
+insignificance.  He would have cut off the head of D'Aubigne or Duplessis
+Mornay to gain an object, and have not only pardoned but caressed and
+rewarded Biron when reeking from the conspiracy against his own life and
+crown, had he been willing to confess and ask pardon for his stupendous
+crime.  He hated vindictive men almost as much as he despised those who
+were grateful.
+
+He was therefore far from preferring Sully to Villeroy or Jeannin, but he
+was perfectly aware that, in financial matters at least, the duke was his
+best friend and an important pillar of the state.
+
+The minister had succeeded in raising the annual revenue of France
+to nearly eleven millions of dollars, and in reducing the annual
+expenditures to a little more than ten millions.  To have a balance on
+the right side of the public ledger was a feat less easily accomplished
+in those days even than in our own.  Could the duke have restrained his
+sovereign's reckless extravagance in buildings, parks, hunting
+establishments, and harems, he might have accomplished even greater
+miracles.  He lectured the king roundly, as a parent might remonstrate
+with a prodigal son, but it was impossible even for a Sully to rescue
+that hoary-headed and most indomitable youth from wantonness and riotous
+living.  The civil-list of the king amounted to more than one-tenth of
+the whole revenue.
+
+On the whole, however, it was clear, as France was then constituted and
+administered, that a general peace would be, for the time at least, most
+conducive to its interests, and Henry and his great minister were
+sincerely desirous of bringing about that result.
+
+Preliminaries for a negotiation which should terminate this mighty war
+were now accordingly to be laid down at the Hague.  Yet it would seem
+rather difficult to effect a compromise.  Besides the powers less
+interested, but which nevertheless sent representatives to watch the
+proceedings--such as Sweden, Denmark, Brandenburg, the Elector Palatine
+--there were Spain, France, England, the republic, and the archdukes.
+
+Spain knew very well that she could not continue the war; but she hoped
+by some quibbling recognition of an impossible independence to recover
+that authority over her ancient vassals which the sword had for the time
+struck down.  Distraction in councils, personal rivalries, the well-
+known incapacity of a people to govern itself, commercial greediness,
+provincial hatreds, envies and jealousies, would soon reduce that jumble
+of cities and villages, which aped the airs of sovereignty, into
+insignificance and confusion.  Adroit management would easily re-assert
+afterwards the sovereignty of the Lord's anointed.  That a republic of
+freemen, a federation of independent states, could take its place among
+the nations did not deserve a serious thought.
+
+Spain in her heart preferred therefore to treat.  It was however
+indispensable that the Netherlands should reestablish the Catholic
+religion throughout the land, should abstain then and for ever from all
+insolent pretences to trade with India or America, and should punish such
+of their citizens as attempted to make voyages to the one or the other.
+With these trifling exceptions, the court of Madrid would look with
+favour on propositions made in behalf of the rebels.
+
+France, as we have seen, secretly aspired to the sovereignty of all the
+Netherlands, if it could be had.  She was also extremely in favour of
+excluding the Hollanders from the Indies, East and West.  The king, fired
+with the achievements of the republic at sea, and admiring their great
+schemes for founding empires at the antipodes by means of commercial
+corporations, was very desirous of appropriating to his own benefit the
+experience, the audacity, the perseverance, the skill and the capital of
+their merchants and mariners.  He secretly instructed his commissioners,
+therefore, and repeatedly urged it upon them, to do their best to procure
+the renunciation, on the part of the republic, of the Indian trade,
+and to contrive the transplantation into France of the mighty trading
+companies, so successfully established in Holland and Zeeland.
+
+The plot thus to deprive the provinces of their India trade was supposed
+by the statesmen of the republic to have been formed in connivance with
+Spain.  That power, finding itself half pushed from its seat of power in
+the East by the "grand and infallible society created by the United
+Provinces,"--[Memoir of Aerssens, ubi sup]--would be but too happy to
+make use of this French intrigue in order to force the intruding Dutch
+navy from its conquests.
+
+Olden-Barneveld, too politic to offend the powerful and treacherous ally
+by a flat refusal, said that the king's friendship was more precious than
+the India trade.  At the same time he warned the French Government that,
+if they ruined the Dutch East India Company, "neither France nor any
+other nation would ever put its nose into India again."
+
+James of England, too, flattered himself that he could win for England
+that sovereignty of the Netherlands which England as well as France had
+so decidedly refused.  The marriage of Prince Henry with the Spanish
+Infanta was the bait, steadily dangled before him by the politicians of
+the Spanish court, and he deluded himself with the thought that the
+Catholic king, on the death of the childless archdukes, would make his
+son and daughter-in-law a present of the obedient Netherlands.  He
+already had some of the most important places in the United Netherlands-
+the famous cautionary towns in his grasp, and it should go hard but he
+would twist that possession into a sovereignty over the whole land.  As
+for recognising the rebel provinces as an independent sovereignty, that
+was most abhorrent to him.  Such a tampering with the great principles of
+Government was an offence against all crowned heads, a crime in which he
+was unwilling to participate.
+
+His instinct against rebellion seemed like second sight.  The king might
+almost be imagined to have foreseen in the dim future those memorable
+months in which the proudest triumph of the Dutch commonwealth was to be
+registered before the forum of Christendom at the congress of Westphalia,
+and in which the solemn trial and execution of his own son and successor,
+with the transformation of the monarchy of the Tudors and Stuarts into a
+British republic, were simultaneously to startle the world.  But it
+hardly needed the gift of prophecy to inspire James with a fear of
+revolutions.
+
+He was secretly desirous therefore, sustained by Salisbury and his other
+advisers, of effecting the restoration of the provinces to the dominion
+of his most Catholic Majesty.  It was of course the interest of England
+that the Netherland rebels should renounce the India trade.  So would
+James be spared the expense and trouble of war; so would the great
+doctrines of divine right be upheld; so would the way be paved towards
+the ultimate absorption of the Netherlands by England.  Whether his
+theological expositions would find as attentive pupils when the pope's
+authority had been reestablished over all his neighbours; whether the
+Catholic rebels in Ireland would become more tranquil by the subjugation
+of the Protestant rebels in Holland; whether the principles of Guy Fawkes
+might not find more effective application, with no bulwark beyond the
+seas against the incursion of such practitioners--all this he did not
+perhaps sufficiently ponder.
+
+Thus far had the discursive mind of James wandered from the position
+which it occupied at the epoch of Maximilian de Bethune's memorable
+embassy to England.
+
+The archdukes were disposed to quiet.  On them fell the burthen of the
+war.  Their little sovereignty, where--if they could only be allowed
+to expend the money squeezed from the obedient provinces in court
+diversions, stately architecture, splendid encouragement of the fine
+arts, and luxurious living, surrounded by a train of great nobles, fit
+to command regiments in the field or assist in the counsels of state, but
+chiefly occupied in putting dishes on the court table, handing ewers and
+napkins to their Highnesses, or in still more menial offices--so much
+enjoyment might be had, was reduced to a mere parade ground for Spanish
+soldiery.  It was ridiculous, said the politicians of Madrid, to suppose
+that a great empire like Spain would not be continually at war in one
+direction or another, and would not perpetually require the use of large
+armies.  Where then could there be a better mustering place for their
+forces than those very provinces, so easy of access, so opulent, so
+conveniently situate in the neighbourhood of Spain's most insolent
+enemies?  It was all very fine for the archduke, who knew nothing of war,
+they declared, who had no hope of children, who longed only for a life
+of inglorious ease, such as he could have had as archbishop, to prate of
+peace and thus to compromise the dignity of the realm.  On the contrary
+by making proper use of the Netherlands, the repose and grandeur of the
+monarchy would be secured, even should the war become eternal.
+
+This prospect, not agreeable certainly for the archdukes or their
+subjects, was but little admired outside the Spanish court.
+
+Such then were the sentiments of the archdukes, and such the schemes and
+visions of Spain, France, and England.  On two or three points, those
+great powers were mainly, if unconsciously, agreed.  The Netherlands
+should not be sovereign; they should renounce the India navigation; they
+should consent to the re-establishment of the Catholic religion.
+
+On the other hand, the States-General knew their own minds, and made not
+the slightest secret of their intentions.
+
+They would be sovereign, they would not renounce the India trade, they
+would not agree to the re-establishment of the Catholic religion.
+
+Could the issue of the proposed negotiations be thought hopeful, or was
+another half century of warfare impending?
+
+On the 28th May the French commissioners came before the States-General.
+
+There had been many wild rumours flying through the provinces in regard
+to the king's secret designs upon the republic, especially since the
+visit made to the Hague a twelvemonth before by Francis Aerssens, States'
+resident at the French court.  That diplomatist, as we know, had been
+secretly commissioned by Henry to feel the public pulse in regard to the
+sovereignty, so far as that could be done by very private and delicate
+fingering.  Although only two or three personages had been dealt with--
+the suggestions being made as the private views of the ambassadors only
+--there had been much gossip on the subject, not only in the Netherlands,
+but at the English and Spanish courts.  Throughout the commonwealth there
+was a belief that Henry wished to make himself king of the country.
+
+As this happened to be the fact, it was natural that the President,
+according to the statecraft of his school, should deny it at once, and
+with an air of gentle melancholy.
+
+Wearing therefore his most ingenuous expression, Jeannin addressed the
+assembly.
+
+He assured the States that the king had never forgotten how much
+assistance he had received from them when he was struggling to conquer
+the kingdom legally belonging to him, and at a time when they too were
+fighting in their own country for their very existence.
+
+The king thought that he had given so many proofs of his sincere
+friendship as to make doubt impossible; but he had found the contrary,
+for the States had accorded an armistice, and listened to overtures of
+peace, without deigning to consult him on the subject.  They had proved,
+by beginning and concluding so important a transaction without his
+knowledge, that they regarded him with suspicion, and had no respect for
+his name.  Whence came the causes of that suspicion it was difficult to
+imagine, unless from certain false rumours of propositions said to have
+been put forward in his behalf, although he had never authorised anyone
+to make them, by which men had been induced to believe that he aspired to
+the sovereignty of the provinces.
+
+"This falsehood," continued the candid President, "has cut our king to
+the heart, wounding him more deeply than anything else could have done.
+To make the armistice without his knowledge showed merely your contempt
+for him, and your want of faith in him.  But he blamed not the action in
+itself, since you deemed it for your good, and God grant that you may not
+have been deceived.  But to pretend that his Majesty wished to grow great
+at your expense, this was to do a wrong to his reputation, to his good
+faith, and to the desire which he has always shown to secure the
+prosperity of your state."  Much more spoke Jeannin, in this vein,
+assuring the assembly that those abominable falsehoods proceeded from
+the enemies of the king, and were designed expressly to sow discord and
+suspicion in the provinces.  The reader, already aware of the minute and
+detailed arrangements made by Henry and his ministers for obtaining the
+sovereignty of the United Provinces and destroying their liberties, will
+know how to appreciate the eloquence of the ingenuous President.
+
+After the usual commonplaces concerning the royal desire to protect his
+allies against wrong and oppression, and to advance their interests, the
+President suggested that the States should forthwith communicate the
+pending deliberations to all the kings and princes who had favoured their
+cause, and especially to the King of England, who had so thoroughly
+proved his desire to promote their welfare.
+
+As Jeannin had been secretly directed to pave the way by all possible
+means for the king's sovereignty over the provinces; as he was not long
+afterwards to receive explicit instructions to expend as much money as
+might be necessary in bribing Prince Maurice, Count Lewis William,
+Barneveld and his son, together with such others as might seem worth
+purchasing, in order to assist Henry in becoming monarch of their
+country; and as the English king was at that moment represented in
+Henry's private letters to the commissioners as actually loathing the
+liberty, power, and prosperity of the provinces, it must be conceded that
+the President had acquitted himself very handsomely in his first oration.
+
+Such was the virtue of his honest face.
+
+Barneveld answered with generalities and commonplaces.  No man knew
+better than the Advocate the exact position of affairs; no man had more
+profoundly fathomed the present purposes of the French king; no man had
+more acutely scanned his character.  But he knew the critical position of
+the commonwealth.  He knew that, although the public revenue might be
+raised by extraordinary and spasmodic exertion to nearly a million
+sterling, a larger income than had ever been at the disposition of the
+great Queen of England, the annual deficit might be six millions of
+florins--more than half the revenue--if the war continued, and that there
+was necessity of peace, could the substantial objects of the war be now
+obtained.  He was well aware too of the subtle and scheming brain which
+lay hid beneath that reverend brow of the President, although he felt
+capable of coping with him in debate or intrigue.  Doubtless he was
+inspired with as much ardour for the intellectual conflict as Henry
+might have experienced on some great field-day with Alexander Farnese.
+
+On this occasion, however, Barneveld preferred to glide gently over the
+rumours concerning Henry's schemes.  Those reports had doubtless
+emanated, he said, from the enemies of Netherland prosperity.  The
+private conclusion of the armistice he defended on the ground of
+necessity, and of temporary financial embarrassment, and he promised
+that deputies should at once be appointed to confer with the royal
+commissioners in regard to the whole subject.
+
+In private, he assured Jeannin that the communications of Aerssens had
+only been discussed in secret, and had not been confided to more than
+three or four persons.
+
+The Advocate, although the leader of the peace party, was by no means
+over anxious for peace.
+
+The object of much insane obloquy, because disposed to secure that
+blessing for his country on the basis of freedom and independence, he was
+not disposed to trust in the sincerity of the archdukes, or the Spanish
+court, or the French king.  "Timeo Danaos etiam dona ferentes," he had
+lately said to Aerssens.  Knowing that the resistance of the Netherlands
+had been forty years long the bulwark of Europe against the designs of
+the Spaniard for universal empire, he believed the republic justified in
+expecting the support of the leading powers in the negotiations now
+proposed.  "Had it not been for the opposition of these provinces," he
+said, "he might, in the opinion of the wisest, have long ago been monarch
+of all Europe, with small expense of men, money, or credit."  He was far
+from believing therefore that Spain, which had sacrificed, according to
+his estimate, three hundred thousand soldiers and two hundred million
+ducats in vain endeavours to destroy the resistance of the United
+Provinces, was now ready to lay aside her vengeance and submit to a
+sincere peace.  Rather he thought to see "the lambkins, now frisking so
+innocently about the commonwealth, suddenly transform themselves into
+lions and wolves."  It would be a fatal error, he said, to precipitate
+the dear fatherland into the net of a simulated negotiation, from unwise
+impatience for peace.  The Netherlanders were a simple, truthful people
+and could hope for no advantage in dealing with Spanish friars, nor
+discover all the danger and deceit lurking beneath their fair words.
+Thus the man, whom his enemies perpetually accused of being bought by
+the enemy, of wishing peace at any price, of wishing to bring back the
+Catholic party and ecclesiastical influence to the Netherlands, was
+vigorously denouncing a precipitate peace, and warning his countrymen
+of the danger of premature negotiations.
+
+"As one can hardly know the purity and value of gold," he said, "without
+testing it, so it is much more difficult to distinguish a false peace
+from a genuine one; for one can never touch it nor taste it; and one
+learns the difference when one is cheated and lost.  Ignorant people
+think peace negotiations as simple as a private lawsuit.  Many sensible
+persons even think that; the enemy once recognising us for a free,
+sovereign state, we shall be in the same position as England and France,
+which powers have lately made peace with the archdukes and with Spain.
+But we shall find a mighty difference.  Moreover, in those kingdoms the
+Spanish king has since the peace been ever busy corrupting their officers
+of state and their subjects, and exciting rebellion and murder within
+their realms, as all the world must confess.  And the English merchants
+complain that they have suffered more injustice, violence, and wrong from
+the Spaniards since the peace than they did during the war."
+
+The Advocate also reminded his countrymen that the archduke, being a
+vassal of Spain, could not bind that power by his own signature, and that
+there was no proof that the king would renounce his pretended rights to
+the provinces.  If he affected to do so, it would only be to put the
+republic to sleep.  He referred, with much significance, to the late
+proceedings of the Admiral of Arragon at Emmerich, who refused to release
+that city according to his plighted word, saying roundly that whatever he
+might sign and seal one day he would not hesitate absolutely to violate
+on the next if the king's service was thereby to be benefited.
+
+With such people, who had always learned law-doctors and ghostly
+confessors to strengthen and to absolve them, they could never expect
+anything but broken faith and contempt for treaties however solemnly
+ratified.
+
+Should an armistice be agreed upon and negotiations begun, the Advocate
+urged that the work of corruption and bribery would not be a moment
+delayed, and although the Netherlanders were above all nations a true and
+faithful race, it could hardly be hoped that no individuals would be
+gained over by the enemy.
+
+"For the whole country," said Barneveld, "would swarm with Jesuits,
+priests, and monks, with calumnies and corruptions--the machinery by
+which the enemy is wont to produce discord, relying for success upon the
+well-known maxim of Philip of Macedon, who considered no city impregnable
+into which he could send an ass laden with gold."
+
+The Advocate was charged too with being unfriendly to the India trade,
+especially to the West India Company.
+
+He took the opportunity, however, to enlarge with emphasis and eloquence
+upon that traffic as constituting the very lifeblood of the country.
+
+"The commerce with the East Indies is going on so prosperously," he said,
+"that not only our own inhabitants but all strangers are amazed.  The
+West India Company is sufficiently prepared, and will cost the
+commonwealth so little, that the investment will be inconsiderable in
+comparison with the profits.  And all our dangers and difficulties have
+nearly vanished since the magnificent victory of Gibraltar, by which the
+enemy's ships, artillery, and sailors have been annihilated, and proof
+afforded that the Spanish galleys are not so terrible as they pretend to
+be.  By means of this trade to both the Indies, matters will soon be
+brought into such condition that the Spaniards will be driven out of all
+those regions and deprived of their traffic.  Thus will the great wolf's
+teeth be pulled out, and we need have no farther fear of his biting
+again.  Then we may hope for a firm and assured peace, and may keep the
+Indies, with the whole navigation thereon depending, for ourselves,
+sharing it freely and in common with our allies."
+
+Certainly no statesman could more strongly depict the dangers of a
+pusillanimous treaty, and the splendid future of the republic, if she
+held fast to her resolve for political independence, free religion, and
+free trade, than did the great Advocate at this momentous epoch of
+European history.
+
+Had he really dreamed of surrendering the republic to Spain, that
+republic whose resistance ever since the middle of the previous century
+had been all that had saved Europe, in the opinion of learned and
+experienced thinkers, from the universal empire of Spain--had the
+calumnies, or even a thousandth part of the calumnies, against him been
+true--how different might have been the history of human liberty!
+
+Soon afterwards, in accordance with the suggestions of the French king
+and with their own previous intentions, a special legation was despatched
+by the States to England, in order to notify the approaching conferences
+to the sovereign of that country, and to invite his participation in the
+proceedings.
+
+The States' envoys were graciously received by James, who soon appointed
+Richard Spencer and Ralph Winwood as commissioners to the Hague, duly
+instructed to assist at the deliberations, and especially to keep a sharp
+watch upon French intrigues.  There were also missions and invitations to
+Denmark and to the Electors Palatine and of Brandenburg, the two latter
+potentates having, during the past three years, assisted the States with
+a hundred thousand florins annually.
+
+The news of the great victory at Gibraltar had reached the Netherlands
+almost simultaneously with the arrival of the French commissioners.
+It was thought probable that John Neyen had received the weighty
+intelligence some days earlier, and the intense eagerness of the
+archdukes and of the Spanish Government to procure the recal of the Dutch
+fleet was thus satisfactorily explained.  Very naturally this magnificent
+success, clouded though it was by the death of the hero to whom it was
+due, increased the confidence of the States in the justice of their cause
+and the strength of their position.
+
+Once more, it is not entirely idle to consider the effect of scientific
+progress on the march of human affairs, as so often exemplified in
+history.  Whether that half-century of continuous war would have been
+possible with the artillery, means of locomotion, and other machinery of
+destruction and communication now so terribly familiar to the world, can
+hardly be a question.  The preterhuman prolixity of negotiation which
+appals us in the days when steam and electricity had not yet annihilated
+time and space, ought also to be obsolete.  At a period when the news
+of a great victory was thirty days on its travels from Gibraltar to
+Flushing, aged counsellors justified themselves in a solemn consumption
+of time such as might have exasperated Jared or Methuselah in his
+boyhood.  Men fought as if war was the normal condition of humanity, and
+negotiated as if they were all immortal.  But has the art political kept
+pace with the advancement of physical science?  If history be valuable
+for the examples it furnishes both for imitation and avoidance, then the
+process by which these peace conferences were initiated and conducted may
+be wholesome food for reflection.
+
+John Neyen, who, since his secret transactions already described at the
+Hague and Fort Lillo, had been speeding back and forth between Brussels,
+London, and Madrid, had once more returned to the Netherlands, and had
+been permitted to reside privately at Delft until the king's ratification
+should arrive from Spain.
+
+While thus established, the industrious friar had occupied his leisure in
+studying the situation of affairs.  Especially he had felt inclined to
+renew some of those little commercial speculations which had recently
+proved so comfortable in the case of Dirk van der Does.  Recorder
+Cornelius Aerssens came frequently to visit him, with the private consent
+of the Government, and it at once struck the friar that Cornelius would
+be a judicious investment.  So he informed the recorder that the
+archdukes had been much touched with his adroitness and zeal in
+facilitating the entrance of their secret agent into the presence of the
+Prince and the Advocate.  Cruwel, in whose company the disguised Neyen
+had made his first journey to the Hague, was a near relative of Aerssena,
+The honest monk accordingly, in recognition of past and expected
+services, begged one day the recorder's acceptance of a bill, drawn by
+Marquis Spinola on Henry Beckman, merchant of Amsterdam, for eighty
+thousand ducats.  He also produced a diamond ring, valued at ten thousand
+florins, which he ventured to think worthy the acceptance of Madame
+Aerssens.  Furthermore, he declared himself ready to pay fifteen thousand
+crowns in cash, on account of the bill, whenever it might be, desired,
+and observed that the archdukes had ordered the house which the recorder
+had formerly occupied in Brussels to be reconveyed to him.  Other good
+things were in store, it was delicately hinted, as soon as they had been
+earned.
+
+Aerssens expressed his thanks for the house, which, he said, legally
+belonged to him according to the terms of the surrender of Brussels.
+He hesitated in regard to the rest, but decided finally to accept the
+bill of exchange and the diamond, apprising Prince Maurice and Olden-
+Barneveld of the fact, however, on his return to the Hague.  Being
+subsequently summoned by Neyen to accept the fifteen thousand crowns,
+he felt embarrassed at the compromising position in which he had placed
+himself.  He decided accordingly to make a public statement of the affair
+to the States-General.  This was done, and the States placed the ring and
+the bill in the hands of their treasurer, Joris de Bie.
+
+The recorder never got the eighty thousand ducats, nor his wife the
+diamond; but although there had been no duplicity on his part, he got
+plenty of slander.  His evil genius had prompted him, not to listen
+seriously to the temptings of the monk, but to deal with him on his own
+terms.  He was obliged to justify himself against public suspicion with
+explanations and pamphlets, but some taint of the calumny stuck by him
+to the last.
+
+Meantime, the three months allotted for the reception of Philip's
+ratification had nearly expired.  In March, the royal Government had
+expressly consented that the archdukes should treat with the rebels on
+the ground of their independence.  In June that royal permission had been
+withdrawn, exactly because the independence could never be acknowledged.
+Albert, naturally enough indignant at such double-dealing, wrote to the
+king that his disapprobation was incomprehensible, as the concession of
+independence had been made by direct command of Philip.  "I am much
+amazed," he said, "that, having treated with the islanders on condition
+of leaving them free, by express order of your Majesty (which you must
+doubtless very well remember), your Majesty now reproves my conduct, and
+declares your dissatisfaction."  At last, on the 23rd July, Spinola
+requested a safe conduct for Louis Verreyken, auditor of the council at
+Brussels, to come to the Hague.
+
+On the 23rd of July that functionary accordingly arrived.  He came before
+Prince Maurice and fifty deputies of the States-General, and exhibited
+the document.  At the same time he urged them, now that the long-desired
+ratification had been produced, to fulfil at once their promise, and to
+recal their fleet from the coast of Spain.
+
+Verreyken was requested to withdraw while the instrument was examined.
+When recalled, he was informed that the States had the most staight-
+forward intention to negotiate, but that the royal document did not at
+all answer their expectation.  As few of the delegates could read
+Spanish, it would first of all be necessary to cause it to be translated.
+
+When that was done they would be able to express their opinion concerning
+it and come to a decision in regard to the recal of the fleet.  This
+ended the proceedings on that occasion.
+
+Next day Prince Maurice invited Verreyken and others to dine.  After
+dinner the stadholder informed him that the answer of the States might
+soon be expected; at the same time expressing his regret that the king
+should have sent such an instrument.  It was very necessary, said the
+prince, to have plain speaking, and he, for one, had never believed that
+the king would send a proper ratification.  The one exhibited was not at
+all to the purpose.  The king was expected to express himself as clearly
+as the archdukes had done in their instrument.  He must agree to treat
+with the States-General as with people entirely free, over whom he
+claimed no authority.  If the king should refuse to make this public
+declaration, the States would at once break off all negotiations.
+
+Three days afterwards, seven deputies conferred with Verreyken.
+Barneveld, as spokesman, declared that, so far as the provinces were
+concerned, the path was plain and open to an honest, ingenuous, lasting
+peace, but that the manner of dealing on the other side was artificial
+and provocative of suspicion.  A most important line, which had been
+placed by the States at the very beginning of the form suggested by them,
+was wanting in the ratification now received.  This hardly seemed an
+accidental omission.  The whole document was constrained and defective.
+It was necessary to deal with Netherlanders in clear and simple language.
+The basis of any possible negotiation was that the provinces were to be
+treated with as and called entirely free.  Unless this was done
+negotiations were impossible.  The States-General were not so unskilled
+in affairs as to be ignorant that the king and the archdukes were quite
+capable, at a future day, of declaring themselves untrammelled by any
+conditions.  They would boast that conventions with rebels and pledges to
+heretics were alike invalid.  If Verreyken had brought no better document
+than the one presented, he had better go at once.  His stay in the
+provinces was superfluous.
+
+At a subsequent interview Barneveld informed Verreyken that the king's
+confirmation had been unanimously rejected by the States-General as
+deficient both in form and substance.  He added that the people of the
+provinces were growing very lukewarm in regard to peace, that Prince
+Maurice opposed it, that many persons regretted the length to which the
+negotiations had already gone.  Difficult as it seemed to be to recede,
+the archdukes might be certain that a complete rupture was imminent.
+
+All these private conversations of Barneveld, who was known to be the
+chief of the peace party, were duly reported by Verreyken in secret notes
+to the archduke and to Spinola.  Of course they produced their effect.
+It surely might have been seen that the tricks and shifts of an
+antiquated diplomacy were entirely out of place if any wholesome result
+were desired.  But the habit of dissimulation was inveterate.  That the
+man who cannot dissemble is unfit to reign, was perhaps the only one of
+his father's golden rules which Philip III. could thoroughly comprehend,
+even if it be assumed that the monarch was at all consulted in regard to
+this most important transaction of his life.  Verreyken and the friar
+knew very well when they brought the document that it would be spurned by
+the States, and yet they were also thoroughly aware that it was the
+king's interest to, begin the negotiations as soon as possible.  When
+thus privately and solemnly assured by the Advocate that they were really
+wasting their time by being the bearers of these royal evasions, they
+learned therefore nothing positively new, but were able to assure their
+employers that to thoroughly disgust the peace party was not precisely
+the mode of terminating the war.
+
+Verreyken now received public and formal notification that a new
+instrument must be procured from the king.  In the ratification which had
+been sent, that monarch spoke of the archdukes as princes and sovereign
+proprietors of all the Netherlands.  The clause by which, according to
+the form prescribed by the States, and already adopted by the archdukes,
+the United Provinces were described as free countries over which no
+authority was claimed had been calmly omitted, as if, by such a
+subterfuge, the independence of the republic could be winked out
+of existence.  Furthermore, it was objected that the document was in
+Spanish, that it was upon paper instead of parchment, that it was not
+sealed with the great, but with the little seal, and that it was
+subscribed.
+
+"I the King."  This signature might be very appropriate for decrees
+issued by a monarch to his vassals, but could not be rightly appended,
+it was urged, to an instrument addressed to a foreign power.  Potentates,
+treating with the States-General of the United Provinces, were expected
+to sign their names.
+
+Whatever may be thought of the technical requirements in regard to the
+parchment, the signature, and the seal, it would be difficult to
+characterize too strongly the polity of the Spanish Government in the
+most essential point.  To seek relief from the necessity of recognising-
+at least in the sense of similitude, according to the subtlety of
+Bentivoglio--the freedom of the provinces, simply by running the pen
+through the most important line of a most important document, was
+diplomacy in its dotage.  Had not Marquis Spinola, a man who could use
+his brains and his pen as well as his sword, expressly implored the
+politicians of Madrid not to change even a comma in the form of
+ratification which he sent to Spain?
+
+Verreyken, placed face to face with plain-spoken, straightforward,
+strong-minded men, felt the dreary absurdity of the position.  He
+could only stammer a ridiculous excuse about the clause, having been
+accidentally left out by a copying secretary.  To represent so important
+an omission as a clerical error was almost as great an absurdity as the
+original device; but it was necessary for Verreyken to say something.
+
+He promised, however, that the form prescribed by the States should
+be again transmitted to Madrid, and expressed confidence that the
+ratification would now be sent as desired.  Meantime he trusted that
+the fleet would be at once recalled.
+
+This at once created a stormy debate which lasted many days, both within
+the walls of the House of Assembly and out of doors.  Prince Maurice
+bitterly denounced the proposition, and asserted the necessity rather of
+sending out more ships than of permitting their cruisers to return.  It
+was well known that the Spanish Government, since the destruction of
+Avila's fleet, had been straining every nerve to procure and equip other
+war-vessels, and that even the Duke of Lerma had offered a small portion
+of his immense plunderings to the crown in aid of naval armaments.
+
+On the other hand, Barneveld urged that the States, in the preliminary
+armistice, had already agreed to send no munitions nor reinforcements to
+the fleet already cruising on the coasts of the peninsula.  It would be
+better, therefore, to recal those ships than to leave them where they
+could not be victualled nor strengthened without a violation of good
+faith.
+
+These opinions prevailed, and on the 9th August, Verreyken was summoned
+before the Assembly, and informed by Barneveld that the States had
+decided to withdraw the fleet, and to declare invalid all prizes made
+six weeks after that date.
+
+This was done, it was said, out of respect to the archdukes, to whom no
+blame was imputed for the negligence displayed in regard to the
+ratification.  Furthermore, the auditor was requested to inform his
+masters that the documents brought from Spain were not satisfactory, and
+he was furnished with a draught, made both in Latin and French.  With
+this form, it was added, the king was to comply within six weeks, if he
+desired to proceed further in negotiations with the States.
+
+Verreyken thanked the States-General, made the best of promises, and
+courteously withdrew.
+
+Next day, however, just as his preparations for departure had been made,
+he was once more summoned before the Assembly to meet with a somewhat
+disagreeable surprise.  Barneveld, speaking as usual in behalf of the
+States-General, publicly produced Spinola's bill of exchange for eighty
+thousand ducats, the diamond ring intended for Madame Aerssens, and the
+gold chain given to Dirk van der Does, and expressed the feelings of the
+republican Government in regard to those barefaced attempts of Friar John
+at bribery and corruption, in very scornful language?  Netherlanders were
+not to be bought--so the agent of Spain and of the archdukes was
+informed--and, even if the citizens were venal, it would be necessary
+in a popular Government to buy up the whole nation.  "It is not in our
+commonwealth as in despotisms," said the Advocate, "where affairs of
+state are directed by the nod of two or three individuals, while the
+rest of the inhabitants are a mob of slaves.  By turns, we all govern
+and are governed.  This great council, this senate--should it seem not
+sufficiently fortified against your presents-could easily be enlarged.
+Here is your chain, your ring, your banker's draught.  Take them all back
+to your masters.  Such gifts are not necessary to ensure a just peace,
+while to accept them would be a crime against liberty, which we are
+incapable of committing."
+
+Verreyken, astonished and abashed, could answer little save to mutter a
+few words about the greediness of monks, who, judging everyone else by
+themselves, thought no one inaccessible to a bribe.  He protested the
+innocence of the archdukes in the matter, who had given no directions to
+bribe, and who were quite ignorant that the attempt had been made.
+
+He did not explain by whose authority the chain, the ring, and the
+draught upon Beckman had been furnished to the friar.
+
+Meantime that ecclesiastic was cheerfully wending his way to Spain in
+search of the new ratification, leaving his colleague vicariously to
+bide the pelting of the republican storm, and to return somewhat
+weather-beaten to Brussels.
+
+During the suspension, thus ridiculously and gratuitously caused, of
+preliminaries which had already lasted the better portion of a year,
+party-spirit was rising day by day higher, and spreading more widely
+throughout the provinces.  Opinions and sentiments were now sharply
+defined and loudly announced.  The clergy, from a thousand pulpits,
+thundered against the peace, exposing the insidious practices, the
+faithless promises, the monkish corruptions, by which the attempt was
+making to reduce the free republic once more into vassalage to Spain.
+The people everywhere listened eagerly and applauded.  Especially the
+mariners, cordwainers, smiths, ship-chandlers, boatmen, the tapestry
+weavers, lace-manufacturers, shopkeepers, and, above all, the India
+merchants and stockholders in the great commercial companies for the East
+and West, lifted up their voices for war.  This was the party of Prince
+Maurice, who made no secret of his sentiments, and opposed, publicly and
+privately, the resumption of negotiations.  Doubtless his adherents were
+the most numerous portion of the population.
+
+Barneveld, however, was omnipotent with the municipal governments, and
+although many individuals in those bodies were deeply interested in the
+India navigation and the great corporations, the Advocate turned them as
+usual around his finger.
+
+Ever since the memorable day of Nieuport there had been no love lost
+between the stadholder and the Advocate.  They had been nominally
+reconciled to each other, and had, until lately, acted with tolerable
+harmony, but each was thoroughly conscious of the divergence of their
+respective aims.
+
+Exactly at this period the long-smothered resentment of Maurice against
+his old preceptor, counsellor, and, as he believed, betrayer, flamed
+forth anew.  He was indignant that a man, so infinitely beneath him in
+degree, should thus dare to cross his plans, to hazard, as he believed,
+the best interests of the state, and to interfere with the course of his
+legitimate ambition.  There was more glory for a great soldier to earn in
+future battle-fields, a higher position before the world to be won.  He
+had a right by birth, by personal and family service, to claim admittance
+among the monarchs of Europe.  The pistol of Balthasar Gerard had alone
+prevented the elevation of his father to the sovereignty of the
+provinces.  The patents, wanting only a few formalities, were still in
+possession of the son.  As the war went on--and nothing but blind belief
+in Spanish treachery could cause the acceptance of a peace which would be
+found to mean slavery--there was no height to which he might not climb.
+With the return of peace and submission, his occupation would be gone,
+obscurity and poverty the sole recompense for his life long services and
+the sacrifices of his family.  The memory of the secret movements twice
+made but a few years before to elevate him to the sovereignty, and which
+he believed to have been baffled by the Advocate, doubtless rankled in
+his breast.  He did not forget that when the subject had been discussed
+by the favourers of the scheme in Barneveld's own house, Barneveld
+himself had prophesied that one day or another "the rights would burst
+out which his Excellency had to become prince of the provinces, on
+strength of the signed and sealed documents addressed to the late Prince
+of Orange; that he had further alluded to the efforts then on foot to
+make him Duke of Gelderland; adding with a sneer, that Zeeland was all
+agog on the subject, while in that province there were individuals very
+desirous of becoming children of Zebedee."
+
+Barneveld, on his part, although accustomed to speak in public of his
+Excellency Prince Maurice in terms of profoundest respect, did not fail
+to communicate in influential quarters his fears that the prince was
+inspired by excessive ambition, and that he desired to protract the war,
+not for the good of the commonwealth, but for the attainment of greater
+power in the state.  The envoys of France, expressly instructed on that
+subject by the king, whose purposes would be frustrated if the ill-blood
+between these eminent personages could not be healed, did their best to
+bring about a better understanding, but with hardly more than an apparent
+success.
+
+Once more there were stories flying about that the stadholder had called
+the Advocate liar, and that he had struck him or offered to strike him--
+tales as void of truth, doubtless, as those so rife after the battle of
+Nieuport, but which indicated the exasperation which existed.
+
+When the news of the rejection of the King's ratification reached Madrid,
+the indignation of the royal conscience-keepers was vehement.
+
+That the potentate of so large a portion of the universe should be
+treated by those lately his subjects with less respect than that due from
+equals to equals, seemed intolerable.  So thoroughly inspired, however,
+was the king by the love of religion and the public good--as he informed
+Marquis Spinola by letter--and so intense was his desire for the
+termination of that disastrous war, that he did not hesitate indulgently
+to grant what had been so obstinately demanded.  Little was to be
+expected, he said, from the stubbornness of the provinces, and from their
+extraordinary manner of transacting business, but looking, nevertheless,
+only to divine duty, and preferring its dictates to a selfish regard for
+his own interests, he had resolved to concede that liberty to the
+provinces which had been so importunately claimed.  He however imposed
+the condition that the States should permit free and public exercise of
+the Catholic religion throughout their territories, and that so long as
+such worship was unobstructed, so long and no longer should the liberty
+now conceded to the provinces endure.
+
+"Thus did this excellent prince," says an eloquent Jesuit, "prefer
+obedience to the Church before subjection to himself, and insist that
+those, whom he emancipated from his own dominions, should still be loyal
+to the sovereignty of the Pope."
+
+Friar John, who had brought the last intelligence from the Netherlands,
+might have found it difficult, if consulted, to inform the king how many
+bills of exchange would be necessary to force this wonderful condition on
+the Government of the provinces.  That the republic should accept that
+liberty as a boon which she had won with the red right hand, and should
+establish within her domains as many agents for Spanish reaction as
+there were Roman priests, monks, and Jesuits to be found, was not very
+probable.  It was not thus nor then that the great lesson of religious
+equality and liberty for all men--the inevitable result of the Dutch
+revolt--was to be expounded.  The insertion of such a condition in the
+preamble to a treaty with a foreign power would have been a desertion on
+the part of the Netherlands of the very principle of religious or civil
+freedom.
+
+The monk, however, had convinced the Spanish Government that in six
+months after peace had been made the States would gladly accept the
+dominion of Spain once more, or, at the very least, would annex
+themselves to the obedient Netherlands under the sceptre of the
+archdukes.
+
+Secondly, he assured the duke that they would publicly and totally
+renounce all connection with France.
+
+Thirdly, he pledged himself that the exercise of the Catholic religion
+would be as free as that of any other creed.
+
+And the duke of Lerma believed it all: such and no greater was his
+capacity for understanding the course of events which he imagined himself
+to be directing.  Certainly Friar John did not believe what he said.
+
+"Master Monk is not quite so sure of his stick as he pretends to be,"
+said Secretary-of-State Villeroy.  Of course, no one knew better the
+absurdity of those assurances than Master Monk himself.
+
+"It may be that he has held such language," said Jeannin, "in order to
+accomplish his object in Spain.  But 'tis all dreaming and moonshine,
+which one should laugh at rather than treat seriously.  These people here
+mean to be sovereign for ever and will make no peace except on that
+condition.  This grandeur and vanity have entered so deeply into their
+brains that they will be torn into little pieces rather than give it up."
+
+Spinola, as acute a politician as he was a brilliant commander, at once
+demonstrated to his Government the impotence of such senile attempts.
+No definite agreements could be made, he wrote, except by a general
+convention.  Before a treaty of peace, no permission would be given by
+the States to the public exercise of the Catholic religion, for fear of
+giving offence to what were called the Protestant powers.  Unless they
+saw the proper ratification they would enter into no negotiations at all.
+When the negotiations had produced a treaty, the Catholic worship might
+be demanded.  Thus peace might be made, and the desired conditions
+secured, or all parties would remain as they had been.
+
+The Spanish Government replied by sending a double form of ratification.
+It would not have been the Spanish Government, had one simple,
+straightforward document been sent.  Plenty of letters came at the same
+time, triumphantly refuting the objections and arguments of the States-
+General.  To sign "Yo el Rey" had been the custom of the king's ancestors
+in dealing with foreign powers.  Thus had Philip II. signed the treaty of
+Vervins.  Thus had the reigning king confirmed the treaty of Vervins.
+Thus had he signed the recent treaty with England as well as other
+conventions with other potentates.  If the French envoys at the Hague
+said the contrary they erred from ignorance or from baser reasons.  The
+provinces could not be declared free until Catholic worship was conceded.
+The donations must be mutual and simultaneous and the States would gain a
+much more stable and diuturnal liberty, founded not upon a simple
+declaration, but lawfully granted them as a compensation for a just and
+pious work performed.  To this end the king sent ratification number one
+in which his sentiments were fully expressed.  If, however, the provinces
+were resolved not to defer the declaration so ardently desired and to
+refuse all negotiation until they had received it, then ratification
+number two, therewith sent and drawn up in the required form, might be
+used.  It was, however, to be exhibited but not delivered.  The provinces
+would then see the clemency with which they were treated by the king, and
+all the world might know that it was not his fault if peace were not
+made.
+
+Thus the politicians of Madrid; speaking in the name of their august
+sovereign and signing "Yo el Rey" for him without troubling him even to
+look at the documents.
+
+When these letters arrived, the time fixed by the States for accepting
+the ratification had run out, and their patience was well-nigh exhausted.
+The archduke held council with Spinola, Verreyken, Richardot, and others,
+and it was agreed that ratification number two, in which the Catholic
+worship was not mentioned, should be forthwith sent to the States.
+Certainly no other conclusion could have been reached, and it was
+fortunate that a lucid interval in the deliberations of the 'lunati ceat'
+Madrid had furnished the archduke with an alternative.  Had it been
+otherwise and had number one been presented, with all the accompanying
+illustrations, the same dismal comedy might have gone on indefinitely
+until the Dutchmen hissed it away and returned to their tragic business
+once more.
+
+On the 25th October, Friar John and Verreyken came before the States-
+General, more than a hundred members being present, besides Prince
+Maurice and Count Lewis William.
+
+The monk stated that he had faithfully represented to his Majesty at
+Madrid the sincere, straightforward, and undissembling proceedings of
+their lordships in these negotiations.  He had also explained the
+constitution of their Government and had succeeded in obtaining from his
+royal Majesty the desired ratification, after due deliberation with the
+council.  This would now give the assurance of a firm and durable peace,
+continued Neyen, even if his Majesty should come one day to die--being
+mortal.  Otherwise, there might be inconveniences to fear.  Now, however,
+the document was complete in all its parts, so far as regarded what was
+principal and essential, and in conformity with the form transmitted by
+the States-General.  "God the Omnipotent knows," proceeded the friar,
+"how sincere is my intention in this treaty of peace as a means of
+delivering the Netherlands from the miseries of war, as your lordships
+will perceive by the form of the agreement, explaining itself and making
+manifest its pure and undissembling intentions, promising nothing and
+engaging to nothing which will not be effectually performed.  This would
+not be the case if his Majesty were proceeding by finesse or deception.
+The ratification might be nakedly produced as demanded, without any other
+explanation.  But his Majesty, acting in good faith, has now declared his
+last determination in order to avoid anything that might be disputed at
+some future day, as your lordships will see more amply when the auditor
+has exhibited the document."
+
+When the friar had finished Verreyken spoke.
+
+He reminded them of the proofs already given by the archdukes of their
+sincere desire to change the long and sanguinary war into a good and
+assured peace.  Their lordships the States had seen how liberally,
+sincerely, and roundly their Highnesses had agreed to all demands and had
+procured the ratification of his Majesty, even although nothing had been
+proposed in that regard at the beginning of the negotiations.
+
+He then produced the original document, together with two copies, one in
+French the other in Flemish, to be carefully collated by the States.
+
+"It is true," said the auditor, "that the original is not made out in
+Latin nor in French as your lordships demanded, but in Spanish, and in
+the same form and style as used by his Majesty in treating with all the
+kings, potentates, and republics of Christendom.  To tell you the truth,
+it has seemed strange that there should be a wish to make so great and
+puissant a king change his style, such demand being contrary to all
+reason and equity, and more so as his Majesty is content with the style
+which your lordships have been pleased to adopt."
+
+The ratification was then exhibited.
+
+It set forth that Don Philip, by grace of God King of Castile, Leon,
+Arragon, the Two Sicilies, Portugal, Navarre, and of fourteen or fifteen
+other European realms duly enumerated; King of the Eastern and Western
+Indies and of the continents on terra firma adjacent, King of Jerusalem,
+Archduke of Antioch, Duke of Burgundy, and King of the Ocean, having seen
+that the archdukes were content to treat with the States-General of the
+United Provinces in quality of, and as holding them for, countries,
+provinces, and free states over which they pretended to no authority;
+either by way of a perpetual peace or for a truce or suspension of arms
+for twelve, fifteen, or twenty years, at the choice of the said States,
+and knowing that the said most serene archdukes had promised to deliver
+the king's ratification; had, after ripe deliberation with his council,
+and out of his certain wisdom and absolute royal power, made the present
+declarations, similar to the one made by the archdukes, for the
+accomplishment of the said promise so far as it concerned him:
+
+"And we principally declare," continued the King of Spain, Jerusalem,
+America, India, and the Ocean, "that we are content that in our name, and
+on our part, shall be treated with the said States in the quality of, and
+as held by us for, free countries, provinces, and states, over which we
+make no pretensions.  Thus we approve and ratify every point of the said
+agreement, promising on faith and word of a king to guard and accomplish
+it as entirely as if we had consented to it from the beginning."
+
+"But we declare," said the king, in conclusion, "that if the treaty for a
+peace or a truce of many years, by which the pretensions of both parties
+are to be arranged--as well in the matter of religion as all the surplus
+--shall not be concluded, then this ratification shall be of no effect
+and as if it never had been made and, in virtue of it, we are not to lose
+a single point of our right, nor the United Provinces to acquire one, but
+things are to remain, so far as regards the rights of the two parties,
+exactly as they what to each shall seem best."
+
+Such were the much superfluous verbiage lopped away--which had been
+signed "I the King" at Madrid on the 18th September, and the two copies
+of which were presented to the States-General on the 25th October, the
+commissioners retaining the original.
+
+The papers were accepted, with a few general commonplaces by Barneveld
+meaning nothing, and an answer was promised after a brief delay.
+
+A committee of seven, headed by the Advocate as chairman and spokesman,
+held a conference with the ambassadors of France and England, at four
+o'clock in the afternoon of the same day and another at ten o'clock next
+morning.
+
+The States were not very well pleased with the ratification.  What
+especially moved their discontent was the concluding clause, according to
+which it was intimated that if the pretensions of Spain in regard to
+religion were not fulfilled in the final treaty, the ratification was
+waste-paper and the king would continue to claim all his rights.
+
+How much more loudly would they have vociferated, could they have looked
+into Friar John's wallet and have seen ratification number one!  Then
+they would have learned that, after nearly a year of what was called
+negotiation, the king had still meant to demand the restoration of the
+Catholic worship before he would even begin to entertain the little
+fiction that the provinces were free.
+
+As to the signature, the paper, and the Spanish language, those were
+minor matters.  Indeed, it is difficult to say why the King of Spain
+should not issue a formal document in Spanish.  It is doubtful whether,
+had he taken a fancy to read it, he could have understood it in any other
+tongue.  Moreover, Spanish would seem the natural language for Spanish
+state-papers.  Had he, as King of Jerusalem, America, or India, chosen
+the Hebrew, Aztec, or Sanscrit, in his negotiations with the United
+Provinces, there might have been more cause for dissatisfaction.
+
+Jeannin, who was of course the leading spirit among the foreign
+members of the conference, advised the acceptance of the ratification.
+Notwithstanding the technical objections to its form, he urged that in
+substance it was in sufficient conformity to the draught furnished by the
+States.  Nothing could be worse, in his opinion, for the provinces than
+to remain any longer suspended between peace and war.  They would do
+well, therefore, to enter upon negotiations so soon as they had agreed
+among themselves upon three points.
+
+They must fix the great indispensable terms which they meant to hold,
+and from which no arguments would ever induce them to recede.  Thus they
+would save valuable time and be spared much frivolous discourse.
+
+Next, they ought to establish a good interior government.
+
+Thirdly, they should at once arrange their alliances and treaties with
+foreign powers, in order to render the peace to be negotiated a durable
+one.
+
+As to the first and second of these points, the Netherlanders needed no
+prompter.  They had long ago settled the conditions without which they
+would make no treaty at all, and certainly it was not the States-General
+that had thus far been frivolously consuming time.
+
+As to the form of government, defective though it was, the leaders of the
+republic knew very well in whose interests such sly allusions to their
+domestic affairs were repeatedly ventured by the French envoys.  In
+regard to treaties with foreign powers it was, of course, most desirable
+for the republic to obtain the formal alliance of France and England.
+Jeannin and his colleagues were ready to sign such a treaty, offensive
+and defensive, at once, but they found it impossible to induce the
+English ambassadors, with whom there was a conference on the 26th
+October, to come into any written engagement on the subject.  They
+expressed approbation of the plan individually and in words, but
+deemed it best to avoid any protocol, by which their sovereign could
+be implicated in a promise.  Should the negotiations for peace be broken
+off, it would be time enough to make a treaty to protect the provinces.
+Meantime, they ought to content themselves with the general assurance,
+already given them, that in case of war the monarchs of France and
+England would not abandon them, but would provide for their safety,
+either by succour or in some other way, so that they would be placed out
+of danger.
+
+Such promises were vague without being magnificent, and, as James had
+never yet lifted his finger to assist the provinces, while indulging them
+frequently with oracular advice, it could hardly be expected that either
+the French envoys or the States-General would reckon very confidently on
+assistance from Great Britain, should war be renewed with Spain.
+
+On the whole, it was agreed to draw up a paper briefly stating the
+opinion of the French and English plenipotentiaries that the provinces
+would do well to accept the ratification.
+
+The committee of the States, with Barneveld as chairman, expressed
+acquiescence, but urged that they could not approve the clause in that
+document concerning religion.  It looked as if the King of Spain wished
+to force them to consent by treaty that the Catholic religion should be
+re-established in their country.  As they were free and sovereign,
+however, and so recognised by himself, it was not for him to meddle
+with such matters.  They foresaw that this clause would create
+difficulties when the whole matter should be referred to the separate
+provinces, and that it would, perhaps, cause the entire rejection of the
+ratification.
+
+The envoys, through the voice of Jeannin, remonstrated against such a
+course.  After all, the objectionable clause, it was urged, should be
+considered only as a demand which the king was competent to make and it
+was not reasonable, they said, for the States to shut his mouth and
+prevent him from proposing what he thought good to propose.
+
+On the other hand, they were not obliged to acquiesce in the proposition.
+In truth, it would be more expedient that the States themselves should
+grant this grace to the Catholics, thus earning their gratitude, rather
+than that it should be inserted in the treaty.
+
+A day or two later there was an interview between the French envoys and
+Count Lewis William, for whose sage, dispassionate, and upright character
+they had all a great respect.  It was their object--in obedience to the
+repeated instructions of the French king--to make use of his great
+influence over Prince Maurice in favour of peace.  It would be better,
+they urged, that the stadholder should act more in harmony with the
+States than he had done of late, and should reflect that, the
+ratification being good, there was really no means of preventing a peace,
+except in case the King of Spain should refuse the conditions necessary
+for securing it.  The prince would have more power by joining with the
+States than in opposing them.  Count Lewis expressed sympathy with these
+views, but feared that Maurice would prefer that the ratification should
+not be accepted until the states of the separate provinces had been
+heard; feeling convinced that several of those bodies would reject that
+instrument on account of the clause relating to religion.
+
+Jeannin replied that such a course would introduce great discord into
+the provinces, to the profit of the enemy, and that the King of France
+himself--so far from being likely to wish the ratification rejected
+because of the clause--would never favour the rupture of negotiations
+if it came on account of religion.  He had always instructed them to use
+their efforts to prevent any division among the States, as sure to lead
+to their ruin.  He would certainly desire the same stipulation as the one
+made by the King of Spain, and would support rather than oppose the
+demand thus made, in order to content the Catholics.  To be sure, he
+would prefer that the States should wisely make this provision of their
+own accord rather than on the requisition of Spain, but a rupture of the
+pending negotiations from the cause suggested would be painful to him and
+very damaging to his character at Rome.
+
+On the 2nd November the States-General gave their formal answer to the
+commissioners, in regard to the ratification.
+
+That instrument, they observed, not only did not agree with the form as
+promised by the archdukes in language and style, but also in regard to
+the seal, and to the insertion and omission of several words.  On this
+account, and especially by reason of the concluding clause, there might
+be inferred the annulment of the solemn promise made in the body of the
+instrument.  The said king and archdukes knew very well that these
+States-General of free countries and provinces, over which the king and
+archdukes pretended to no authority, were competent to maintain order in
+all things regarding the good constitution and government of their land
+and its inhabitants.  On this subject, nothing could be pretended or
+proposed on the part of the king and archdukes without, violation of
+formal and solemn promises.
+
+"Nevertheless," continued the States-General, "in order not to retard a
+good work, already begun, for the purpose of bringing the United
+Provinces out of a long and bloody war into a Christian and assured
+peace, the letters of ratification will be received in respect that
+they contain the declaration, on part of both the king and the archdukes,
+that they will treat for a peace or a truce of many years with the
+States-General of the United Provinces, in quality of, and as holding
+them to be, free countries, provinces, and states, over which they make
+no pretensions."
+
+It was further intimated, however, that the ratification was only
+received for reference to the estates of each of the provinces, and it
+was promised that, within six weeks, the commissioners should be informed
+whether the provinces would consent or refuse to treat.  It was moreover
+declared that, neither at that moment nor at any future time, could any
+point in the letters of ratification be accepted which, directly or
+indirectly, might be interpreted as against that essential declaration
+and promise in regard to the freedom of the provinces.  In case the
+decision should be taken to enter into negotiation upon the basis of that
+ratification, or any other that might meantime arrive from Spain, then
+firm confidence was expressed by the States that, neither on the part of
+the king nor that of the archdukes would there be proposed or pretended,
+in contravention of that promise, any point touching the good
+constitution, welfare, state, or government of the United Provinces,
+and of the inhabitants.  The hope was furthermore expressed that, within
+ten days after the reception of the consent of the States to treat,
+commissioners would be sent by the archdukes to the Hague, fully
+authorised and instructed to declare, roundly their intentions, in order
+to make short work of the whole business.  In that case, the States would
+duly authorize and instruct commissioners to act in their behalf.
+
+Thus in the answer especial warning was given against any possible
+attempt to interfere with the religious question.  The phraseology could
+not be mistaken.
+
+At this stage of the proceedings, the States demanded that the original
+instrument of ratification should be deposited with them.  The two
+commissioners declared that they were without power to consent to this.
+Hereupon the Assembly became violent, and many members denounced the
+refusal as equivalent to breaking off the negotiations.  Everything
+indicated, so it was urged, a desire on the Spanish side to spin delays
+out of delays, and, meantime, to invent daily some new trap for
+deception.  Such was the vehemence upon this point that the industrious
+Franciscan posted back to Brussels, and returned with the archduke's
+permission to deliver the document.  Three conditions, however, were laid
+down.  The States must give a receipt for the ratification.  They must
+say in that receipt that the archdukes, in obtaining the paper from
+Spain, had fulfilled their original promise.  If peace should not be
+made, they were to return the document.
+
+When these conditions were announced, the indignation of the republican
+Government at the trifling of their opponents was fiercer than ever.  The
+discrepancies between the form prescribed and the ratification obtained
+had always been very difficult of digestion, but, although willing to
+pass them by, the States stoutly refused to accept the document on these
+conditions.
+
+Tooth and nail Verreyken and Neyen fought out the contest and were
+worsted.  Once more the nimble friar sped back and forth between the
+Hague and his employer's palace, and at last, after tremendous
+discussions in cabinet council, the conditions were abandoned.
+
+"Nobody can decide," says the Jesuit historian, "which was greater--the
+obstinacy of the federal Government in screwing out of the opposite party
+everything it deemed necessary, or the indulgence of the archdukes in
+making every possible concession."
+
+Had these solemn tricksters of an antiquated school perceived that, in
+dealing with men who meant what they said and said what they meant, all
+these little dilatory devices were superfluous, perhaps the wholesome
+result might have sooner been reached.  In a contest of diplomacy against
+time it generally happens that time is the winner, and on this occasion,
+time and the republic were fighting on the same side.
+
+On the 13th December the States-General re-assembled at the Hague, the
+separate provinces having in the interval given fresh instructions to
+their representatives.  It was now decided that no treaty should be made,
+unless the freedom of the commonwealth was recognized in phraseology
+which, after consultation with the foreign ambassadors, should be deemed
+satisfactory.  Farther it was agreed that, neither in ecclesiastical nor
+secular matters, should any conditions be accepted which could be
+detrimental to freedom.  In case the enemy should strive for the
+contrary, the world would be convinced that he alone was responsible for
+the failure of the peace negotiations.  Then, with the support of other
+powers friendly to the republic, hostilities could be resumed in such a
+manner as to ensure a favourable issue for an upright cause.
+
+The armistice, begun on the 4th of May, was running to an end, and it was
+now renewed at the instance of the States.  That Government, moreover, on
+the 23rd December formally notified to the archdukes that, trusting to
+their declarations, and to the statements of Neyen and Verreyken, it was
+willing to hold conferences for peace.  Their Highnesses were accordingly
+invited to appoint seven or eight commissioners at once, on the same
+terms as formally indicated.
+
+The original understanding had been that no envoys but Netherlanders
+should come from Brussels for these negotiations.
+
+Barneveld and the peace party, however, were desirous that Spinola, who
+was known to be friendly to a pacific result, should be permitted to form
+part of the mission.  Accordingly the letters, publicly drawn up in the
+Assembly, adhered to the original arrangement, but Barneveld, with the
+privity of other leading personages, although without the knowledge of
+Maurice, Lewis William, and the State-Council, secretly enclosed a little
+note in the principal despatch to Neyen and Verreyken.  In this billet
+it was intimated that, notwithstanding the prohibition in regard to
+foreigners, the States were willing--it having been proposed that one or
+two who were not Netherlanders should be sent--that a single Spaniard,
+provided he were not one of the principal military commanders, should
+make part of the embassy.
+
+The phraseology had a double meaning.  Spinola was certainly the chief
+military commander, but he was not a Spaniard.  This eminent personage
+might be supposed to have thus received permission to come to the
+Netherlands, despite all that had been urged by the war-party against the
+danger incurred, in case of a renewal of hostilities, by admitting so
+clear-sighted an enemy into the heart of the republic.  Moreover, the
+terms of the secret note would authorize the appointment of another
+foreigner--even a Spaniard--while the crafty president Richardot might
+creep into the commission, on the ground that, being a Burgundian, he
+might fairly call himself a Netherlander.
+
+And all this happened.
+
+Thus, after a whole year of parley, in which the States-General had held
+firmly to their original position, while the Spanish Government had crept
+up inch by inch, and through countless windings and subterfuges, to the
+point on which they might have all stood together at first, and thus have
+saved a twelvemonth, it was finally settled that peace conferences should
+begin.
+
+Barneveld had carried the day.  Maurice and his cousin Lewis William had
+uniformly, deliberately, but not factiously, used all their influence
+against any negotiations.  The prince had all along loudly expressed his
+conviction that neither the archdukes nor Spain would ever be brought to
+an honourable peace.  The most to be expected of them was a truce of
+twelve or fifteen years, to which his consent at least should never be
+given, and during which cessation of hostilities, should it be accorded,
+every imaginable effort would be made to regain by intrigue what the king
+had lost by the sword.   As for the King of England and his counsellors,
+Maurice always denounced them as more Spanish than Spaniards, as doing
+their best to put themselves on the most intimate terms with his Catholic
+Majesty, and as secretly desirous--insane policy as it seemed--of forcing
+the Netherlands back again under the sceptre of that monarch.
+
+He had at first been supported in his position by the French ambassadors,
+who had felt or affected disinclination for peace, but who had
+subsequently, thrown the whole of their own and their master's influence
+on the side of Barneveld.  They had done their best--and from time to
+time they had been successful--to effect at least a superficial
+reconciliation between those two influential personages.  They had
+employed all the arguments at their disposal to bring the prince over to
+the peace party.  Especially they had made use of the 'argumentum ad
+crumenam,' which that veteran broker in politics, Jeannin, had found so
+effective in times past with the great lords of the League.  But Maurice
+showed himself so proof against the golden inducements suggested by the
+President that he and his king both arrived at the conclusion that there
+were secret motives at work, and that Maurice was not dazzled by the
+brilliant prospects held out to him by Henry, only because his eyes were
+stedfastly fixed upon some unknown but splendid advantage, to be gained
+through other combinations.  It was naturally difficult for Henry to
+imagine the possibility of a man, playing a first part in the world's
+theatre, being influenced by so weak a motive as conviction.
+
+Lewis William too--that "grave and wise young man," as Lord Leicester
+used to call him twenty years before--remained steadily on the side of
+the prince.  Both in private conversation and in long speeches to the
+States-General, he maintained that the Spanish court was incapable of
+sincere negotiations with the commonwealth, that to break faith with
+heretics and rebels would always prove the foundation of its whole
+policy, and that to deceive them by pretences of a truce or a treaty, and
+to triumph afterwards over the results of its fraud, was to be expected
+as a matter of course.
+
+Sooner would the face of nature be changed than the cardinal maxim of
+Catholic statesmanship be abandoned.
+
+But the influence of the Nassaus, of the province of Zeeland,
+of the clergy, and of the war-party in general, had been overbalanced by
+Barneveld and the city corporations, aided by the strenuous exertions of
+the French ambassadors.
+
+The decision of the States-General was received with sincere joy at
+Brussels.  The archdukes had something to hope from peace, and little but
+disaster and ruin to themselves from a continuance of the war.  Spinola
+too was unaffectedly in favour of negotiations.  He took the ground that
+the foreign enemies of Spain, as well as her pretended friends, agreed in
+wishing her to go on with the war, and that this ought to open her eyes
+as to the expediency of peace.  While there was a general satisfaction in
+Europe that the steady exhaustion of her strength in this eternal contest
+made her daily less and less formidable to other nations, there were on
+the other hand puerile complaints at court that the conditions prescribed
+by impious and insolent rebels to their sovereign were derogatory to the
+dignity of monarchy.  The spectacle of Spain sending ambassadors to the
+Hague to treat for peace, on the basis of Netherland independence, would
+be a humiliation such as had never been exhibited before.  That the
+haughty confederation should be allowed thus to accomplish its ends, to
+trample down all resistance to its dictation, and to defy the whole world
+by its insults to the Church and to the sacred principle, of monarchy,
+was most galling to Spanish pride.  Spinola, as a son of Italy, and not
+inspired by the fervent hatred to Protestantism which was indigenous to
+the other peninsula, steadily resisted those arguments.  None knew better
+than he the sternness of the stuff out of which that republic was made,
+and he felt that now or never was the time to treat, even as, five years
+before, 'jam ant nunquam' had been inscribed on his banner outside
+Ostend.  But he protested that his friends gave him even harder work than
+his enemies had ever done, and he stoutly maintained that a peace against
+which all the rivals of Spain seemed to have conspired from fear of
+seeing her tranquil and disembarrassed, must be advantageous to Spain.
+The genial and quick-wined Genoese could not see and hear all the secret
+letters and private conversations of Henry and James and their
+ambassadors, and he may be pardoned for supposing that, notwithstanding
+all the crooked and incomprehensible politics of Greenwich and Paris, the
+serious object of both England and France was to prolong the war.  In his
+most private correspondence he expressed great doubts as to a favourable
+issue to the pending conferences, but avowed his determination that if
+they should fail it would be from no want of earnest effort on his part
+to make them succeed.  It should never be said that he preferred his own
+private advantage to the duty of serving the best interests of the crown.
+
+Meantime the India trade, which was to form the great bone of contention
+in the impending conferences, had not been practically neglected of late
+by the enterprising Hollanders.  Peter Verhoeff, fresh from the victory
+of Gibraltar, towards which he had personally so much contributed by the
+splendid manner in which he had handled the AEolus after the death of
+Admiral Heemskerk, was placed in command of a fleet to the East Indies,
+which was to sail early in the spring.
+
+Admiral Matelieff, who had been cruising in those seas during the three
+years past, was now on his way home.  His exploits had been worthy the
+growing fame of the republican navy.  In the summer of 1606 he had laid
+siege to the town and fortress of Malacca, constructed by the Portuguese
+at the southmost extremity of the Malay peninsula.  Andreas Hurtado de
+Mendoza commanded the position, with a force of three thousand men, among
+whom were many Indians.  The King or Sultan of Johore, at the south-
+eastern extremity of the peninsula, remained faithful to his Dutch
+allies, and accepted the proposition of Matelieff to take part in the
+hostilities now begun.  The admiral's fleet consisted of eleven small
+ships, with fourteen hundred men.  It was not exactly a military
+expedition.  To the sailors of each ship were assigned certain shares of
+the general profits, and as it was obvious that more money was likely to
+be gained by trade with the natives, or by the capture of such stray
+carracks and other, merchantmen of the enemy as were frequently to be met
+in these regions, the men were not particularly eager to take part in
+sieges of towns or battles with cruisers.  Matelieff, however, had
+sufficient influence over his comrades to inflame their zeal on this
+occasion for the fame of the republic, and to induce them to give the
+Indian princes and the native soldiery a lesson in Batavian warfare.
+
+A landing was effected on the peninsula, the sailors and guns were
+disembarked, and an imposing auxiliary force, sent, according to promise,
+after much delay, by the Sultan of Johore, proceeded to invest Malacca.
+The ground proved wet, swampy, and impracticable for trenches, galleries,
+covered ways, and all the other machinery of a regular siege.  Matelieff
+was not a soldier nor a naval commander by profession, but a merchant-
+skipper, like so many other heroes whose achievements were to be the
+permanent glory of their fatherland.  He would not, however, have been a
+Netherlander had he not learned something of the science which Prince
+Maurice had so long been teaching, not only to his own countrymen but
+to the whole world.  So moveable turrets, constructed of the spice-trees
+which grew in rank luxuriance all around, were filled with earth and
+stones, and advanced towards the fort.  Had the natives been as docile to
+learn as the Hollanders were eager to teach a few easy lessons in the
+military art, the doom of Andreas Hurtado de Mendoza would have been
+sealed.  But the great truths which those youthful pedants, Maurice and
+Lewis William, had extracted twenty years before from the works of the
+Emperor Leo and earlier pagans, amid the jeers of veterans, were not easy
+to transplant to the Malayan peninsula.
+
+It soon proved that those white-turbaned, loose-garmented, supple
+jointed, highly-picturesque troops of the sultan were not likely to
+distinguish themselves for anything but wonderful rapidity in retreat.
+Not only did they shrink from any advance towards the distant forts, but
+they were incapable of abiding an attack within or behind their towers,
+and, at every random shot from the enemy's works, they threw down their
+arms and fled from their stations in dismay.  It was obvious enough that
+the conquest and subjugation of such feeble warriors by the Portuguese
+and Spaniards were hardly to be considered brilliant national trophies.
+They had fallen an easy prey to the first European invader.  They had no
+discipline, no obedience, no courage; and Matelieff soon found that to
+attempt a scientific siege with such auxiliaries against a well-
+constructed stone fortress, garrisoned with three thousand troops,
+under an experienced Spanish soldier, was but midsummer madness.
+
+Fevers and horrible malaria, bred by the blazing sun of the equator out
+of those pestilential jungles, poisoned the atmosphere.  His handful of
+troops, amounting to not much more than a hundred men to each of his
+ships, might melt away before his eyes.  Nevertheless, although it was
+impossible for him to carry the place by regular approach, he would not
+abandon the hope of reducing it by famine.  During four months long,
+accordingly, he kept every avenue by land or sea securely invested.  In
+August, however, the Spanish viceroy of India, Don Alphonso de Castro,
+made his appearance on the scene.  Coming from Goa with a splendid fleet,
+numbering fourteen great galleons, four galleys, and sixteen smaller
+vessels, manned by three thousand seven hundred Portuguese and other
+Europeans, and an equal number of native troops, he had at first directed
+his course towards Atchen, on the north-west point of Sumatra.  Here,
+with the magnificent arrogance which Spanish and Portuguese viceroys were
+accustomed to manifest towards the natives of either India, he summoned
+the king to surrender his strongholds, to assist in constructing a
+fortress for the use of his conquerors, to deliver up all the
+Netherlanders within his domains, and to pay the expenses of the
+expedition which had thus been sent to chastise him.  But the King of
+Atchen had not sent ambassadors into the camp of Prince Maurice before
+the city of Grave in vain.  He had learned that there were other white
+skins besides the Spaniards at the antipodes, and that the republic whose
+achievements in arts and arms were conspicuous trophies of Western
+civilization, was not, as it had been represented to him, a mere nest of
+pirates.  He had learned to prefer an alliance with Holland to slavery
+under Spain.  Moreover, he had Dutch engineers and architects in his
+service, and a well-constructed system of Dutch fortifications around his
+capital.  To the summons to surrender himself and his allies he returned
+a defiant answer.  The viceroy ordered an attack upon the city.  One fort
+was taken.  From before the next he was repulsed with great loss.  The
+Sumatrans had derived more profit from intercourse with Europeans than
+the inhabitants of Johore or the Moluccas had done.  De Castro abandoned
+the siege.  He had received intelligence of the dangerous situation of
+Malacca, and moved down upon the place with his whole fleet.  Admiral
+Matelieff, apprised by scouts of his approach, behaved with the readiness
+and coolness of a veteran campaigner.  Before De Castro could arrive in
+the roadstead of Malacca, he had withdrawn all his troops from their
+positions, got all his artillery reshipped, and was standing out in the
+straits, awaiting the enemy.
+
+On the 17th August, the two fleets, so vastly disproportionate in number,
+size, equipment, and military force--eighteen galleons and galleys, with
+four or five thousand fighting men, against eleven small vessels and
+twelve or fourteen hundred sailors--met in that narrow sea.  The action
+lasted all day.  It was neither spirited nor sanguinary.  It ought to
+have been within the power of the Spaniard to crush his diminutive
+adversary.  It might have seemed a sufficient triumph for Matelieff to
+manoeuvre himself out of harm's way.  No vessel on either side was
+boarded, not one surrendered, but two on each side were set on fire and
+destroyed.  Eight of the Dutchmen were killed--not a very sanguinary
+result after a day's encounter with so imposing an armada.  De Castro's
+losses were much greater, but still the battle was an insignificant one,
+and neither fleet gained a victory.  Night put an end to the cannonading,
+and the Spaniards withdrew to Malacca, while Matelieff bore away to
+Johore.  The siege of Malacca was relieved, and the Netherlanders now
+occupied themselves with the defence of the feeble sovereign at the other
+point of the peninsula.
+
+Matelieff lay at Johore a month, repairing damages and laying in
+supplies.  While still at the place, he received information that a large
+part of the Spanish armada had sailed from Malacca.  Several of his own
+crew, who had lost their shares in the adventure by the burning of the
+ships to which they belonged in the action of 17th August, were reluctant
+and almost mutinous when their admiral now proposed to them a sudden
+assault on the portion of the Spanish fleet still remaining within reach.
+They had not come forth for barren glory, many protested, but in search
+of fortune; they were not elated by the meagre result of the expedition.
+Matelieff succeeded, however, at last in inspiring all the men of his
+command with an enthusiasm superior to sordid appeals, and made a few
+malcontents.  On the 21st September, he sailed to Malacca, and late in
+the afternoon again attacked the Spaniards.  Their fleet consisted of
+seven great galleons and three galleys lying in a circle before the town.
+The outermost ship, called the St. Nicholas, was boarded by men from
+three of the Dutch galleots with sudden and irresistible fury.  There was
+a brief but most terrible action, the Netherlanders seeming endowed with
+superhuman vigour.  So great was the panic that there was hardly an
+effort at defence, and within less than an hour nearly every Spaniard on
+board the St. Nicholas had been put to the sword.  The rest of the armada
+engaged the Dutch fleet with spirit, but one of the great galleons was
+soon set on fire and burned to the water's edge.  Another, dismasted and
+crippled, struck her flag, and all that remained would probably have been
+surrendered or destroyed had not the sudden darkness of a tropical
+nightfall put an end to the combat at set of sun.  Next morning another
+galleon, in a shattered and sinking condition, was taken possession of
+and found filled with dead and dying.  The rest of the Spanish ships made
+their escape into the harbour of Malacca.  Matelieff stood off and on in
+the straits for a day or two, hesitating for fear of shallows to follow
+into the roadstead.  Before he could take a decision, he had the
+satisfaction of seeing the enemy, panic-struck, save him any further
+trouble.  Not waiting for another attack, the Spaniards set fire to every
+one of their ships, and retired into their fortress, while Matelieff and
+his men enjoyed the great conflagration as idle spectators.  Thus the
+enterprising Dutch admiral had destroyed ten great war-ships of the
+enemy, and, strange to relate, had scarcely lost one man of his whole
+squadron.  Rarely had a more complete triumph been achieved on the water
+than in this battle in the straits of Malacca.  Matelieff had gained much
+glory but very little booty.  He was also encumbered with a great number
+of prisoners.
+
+These he sent to Don Alphonso, exchanging them for a very few
+Netherlanders then in Spanish hands, at the rate of two hundred Spaniards
+for ten Dutchmen--thus showing that he held either the enemy very cheap,
+or his own countrymen very dear.  The captured ships he burned as useless
+to him, but retained twenty-four pieces of artillery.
+
+It was known to Matelieff that the Spanish viceroy had received
+instructions to inflict chastisement on all the oriental potentates and
+their subjects who had presumed of late to trade and to form alliances
+with the Netherlanders.  Johore, Achem, Paham, Patane, Amboyna, and
+Bantam, were the most probable points of attack.  Johore had now been
+effectually defended, Achem had protected itself.  The Dutch fleet
+proceeded at first to Bantams for refreshment, and from this point
+Matelieff sent three of his ships back to Holland.  With the six
+remaining to him, he sailed for the Moluccas, having heard of various
+changes which had taken place in that important archipelago.  Pausing at
+the great emporium of nutmegs and all-spice, Amboyna, he took measures
+for strengthening the fortifications of the place, which was well
+governed by Frederick Houtman, and then proceeded to Ternate and Tidor.
+
+During the absence of the Netherlanders, after the events on those
+islands recorded in a previous chapter, the Spaniards had swept down upon
+them from the Philippines with a fleet of thirty-seven ships, and had
+taken captive the Sultan of Ternate; while the potentate of Tidor, who
+had been left by Stephen van der Hagen in possession of his territories
+on condition of fidelity to the Dutch, was easily induced to throw aside
+the mask, and to renew his servitude to Spain.  Thus both the coveted
+clove-islands had relapsed into the control of the enemy.  Matelieff
+found it dangerous, on account of quicksands and shallows, to land on
+Tydore, but he took very energetic measures to recover possession of
+Ternate.  On the southern side of the island, the Spaniards had built a
+fort and a town.  The Dutch admiral disembarked upon the northern side,
+and, with assistance of the natives, succeeded in throwing up substantial
+fortifications at a village called Malaya.  The son of the former sultan,
+who was a Spanish prisoner at the Philippines, was now formally inducted
+into his father's sovereignty, and Matelieff established at Malaya for
+his protection a garrison of forty-five Hollanders and a navy of four
+small yachts.  Such were the slender means with which Oriental empires
+were founded in those days by the stout-hearted adventurers of the little
+Batavian republic.
+
+With this miniature army and navy, and by means of his alliance with the
+distant commonwealth, of whose power this handful of men was a symbol,
+the King of Ternate was thenceforth to hold his own against the rival
+potentate on the other island, supported by the Spanish king.  The same
+convention of commerce and amity was made with the Ternatians as the one
+which Stephen van der Hagen had formerly concluded with the Bandians; and
+it was agreed that the potentate should be included in any treaty of
+peace that might be made between the republic and Spain.
+
+Matelieff, with three ships and a cutter, now sailed for China, but lost
+his time in endeavouring to open trade with the Celestial empire.  The
+dilatory mandarins drove him at last out of all patience, and, on turning
+his prows once more southward, he had nearly brought his long expedition
+to a disastrous termination.  Six well-armed, well-equipped Portuguese
+galleons sailed out of Macao to assail him.  It was not Matelieff's
+instinct to turn his back on a foe, however formidable, but on this
+occasion discretion conquered instinct.  His three ships were out of
+repair; he had a deficiency of powder; he was in every respect unprepared
+for a combat; and he reflected upon the unfavourable impression which
+would be made on the Chinese mind should the Hollanders, upon their first
+appearance in the flowery regions, be vanquished by the Portuguese.  He
+avoided an encounter, therefore, and, by skilful seamanship, eluded all
+attempts of the foe at pursuit.  Returning to Ternate, he had the
+satisfaction to find that during his absence the doughty little garrison
+of Malaya had triumphantly defeated the Spaniards in an assault on the
+fortifications of the little town.  On the other hand, the King of
+Johore, panic-struck on the departure of his Dutch protectors, had burned
+his own capital, and had betaken himself with all his court into the
+jungle.
+
+Commending the one and rebuking the other potentate, the admiral provided
+assistance for both, some Dutch trading, vessels having meantime arrived
+in the archipelago.  Matelieff now set sail for Holland, taking with him
+some ambassadors from the King of Siam and five ships well laden with
+spice.  On his return he read a report of his adventures to the States-
+General, and received the warm commendations of their High Mightinesses.
+Before his departure from the tropics, Paul van Kaarden, with eight war-
+ships, had reached Bantam.  On his arrival in Holland the fleet of Peter
+ver Hoef was busily fitting out for another great expedition to the East.
+This was the nation which Spanish courtiers thought to exclude for ever
+from commerce with India and America, because the Pope a century before
+had divided half the globe between Ferdinand the Catholic and Emmanuel
+the Fortunate.
+
+It may be supposed that the results of Matelieff's voyage were likely to
+influence the pending negotiations for peace.
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+A sovereign remedy for the disease of liberty
+All the ministers and great functionaries received presents
+Because he had been successful (hated)
+But the habit of dissimulation was inveterate
+By turns, we all govern and are governed
+Contempt for treaties however solemnly ratified
+Despised those who were grateful
+Idiotic principle of sumptuary legislation
+Indulging them frequently with oracular advice
+Justified themselves in a solemn consumption of time
+Man who cannot dissemble is unfit to reign
+Men fought as if war was the normal condition of humanity
+Men who meant what they said and said what they meant
+Negotiated as if they were all immortal
+Philip of Macedon, who considered no city impregnable
+To negotiate was to bribe right and left, and at every step
+Unwise impatience for peace
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v80
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 81, 1608
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+     Movements of the Emperor Rudolph--Marquis Spinola's reception at the
+     Hague--Meeting of Spinola and Prince Maurice--Treaty of the Republic
+     with the French Government--The Spanish commissioners before the
+     States-General--Beginning of negotiations--Stormy discussions--Real
+     object of Spain in the negotiations--Question of the India trade--
+     Abandonment of the peace project--Negotiations for a truce--
+     Prolongation of the armistice--Further delays--Treaty of the States
+     with England--Proposals of the Spanish ambassadors to Henry of
+     France and to James of England--Friar Neyen at the court of Spain--
+     Spanish procrastination--Decision of Philip on the conditions of
+     peace--Further conference at the Hague--Answer of the States-General
+     to the proposals of the Spanish Government--General rupture.
+
+Towards the close of the year 1607 a very feeble demonstration was made
+in the direction of the Dutch republic by the very feeble Emperor of
+Germany.  Rudolph, awaking as it might be from a trance, or descending
+for a moment from his star-gazing tower and his astrological pursuits to
+observe the movements of political spheres, suddenly discovered that the
+Netherlands were no longer revolving in their preordained orbit.  Those
+provinces had been supposed to form part of one great system, deriving
+light and heat from the central imperial sun.  It was time therefore to
+put an end to these perturbations.  The emperor accordingly, as if he had
+not enough on his hands at that precise moment with the Hungarians,
+Transylvanians, Bohemian protestants, his brother Matthias and the Grand
+Turk, addressed a letter to the States of Holland, Zeeland, and the
+provinces confederated with them.
+
+Reminding them of the care ever taken by himself and his father to hear
+all their petitions, and to obtain for them a good peace, he observed
+that he had just heard of their contemplated negotiations with King
+Philip and Archduke Albert, and of their desire to be declared free
+states and peoples.  He was amazed, he said, that they should not have
+given him notice of so important an affair, inasmuch as all the United
+Provinces belonged to and were fiefs of the holy Roman Empire.  They were
+warned, therefore, to undertake nothing that might be opposed to the
+feudal law except with his full knowledge.  This letter was dated the 9th
+of October.  The States took time to deliberate, and returned no answer
+until after the new year.
+
+On the 2nd of January, 1608, they informed the emperor that they could
+never have guessed of his requiring notification as to the approaching
+conferences.  They had not imagined that the archduke would keep them a
+secret from his brother, or the king from his uncle-cousin.  Otherwise,
+the States would have sent due notice to his Majesty.  They well
+remembered, they said, the appeals made by the provinces to the emperor
+from time to time, at the imperial diets, for help against the tyranny of
+the Spaniards.  They well remembered, too, that no help was ever given
+them in response to those appeals.  They had not forgotten either the
+famous Cologne negotiations for peace in presence of the imperial envoys,
+in consequence of which the enemy had carried on war against them with
+greater ferocity than before.  At that epoch they had made use of an
+extreme remedy for an intolerable evil, and had solemnly renounced
+allegiance to the king.  Since that epoch a whole generation of mankind
+had passed away, and many kings and potentates had recognised their
+freedom, obtained for just cause and maintained by the armed hand.
+After a long and bloody war, Albert and Philip had at last been brought
+to acknowledge the provinces as free countries over which they pretended
+to no right, as might be seen by the letters of both, copies of which
+were forwarded to the emperor.  Full confidence was now expressed,
+therefore, that the emperor and all Germany would look with favour on
+such a God-fearing transaction, by which an end would be put to so
+terrible a war.  Thus the States-General; replying with gentle scorn to
+the antiquated claim of sovereignty on the part of imperial majesty.
+Duly authenticated by citations of investitures, indulgences, and
+concordates, engrossed on yellowest parchment, sealed with reddest
+sealing-wax, and reposing in a thousand pigeon-holes in mustiest
+archives, no claim could be more solemn or stately.  Unfortunately,
+however, rebel pikes and matchlocks, during the past forty years, had
+made too many rents in those sacred parchments to leave much hope of
+their ever being pieced handsomely together again.  As to the historical
+theory of imperial enfeoffment, the States thought it more delicate to
+glide smoothly and silently over the whole matter.  It would have been
+base to acknowledge and impolite to refute the claim.
+
+It is as well to imitate this reserve.  It is enough simply to remind the
+reader that although so late as the time of Charles V., the provinces had
+been declared constituent parts of the empire, liable to its burthens,
+and entitled to its protection; the Netherlanders being practical people,
+and deeming burthens and protection correlative, had declined the burthen
+because always deprived of the protection.
+
+And now, after a year spent in clearing away the mountains of dust which
+impeded the pathway to peace, and which one honest vigorous human breath
+might at once have blown into space, the envoys of the archduke set forth
+towards the Hague.
+
+Marquis Spinola, Don Juan de Mancicidor, private secretary to the King of
+Spain, President Richardot, Auditor Verreyken, and Brother John Neyen--
+a Genoese, a Spaniard, a Burgundian, a Fleming, and a Franciscan friar
+--travelling in great state, with a long train of carriages, horses,
+lackeys, cooks, and secretaries, by way of Breda, Bergen-op-Zoom,
+
+Dort, Rotterdam, and Delft, and being received in each town and village
+through which they passed with great demonstrations of respect and
+cordial welcome, arrived at last within a mile of the Hague.
+
+It was the dead of winter, and of the severest winter that had occurred
+for many years.  Every river, estuary, canal was frozen hard.  All
+Holland was one broad level sheet of ice, over which the journey had been
+made in sledges.  On the last day of January Prince Maurice, accompanied
+by Lewes William, and by eight state coaches filled with distinguished
+personages, left the Hague and halted at the Hoorn bridge, about midway
+between Ryswyk and the capital.  The prince had replied to the first
+request of the States that he should go forward to meet Spinola, by
+saying that he would do so willingly if it were to give him battle;
+otherwise not.  Olden-Barneveld urged upon him however that, as servant
+of the republic, he was bound to do what the States commanded, as a
+matter involving the dignity of the nation.  In consequence of this
+remonstrance Maurice consented to go, but he went unwillingly.  The
+advancing procession of the Spanish ambassadors was already in sight.
+Far and wide in whatever direction the eye could sweep, the white surface
+of the landscape was blackened with human beings.  It seemed as if the
+whole population of the Netherlands had assembled, in mass meeting, to
+witness the pacific interview between those two great chieftains who had
+never before stood face to face except upon the battle-field.
+
+In carriages, in donkey carts, upon horseback, in sledges, on skates,
+upon foot-men, women, and children, gentle and simple, Protestants,
+Catholics, Gomarites, Armenians, anabaptists, country squires in buff and
+bandaleer, city magistrates and merchants in furs and velvet, artisans,
+boatmen, and peasants, with their wives and daughters in well-starched
+ruff and tremendous head-gear--they came thronging in countless
+multitudes, those honest Hollanders, cheering and throwing up their caps
+in honour of the chieftain whose military genius had caused so much
+disaster to their country.  This uproarious demonstration of welcome on
+the part of the multitude moved the spleen of many who were old enough to
+remember the horrors of Spanish warfare within their borders.  "Thus
+unreflecting, gaping, boorish, are nearly all the common people of these
+provinces," said a contemporary, describing the scene, and forgetting
+that both high and low, according to his own account, made up the mass of
+spectators on that winter's day.  Moreover it seems difficult to
+understand why the Hollanders should not have indulged a legitimate
+curiosity, and made a holiday on this memorable occasion.  Spinola was
+not entering their capital in triumph, a Spanish army was not marching
+--as it might have done had the course of events been different--over the
+protective rivers and marshes of the fatherland, now changed by the
+exceptional cold into solid highways for invasion.  On the contrary, the
+arrival of the great enemy within their gates, with the olive-branch
+instead of the sword in his hand, was a victory not for Spain but for the
+republic.  It was known throughout the land that he was commissioned by
+the king and the archdukes to treat for peace with the States-General of
+the United Provinces as with the representatives of a free and
+independent nation, utterly beyond any foreign control.
+
+Was not this opening of a cheerful and pacific prospect, after a half
+century's fight for liberty, a fair cause for rejoicing?
+
+The Spanish commissioners arrived at the Hoorn bridge, Spinola alighted
+from his coach, Prince Maurice stepped forward into the road to greet
+him.  Then the two eminent soldiers, whose names had of late been so
+familiar in the mouths of men, shook hands and embraced with heroic
+cordiality, while a mighty shout went up from the multitude around.  It
+was a stately and dramatic spectacle, that peaceful meeting of the rival
+leaders in a war which had begun before either of them was born.  The
+bystanders observed, or thought that they observed, signs of great
+emotion on the faces of both.  It has also been recorded that each
+addressed the other in epigrammatic sentences of compliment.  "God is my
+witness," Maurice was supposed to have said, "that the arrival of these
+honourable negotiators is most grateful to me.  Time, whose daughter is
+truth, will show the faith to be given to my words."
+
+"This fortunate day," replied Spinola, "has filled full the measure of my
+hopes and wishes, and taken from me the faculty of ever wishing for
+anything again.  I trust in divine clemency that an opportunity may be
+given to show my gratitude, and to make a fit return for the humanity
+thus shown me by the most excellent prince that the sun shines upon."
+
+With this both got into the stadholder's carriage, Spinola being placed
+on Maurice's right hand.  Their conversation during their brief drive to
+the capital, followed by their long retinue, and by the enthusiastic and
+vociferating crowd, has not been chronicled.  It is also highly probable
+that the second-rate theatrical dialogue which the Jesuit historian,
+writing from Spinola's private papers, has preserved for posterity, was
+rather what seemed to his imagination appropriate for the occasion than a
+faithful shorthand report of anything really uttered.  A few commonplace
+phrases of welcome, with a remark or two perhaps on the unexampled
+severity of the frost, seem more likely to have formed the substance of
+that brief conversation.
+
+A couple of trumpeters of Spinola went braying through the streets of the
+village capital, heralding their master's approach with superfluous
+noise, and exciting the disgust of the quieter portion of the burghers.
+At last however the envoys and their train were all comfortably housed.
+The Marquis, President Richardot, and Secretary Mancicidor, were
+established at a new mansion on the Vyverberg, belonging to Goswyn
+Menskens.  The rest of the legation were lodged at the house of
+Wassenaer.
+
+It soon became plain that the ways of life and the style housekeeping
+habitual to great officers of the Spanish crown were very different from
+the thrifty manners and customs of Dutch republicans.  It was so long
+since anything like royal pomp and circumstance had been seen in their
+borders that the exhibition, now made, excited astonishment.  It was a
+land where every child went to school, where almost every individual
+inhabitant could read and write, where even the middle classes were
+proficients in mathematics and the classics, and could speak two or more
+modern languages; where the whole nation, with but few exceptions, were
+producers of material or intellectual wealth, and where comparatively
+little of unproductive consumption prevailed.  Those self-governing and
+self-sustaining municipalities had almost forgotten the existence of the
+magnificent nothings so dear to the hearts of kings.
+
+Spinola's house was open day and night.  The gorgeous plate, gigantic
+candelabra, mighty ewers, shields and layers of silver and gold, which
+decorated his tables and sideboards, amazed the gaping crowd.  He dined
+and supped in state every day, and the public were admitted to gaze upon
+his banquets as if he had been a monarch.  It seemed, said those homely
+republicans, as if "a silver christening were going on every day in his
+house."
+
+There were even grave remonstrances made to the magistracy and to, the
+States-General against the effect of such ostentatious and immoral
+proceedings upon the popular mind, and suggestions that at least the
+doors should be shut, so that the scandal might be confined to Spinola's
+own household.  But the republican authorities deciding, not without
+wisdom, that the spectacle ought to serve rather as a wholesome warning
+than as a contaminating example, declined any inquisitorial interference
+with the housekeeping of the Spanish ambassadors.
+
+Before the negotiations began, a treaty had been made between the
+republic and the French Government, by which it was stipulated that every
+effort should be made by both contracting parties to bring about an
+honourable and assured peace between the United Provinces, Spain, and the
+archdukes.  In case of the continuance of the war, however, it was agreed
+that France should assist the States with ten thousand men, while in case
+at any time, during the continuance of the league, France should be
+attacked by a foreign enemy, she should receive from her ally five
+thousand auxiliary troops, or their equivalent in maritime assistance.
+This convention was thought by other powers to be so profitable to the
+Netherlands as to excite general uneasiness and suspicion.
+
+The States would have gladly signed a similar agreement with England, but
+nothing was to be done with that Government until an old-standing dispute
+in regard to the cloth trade had been arranged.  Middelburg had the
+exclusive right of deposit for the cloths imported from England.  This
+monopoly for Zealand being naturally not very palatable to Amsterdam and
+other cities of Holland, the States-General had at last authorized the
+merchant-adventurers engaged in this traffic to deposit their goods in
+any city of the United Provinces.   The course of trade had been to
+import the raw cloth from England, to dress and dye it in the
+Netherlands, and then to re-export it to England.  Latterly, however,
+some dyers and clothiers emigrating from the provinces to that country,
+had obtained a monopoly from James for practising their art in his
+dominions.  In consequence of this arrangement the exportation of undyed
+cloths had been forbidden.  This prohibition had caused irritation both
+in the kingdom and the republic, had necessarily deranged the natural
+course of trade and manufacture, and had now prevented for the time any
+conclusion of an alliance offensive and defensive between the countries,
+even if political sentiment had made such a league possible.  The States-
+General had recourse to the usual expedient by which bad legislation on
+one side was countervailed by equally bad legislation on the other.  The
+exportation of undyed English cloths being forbidden by England, the
+importation of dyed English cloths was now prohibited by the Netherlands.
+The international cloth trade stopped.  This embargo became at last so
+detestable to all parties that concession was made by the crown for a
+limited export of raw cloths.  The concession was soon widened by custom
+into a general exportation, the royal Government looking through its
+fingers at the open infraction of its own laws, while the natural laws of
+trade before long re-established the old equilibrium.  Meantime the ill-
+feeling produced by this dissension delayed any cordial political
+arrangement between the countries.
+
+On the 5th of February the Spanish commissioners came for the first time
+before the States-General, assembled to the number of a hundred and
+thirty, in their palace at the Hague.
+
+The first meeting was merely one of mutual compliment, President
+Richardot, on behalf of his colleagues, expressing gratitude for the
+cordial welcome which had been manifested to the envoys on their journey
+through so many towns of the United Provinces.  They had been received,
+he said, not as enemies with whom an almost perpetual war had been waged,
+but as friends, confederates, and allies.  A warmer reception they could
+never have hoped for nor desired.
+
+Two special commissioners were now appointed by the States-General to
+negotiate with the envoys.  These were count Lewis William and Brederode.
+With these delegates at large were associated seven others, one from each
+province.  Barneveld of course represented Holland; Maldere, Zeeland;
+Berk, Utrecht; Hillama, Friesland; Bloat, Overyssel; Koender van Helpen,
+Groningen; Cornelius Vail Gend, Gelderland.
+
+The negotiations began at once.  The archdukes had empowered the five
+envoys to deal in their name and in that of the King of Spain.  Philip
+had authorized the archdukes to take this course by an instrument dated
+10th January.
+
+In this paper he called the archdukes hereditary sovereigns of the
+Netherlands.
+
+It was agreed that the various points of negotiation should be taken up
+in regular order; but the first question of all that presented itself was
+whether the conferences should be for a truce or, a peace.
+
+The secret object of Spain was for a truce of years.  Thus she thought to
+save her dignity, to reserve her rights of re-conquest, to replenish her
+treasury, and to repair her military strength.  Barneveld and his party,
+comprising a large majority of the States-General, were for peace.
+Prince Maurice, having done his utmost to oppose negotiations for peace,
+was, for still stronger reasons, determined to avoid falling into what he
+considered the ambush of a truce.  The French ambassadors were also for
+peace.  The Spanish envoys accordingly concealed their real designs, and
+all parties began discussions for the purpose of establishing a permanent
+peace.
+
+This preliminary being settled, Barneveld asked the Spaniards if they had
+full powers to treat with the States as with a free nation, and if they
+recognised them as such.
+
+"The most ample power," was the reply; "and we are content to treat with
+you even if you should choose to call yourself a kingdom."
+
+"By what right then are the archdukes called by the king hereditary
+sovereigns of the Netherlands, and why do they append the seals of the
+seven United Provinces to this document?" asked the Advocate, taking up
+from the table the full power of Albert and Isabella and putting his
+finger on the seals."
+
+"By the same right," replied President Richardot, "that the King of
+France calls himself King of Navarre, that the King of Great Britain
+calls himself King of France, that the King of Spain calls himself King
+of Jerusalem."
+
+Nothing could be more logical, nothing more historically accurate.
+But those plain-spoken republicans saw no advantage in beginning a
+negotiation for peace on the basis of their independence by permitting
+the archduke to call himself their sovereign, and to seal solemn state
+papers with their signet.  It might seem picturesque to genealogical
+minds, it might be soothing to royal vanity, that paste counterfeits
+should be substituted for vanished jewels.  It would be cruelty to
+destroy the mock glitter without cause.  But there was cause.  On this
+occasion the sham was dangerous.  James Stuart might call himself King of
+France.  He was not more likely to take practical possession of that
+kingdom than of the mountains in the moon.  Henry of Bourbon was not at
+present contemplating an invasion of the hereditary possessions of the
+house of Albret.  It was a matter of indifference to the Netherlands
+whether Philip III. were crowned in Jerusalem that very day, or the week
+afterwards, or never.  It was very important however that the United
+Provinces should have it thoroughly recognised that they were a free and
+independent republic, nor could that recognition be complete so long as
+any human being in the whole world called himself their master, and
+signed with their seals of state.  "'Tis absurd," said the Hollanders,
+"to use the names and arms of our provinces.  We have as yet no precedent
+to prove that you consider the United Provinces as lost, and name and
+arms to be but wind."  Barneveld reminded them that they had all
+expressed the most straightforward intention, and that the father
+commissary especially had pledged his very soul for the sincerity of the
+king and the archdukes.  "We ourselves never wished and never could
+deceive any one," continued the Advocate, "and it is also very difficult
+for others to deceive us."
+
+This being the universal sentiment of the Netherlanders, it was thought
+proper to express it in respectful but vigorous language.  This was done
+and the session was terminated.  Tile Spanish envoys, knowing very well
+that neither the king nor the archduke regarded the retention of the
+titles and seals of all the seventeen Netherlands as an empty show, but
+that a secret and solid claim lurked beneath that usurpation, were very
+indignant.  They however dissembled their wrath from the States'
+commissioners.  They were unwilling that the negotiations should be
+broken up at the very first session, and they felt that neither Prince
+Maurice nor Barneveld was to be trifled with upon this point.  But they
+were loud and magnificent in their demonstrations when they came to talk
+the matter over with the ambassadors of France and England.  It was most
+portentous, they thought, to the cause of monarchy and good government
+all over the world, that these republicans, not content to deal with
+kings and princes on a footing of equality, should presume to dictate to
+them as to inferiors.  Having passed through rebellion to liberty, they
+were now proceeding to trample upon the most hallowed customs and rites.
+What would become of royalty, if in the same breath it should not only
+renounce the substance, but even put away the symbols of authority.  This
+insolence of the people was not more dangerous to the king and the
+archdukes than it was to every potentate in the universe.  It was a
+sacred duty to resist such insults.  Sage Jeannin did his best to pacify
+the vehemence of the commissioners.  He represented to them that foreign
+titles borne by anointed kings were only ensigns of historical
+possessions which they had for ever renounced; but that it might become
+one day the pleasure of Spain, or lie in the power of Spain, to vindicate
+her ancient rights to the provinces.
+
+Hence the anxiety of the States was but natural.  The old Leaguer and
+political campaigner knew very well, moreover, that at least one half of
+Richardot's noble wrath was feigned.  The commissioners would probably
+renounce the title and the seven seals, but in so doing would drive a
+hard bargain.  For an empty phrase and a pennyworth of wax they would
+extort a heavy price.  And this was what occurred.  The commissioners
+agreed to write for fresh instructions to Brussels.  A reply came in due
+time from the archdukes, in which they signified their willingness to
+abandon the title of sovereigns over all the Netherlands, and to abstain
+from using their signet.  In exchange for this concession they merely
+demanded from the States-General a formal abandonment of the navigation
+to both the Indies.  This was all.  The archdukes granted liberty to the
+republic.  The republic would renounce its commerce with more than half
+the world.
+
+The scorn of the States' commissioners at this proposition can be
+imagined, and it became difficult indeed for them to speak on the subject
+in decorous language.  Because the archdukes were willing to give up
+something which was not their property, the republic was voluntarily to
+open its veins and drain its very life-blood at the bidding of a foreign
+potentate.  She was to fling away all the trophies of Heemskerk and
+Sebalt de Weerd, of Balthasar de Cordes, Van der Hagen, Matelieff, and
+Verhoeff; she was to abdicate the position which she had already acquired
+of mistress of the seas, and she was to deprive herself for ever of that
+daily increasing ocean commerce which was rapidly converting a cluster of
+puny, half-submerged provinces into a mighty empire.  Of a certainty the
+Spanish court at this new epoch was an astounding anachronism.  In its
+view Pope Alexander VI. still lived and reigned.
+
+Liberty was not a boon conferred upon the Netherlanders by their defeated
+enemy.  It had been gained by their own right hands; by the blood, and
+the gold, and the sweat of two generations.  If it were the king's to
+give, let him try once more if he could take it away.  Such were the
+opinions and emotions of the Dutchmen, expressed in as courteous language
+as they could find.
+
+"It would be a political heresy," said Barneveld to the Spanish
+commissioners at this session, "if my lords the States should by contract
+banish their citizens out of two-thirds of the world, both land and sea."
+
+"'Tis strange," replied the Spaniards, "that you wish to have more than
+other powers--kings or republics--who never make any such pretensions.
+The Indies, East and West, are our house, privately possessed by us for
+more than a hundred years, and no one has a right to come into it without
+our permission.  This is not banishment, but a custom to which all other
+nations submit.  We give you your sovereignty before all the world,
+quitting all claims upon it.  We know very well that you deny receiving
+it from us; but to give you a quit claim, and to permit free trade
+besides, would be a little more than you have a right to expect."
+
+Was it not well for the cause of liberty, commercial intercourse, and
+advancement of the human intellect, that there was this obstinate little
+republic in the world, refusing to tolerate that to which all other great
+powers of the earth submitted; that there was one nation determined not
+to acknowledge three-quarters of the world, including America and India,
+as the private mansion of the King of Spain, to be locked against the
+rest of the human race?
+
+The next session of the negotiators after the arrival of this
+communication from the archdukes was a stormy one.  The India trade
+was the sole subject of discussion.  As the States were firmly resolved
+never to relinquish that navigation which in truth was one of their most
+practical and valuable possessions, and as the royal commissioners were
+as solemnly determined that it should never be conceded, it may be
+imagined how much breath, how much foolscap paper, was wasted.
+
+In truth, the negotiation for peace had been a vile mockery from the
+beginning.  Spain had no real intention of abdicating her claim to the
+United Provinces.
+
+At the very moment when the commissioners were categorically making that
+concession in Brussels, and claiming such a price for it, Hoboken, the
+archduke's diplomatic representative in London, was earnestly assuring
+King James that neither his master nor Philip had the remotest notion of
+renouncing their sovereignty over all the Netherlands.  What had been
+said and written to that effect was merely a device, he asserted, to
+bring about a temporary truce.  During the interval of imaginary freedom
+it was certain that the provinces would fall into such dire confusion
+that it would be easier for Spain to effect their re-conquest, after a
+brief delay for repairing her own strength, than it would be by
+continuing the present war without any cessation.
+
+The Spanish ambassador at Vienna too on his part assured the Emperor
+Rudolph that his master was resolved never to abdicate the sovereignty
+of the provinces.  The negotiations then going on, he said, were simply
+intended to extort from the States a renunciation of the India trade and
+their consent to the re-introduction of the Catholic religion throughout
+their territories.
+
+Something of all this was known and much more suspected at the Hague;
+the conviction therefore that no faith would be kept with rebels and
+heretics, whatever might be said or written, gained strength every day.
+That these delusive negotiations with the Hollanders were not likely to
+be so successful as the comedy enacted twenty years before at Bourbourg,
+for the amusement of Queen Elizabeth and her diplomatists while the
+tragedy of the Armada was preparing, might be safely prophesied.
+Richardot was as effective as ever in the part which he had so often
+played, but Spinola laboured under the disadvantage of being a far
+honester man than Alexander Farnese.  Far from equal to that famous
+chieftain in the management of a great military campaign, it is certain
+that he was infinitely inferior to him in genteel comedy.  Whether
+Maurice and Lewis William, Barneveld and Brederode, were to do better in
+the parts formerly assigned to John Rogers, Valentine Dale, Comptroller
+Croft, and their colleagues, remained to be seen.
+
+On the 15th of February, at the fifth conference of the commissioners,
+the first pitched battle on the India trade was fought.  Thereafter the
+combat was almost every day renewed.  Exactly, as a year before, the
+news of Heemskerk's victory at Gibraltar had made the king and the
+archdukes eager to obtain an armistice with the rebels both by land and
+sea, so now the report of Matelieff's recent achievements in the Indian
+ocean was increasing their anxiety to exclude the Netherlanders from the
+regions which they were rapidly making their own.
+
+As we look back upon the negotiations, after the lapse of two centuries
+and a half, it becomes difficult to suppress our amazement at those
+scenes of solemn trickery and superhuman pride.  It is not necessary to
+follow, step by step, the proceedings at each daily conference, but it is
+impossible for me not to detain the reader for yet a season longer with
+those transactions, and especially to invite him to ponder the valuable
+lesson which in their entirety they convey.
+
+No higher themes could possibly be laid before statesmen to discuss.
+Questions of political self-government, religious liberty, national
+independence, divine Right, rebellious Power, freedom of commerce,
+supremacy of the seas, omnipotence claimed by the old world over the
+destiny of what was called the new, were importunately demanding
+solution.  All that most influenced human passion, or stirred human
+reason to its depths--at that memorable point of time when two great
+epochs seemed to be sweeping against each other in elemental conflict--
+was to be dealt with.  The emancipated currents of human thought, the
+steady tide of ancient dogma, were mingling in wrath.  There are times of
+paroxysm in which Nature seems to effect more in a moment, whether
+intellectually or materially, than at other periods during a lapse of
+years.  The shock of forces, long preparing and long delayed, is apt at
+last to make itself sensible to those neglectful of gradual but vital
+changes.  Yet there are always ears that are deaf to the most portentous
+din.
+
+Thus, after that half century of war, the policy of Spain was still
+serenely planting itself on the position occupied before the outbreak of
+the revolt.  The commonwealth, solidly established by a free people,
+already one of the most energetic and thriving among governments, a
+recognised member of  the great international family, was now gravely
+expected to purchase from its ancient tyrant the independence which it
+had long possessed, while the price demanded for the free papers was not
+only extravagant, but would be disgraceful to an emancipated slave.
+Holland was not likely at that turning point in her history, and in the
+world's history, to be false to herself and to the great principles of
+public law.  It was good for the cause of humanity that the republic
+should reappear at that epoch.  It was wholesome for Europe that there
+should be just then a plain self-governing people, able to speak homely
+and important truths.  It was healthy for the moral and political
+atmosphere--in those days and in the time to come--that a fresh breeze
+from that little sea-born commonwealth should sweep away some of the
+ancient fog through which a few very feeble and very crooked mortals had
+so long loomed forth like giants and gods.
+
+To vindicate the laws of nations and of nature; to make a noble effort
+for reducing to a system--conforming, at least approximately, to divine
+reason--the chaotic elements of war and peace; to recal the great facts
+that earth, sea, and sky ought to belong to mankind, and not to an
+accidental and very limited selection of the species was not an unworthy
+task for a people which had made such unexampled sacrifice for liberty
+and right.
+
+Accordingly, at the conference on the 15th February, the Spanish
+commissioners categorically summoned the States to desist entirely from
+the trade to either India, exactly as before the war.  To enforce this
+prohibition, they said, was the principal reason why Philip desired
+peace.  To obtain their freedom was surely well worth renunciation of
+this traffic; the more so, because their trade with Spain, which was so
+much shorter and safer, was now to be re-opened.  If they had been able
+to keep that commerce, it was suggested, they would have never talked
+about the Indies.  The commissioners added, that this boon had not been
+conceded to France nor England, by the treaties of Vervins and London,
+and that the States therefore could not find it strange that it should be
+refused to them.
+
+The States' commissioners stoutly replied that commerce was open to all
+the world, that trade was free by the great law of nature, and that
+neither France, England, nor the United Provinces, were to receive edicts
+on this great subject from Spain and Portugal.  It was absurd to
+circumscribe commercial intercourse at the very moment of exchanging
+war for peace.  To recognise the liberty of the States upon paper,
+and to attempt the imposition of servitude in reality, was a manifest
+contradiction.  The ocean was free to all nations.  It had not been
+enclosed by Spain with a rail-fence.
+
+The debate grew more stormy every hour.  Spinola expressed great
+indignation that the Netherlanders should be so obstinate upon this
+point.  The tall, spare President arose in wrath from his seat at the
+council-board, loudly protesting that the King of Spain would never
+renounce his sovereignty over the provinces until they had forsworn the
+India trade; and with this menace stalked out of the room.
+
+The States' commissioners were not frightened.  Barneveld was at least a
+match for Richardot, and it was better, after all, that the cards should
+be played upon the table.  Subsequent meetings were quite as violent as
+the first, the country was agitated far and wide, the prospects of
+pacification dwindled to a speck in the remote horizon.  Arguments at
+the Board of Conference, debates in the States-General, pamphlets by
+merchants and advocates--especially several emanating from the East India
+Company--handled the great topic from every point of view, and it became
+more and more evident that Spain could not be more resolute to prohibit
+than the republic to claim the trade.
+
+It was an absolute necessity, so it was urged, for the Hollanders to
+resist the tyrannical dominion of the Spaniards.  But this would be
+impossible for them, should they rely on the slender natural resources
+of their own land.  Not a sixth part of the population could be nourished
+from the soil.  The ocean was their inheritance, their birthright, their
+empire.  It was necessary that Spain should understand this first, last,
+and always.  She ought to comprehend, too, that her recognition of Dutch
+independence was not a gift, but the acknowledgment of a fact.  Without
+that acknowledgment peace was impossible.  If peace were to be
+established, it was not to be bought by either party.  Each gave and each
+received, and certainly Spain was in no condition to dictate the terms of
+a sale.  Peace, without freedom of commerce, would be merely war without
+killing, and therefore without result.  The Netherlanders, who in the
+middle of the previous century had risen against unjust taxation and
+arbitrary laws, had not grown so vile as to accept from a vanquished foe
+what they had spurned from their prince.  To be exiled from the ocean was
+an unimaginable position for the republic.  Moreover, to retire from the
+Indies would be to abandon her Oriental allies, and would be a dishonour
+as well us a disaster.  Her good faith, never yet contaminated, would be
+stained, were she now to desert the distant peoples and potentates with
+whom she had formed treaties of friendship and commerce, and hand them
+over to the vengeance of the Spaniards and Portuguese.
+
+And what a trade it was which the United Provinces were thus called upon
+to renounce!  The foreign commerce of no other nation could be compared
+in magnitude to that of their commonwealth.  Twenty ships traded
+regularly to Guinea, eighty to the Cape de Verd Islands, twenty to
+America, and forty to the East Indies.  Ten thousand sailors, who gained
+their living in this traffic, would be thrown out of employment, if the
+States should now listen to the Spanish propositions.
+
+It was well known too that the profits of the East India Company had
+vastly increased of late, and were augmenting with every year.  The trade
+with Cambay, Malabar, Ceylon, Koromandel, and Queda, had scarcely begun,
+yet was already most promising.  Should the Hollanders only obtain a
+footing in China, they felt confident of making their way through the
+South Seas and across the pole to India.  Thus the search for a great
+commercial highway between Cathay, Europe, and the New World, which had
+been baffled in the arctic regions, should be crowned with success at the
+antarctic, while it was deemed certain that there were many lands,
+lighted by the Southern Cross, awaiting the footsteps of the fortunate
+European discoverer.  What was a coasting-trade with Spain compared with
+this boundless career of adventure?  Now that the world's commerce, since
+the discovery of America and the passage around the Cape of Good Hope,
+had become oceanic and universal, was the nation which took the lead on
+blue water to go back to the creeping land-locked navigation of the
+ancient Greeks and Phoenicians?  If the East India Company, in whose womb
+was empire, were now destroyed, it would perish with its offspring for
+ever.  There would be no regeneration at a future day.  The Company's
+ships too were a navy in themselves, as apt for war as for trade.  This
+the Spaniards and Portuguese had already learned to their cost. The
+merchant-traders to Spain would be always in the power of Spain, and at
+any favourable moment might be seized by Spain.  The Spanish monopoly in
+the East and West was the great source of Spanish power, the chief cause
+of the contempt with, which the Spanish monarchy looked down upon other
+nations.  Let those widely expanded wings be clipped, and Spain would
+fall from her dizzy height.  To know what the States ought to refuse the
+enemy, it was only necessary to observe what he strenuously demanded, to
+ponder the avowed reason why he desired peace.  The enemy was doing his
+best to damage the commonwealth; the States were merely anxious to
+prevent injury to themselves and to all the world; to vindicate for
+themselves, and for all men, the common use of ocean, land, and sky.
+
+A nation which strove to shut up the seas, and to acquire a monopoly
+of the world's trade, was a pirate, an enemy of mankind.  She was as
+deserving of censure as those who created universal misery in time
+of famine, by buying up all the corn in order to enrich themselves.
+According to the principles of the ancients, it was legitimate to make
+war upon such States as closed their own ports to foreign intercourse.
+Still more just was it, therefore, to carry arms against a nation which
+closed the ports of other people.
+
+The dispute about the India navigation could be settled in a moment, if
+Spain would but keep her word.  She had acknowledged the great fact of
+independence, which could not be gainsaid.  Let each party to the
+negotiation, therefore keep that which it already possessed.  Let neither
+attempt to prescribe to the other--both being free and independent
+States--any regulations about interior or foreign trade.
+
+Thus reasoned the States-General, the East India directors, the great
+majority of the population of the provinces, upon one great topic of
+discussion.  A small minority only attempted to defend the policy of
+renouncing the India trade as a branch of industry, in which a certain
+class, and that only in the maritime provinces, was interested.  It is
+certainly no slight indication of the liberty of thought, of speech, and
+of the press, enjoyed at that epoch in the Netherlands and nowhere else
+to anything like the same extent--that such opinions, on a subject deemed
+vital to the very existence of the republic, were freely published and
+listened to with toleration, if not with respect.  Even the enlightened
+mind of Grotius was troubled with terrors as to the effect on the public
+mind at this crisis of anonymous pamphlets concerning political affairs.
+But in this regard it must be admitted that Grotius was not in advance of
+his age, although fully conceding that press-laws were inconsistent with
+human liberty.
+
+Maurice and Barneveld were equally strenuous in maintaining the India
+trade; the prince, because he hoped that resistance to Spain upon this
+point would cause the negotiations to be broken off, the Advocate in the
+belief that firmness on the part of the States would induce the royal
+commissioners to yield.
+
+The States-General were not likely to be deficient in firmness.  They
+felt that the republic was exactly on the point of wresting the control
+of the East from the hands of the Portuguese, and they were not inclined
+to throw away the harvest of their previous labours just as it was
+ripening.  Ten thousand persons at least, besides the sailors employed,
+were directly interested in the traffic, most of whom possessed great
+influence in the commonwealth, and would cause great domestic dissension
+should they now be sacrificed to Spain.  To keep the India trade was the
+best guarantee for the future possession of the traffic to Spain; for the
+Spanish Government would never venture an embargo upon the direct
+intercourse between the provinces and its own dominions, for fear
+of vengeance in the East.  On the other hand, by denouncing oceanic
+commerce, they would soon find themselves without a navy at all, and
+their peaceful coasting ships would be at the mercy of Spain or of any
+power possessing that maritime energy which would have been killed in the
+republic.  By abandoning the ocean, the young commonwealth would sink
+into sloth, and become the just object of contempt to the world.  It
+would cease to be an independent power, and deserve to fall a prey to any
+enterprising neighbour.
+
+Even Villeroy admitted the common belief to be, that if the India trade
+were abandoned "the States would melt away like snow in the sun."  He
+would not, on that account, however, counsel to the States obstinacy upon
+the subject, if Spain refused peace or truce except on condition of their
+exclusion from the traffic.  Jeannin, Villeroy, and their master; Isaac
+le Maire and Peter Plancius, could have told the reason why if they had
+chosen.
+
+Early in March a triple proposition was made by the States'
+commissioners.  Spain might take her choice to make peace on the basis of
+free trade; to make peace, leaving everything beyond the Tropic of Cancer
+to the chance of war; or to make peace in regard to all other than the
+tropical regions, concluding for those only a truce during a definite
+number of years.
+
+The Spaniards rejected decidedly two of these suggestions.  Of course
+they would not concede freedom of the sea.  They considered the mixture
+of peace and war a monstrous conception.  They were, however, willing to
+favour peace for Europe and truce in the tropics, provided the States
+bound themselves; on the expiration of the limited period, to abandon the
+Indian and American trade for ever.  And to this proposition the States
+of course were deaf.  And thus they went on spinning around, day after
+day, in the same vicious circle, without more hope of progress than
+squirrels in a cage.
+
+Barneveld, always overbearing with friend or foe, and often violent, was
+not disposed to make preposterous concessions, notwithstanding his eager
+desire for peace.  "The might of the States-General," said he, "is so
+great, thank God, that they need not yield so much to the King of Spain
+as seems to be expected, nor cover themselves with dishonour."
+
+"And do you think yourselves more mighty than the Kings of England and
+France?" cried Richardot in a great rage, "for they never dared to make
+any attempt upon the Indies, East or West."
+
+"We are willing to leave the king in his own quarters," was the reply,
+"and we expect him to leave us in ours."
+
+"You had better take a sheet of paper at once," said Richardot, "write
+down exactly what you wish, and order us to agree to it all without
+discussion."
+
+"We demand nothing that is unreasonable in these negotiations," was the
+firm rejoinder, "and expect that nothing unjust will be required of us."
+
+It was now suggested by the States' commissioners that a peace; with free
+navigation, might be concluded for Europe, and a truce for other parts of
+the world, without any stipulations as to what should take place on its
+termination.  This was hardly anything new, but it served as a theme for
+more intellectual buffeting.  Hard words were freely exchanged during
+several hours; and all parties lost their temper.  At last the Spaniards
+left the conference-chamber in a rage.  Just as they were going,
+Barneveld asked them whether he should make a protocol of the session
+for the States-General, and whether it was desirable in future to resume
+the discussion.
+
+"Let every one do exactly as he likes," replied Spinola, wrathfully, as
+he moved to the door.
+
+Friar John, always plausible, whispered a few soothing words in the ear
+of the marquis, adding aloud, so that the commissioners might hear,
+"Night brings counsel."  These words he spoke in Latin.
+
+"He who wishes to get everything is apt to lose everything," cried, out
+Maldere, the Zeeland deputy, in Spanish, to the departing commissioners.
+
+"Take that to yourselves," rejoined Richardot, very fiercely; "you may be
+sure that it will be your case."'
+
+So ended that interview.
+
+Directly afterwards there was a conference between the States'
+commissioners and the French envoys.
+
+Jeannin employed all his powers of argument: and persuasion to influence
+the Netherlanders against a rupture of the negotiations because of the
+India trade.  It would be better to abandon that commerce, so he urged,
+than to give up the hope of peace.  The commissioners failed to see the
+logic or to melt at the eloquence of his discourse.  They would have been
+still less inclined, if that were possible, to move from their position,
+had they known of the secret conferences which Jeannin had just been
+holding with Isaac le Maire of Amsterdam, and other merchants practically
+familiar with the India trade.  Carrying out the French king's plan to
+rob the republic of that lucrative traffic, and to transplant it, by
+means of experienced Hollanders, into France, the president, while openly
+siding with the States, as their most disinterested friend, was secretly
+doing all in his power to destroy the very foundation of their
+commonwealth.
+
+Isaac le Maire came over from Amsterdam in a mysterious manner, almost in
+disguise.  Had his nocturnal dealings with the French minister been
+known, he would have been rudely dealt with by the East India Company.
+He was a native of Tournay, not a sincere republican therefore, was very
+strongly affected to France, and declared that all his former fellow-
+townsmen, and many more, had the fleur-de-lys stamped on their hearts.
+If peace should be made without stipulation in favour of the East India
+Company, he, with his three brothers, would do what they could to
+transfer that corporation to France.  All the details of such a
+prospective arrangement were thoroughly discussed, and it was intimated
+that the king would be expected to take shares in the enterprise.
+Jeannin had also repeated conferences on the same subject with the great
+cosmographer Plancius.  It may be well understood, therefore, that the
+minister of Henry IV. was not very ardent to encourage the States in
+their resolve to oppose peace or truce, except with concession of the
+India trade.
+
+The States preferred that the negotiations should come to nought on the
+religious ground rather than on account of the India trade.  The
+provinces were nearly unanimous as to the prohibition of the Catholic
+worship, not from bigotry for their own or hatred of other creeds, but
+from larger views of what was then called tolerance, and from practical
+regard for the necessities of the State.  To permit the old worship, not
+from a sense of justice but as an article of bargain with a foreign
+power, was not only to abase the government of the States but to convert
+every sincere Catholic throughout the republic into a grateful adherent
+of Philip and the archdukes.  It was deliberately to place a lever, to be
+used in all future time, for the overthrow of their political structure.
+
+In this the whole population was interested, while the India navigation,
+although vital to the well-being of the nation, was not yet universally
+recognised as so supremely important, and was declared by a narrow-minded
+minority to concern the provinces of Holland and Zeeland alone.
+
+All were silently agreed, therefore, to defer the religious question to
+the last.
+
+Especially, commercial greed induced the States to keep a firm clutch on
+the great river on which the once splendid city of Antwerp stood.  Ever
+since that commercial metropolis had succumbed to Farnese, the republic
+had maintained the lower forts, by means of which, and of Flushing at the
+river's mouth, Antwerp was kept in a state of suspended animation.  To
+open the navigation of the Scheld, to permit free approach to Antwerp,
+would, according to the narrow notions of the Amsterdam merchants, be
+destructive to their own flourishing trade.
+
+In vain did Richardot, in one well-fought conference, do his best to
+obtain concessions on this important point.  The States' commissioners
+were as deaf as the Spaniards had been on the India question.  Richardot,
+no longer loud and furious, began to cry.  With tears running down his
+cheeks,  he besought the Netherlanders not to insist so strenuously upon
+all their points, and to remember that concessions were mutually
+necessary, if an amicable arrangement were to be framed.  The chances for
+peace were promising.  "Let not a blight be thrown over all our hopes,"
+he exclaimed, "by too great pertinacity on either side.  Above all, let
+not the States dictate terms as to a captive or conquered king, but
+propose such conditions as a benevolent but powerful sovereign could
+accept."
+
+These adjurations might be considered admirable, if it had been possible
+for the royal commissioners to point to a single mustard-seed of
+concession ever vouchsafed by them to the republic.
+
+Meantime the month of March had passed.  Nothing had been accomplished,
+but it was agreed to prolong the armistice through April and May.
+
+The negotiations having feebly dribbled off into almost absolute
+extinction, Friar John was once more set in motion, and despatched to
+Madrid.  He was sent to get fresh instructions from Philip, and he
+promised, on departing, to return in forty days.  He hoped as his reward,
+he said, to be made bishop of Utrecht.  "That will be a little above your
+calibre," replied Barneveld.  Forty days was easily said, and the States
+consented to the additional delay.
+
+During his absence there was much tedious discussion of minor matters,
+such as staple rights of wine and cloths, regulations of boundaries,
+removal of restrictions on trade and navigation, passports, sequestered
+estates, and the like; all of which were subordinate to the all-important
+subjects of India and Religion, those two most tender topics growing so
+much more tender the more they were handled as to cause at last a shiver
+whenever they were approached.  Nevertheless both were to be dealt with,
+or the negotiations would fall to the ground.
+
+The States felt convinced that they would fall to the ground, that they
+had fallen to the ground, and they at least would not stoop to pick them
+up again.
+
+The forty days passed away, but the friar never returned.  April and May
+came and went, and again the armistice expired by its own limitation.
+The war party was disgusted with the solemn trifling, Maurice was
+exasperated beyond endurance, Barneveld and the peace men began to find
+immense difficulty in confronting the gathering storm.
+
+The prince, with difficulty, consented to a prolongation of the armistice
+for two months longer; resolute to resume hostilities should no accord be
+made before the end of July.  The Advocate, with much earnestness, and
+with more violence than was habitual with him, insisted on protracting
+the temporary truce until the end of the year.  The debates in the
+States-General and the state-council were vehement; passion rose to
+fever-heat, but the stadholder, although often half beside himself with
+rage, ended by submitting once more to the will of Barneveld.
+
+This was the easier, as the Advocate at last proposed an agreement which
+seemed to Maurice and Lewis William even better than their own original
+suggestion.  It was arranged that the armistice should be prolonged until
+the end of the year, but it was at the same time stipulated that unless
+the negotiations had reached a definite result before the 1st of August,
+they should be forthwith broken off.
+
+Thus a period of enforced calm--a kind of vacation, as if these great
+soldiers and grey-beards had been a troop of idle school-boys--was now
+established, without the slightest reason.
+
+President Jeannin took occasion to make a journey to Paris, leaving the
+Hague on the 20th June.
+
+During his absence a treaty of the States with England, similar in its
+terms to the one recently concluded between the republic and France, but
+only providing for half the number of auxiliary troops arranged for in
+the French convention, was signed at the Hague.  The English
+plenipotentiaries, Vinwood and Spencer, wished to delay the exchange of
+signatures under the pending negotiations with Spain and the archdukes
+were brought to a close, as King James was most desirous at that epoch to
+keep on good terms with his Catholic Majesty.  The States were so urgent,
+however, to bring at least this matter to a termination, and the English
+so anxious lest France should gain still greater influence than she now
+enjoyed in the provinces, that they at last gave way.  It was further
+stipulated in the convention that the debt of the States to England, then
+amounting to L815,408 sterling, should be settled by annual payments of
+L60,000; to begin with the expected peace.
+
+Besides this debt to the English Government, the States-General owed nine
+millions of florins (L900,000), and the separate provinces altogether
+eighteen millions (L1,800,000).  In short, there would be a deficiency
+of at least three hundred thousand florins a month if the war went on,
+although every imaginable device had already been employed for increasing
+the revenue from taxation. It must be admitted therefore, that the
+Barneveld party were not to be severely censured for their desire to
+bring about an honourable peace.
+
+That Jeannin was well aware of the disposition prevailing throughout a
+great part of the commonwealth is certain.  It is equally certain that he
+represented to his sovereign, while at Paris, that the demand upon his
+exchequer by the States, in case of the resumption of hostilities, would
+be more considerable than ever.  Immense was the pressure put upon Henry
+by the Spanish court, during the summer, to induce him to abandon his
+allies.  Very complicated were the nets thrown out to entangle the wary
+old politician in "the grey jacket and with the heart of gold," as he was
+fond of designating himself, into an alliance with Philip and the
+archdukes.
+
+Don Pedro de Toledo, at the head of a magnificent embassy, arrived in
+Paris with projects of arranging single, double, or triple marriages
+between the respective nurseries of France and Spain.  The Infanta might
+marry with a French prince, and have all the Netherlands for her dower,
+so soon as the childless archdukes should have departed this life.
+Or an Infante might espouse a daughter of France with the same heritage
+assigned to the young couple.
+
+Such proposals, duly set forth in sonorous Spanish by the Constable of
+Castile, failed to produce a very soothing effect on Henry's delicate
+ear.  He had seen and heard enough of gaining thrones by Spanish
+marriages.  Had not the very crown on his own head, which he had won with
+foot in stirrup and lance in rest, been hawked about for years, appended
+to the wedding ring of the Spanish Infanta?  It might become convenient
+to him at some later day, to form a family alliance with the house of
+Austria, although he would not excite suspicion in the United Provinces
+by openly accepting it then.  But to wait for the shoes of Albert and
+Isabella, and until the Dutch republic had been absorbed into the
+obedient Netherlands by his assistance, was not a very flattering
+prospect for a son or daughter of France.  The ex-Huguenot and
+indomitable campaigner in the field or in politics was for more drastic
+measures.  Should the right moment come, he knew well enough how to
+strike, and could appropriate the provinces, obedient or disobedient,
+without assistance from the Spanish babies.
+
+Don Pedro took little by his propositions.  The king stoutly declared
+that the Netherlands were very near to his heart, and that he would never
+abandon them on any consideration.  So near, indeed, that he meant to
+bring them still nearer, but this was not then suspected by the Spanish
+court; Henry, the while, repelling as a personal insult to himself the
+request that he should secretly labour to reduce the United Provinces
+under subjection to the archdukes.  It had even been proposed that he
+should sign a secret convention to that effect, and there were those
+about the court who were not ill-disposed for such a combination.
+The king was, however, far too adroit to be caught in any such trap.
+The marriage proposals in themselves he did not dislike, but Jeannin
+and he were both of a mind that they should be kept entirely secret.
+
+Don Pedro, on the contrary, for obvious reasons, was for making the
+transactions ostentatiously public, and, as a guarantee of his master's
+good faith in regard to the heritage of the Netherlands, he proposed that
+every portion of the republic, thenceforth to be conquered by the allies,
+should be confided to hands in which Henry and the archdukes would have
+equal confidence.
+
+But these artifices were too trivial to produce much effect.  Henry
+remained true, in his way, to the States-General, and Don Pedro was much
+laughed at in Paris, although the public scarcely knew wherefore.
+
+These intrigues had not been conducted so mysteriously but that Barneveld
+was aware of what was going on.  Both before Jeannin's departure from the
+Hague in June, and on his return in the middle of August, he catechised
+him very closely on the subject.  The old Leaguer was too deep, however,
+to be thoroughly pumped, even by so practised a hand as the Advocate's,
+so that more was suspected than at the time was accurately known.
+
+As, at the memorable epoch of the accession of the King of Scots to the
+throne of Elizabeth, Maximilian de Bethune had flattered the new monarch
+with the prospect of a double marriage, so now Don Fernando Girono had
+been sent on solemn mission to England, in order to offer the same
+infants to James which Don Pedro was placing at the disposition of Henry.
+
+The British sovereign, as secretly fascinated by the idea of a Spanish
+family alliance as he had ever been by the proposals of the Marquis de
+Rosny for the French marriages, listened with eagerness.  Money was
+scattered as profusely among the English courtiers by Don Fernando as had
+been done by De Bethune four years before.  The bribes were accepted, and
+often by the very personages who knew the colour of Bourbon money, but
+the ducats were scarcely earned.  Girono, thus urging on the English
+Government the necessity of deserting the republic and cementing a
+cordial, personal, and political understanding between James and Philip,
+effected but little.  It soon became thoroughly understood in England
+that the same bargaining was going on simultaneously in France.  As it
+was evident that the Spanish children could not be disposed of in both
+markets at the same time, it was plain to the dullest comprehension that
+either the brokerage of Toledo or of Girono was a sham, and that a policy
+erected upon such flimsy foundations would soon be washed away.
+
+It is certain, however, that James, while affecting friendship for the
+States, and signing with them the league of mutual assistance, was
+secretly longing to nibble the bait dangled before him by Girono, and was
+especially determined to prevent, if possible, the plans of Toledo.
+
+Meantime, brother John Neyen was dealing with Philip and the Duke of
+Lerma, in Spain.
+
+The friar strenuously urged upon the favourite and the rest of the royal
+advisers the necessity of prompt action with the States.  This needed not
+interfere with an unlimited amount of deception.  It was necessary to
+bring the negotiations to a definite agreement.  It would be by no means
+requisite, however, to hold to that agreement whenever a convenient
+opportunity for breaking it should present itself.  The first object of
+Spanish policy, argued honest John, should be to get the weapons out of
+the rebels' hands.  The Netherlanders ought to be encouraged to return to
+their usual pursuits of commerce and manufactures, whence they derived
+their support, and to disband their military and naval forces.  Their
+sailors and traders should be treated kindly in Spain, instead of being
+indulged as heretofore with no hospitality save that of the Holy
+Inquisition and its dungeons.  Let their minds be disarmed of all
+suspicion.  Now the whole population of the provinces had been convinced
+that Spain, in affecting to treat, was secretly devising means to re-
+impose her ancient yoke upon their necks.
+
+Time went by in Aranjuez and Madrid.  The forty days, promised as the
+period of Neyen's absence, were soon gone; but what were forty days, or
+forty times forty, at the Spanish court?  The friar, who, whatever his
+faults, was anything but an idler, chafed at a procrastination which
+seemed the more stupendous to him, coming fresh as he did from a busy
+people who knew the value of time.  In the anguish of his soul he went to
+Rodrigo Calderon, of the privy council, and implored his influence with
+Government to procure leave for him to depart.  Calderon, in urbane but
+decisive terms, assured him that this would be impossible before the king
+should return to Madrid.  The monk then went to Idiaquez, who was in
+favour of his proceeding at once to the Netherlands, but who on being
+informed that Calderon was of a different opinion, gave up the point.
+More distressed than ever, Neyen implored Prada's assistance, but Prada
+plunged him into still deeper despair.  His Majesty, said that
+counsellor, with matchless effrontery, was studying the propositions of
+the States-General, and all the papers in the negotiation, line by line,
+comma by comma.  There were many animadversions to make, many counter
+suggestions to offer.  The king was pondering the whole subject most
+diligently.  When those lucubrations were finished, the royal decision,
+aided by the wisdom of the privy council, would be duly communicated to
+the archdukes.
+
+To wait for an answer to the propositions of the suspicious States-
+General until Philip III.  had mastered the subject in detail, was a
+prospect too dreary even for the equable soul of Brother John.  Dismayed
+at the position in which he found himself, he did his best to ferret out
+the reasons for the preposterous delay; not being willing to be paid off
+in allusions to the royal investigations.  He was still further appalled
+at last by discovering that the delay was absolutely for the delay's
+sake.  It was considered inconsistent with the dignity of the Government
+not to delay.  The court and cabinet had quite made up their minds as to
+the answer to be made to the last propositions of the rebels, but to make
+it known at once was entirely out of the question.  In the previous year
+his Majesty's administration, so it was now confessed with shame, had
+acted with almost indecent haste.  That everything had been conceded to
+the confederated provinces was the--common talk of Europe.  Let the time-
+honoured, inveterate custom of Spain in grave affairs to proceed slowly,
+and therefore surely, be in future observed.  A proper self-respect
+required the king to keep the universe in suspense for a still longer
+period upon the royal will and the decision of the royal council.
+
+Were the affairs of the mighty Spanish empire so subordinate to the
+convenience of that portion of it called the Netherlands that no time was
+to be lost before settling their affairs?
+
+Such dismal frivolity, such palsied pride, seems scarcely credible; but
+more than all this has been carefully recorded in the letters of the
+friar.
+
+If it were precipitation to spend the whole year 1607 in forming a single
+phrase; to wit, that the archdukes and the king would treat with the
+United Provinces as with countries to which they made no pretensions; and
+to spend the best part of another year in futile efforts to recal that
+phrase; if all this had been recklessness and haste, then, surely, the
+most sluggish canal in Holland was a raging cataract, and the march of a
+glacier electric speed.
+
+Midsummer had arrived.  The period in which peace was to be made or
+abandoned altogether had passed.  Jeannin had returned from his visit to
+Paris; the Danish envoys, sent to watch the negotiations, had left the
+Hague, utterly disgusted with a puppet-show, all the strings of which,
+they protested, were pulled from the Louvre.  Brother John, exasperated
+by the superhuman delays, fell sick of a fever at Burgos, and was sent,
+on his recovery, to the court at Valladolid to be made ill again by the
+same cause, and still there came no sound from the Government of Spain.
+
+At last the silence was broken.  Something that was called the voice of
+the king reached the ears of the archduke.  Long had he wrestled in
+prayer on this great subject, said Philip III., fervently had he besought
+the Omnipotent for light.  He had now persuaded himself that he should
+not fulfil his duty to God, nor satisfy his own strong desire for
+maintaining the Catholic faith, nor preserve his self-respect, if he now
+conceded his supreme right to the Confederated Provinces at any other
+price than the uncontrolled exercise, within their borders, of the
+Catholic religion.  He wished, therefore, as obedient son of the Church
+and Defender of the Faith, to fulfil this primary duty, untrammelled by
+any human consideration, by any profit that might induce him towards a
+contrary course.  That which he had on other occasions more than once
+signified he now confirmed.  His mind was fixed; this was his last and
+immutable determination, that if the confederates should permit the free
+and public exercise of the Catholic, Roman, Apostolic religion to all
+such as wished to live and die in it, for this cause so grateful to God,
+and for no other reason, he also would permit to them that supreme right
+over the provinces, and that authority which now belonged to himself.
+Natives and residents of those countries should enjoy liberty, just so
+long as the exercise of the Catholic religion flourished there, and not
+one day nor hour longer.
+
+Philip then proceeded flatly to refuse the India navigation, giving
+reasons very satisfactory to himself why the provinces ought cheerfully
+to abstain from that traffic.  If the confederates, in consequence of the
+conditions thus definitely announced, moved by their innate pride and
+obstinacy, and relying on the assistance of their allies, should break
+off the negotiations, then it would be desirable to adopt the plan
+proposed by Jeannin to Richardot, and conclude a truce for five or six
+years.  The king expressed his own decided preference for a truce rather
+than a peace, and his conviction that Jeannin had made the suggestion by
+command of his sovereign.
+
+The negotiators stood exactly where they did when Friar John, disguised
+as a merchant, first made his bow to the Prince and Barneveld in the
+palace at the Hague.
+
+The archduke, on receiving at last this peremptory letter from the king,
+had nothing for it but to issue instructions accordingly to the
+plenipotentiaries at the Hague.  A decisive conference between those
+diplomatists and the States' commissioners took place immediately
+afterwards.
+
+It was on the 20th August.
+
+Although it had been agreed on the 1st May to break off negotiations on
+the ensuing 1st of August, should no result be reached, yet three weeks
+beyond that period had been suffered to elapse, under a tacit agreement
+to wait a little longer for the return of the friar.  President Jeannin,
+too, had gone to Paris on the 20th June, to receive new and important
+instructions; verbal and written, from his sovereign, and during his
+absence it had not been thought expedient to transact much business.
+Jeannin returned to the Hague on the 15th of August, and, as definite
+instructions from king and archduke had now arrived, there seemed no
+possibility of avoiding an explanation.
+
+The Spanish envoys accordingly, with much gravity, and as if they had
+been propounding some cheerful novelty, announced to the assembled
+commissioners that all reports hitherto flying about as to the Spanish
+king's intentions were false.
+
+His Majesty had no intention of refusing to give up the sovereignty of
+the provinces.  On the contrary, they were instructed to concede that
+sovereignty freely and frankly to my lords the States-General--a pearl
+and a precious jewel, the like of which no prince had ever given away
+before.  Yet the king desired neither gold nor silver, neither cities nor
+anything else of value in exchange.  He asked only for that which was
+indispensable to the tranquillity of his conscience before God, to wit,
+the re-establishment in those countries of the Catholic Apostolic Roman
+religion.  This there could surely be no reasons for refusing.  They owed
+it as a return for the generosity of the king, they owed it to their own
+relatives, they owed it to the memory of their ancestors, not to show
+greater animosity to the ancient religion than to the new and pernicious
+sect of Anabaptists, born into the world for the express purpose of
+destroying empires; they owed it to their many fellow-citizens, who would
+otherwise be driven into exile, because deprived of that which is dearest
+to humanity.
+
+In regard to the East India navigation, inasmuch as the provinces had no
+right whatever to it, and as no other prince but the sovereign of Spain
+had any pretensions to it, his Majesty expected that the States would at
+once desist from it.
+
+This was the magnificent result of twenty months of diplomacy.  As the
+king's father had long ago flung away the pearl and precious jewel which
+the son now made a merit of selling to its proprietors at the price of
+their life's blood--the world's commerce--it is difficult to imagine that
+Richardot, while communicating thin preposterous ultimatum, could have
+kept his countenance.  But there were case-hardened politicians on both
+sides.  The proposition was made and received with becoming seriousness,
+and it was decided by the States' commissioners to make no answer at all
+on that occasion.  They simply promised to render their report to the
+States-General, who doubtless would make short work with the matter.
+
+They made their report and it occasioned a tumult.  Every member present
+joined in a general chorus of wrathful denunciation.  The Spanish
+commissioners were infamous swindlers, it was loudly asserted.  There
+should be no more dealings with them at all.  Spain was a power only to
+be treated with on the battle-field.  In the tempest of general rage no
+one would listen to argument, no one asked which would be the weaker,
+which the stronger party, what resources for the renewed warfare could be
+founds or who would be the allies of the republic.  Hatred, warlike fury
+and scorn at the duplicity with which they had been treated, washed every
+more politic sentiment away, and metamorphosed that body of burghers as
+in an instant.  The negotiations should be broken off, not on one point,
+but on all points, and nothing was left but to prepare instantly for war.
+Three days later, after the French and  English ambassadors, as well as
+Prince Maurice and Count Lewis William, had been duly consulted,
+comparative calm was restored, and a decisive answer was unanimously
+voted by the States-General.  The proposition of the commissioners was
+simply declared to be in direct violation of the sovereignty and freedom
+of the country, and it was announced that, if it should be persisted in,
+the whole negotiation might be considered as broken off.  A formal answer
+to the royal propositions would be communicated likewise to the envoys of
+foreign powers, in order that the royal commissioners might be placed
+completely in the wrong.
+
+On the 25th August an elaborate response was accordingly delivered in
+writing by the States' commissioners to those of the archdukes and king,
+it being at the same time declared by Barneveld and his colleagues that
+their functions were ended, and that this document, emanating from the
+States-General, was a sovereign resolution, not a diplomatic note.
+
+The contents of this paper may be inferred from all that has been
+previously narrated.  The republic knew its own mind, and had always
+expressed itself with distinctness.  The Spanish Government having at
+last been brought to disclose its intentions, there was an end to the
+negotiations for peace.  The rupture was formally announced.
+
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Night brings counsel
+This obstinate little republic
+Triple marriages between the respective nurseries
+Usual expedient by which bad legislation on one side countered
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v81
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 82, 1608
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+     Designs of Henry IV.--New marriage project between France and Spain
+     Formal proposition of negotiating for a truce between the States and
+     Spain--Exertions of Prince Maurice to counteract the designs of
+     Barneveld--Strife between the two parties in the republic--Animosity
+     of the people against Barneveld--Return of the Spanish
+     commissioners--Further trifling--Dismissal of the commissioners--
+     Close of the negotiations--Accidental discovery of the secret
+     instructions of the archdukes to the commissioners--Opposing
+     factions in the republic--Oration of President Jeannin before the
+     States-General--Comparison between the Dutch and Swiss republics--
+     Calumnies against the Advocate--Ambassador Lambert in France--
+     Henry's letter to Prince Maurice--Reconciliation of Maurice and
+     Barneveld--Agreement of the States to accept a truce.
+
+President Jeannin had long been prepared for this result.  It was also by
+no means distasteful to him.  A peace would not have accorded with the
+ulterior and secretly cherished schemes of his sovereign, and during his
+visit to Paris, he had succeeded in persuading Henry that a truce would
+be far the most advantageous solution of the question, so far as his
+interests were concerned.
+
+For it had been precisely during that midsummer vacation of the President
+at Paris that Henry had completed his plot against the liberty of the
+republic, of which he professed himself the only friend.  Another phase
+of Spanish marriage-making had excited his ever scheming and insidious
+brain.  It had been proposed that the second son of the Spanish king
+should espouse one of Henry's daughters.
+
+The papal Nuncius asked what benefit the King of Spain would receive for
+his share, in case of the marriage.  The French king replied by plainly
+declaring to the Nuncius that the United States should abstain from and
+renounce all navigation to and commerce with the Indies, and should
+permit public exercise of the Catholic religion.  If they refused, would
+incontinently abandon them to their fate.  More than this, he said, could
+not honestly be expected of him.
+
+Surely this was enough.  Honestly or dishonestly, what more could Spain
+expect of the republic's best ally, than that he should use all his
+efforts to bring her back into Spanish subjection, should deprive her of
+commerce with three-quarters of the world, and compel her to re-establish
+the religion which she believed, at that period, to be incompatible with
+her constitutional liberties?  It is difficult to imagine a more
+profligate or heartless course than the one pursued at this juncture
+by Henry.  Secretly, he was intriguing, upon the very soil of the
+Netherlands, to filch from them that splendid commerce which was the
+wonder of the age, which had been invented and created by Dutch
+navigators and men of science, which was the very foundation of their
+State, and without which they could not exist, in order that he might
+appropriate it to himself, and transfer the East India Company to France;
+while at Paris he was solemnly engaging himself in a partnership with
+their ancient and deadly enemy to rob them of their precious and nobly
+gained liberty.  Was better proof ever afforded that God alone can
+protect us against those whom we trust?  Who was most dangerous to the
+United Provinces during those memorable peace negotiations, Spain the
+avowed enemy, or France the friend?
+
+The little republic had but her own sword, her own brain, and her own
+purse to rely upon.  Elizabeth was dead, and James loved Spain better
+than he did the Netherlands, and quiet better than Spain.  "I have told
+you often," said Caron, "and I say it once more, the Spaniard is lucky
+that he has such a peaceable king as this to deal with in England."
+
+The details of the new marriage project were arranged at Paris between
+the Nuncius, the Spanish ambassador, Don Pedro de Toledo, the diplomatic
+agent of the archdukes, and Henry's ministers, precisely as if there had
+been no negotiations going on between the States and Spain.  Yet the
+French king was supposed to be the nearest friend of the States, and was
+consulted by them on every occasion, while his most intimate and trusted
+counsellor, the ingenuous Jeannin, whose open brow was stamped with
+sincerity, was privy to all their most secret deliberations.
+
+But the statesman thus dealing with the Hollanders under such a mask of
+friendly candour, knew perfectly well the reason why his Government
+preferred a truce to a peace.  During a prolonged truce, the two royal
+children would grow old enough for the consummation of marriage, and the
+States--so it was hoped--would be corrupted and cajoled into renouncing
+their liberty.  All the Netherlands would be then formed into a
+secundogeniture for Spain, and the first sovereign would be the husband
+of a French princess.  Even as an object of ambition, the prize to be
+secured by so much procrastination and so much treachery was paltry.
+
+When the Spanish commissioners came to the French and English ambassadors
+accordingly, complaining of the abrupt and peremptory tone of the States'
+reply, the suggestion of conferences for truce, in place of fruitless
+peace negotiations, was made at once, and of course favourably received.
+It was soon afterwards laid before the States-General.  To this end, in
+truth, Richardot and his colleagues had long been secretly tending.
+Moreover, the subject had been thoroughly but secretly discussed long
+before between Jeannin and Barneveld.
+
+The French and English ambassadors, accordingly, on the 27th August, came
+before the States-General, and made a formal proposition for the opening
+of negotiations for a truce.  They advised the adoption of this course in
+the strongest manner.  "Let the truce be made with you," they said, "as
+with free States, over which the king and the archdukes have no
+pretensions, with the understanding that, during the time of the truce
+you are to have free commerce as well to the Indies as to Spain and the
+obedient Netherlands, and to every part of the Spanish dominions; that
+you are to retain all that you possess at present, and that such other
+conditions are to be added as you may find it reasonable to impose.
+During this period of leisure you will have time to put your affairs in
+order, to pay your debts, and to reform your Government, and if you
+remain united, the truce will change into an absolute peace."
+
+Maurice was more indignant when the new scheme was brought to his notice
+than he had ever been before, and used more violent language in opposing
+a truce than he had been used to employ when striving against a peace.
+To be treated with, as with a free State, and to receive permission to
+trade with the outside world until the truce should expire, seemed to him
+a sorry result for the republic to accept.
+
+The state-council declared, by way of answer to the foreign ambassadors,
+that the principal points and conditions which had been solemnly fixed,
+before the States had consented to begin the negotiations, had been
+disputed with infinite effrontery and shamelessness by the enemy.  The
+pure and perfect sovereignty notoriously included religion and navigation
+to any part of the world; and the republic would never consent to any
+discussion of truce unless these points were confirmed beforehand with
+the Spanish king's signature and seal.
+
+This resolution of the council--a body which stood much under the
+influence of the Nassaus--was adopted next day by the States-General, and
+duly communicated to the friendly ambassadors.
+
+The foreign commissioners, when apprised of this decision, begged for six
+weeks' time; in order to be able to hear from Madrid.
+
+Even the peace party was disgusted with this impertinence.  Maurice
+boiled over with wrath.  The ambassadors recommended compliance with.
+the proposal.  Their advice was discussed in the States-General, eighty
+members being present, besides Maurice and Lewis William.  The stadholder
+made a violent and indignant speech.
+
+He was justified in his vehemence.  Nothing could exceed the perfidy of
+their great ally.
+
+"I know that the King of France calculates thus"--wrote Aerssens at that
+moment from Paris--"'If the truce lasts seven years, my son will be old
+enough to accomplish the proposed marriage, and they will be obliged to
+fulfil their present offers.  Otherwise; I would break the truce in the
+Netherlands, and my own peace with them, in order to take from the
+Spaniard by force what he led me to hope from alliance.'  Thus it is,"
+continued the States' envoy, "that his Majesty condescends to propose,
+to us a truce, which may have a double interpretation, according to the
+disposition of the strongest, and thus our commonwealth will be kept in
+perpetual disquiet, without knowing whether it is sovereign or not.  Nor
+will it be sovereign unless it shall so please our neighbour, who by this
+means will always keep his foot upon our throat."
+
+"To treat with the States as if they were free," said Henry to the
+Nuncius soon afterwards, "is not to make them free.  This clause does no
+prejudice to the rights of the King of Spain, except for the time of the
+truce."  Aerssens taxed the king with having said this.  His Majesty
+flatly denied it.  The republican envoy bluntly adduced the testimony of
+the ambassadors of Venice and of Wirtemberg.  The king flew into a rage
+on seeing that his secrets had been divulged, and burst out with these
+words: "What you demand is not reasonable.  You wish the king of Spain to
+renounce his rights in order to arrive at a truce.  You wish to dictate
+the law to him.  If you had just gained four battles over him, you could
+not demand more.  I have always held you for sovereigns, because I am
+your friend, but if you would judge by equity and justice, you are not
+sovereigns.  It is not reasonable that the king of Spain should quit the
+sovereignty for always, and you ought to be satisfied with having it so
+long as the treaty shall last."
+
+Here was playing at sovereignty with a vengeance.  Sovereignty was a
+rattle for the States to amuse themselves with, until the royal infants,
+French and Spanish, should be grown old enough to take the sovereignty
+for good.  Truly this was indeed keeping the republic under the king's
+heel to be crushed at his pleasure, as Aerssens, with just bitterness,
+exclaimed.
+
+Two days were passed at the Hague in vehement debate.  The deputies of
+Zeeland withdrew.  The deputies from Holland were divided, but, on the
+whole, it was agreed to listen to propositions of truce, provided the
+freedom of the United Provinces--not under conditions nor during a
+certain period, but simply and for all time--should be recognised
+beforehand.
+
+It was further decided on the 14th September to wait until the end of the
+month for the answer from Spain.
+
+After the 1st of October it was distinctly intimated to the Spanish
+commissioners that they must at once leave the country unless the king
+had then acknowledged the absolute independence of the provinces.
+
+A suggestion which had been made by these diplomatists to prolong the
+actually existing armistice into a truce of seven years, a step which
+they professed themselves willing to take upon their own responsibility,
+had been scornfully rejected by the States.  It was already carrying them
+far enough away, they said, to take them away from a peace to a truce,
+which was something far less secure than a peace, but the continuance of
+this floating, uncertain armistice would be the most dangerous insecurity
+of all.  This would be going from firm land to slippery ice, and from
+slippery ice into the water.  By such a process, they would have neither
+war nor peace--neither liberty of government nor freedom of commerce--and
+they unanimously refused to listen to any such schemes.
+
+During the fortnight which followed this provisional consent of the
+States, the prince redoubled his efforts to counteract the Barneveld
+party.
+
+He was determined, so far as in him lay, that the United Netherlands
+should never fall back under the dominion of Spain.  He had long
+maintained the impossibility of effecting their thorough independence
+except by continuing the war, and had only with reluctance acquiesced in
+the arguments of the French ambassadors in favour of peace negotiations.
+As to the truce, he vehemently assured those envoys that it was but a
+trap.  How could the Netherlanders know who their friends might be when
+the truce should have expired, and under what unfavourable auspices they
+might not be compelled to resume hostilities?
+
+As if he had been actually present at the council boards in Madrid and
+Valladolid, or had been reading the secret letters of Friar John to
+Spinola, he affirmed that the only object of Spain was to recruit her
+strength and improve her finances, now entirely exhausted.  He believed,
+on the other hand, that the people of the provinces, after they should
+have once become accustomed to repose; would shrink from exchanging their
+lucrative pursuits for war, and would prefer to fall back under the yoke
+of Spain.  During the truce they would object to the furnishing of
+necessary contributions for garrison expenses, and the result would be
+that the most important cities and strongholds, especially those on the
+frontier, which were mainly inhabited by Catholics, would become
+insecure.  Being hostile to a Government which only controlled them by
+force, they would with difficulty be kept in check by diminished
+garrisons, unless they should obtain liberty of Catholic worship.
+
+It is a dismal proof of the inability of a leading mind, after half a
+century's war, to comprehend the true lesson of the war--that toleration
+of the Roman religion seemed to Maurice an entirely inadmissible idea.
+The prince could not rise to the height on which his illustrious father
+had stood; and those about him, who encouraged him in his hostility to
+Catholicism, denounced Barneveld and Arminius as no better than traitors
+and atheists.  In the eyes of the extreme party, the mighty war had been
+waged, not to liberate human thought, but to enforce predestination; and
+heretics to Calvinism were as offensive in their eyes as Jews and
+Saracens had ever been to Torquemada.
+
+The reasons were unanswerable for the refusal of the States to bind
+themselves to a foreign sovereign in regard to the interior
+administration of their commonwealth; but that diversity of religious
+worship should be considered incompatible with the health of the young
+republic--that the men who had so bravely fought the Spanish Inquisition
+should now claim their own right of inquisition into the human
+conscience--this was almost enough to create despair as to the
+possibility of the world's progress.  The seed of intellectual
+advancement is slow in ripening, and it is almost invariably the case
+that the generation which plants--often but half conscious of the
+mightiness of its work--is not the generation which reaps the harvest.
+But all mankind at last inherits what is sown in the blood and tears of a
+few.  That Government, whether regal or democratic, should dare to thrust
+itself between man and his Maker--that the State, not with interfering in
+a thousand superfluous ways with the freedom of individual human action
+in the business of life, should combine with the Church to reduce human
+thought to slavery in regard to the sacred interests of eternity, was one
+day to be esteemed a blasphemous presumption in lands which deserved to
+call themselves free.  But that hour had not yet come.
+
+"If the garrisons should be weakened," said the prince, "nothing could be
+expected from the political fidelity of the town populations in question,
+unless they should be allowed the exercise of their own religion.  But
+the States could hardly be disposed  to grant this voluntarily, for fear
+of injuring the general insecurity and violating the laws of the
+commonwealth, built as it is upon a foundation which cannot suffer this
+diversity in the public exercise of religion.  Already," continued
+Maurice, "there are the seeds of dissension in the provinces and in the
+cities, sure to ripen in the idleness and repose of peace to an open
+division.  This would give the enemy a means of intriguing with and
+corrupting those who are already wickedly inclined."
+
+Thus in the year 1608, the head of the Dutch republic, the son of William
+the Silent, seemed to express himself in favour of continuing a horrible
+war, not to maintain the political independence of his country, but to
+prevent Catholics from acquiring the right of publicly worshipping God
+according to the dictates of their conscience.
+
+Yet it would be unjust to the prince, whose patriotism was as pure and
+unsullied as his sword, to confound his motives with his end.  He was
+firmly convinced that liberty of religious worship, to be acquired during
+the truce, would inevitably cause the United Provinces to fall once more
+under the Spanish yoke.  The French ambassador, with whom he conferred
+every day, never doubted his sincerity.  Gelderland, Friesland,
+Overyssel, Groningen, and Utrecht, five provinces out of the united
+seven, the prince declared to be chiefly inhabited by Catholics.  They
+had only entered the union, he said, because compelled by force.  They
+could only be kept in the union by force, unless allowed freedom of
+religion.  His inference from such a lamentable state of affairs was, not
+that the experiment of religious worship should be tried, but that the
+garrisons throughout the five provinces ought to be redoubled, and the
+war with Spain indefinitely waged.  The President was likewise of opinion
+that "a revolt of these five provinces against the union might be at any
+moment expected, ill disposed as they were to recognise a sovereignty
+which abolished their religion."  Being himself a Catholic, however, it
+was not unnatural that he should make a different deduction from that of
+the prince, and warmly recommend, not more garrisons, but more liberty of
+worship.
+
+Thus the very men who were ready to dare all, and to sacrifice all in
+behalf of their country, really believed themselves providing for the
+imperishable security of the commonwealth by placing it on the narrow
+basis of religious intolerance.
+
+Maurice, not satisfied with making these vehement arguments against the
+truce in his conferences with the envoys of the French and British
+sovereigns, employed the brief interval yet to elapse before definitely
+breaking off or resuming the conferences with the Spanish commissioners
+in making vigorous appeals to the country.
+
+"The weal or woe of the United Provinces for all time," he said, "is
+depending on the present transactions."  Weigh well the reasons we urge,
+and make use of those which seem to you convincing.  You know that the
+foe, according to his old deceitful manner, laid down very specious
+conditions at the beginning, in order to induce my lords the States-
+General to treat.
+
+"If the king and the archdudes sincerely mean to relinquish absolutely
+their pretensions to these provinces, they can certainly have no
+difficulty in finding honest and convenient words to express their
+intention.  As they are seeking other phrases than the usual and
+straightforward ones, they give certain proof that they mean to keep back
+from us the substance.  They are trying to cheat us with dark, dubious,
+loosely-screwed terms, which secure nothing and bind to nothing.  If it
+be wise to trust the welfare of our State to ambiguous words, you can
+judge according to your own discretion.
+
+"Recognition of our sovereignty is the foundation-stone of these
+negotiations.
+
+"Let every man be assured that, with such mighty enemies, we can do
+nothing by halves.  We cannot afford to retract, mutilate, or moderate
+our original determination.  He who swerves from the straight road at the
+beginning is lost; he who stumbles at the first step is apt to fall down
+the whole staircase.  If, on account of imaginable necessity, we postpone
+that most vital point, the assurance of our freedom, we shall very easily
+allow less important points to pass muster, and at last come tamely into
+the path of reconciliation.  That was exactly the danger which our
+ancestors in similar negotiations always feared, and against which we too
+have always done our best to guard ourselves.
+
+"Wherefore, if the preservation of our beloved fatherland is dear to you,
+I exhort you to maintain that great fundamental resolution, at all times
+and against all men, even if this should cause the departure of the
+enemy's commissioners.  What can you expect from them but evil fruit?"
+
+He then advised all the estates and magistracies which he was addressing
+to instruct their deputies, at the approaching session of the States-
+General, to hold on to the first article of the often-cited preliminary
+resolution without allowing one syllable to be altered.  Otherwise
+nothing could save the commonwealth from dire and notorious confusion.
+Above all, he entreated them to act in entire harmony and confidence with
+himself and his cousin, even as they had ever done with his illustrious
+father.
+
+Certainly the prince fully deserved the confidence of the States, as well
+for his own signal services and chivalrous self-devotion, as for the
+unexampled sacrifices and achievements of William the Silent.  His words
+had the true patriotic ring of his father's frequent and eloquent
+appeals; and I have not hesitated to give these extracts from his
+discourse, because comparatively few of such utterances of Maurice have
+been preserved, and because it gives a vivid impression of the condition
+of the republic and the state of parties at that momentous epoch.  It was
+not merely the fate of the United Netherlands and the question of peace
+or war between the little republic and its hereditary enemy that were
+upon the issue.  The peace of all Christendom, the most considerable
+material interests of civilization, and the highest political and moral
+principles that can influence human action, were involved in those
+negotiations.
+
+There were not wanting many to impeach the purity of the stadholder's
+motives.  As admiral or captain-general, he received high salaries,
+besides a tenth part of all prize-money gained at sea by the fleets,
+or of ransom and blackmail on land by the armies of the republic.  His
+profession, his ambition, his delights, were those of a soldier.  As a
+soldier in a great war, he was more necessary to his countrymen than he
+could expect to be as a statesman in time of peace.  But nothing ever
+appeared in public or in private, which threw a reasonable suspicion upon
+his lofty patriotism.  Peace he had always believed to be difficult of
+attainment.  It had now been proved impossible.  A truce he honestly
+considered a pitfall of destruction, and he denounced it, as we have
+seen, in the language of energetic conviction.  He never alluded to his
+pecuniary losses in case peace should be made.  His disinterested
+patriotism was the frequent subject of comment in the most secret letters
+of the French ambassadors to the king.  He had repeatedly refused
+enormous offers if he would forsake the cause of the republic.  The King
+of France was ever ready to tempt him with bribes, such as had proved
+most efficacious with men as highly born and as highly placed as a cadet
+of the house of Orange-Nassau.  But there is no record that Jeannin
+assailed him at this crisis with such temptations, although it has not
+been pretended that the prince was obdurate to the influence of Mammon
+when that deity could be openly approached.
+
+That Maurice loved power, pelf, and war, can hardly be denied.  That he
+had a mounting ambition; that he thought a monarchy founded upon the
+historical institutions and charters of the provinces might be better
+than the burgher-aristocracy which, under the lead of Barneveld, was
+establishing itself in the country; that he knew no candidate so eligible
+for such a throne as his father's son, all this is highly probable and
+scarcely surprising.  But that such sentiments or aspirations caused him
+to swerve the ninth part of a hair from what he considered the direct
+path of duty; that he determined to fight out the great fight with Spain
+and Rome until the States were free in form, in name, and in fact; only
+that he might then usurp a sovereignty which would otherwise revert to
+Philip of Spain or be snatched by Henry of Navarre--of all this there is
+no proof whatever.
+
+The language of Lewis William to the provinces under his government was
+quite as vigorous as the appeals of Maurice.
+
+During the brief interval remaining before the commissioners should
+comply with the demands of the States or take their departure, the press
+throughout the Netherlands was most active.  Pamphlets fell thick as
+hail.  The peace party and the war party contended with each other,
+over all the territory of the provinces, as vigorously as the troops
+of Fuentes or Bucquoy had ever battled with the columns of Bax and
+Meetkerke.  The types of Blaauw and Plantin were as effective during the
+brief armistice, as pike and arquebus in the field, but unfortunately
+they were used by Netherlanders against each other.  As a matter of
+course, each party impeached the motives as well as the actions of its
+antagonist.  The adherents of the Advocate accused the stadholder of
+desiring the continuance of the war for personal aims.  They averred that
+six thousand men for guarding the rivers would be necessary, in addition
+to the forty-five thousand men, now kept constantly on foot.  They placed
+the requisite monthly expenses, if  hostilities were resumed, at 800,000
+florins, while they pointed to the 27,000,000 of debt over and above the
+8,000,000 due to the British crown, as a burthen under which the republic
+could scarcely stagger much longer.  Such figures seem modest enough, as
+the price of a war of independence.
+
+Familiar with the gigantic budgets of our own day, we listen with
+something like wonder, now that two centuries and a half have passed,
+to the fierce denunciations by the war party of these figures as wilful
+fictions.  Science has made in that interval such gigantic strides.  The
+awful intellect of man may at last make war impossible for his physical
+strength.  He can forge but cannot wield the hammer of Thor; nor has
+Science yet discovered the philosopher's stone.  Without it, what
+exchequer can accept chronic warfare and escape bankruptcy?  After what
+has been witnessed in these latest days, the sieges and battles of that
+distant epoch seem like the fights of pigmies and cranes.  Already an
+eighty years' war, such as once was waged, has become inconceivable.  Let
+two more centuries pass away, and perhaps a three weeks' campaign may
+exhaust an empire.
+
+Meantime the war of words continued.  A proclamation with penalties was
+issued by the States against the epidemic plague of pamphlets or "blue-
+books," as those publications were called in Holland, but with little
+result.  It was not deemed consistent with liberty by those republicans
+to put chains on the press because its utterances might occasionally be
+distasteful to magistrates.  The writers, printers, and sellers of the
+"blue-books" remained unpunished and snapped their fingers at the
+placard.
+
+We have seen the strenuous exertions of the Nassaus and their adherents
+by public appeals and private conversation to defeat all schemes of
+truce.  The people were stirred by the eloquence of the two stadholders.
+They were stung to fury against Spain and against Barneveld by the
+waspish effusions of the daily press.  The magistrates remained calm,
+and took part by considerable majorities with Barneveld.  That statesman,
+while exercising almost autocratic influence in the estates, became more
+and more odious to the humbler classes, to the Nassaus, and especially
+to the Calvinist clergy.  He was denounced, as a papist, an atheist,
+a traitor, because striving for an honourable peace with the foe, and
+because admitting the possibility of more than one road to the kingdom of
+Heaven.  To doubt the infallibility of Calvin was as heinous a crime, in
+the eyes of his accusers, as to kneel to the host.  Peter Titelmann, half
+a century earlier, dripping with the blood of a thousand martyrs, seemed
+hardly a more loathsome object to all Netherlanders than the Advocate now
+appeared to his political enemies, thus daring to preach religious
+toleration, and boasting of, humble ignorance as the safest creed.
+Alas! we must always have something to persecute, and individual man is
+never so convinced of his own wisdom as when dealing with subjects beyond
+human comprehension.
+
+Unfortunately, however, while the great Advocate was clear in his
+conscience he had scarcely clean hands.  He had very recently accepted a
+present of twenty thousand florins from the King of France.  That this
+was a bribe by which his services were to be purchased for a cause not in
+harmony with his own convictions it would be unjust to say.  We of a
+later generation, who have had the advantage of looking through the
+portfolio of President Jeannin, and of learning the secret intentions of
+that diplomatist and of his master, can fully understand however that
+there was more than sufficient cause at the time for suspecting the
+purity of the great Advocate's conduct.  We are perfectly aware that the
+secret instructions of Henry gave his plenipotentiaries almost unlimited
+power to buy up as many influential personages in the Netherlands as
+could be purchased.  So they would assist in making the king master of
+the United Provinces at the proper moment there was scarcely any price
+that he was not willing to pay.
+
+Especially Prince Maurice, his cousin, and the Advocate of Holland, were
+to be secured by life pensions, property, offices, and dignities, all
+which Jeannin might offer to an almost unlimited amount, if by such means
+those great personages could possibly be induced to perform the king's
+work.
+
+There is no record that the president ever held out such baits at this
+epoch to the prince.  There could never be a doubt however in any one's
+mind that if the political chief of the Orange-Nassau house ever wished
+to make himself the instrument by which France should supplant Spain in
+the tyranny of the Netherlands, he might always name his own price.
+Jeannin never insulted him with any such trading propositions.  As for
+Barneveld, he avowed long years afterwards that he had accepted the
+twenty thousand florins, and that the king had expressly exacted secrecy
+in regard to the transaction.  He declared however that the money was a
+reward for public services rendered by him to the French Government ten
+years before, in the course of his mission to France at the time of the
+peace of Vervins.  The reward had been promised in 1598, and the pledge
+was fulfilled in 1608.  In accepting wages fairly earned, however, he
+protested that he had bound himself to no dishonourable service, and that
+he had never exchanged a word with Jeannin or with any man in regard to
+securing for Henry the sovereignty of the Netherlands.
+
+His friends moreover maintained in his defence that there were no laws in
+the Netherlands forbidding citizens to accept presents or pensions from
+foreign powers.  Such an excuse was as bad as the accusation.  Woe to the
+republic whose citizens require laws to prevent them from becoming
+stipendiaries of foreign potentates!  If public virtue, the only
+foundation of republican institutions, be so far washed away that laws in
+this regard are necessary to save it from complete destruction, then
+already the republic is impossible.  Many who bore illustrious names, and
+occupied the highest social positions at, that day in France, England,
+and the obedient provinces, were as venal as cattle at a fair.  Philip
+and Henry had bought them over and over again, whenever either was rich
+enough to purchase and strong enough to enforce the terms of sale.
+Bribes were taken with both hands in overflowing measure; the difficulty
+was only in obtaining the work for the wage.
+
+But it would have been humiliating beyond expression had the new
+commonwealth, after passing through the fiery furnace of its great war,
+proved no purer than leading monarchies at a most corrupt epoch.  It was
+no wonder therefore that men sought to wipe off the stain from the
+reputation of Barneveld, and it is at least a solace that there was no
+proof of his ever rendering, or ever having agreed to render, services
+inconsistent with his convictions as to the best interests of the
+commonwealth.  It is sufficiently grave that he knew the colour of the
+king's money, and that in a momentous crisis of history he accepted a
+reward for former professional services, and that the broker in the
+transaction, President Jeannin, seriously charged him by Henry's orders
+to keep the matter secret.  It would be still more dismal if Jeannin, in
+his private letters, had ever intimated to Villeroy or his master that he
+considered it a mercantile transaction, or if any effort had ever been
+made by the Advocate to help Henry to the Batavian throne.  This however
+is not the case.
+
+In truth, neither Maurice nor Barneveld was likely to assist the French
+king in his intrigues against the independence of their fatherland.  Both
+had higher objects of ambition than to become the humble and well-paid
+servants of a foreign potentate.  The stadholder doubtless dreamed of a
+crown which might have been his father's, and which his own illustrious
+services might be supposed to have earned for himself.  If that tempting
+prize were more likely to be gained by a continuance of the war, it is
+none the less certain that he considered peace, and still more truce, as
+fatal to the independence of the provinces.
+
+The Advocate, on the other hand, loved his country well.  Perhaps he
+loved power even better.  To govern the city magistracies of Holland,
+through them the provincial estates; and through them again the States-
+General of the whole commonwealth; as first citizen of a republic to
+wield; the powers of a king; as statesman, diplomatist, and financier, to
+create a mighty empire out of those slender and but recently emancipated
+provinces of Spain, was a more flattering prospect for a man of large
+intellect, iron will, and infinite resources, than to sink into the
+contemptible position of stipendiary to a foreign master.  He foresaw
+change, growth, transformation in the existing condition of things.
+Those great corporations the East and West India Companies were already
+producing a new organism out of the political and commercial chaos which
+had been so long brooding over civilization.  Visions of an imperial zone
+extending from the little Batavian island around the earth, a chain of
+forts and factories dotting the newly-discovered and yet undiscovered
+points of vantage, on island or promontory, in every sea; a watery,
+nebulous, yet most substantial empire--not fantastic, but practical--not
+picturesque and mediaeval, but modern and lucrative--a world-wide
+commonwealth with a half-submerged metropolis, which should rule the
+ocean with its own fleets and, like Venice and Florence, job its land
+wars with mercenary armies--all these dreams were not the cloudy pageant
+of a poet but the practical schemes of a great creative mind.  They were
+destined to become reality.  Had the geographical conditions been
+originally more favourable than they were, had Nature been less a
+stepmother to the metropolis of the rising Batavian realm, the creation
+might have been more durable.  Barneveld, and the men who acted with him,
+comprehended their age, and with slender materials were prepared to do
+great things.  They did not look very far perhaps into futurity, but they
+saw the vast changes already taking place, and felt the throb of forces
+actually at work.
+
+The days were gone when the iron-clad man on horseback conquered a
+kingdom with his single hand.  Doubtless there is more of poetry and
+romance in his deeds than in the achievements of the counting-house
+aristocracy, the hierarchy of joint-stock corporations that was taking
+the lead in the world's affairs.  Enlarged views of the social compact
+and of human liberty, as compared with those which later generations
+ought to take, standing upon the graves, heaped up mountains high, of
+their predecessors, could hardly be expected of them.  But they knew how
+to do the work before them.  They had been able to smite a foreign and
+sacerdotal tyranny into the dust at the expense of more blood and more
+treasure, and with sacrifices continued through a longer cycle of years,
+than had ever been recorded by history.
+
+Thus the Advocate believed that the chief fruits of the war--political
+independence, religious liberty, commercial expansion--could be now
+secured by diplomacy, and that a truce could be so handled as to become
+equivalent to a peace.  He required no bribes therefore to labour for
+that which he believed to be for his own interests and for those of the
+country.
+
+First citizen of Holland, perpetual chairman of a board of ambitious
+shopkeepers who purposed to dictate laws to the world from their
+counting-house table, with an unerring eye for the interests of the
+commonwealth and his own, with much vision, extraordinary eloquence,
+and a magnificent will, he is as good a sample of a great burgher--an
+imposing not a heroic figure--as the times had seen.
+
+A vast stride had been taken in the world's progress.  Even monopoly was
+freedom compared to the sloth and ignorance of an earlier epoch and of
+other lands, and although the days were still far distant when the earth
+was to belong to mankind, yet the modern republic was leading, half
+unconsciously, to a period of wider liberty of government, commerce, and
+above all of thought.
+
+Meantime, the period assigned for the departure of the Spanish
+commissioners, unless they brought a satisfactory communication from the
+king, was rapidly approaching.
+
+On the 24th September Verreyken returned from Brussels, but it was soon
+known that he came empty handed.  He informed the French and English
+ambassadors that the archdukes, on their own responsibility, now
+suggested the conclusion of a truce of seven years for Europe only.  This
+was to be negotiated with the States-General as with free people, over
+whom no pretensions of authority were made, and the hope was expressed
+that the king would give his consent to this arrangement.
+
+The ambassadors naturally refused to carry the message to the States.  To
+make themselves the mouthpieces of such childish suggestions was to bring
+themselves and their masters into contempt.  There had been trifling
+enough, and even Jeannin saw that the storm of indignation about to burst
+forth would be irresistible.  There was no need of any attempt on the
+part of the commissioners to prolong their stay if this was the result of
+the fifteen days' grace which had so reluctantly been conceded to them.
+To express a hope that the king might perhaps give his future approval to
+a proceeding for which his signed and sealed consent had been exacted as
+an indispensable preliminary, was carrying effrontery further than had
+yet been attempted in these amazing negotiations.
+
+Prince Maurice once more addressed the cities of Holland, giving vent to
+his wrath in language with which there was now more sympathy than there
+had been before.  "Verreyken has come back," he said, "not with a
+signature, but with a hope.  The longer the enemy remains in the country
+the more he goes back from what he had originally promised.  He is
+seeking for nothing more than, in this cheating way and in this pretence
+of waiting for the king's consent--which we have been expecting now for
+more than eighteen months--to continue the ruinous armistice.  Thus he
+keeps the country in a perpetual uncertainty, the only possible
+consequence of which is our complete destruction.  We adjure you
+therefore to send a resolution in conformity with our late address, in
+order that through these tricks and snares the fatherland may not fall
+into the clutch of the enemy, and thus into eternal and intolerable
+slavery.  God save us all from such a fate!"
+
+Neither Barneveld nor Jeannin attempted to struggle against the almost
+general indignation.  The deputies of Zeeland withdrew from the assembly
+of the States-General, protesting that they would never appear there
+again so long as the Spanish commissioners remained in the country.  The
+door was opened wide, and it was plain that those functionaries must take
+their departure.  Pride would not allow them to ask permission of the
+States to remain, although they intimated to the ambassadors their
+intense desire to linger for ten or twelve days longer.  This was
+obviously inadmissible, and on the 30th September they appeared before
+the Assembly to take leave.
+
+There were but three of them, the Genoese, the Spaniard, and the
+Burgundian--Spinola, Mancicidor; and Richardot.  Of the two
+Netherlanders, brother John was still in Spain, and Verreyken found it
+convenient that day to have a lame leg.
+
+President Richardot, standing majestically before the States-General,
+with his robes wrapped around his tall, spare form, made a solemn
+farewell speech of mingled sorrow, pity, and the resentment of injured
+innocence.  They had come to the Hague, he said, sent by the King of
+Spain and the archdukes to treat for a good and substantial peace,
+according to the honest intention of his Majesty and their Highnesses.
+To this end they had sincerely and faithfully dealt with the gentlemen
+deputed for that purpose by their High Mightinesses the States, doing
+everything they could think of to further the cause of peace.  They
+lamented that the issue had not been such as they had hoped,
+notwithstanding that the king and archdukes had so far derogated
+from their reputation as to send their commissioners into the United
+Netherlands, it having been easy enough to arrange for negotiations on
+other soil.  It had been their wish thus to prove to the world how
+straightforward were their intentions by not requiring the States to send
+deputies to them.  They had accorded the first point in the negotiations,
+touching the free state of the country.  Their High Mightinesses had
+taken offence upon the second, regarding the restoration of religion in
+the United Provinces.  Thereupon the father commissary had gone to Spain,
+and had remained longer than was agreeable.  Nevertheless, they had
+meantime treated of other points.  Coming back at last to the point of
+religion, the States-General had taken a resolution, and had given them
+their dismissal, without being willing to hear a word more, or to make a
+single proposition of moderation or accommodation.
+
+He could not refrain from saying that the commissioners had been treated
+roughly.  Their High Mightinesses had fixed the time for their dismissal
+more precisely than one would do with a servant who was discharged for
+misconduct; for the lackey, if he asked for it, would be allowed at least
+a day longer to pack his trunk for the journey.  They protested before
+God and the assembly of the States that the king and princes had meant
+most sincerely, and had dealt with all roundness and sincerity.  They at
+least remained innocent of all the disasters and calamities to come from
+the war.
+
+"As for myself," said Richardot, "I am no prophet, nor the son of a
+prophet; yet I will venture the prediction to you, my lords the States-
+General, that you will bitterly rue it that you did not embrace the peace
+thus presented, and which you might have had.  The blood which is
+destined to flow, now that you have scorned our plan of reconciliation,
+will be not on our heads but your own."
+
+Barneveld replied by temperately but firmly repelling the charges brought
+against the States in this artful oration of the president.  They had
+proceeded in the most straightforward manner, never permitting themselves
+to enter into negotiations except on the preliminary condition that their
+freedom should be once for all conceded and recognised.  "You and you
+only," he continued, "are to bear the blame that peace has not been
+concluded; you who have not been willing or not been able to keep your
+promises.  One might, with better reason, hold you guilty of all the
+bloodshed; you whose edicts, bloodier and more savage than war itself,
+long, ago forced these provinces into the inevitable necessity of waging
+war; you whose cruelty, but yesterday exercised on the crews of
+defenceless and innocent merchantmen and fishing-vessels,
+has been fully exhibited to the world."
+
+Spinola's countenance betrayed much emotion as he listened to the
+exchange of bitter recriminations which took place on this farewell
+colloquy.  It was obvious that the brave and accomplished soldier
+honestly lamented the failure of the attempt to end the war.
+
+But the rupture was absolute.  The marquis and the president dined that
+day with Prince Maurice, by whom they were afterwards courteously
+accompanied a part of the way on their journey to Brussels.
+
+Thus ended the comedy which had lasted nearly two years.  The dismal
+leave-taking, as the curtain fell, was not as, entertaining to the public
+outside as the dramatic meeting between Maurice and Spinola had been at
+the opening scene near Ryswyk.  There was no populace to throw up their
+hats for the departing guests.  From the winter's night in which the
+subtle Franciscan had first stolen into the prince's cabinet down to this
+autumn evening, not a step of real progress could be recorded as the
+result of the intolerable quantity of speech-making and quill-driving.
+There were boat-loads of documents, protocols, and notes, drowsy and
+stagnant as the canals on which they were floated off towards their tombs
+in the various archives.  Peace to the dust which we have not wantonly
+disturbed, believing it to be wholesome for the cause of human progress
+that the art of ruling the world by doing nothing, as practised some
+centuries since, should once and again be exhibited.
+
+Not in vain do we listen to those long-bearded, venerable, very tedious
+old presidents, advocates, and friars of orders gray, in their high
+ruffs, taffety robes or gowns of frieze, as they squeak and gibber,
+for a fleeting moment, to a world which knew them not.  It is something
+to learn that grave statesmen, kings, generals, and presidents could
+negotiate for two years long; and that the only result should be the
+distinction between a conjunction, a preposition, and an adverb.  That
+the provinces should be held as free States, not for free States--that
+they should be free in similitude, not in substance--thus much and no
+more had been accomplished.
+
+And now to all appearance every chance of negotiation was gone.  The
+half-century war, after this brief breathing space, was to be renewed
+for another century or so, and more furiously than ever.  So thought the
+public.  So meant Prince Maurice.  Richardot and Jeannin knew better.
+
+The departure of the commissioners was recorded upon the register of the
+resolutions of Holland, with the ominous note: "God grant that they may
+not have sown, evil seed here; the effects of which will one day be
+visible in the ruin of this commonwealth."
+
+Hardly were the backs of the commissioners turned, before the
+indefatigable Jeannin was ready with his scheme for repatching the
+rupture.  He was at first anxious that the deputies of Zeeland should be
+summoned again, now that the country was rid of the Spaniards.  Prince
+Maurice, however, was wrathful when the president began to talk once more
+of truce.  The proposition, he said, was simply the expression of a
+wish to destroy the State.  Holland and Zeeland would never agree to any
+such measure, and they would find means to compel the other provinces to
+follow their example.  If there were but three or four cities in the
+whole country to reject the truce, he would, with their assistance alone,
+defend the freedom of the republic, or at least die an honourable death
+in its defence.  This at least would be better than after a few months to
+become slaves of Spain.  Such a result was the object of those who began
+this work, but he would resist it at the peril of his life.
+
+A singular incident now seemed to justify the wrath of the stadholder,
+and to be likely to strengthen his party.  Young Count John of Nassau
+happened to take possession of the apartments in Goswyn Meursken's
+hostelry at the Hague, just vacated by Richardot.  In the drawer of a
+writing-table was found a document, evidently left there by the
+president.  This paper was handed by Count John to his cousin, Frederic
+Henry, who at once delivered it to his brother Maurice.  The prince
+produced it in the assembly of the States-General, members from each
+province were furnished with a copy of it within two or three hours,
+and it was soon afterwards printed, and published.  The document, being
+nothing less than the original secret instructions of the archdukes to
+their commissioners, was naturally read with intense interest by the
+States-General, by the foreign envoys, and by the general public.
+
+It appeared, from an inspection of the paper, that the commissioners had
+been told that, if they should find the French, English, and Danish
+ambassadors desirous of being present at the negotiations for the treaty,
+they were to exclude them from all direct participation in the
+proceedings.  They were to do this however so sweetly and courteously
+that it would be impossible for those diplomats to take offence or to
+imagine themselves distrusted.  On the contrary, the States-General were
+to be informed that their communication in private on the general subject
+with the ambassadors was approved by the archdukes, because they believed
+the sovereigns of France, England, and Denmark, their sincere and
+affectionate friends.  The commissioners were instructed to domesticate
+themselves as much as possible with President Jeannin and to manifest the
+utmost confidence in his good intentions.  They were to take the same
+course with the English envoys, but in more general terms, and were very
+discreetly to communicate to them whatever they already knew, and, on the
+other hand, carefully to conceal from them all that was still a secret.
+
+They were distinctly told to make the point of the Catholic religion
+first and foremost in the negotiations; the arguments showing the
+indispensable necessity of securing its public exercise in the United
+Provinces being drawn up with considerable detail.  They were to insist
+that the republic should absolutely renounce the trade with the East and
+West Indies, and should pledge itself to chastise such of its citizens as
+might dare to undertake those voyages, as disturbers of the peace and
+enemies of the public repose, whether they went to the Indies in person
+or associated themselves with men of other nations for that purpose,
+under any pretext whatever.  When these points, together with many
+matters of detail less difficult of adjustment, had been satisfactorily
+settled, the commissioners were to suggest measures of union for the
+common defence between the united and the obedient Provinces.  This
+matter was to be broached very gently.  "In the sweetest terms possible,"
+it was to be hinted that the whole body of the Netherlanders could
+protect itself against every enemy, but if dismembered as it was about
+to be, neither the one portion nor the ocher would be safe.  The
+commissioners were therefore to request the offer of some proposition
+from the States-General for the common defence.  In case they remained
+silent, however, then the commissioners were to declare that the
+archdukes had no wish to speak of sovereignty over the United Provinces,
+however limited.  "Having once given them that morsel to swallow," said
+their Highnesses, "we have nothing of the kind in our thoughts.  But if
+they reflect, it is possible that they may see fit to take us for
+protectors."
+
+The scheme was to be managed with great discreetness and delicacy, and
+accomplished by hook or by crook, if the means could be found.  "You need
+not be scrupulous as to the form or law of protection, provided the name
+of protector can be obtained," continued the archdukes.
+
+At least the greatest pains were to be taken that the two sections of the
+Netherlands might remain friends.  "We are in great danger unless we rely
+upon each other," it was urged.  "But touch this chord very gently, lest
+the French and English hearing of it suspect some design to injure them.
+At least we may each mutually agree to chastise such of our respective
+subjects as may venture to make any alliance with the enemies of the
+other."
+
+It was much disputed whether these instructions had been left purposely
+or by accident in the table-drawer.  Jeannin could not make up his mind
+whether it was a trick or not, and the vociferous lamentations of
+Richardot upon his misfortunes made little impression upon his mind.
+He had small confidence in any austerity of principle on the part of his
+former fellow-leaguer that would prevent him from leaving the document by
+stealth, and then protesting that he had been foully wronged by its
+coming to light.  On the whole, he was inclined to think, however,
+that the paper had been stolen from him.
+
+Barneveld, after much inquiry, was convinced that it had been left in the
+drawer by accident.
+
+Richardot himself manifested rage and dismay when he found that a paper,
+left by chance in his lodgings, had been published by the States.  Such a
+proceeding was a violation, he exclaimed, of the laws of hospitality.
+With equal justice, he declared it to be an offence against the religious
+respect due to ambassadors, whose persons and property were sacred in
+foreign countries.  "Decency required the States," he said, "to send the
+document back to him, instead of showing it as a trophy, and he was ready
+to die of shame and vexation at the unlucky incident."
+
+Few honourable men will disagree with him in these complaints, although
+many contemporaries obstinately refused to believe that the crafty and
+experienced diplomatist could have so carelessly left about his most
+important archives.  He was generally thought by those who had most dealt
+with him, to prefer, on principle, a crooked path to a straight one.
+"'Tis a mischievous old monkey," said Villeroy on another occasion, "that
+likes always to turn its tail instead of going directly to the purpose."
+The archduke, however, was very indulgent to his plenipotentiary.  "My
+good master,"  said the, president, "so soon as he learned the loss of
+that accursed paper, benignantly consoled, instead of chastising me; and,
+after having looked over the draught, was glad that the accident had
+happened; for thus his sincerity had been proved, and those who sought
+profit by the trick had been confounded."  On the other hand, what good
+could it do to the cause of peace, that these wonderful instructions
+should be published throughout the republic?  They might almost seem a
+fiction, invented by the war party to inspire a general disgust for any
+further negotiation.  Every loyal Netherlander would necessarily be
+qualmish at the word peace, now that the whole design of the Spanish
+party was disclosed.
+
+The public exercise of the Roman religion was now known to be the
+indispensable condition--first, last, and always--to any possible peace.
+Every citizen of the republic was to be whipped out of the East and West
+Indies, should he dare to show his face in those regions.  The States-
+General, while swallowing the crumb of sovereignty vouchsafed by the
+archdukes, were to accept them as protectors, in order not to fall
+a prey to the enemies whom they imagined to be their friends.
+
+What could be more hopeless than such negotiations?  What more dreary
+than the perpetual efforts of two lines to approach each other which were
+mathematically incapable of meeting?  That the young republic, conscious
+of her daily growing strength, should now seek refuge from her nobly won
+independence in the protectorate of Albert, who was himself the vassal of
+Philip, was an idea almost inconceivable to the Dutch mind.  Yet so
+impossible was it for the archdukes to put themselves into human
+relations with this new and popular Government, that in the inmost
+recesses of their breasts they actually believed themselves, when making
+the offer, to be performing a noble act of Christian charity.
+
+The efforts of Jeannin and of the English ambassador were now
+unremitting, and thoroughly seconded by Barneveld.  Maurice was almost
+at daggers drawn, not only with the Advocate but with the foreign envoys.
+Sir Ralph Winwood, who had, in virtue of the old treaty arrangements with
+England, a seat in the state-council at the Hague, and who was a man of a
+somewhat rough and insolent deportment, took occasion at a session of
+that body, when the prince was present, to urge the necessity of at once
+resuming the ruptured negotiations.  The King of Great Britain; he said,
+only recommended a course which he was himself always ready to pursue.
+Hostilities which were necessary, and no others, were just.  Such, and
+such only, could be favoured by God or by pious kings.  But wars were not
+necessary which could be honourably avoided.  A truce was not to be
+despised, by which religious liberty and commerce were secured, and it
+was not the part of wisdom to plunge into all the horrors of immediate
+war in order to escape distant and problematical dangers; that might
+arise when the truce should come to an end.  If a truce were now made,
+the kings of both France and England would be guarantees for its faithful
+observance.  They would take care that no wrong or affront was offered
+to the States-General.
+
+Maurice replied, with a sneer, to these sententious commonplaces
+derived at second-hand from King James that great kings were often very
+indifferent to injuries sustained by their friends.  Moreover, there was
+an eminent sovereign, he continued, who was even very patient under
+affronts directly offered to himself.  It was not very long since a
+horrible plot had been discovered to murder the King of England, with his
+wife, his children, and all the great personages of the realm.  That this
+great crime had been attempted under the immediate instigation of the
+King of Spain was notorious to the whole world, and certainly no secret
+to King James.  Yet his Britannic Majesty had made haste to exonerate the
+great criminal from all complicity in the crime; and had ever since been
+fawning upon the Catholic king, and hankering for a family alliance with
+him.  Conduct like this the prince denounced in plain terms as cringing
+and cowardly, and expressed the opinion that guarantees of Dutch
+independence from such a monarch could hardly be thought very valuable.
+
+These were terrible words for the representative of James to have hurled
+in his face in full council by the foremost personage of the republic
+Winwood fell into a furious passion, and of course there was a violent
+scene, with much subsequent protesting and protocolling.
+
+The British king insisted that the prince should make public amends for
+the insult, and Maurice firmly refused to do anything of the kind.  The
+matter was subsequently arranged by some amicable concessions made by the
+prince in a private letter to James, but there remained for the time a
+abate of alienation between England and the republic, at which the French
+sincerely rejoiced.  The incident, however, sufficiently shows the point
+of exasperation which the prince had reached, for, although choleric, he
+was a reasonable man, and it was only because the whole course of the
+negotiations had offended his sense of honour and of right that he had at
+last been driven quite beyond self-control.
+
+On the 13th of October, the envoys of France, England, Denmark, and
+of the Elector Palatine, the Elector of Brandeburg, and other German
+princes, came before the States-General.
+
+Jeannin, in the name of all these foreign ministers, made a speech warmly
+recommending the truce.
+
+He repelled the insinuation that the measure proposed had been brought
+about by the artifices of the enemy, and was therefore odious.  On the
+contrary, it was originated by himself and the other good friends of the
+republic.
+
+In his opinion, the terms of the suggested truce contained sufficient
+guarantees for the liberty of the provinces, not only during the truce,
+but for ever.
+
+No stronger recognition of their independence could be expected than
+the one given.  It was entirely without example, argued the president,
+that in similar changes brought about by force of arms, sovereigns after
+having been despoiled of their states have been compelled to abandon
+their rights shamefully by a public confession, unless they had
+absolutely fallen into the hands of their enemies and were completely
+at their mercy.  "Yet the princes who made this great concession,"
+continued Jeannin, "are not lying vanquished at your feet, nor reduced
+by dire necessity to yield what they have yielded."
+
+He reminded the assembly that the Swiss enjoyed at that moment their
+liberty in virtue of a simple truce, without ever having obtained from
+their former sovereign a declaration such as was now offered to the
+United Provinces.
+
+The president argued, moreover, with much force and acuteness that
+it was beneath the dignity of the States, and inconsistent with their
+consciousness of strength, to lay so much stress on the phraseology by
+which their liberty was recognised.  That freedom had been won by the
+sword, and would be maintained against all the world by the sword.
+
+"In truth," said the orator, "you do wrong to your liberty by calling it
+so often in doubt, and in claiming with so much contentious anxiety from
+your enemies a title-deed for your independence.  You hold it by your own
+public decree.  In virtue of that decree, confirmed by the success of
+your arms, you have enjoyed it long.  Nor could anything obtained from
+your enemies be of use to you if those same arms with which you gained
+your liberty could not still preserve it for you."
+
+Therefore, in the opinion of the president, this persistence in demanding
+a more explicit and unlimited recognition of independence was only a
+pretext for continuing the war, ingeniously used by those who hated
+peace.
+
+Addressing himself more particularly to the celebrated circular letter of
+Prince Maurice against the truce, the president maintained that the
+liberty of the republic was as much acknowledged in the proposed articles
+as if the words "for ever" had been added.  "To acknowledge liberty is an
+act which, by its very nature, admits of no conditions," he observed,
+with considerable force.
+
+The president proceeded to say that in the original negotiations the
+qualifications obtained had seemed to him enough.  As there was an ardent
+desire, however, on the part of many for a more explicit phraseology, as
+something necessary to the public safety, he had thought it worth
+attempting.
+
+"We all rejoiced when you obtained it," continued Jeannin, "but not
+when they agreed to renounce the names, titles, and arms of the United
+Provinces; for that seemed to us shameful for them beyond all example.
+That princes should make concessions so entirely unworthy of their
+grandeur, excited at once our suspicion, for we could not imagine the
+cause of an offer so specious. We have since found out the reason."
+
+The archdukes being unable, accordingly, to obtain for the truce those
+specious conditions which Spain had originally pretended to yield, it was
+the opinion of the old diplomatist that the king should be permitted to
+wear the paste substitutes about which so many idle words had been
+wasted.
+
+It would be better, he thought, for the States to be contented with what
+was precious and substantial, and not to lose the occasion of making a
+good treaty of truce, which was sure to be converted with time into an
+absolute peace.
+
+"It is certain," he said, "that the princes with whom you are treating
+will never go to law with you to get an exposition of the article in
+question.  After the truce has expired, they will go to war with you if
+you like, but they will not trouble themselves to declare whether they
+are fighting you as rebels or as enemies, nor will it very much signify.
+If their arms are successful, they will give you no explanations.  If you
+are the conquerors, they will receive none.  The fortune of war will be
+the supreme judge to decide the dispute; not the words of a treaty.
+Those words are always interpreted to the disadvantage of the weak and
+the vanquished, although they may be so perfectly clear that no man could
+doubt them; never to the prejudice of those who have proved the validity
+of their rights by the strength of their arms."
+
+This honest, straightforward cynicism, coming from the lips of one
+of the most experienced diplomatists of Europe, was difficult to gainsay.
+Speaking as one having authority, the president told the States-General
+in full assembly, that there was no law in Christendom, as between
+nations, but the good old fist-law, the code of brute force.
+
+Two centuries and a half have rolled by since that oration was
+pronounced, and the world has made immense progress in science during
+that period.  But there is still room for improvement in this regard in
+the law of nations.  Certainly there is now a little more reluctance to
+come so nakedly before the world.  But has the cause of modesty or
+humanity gained very much by the decorous fig-leaves of modern diplomacy?
+
+The president alluded also to the ungrounded fears that bribery and
+corruption would be able to effect much, during the truce, towards the
+reduction of the provinces under their repudiated sovereign.  After all,
+it was difficult to buy up a whole people.  In a commonwealth, where the
+People was sovereign, and the persons of the magistrates ever changing,
+those little comfortable commercial operations could not be managed so
+easily as in civilized realms like France and England.  The old Leaguer
+thought with pensive regret, no doubt, of the hard, but still profitable
+bargains by which the Guises and Mayennes and Mercoeurs, and a few
+hundred of their noble adherents, had been brought over to the cause
+of the king.  He sighed at the more recent memories of the Marquis de
+Rosny's embassy in England, and his largess scattered broadcast among the
+great English lords.  It would be of little use he foresaw--although the
+instructions of Henry were in his portfolio, giving him almost unlimited
+powers to buy up everybody in the Netherlands that could be bought--to
+attempt that kind of traffic on a large scale in the Netherlands.
+
+Those republicans were greedy enough about the navigation to the East and
+West Indies, and were very litigious about the claim of Spain to put up
+railings around the Ocean as her private lake, but they were less keen
+than were their more polished contemporaries for the trade in human
+souls.
+
+"When we consider, "said Jeannin, "the constitution of your State, and
+that to corrupt a few people among you does no good at all, because the,
+frequent change of magistracies takes away the means of gaining over many
+of them at the same time, capable by a long duration of their power to
+conduct an intrigue against the commonwealth, this fear must appear
+wholly vain."
+
+And then the old Leaguer, who had always refused bribes himself, although
+he had negotiated much bribery of others, warmed into sincere eloquence
+as he spoke of the simple virtues on which the little republic, as should
+be the case with all republics, was founded.  He did homage to the Dutch
+love of liberty.
+
+"Remember," he said, "the love of liberty which is engraved in the hearts
+of all your inhabitants, and that there are few persons now living who
+were born in the days of the ancient subjection, or who have not been
+nourished and brought up for so long a time in liberty that they have a
+horror for the very name of servitude.  You will then feel that there is
+not one man in your commonwealth who would wish or dare to open his mouth
+to bring you back to subjection, without being in danger of instant
+punishment as a traitor to his country."
+
+He again reminded his hearers that the Swiss had concluded a long and
+perilous war with their ancient masters by a simple truce, during which
+they had established so good a government that they were never more
+attacked.  Honest republican principles, and readiness at any moment to
+defend dearly won liberties, had combined with geographical advantages
+to secure the national independence of Switzerland.
+
+Jeannin paid full tribute to the maritime supremacy of the republic.
+
+"You may have as much good fortune," he said, "as the Swiss, if you are
+wise.  You have the ocean at your side, great navigable rivers enclosing
+you in every direction, a multitude of ships, with sailors, pilots, and
+seafaring men of every description, who are the very best soldiers in
+battles at sea to be found in Christendom.  With these you will preserve
+your military vigour and your habits of navigation, the long voyages to
+which you are accustomed continuing as usual.  And such is the kind of
+soldiers you require.  As for auxiliaries, should you need them you know
+where to find them."
+
+The president implored the States-General accordingly to pay no attention
+to the writings which were circulated among the people to prejudice them
+against the truce.
+
+This was aimed directly at the stadholder, who had been making so many
+direct personal appeals to the people, and who was now the more incensed,
+recognising the taunt of the president as an arrow taken from Barneveld's
+quiver.  There had long ceased to be any communication between the Prince
+and the Advocate, and Maurice made no secret of his bitter animosity both
+to Barneveld and to Jeannin.
+
+He hesitated on no occasion to denounce the Advocate as travelling
+straight on the road to Spain, and although he was not aware of the
+twenty thousand florins recently presented by the French king, he had
+accustomed himself, with the enormous exaggeration of party spirit, to
+look upon the first statesman of his country and of Europe as a traitor
+to the republic and a tool of the archdukes.  As we look back upon those
+passionate days, we cannot but be appalled at the depths to which
+theological hatred could descend.
+
+On the very morning after the session of the assembly in which Jeannin
+had been making his great speech, and denouncing the practice of secret
+and incendiary publication, three remarkable letters were found on the
+doorstep of a house in the Hague.  One was addressed to the States-
+General, another to the Mates of Holland, and a third to the burgomaster
+of Amsterdam.  In all these documents, the Advocate was denounced as an
+infamous traitor, who was secretly intriguing to bring about a truce for
+the purpose of handing over the commonwealth to the enemy.  A shameful
+death, it was added, would be his fitting reward.
+
+These letters were read in the Assembly of the States-General, and
+created great wrath among the friends of Barneveld.  Even Maurice
+expressed indignation, and favoured a search for the anonymous author, in
+order that he might be severely punished.
+
+It seems strange enough that anonymous letters picked up in the street
+should have been deemed a worthy theme of discussion before their High
+Mightinesses the States-General.  Moreover, it was raining pamphlets and
+libels against Barneveld and his supporters every day, and the stories
+which grave burghers and pious elders went about telling to each other,
+and to everybody who would listen to them, about the Advocate's
+depravity, were wonderful to hear.
+
+At the end of September, just before the Spanish commissioners left the
+Hague, a sledge of the kind used in the Dutch cities as drays stopped
+before Barneveld's front-door one fine morning, and deposited several
+large baskets, filled with money, sent by the envoys for defraying
+certain expenses of forage, hire of servants, and the like, incurred by
+them during their sojourn at the Hague, and disbursed by the States.  The
+sledge, with its contents, was at once sent by order of the Advocate,
+under guidance of Commissary John Spronsen, to the Receiver-General of
+the republic.
+
+Yet men wagged their beards dismally as they whispered this fresh proof
+of Barneveld's venality.  As if Spinola and his colleagues were such
+blunderers in bribing as to send bushel baskets full of Spanish dollars
+on a sledge, in broad daylight, to the house of a great statesman whom
+they meant to purchase, expecting doubtless a receipt in full to be
+brought back by the drayman!  Well might the Advocate say at a later
+moment, in the bitterness of his spirit, that his enemies, not satisfied
+with piercing his heart with their false, injurious and honour-filching
+libels and stories, were determined to break it.  "He begged God
+Almighty," he said, "to be merciful to him, and to judge righteously
+between him and them."
+
+Party spirit has rarely run higher in any commonwealth than in Holland
+during these memorable debates concerning a truce.  Yet the leaders both
+of the war party and the truce party were doubtless pure, determined
+patriots, seeking their country's good with all their souls and strength.
+
+Maurice answered the discourse of Jeannin by a second and very elaborate
+letter.  In this circular, addressed to the magistracies of Holland, he
+urged his countrymen once more with arguments already employed by him,
+and in more strenuous language than ever, to beware of a truce even more
+than of a peace, and warned them not to swerve by a hair's breadth from
+the formula in regard to the sovereignty agreed upon at the very
+beginning of the negotiations.  To this document was appended a paper
+of considerations, drawn up by Maurice and Lewis William, in refutation,
+point by point, of all the arguments of President Jeannin in his late
+discourse.
+
+It is not necessary to do more than allude to these documents, which were
+marked by the close reasoning and fiery spirit which characterized all
+the appeals of the prince and his cousin at this period, because the time
+had now come which comes to all controversies when argument is exhausted
+and either action or compromise begins.
+
+Meantime, Barneveld, stung almost to madness by the poisonous though
+ephemeral libels which buzzed so perpetually about him, had at last
+resolved to retire from the public service.  He had been so steadily
+denounced as being burthensome to his superiors in birth by the power
+which he had acquired, and to have shot up so far above the heads of his
+equals; that he felt disposed to withdraw from a field where his presence
+was becoming odious.
+
+His enemies, of course, considered this determination a trick by which
+he merely wished to prove to the country how indispensable he was, and
+to gain a fresh lease of his almost unlimited power by the alarm which
+his proposed abdication would produce.  Certainly, however, if it were a
+trick, and he were not indispensable, it was easy enough to prove it and
+to punish him by taking him at his word.
+
+On the morning after the anonymous letters had been found in the street
+he came into the House of Assembly and made a short speech.  He spoke
+simply of his thirty-one years of service, during which he believed
+himself to have done his best for the good of the fatherland and for
+the welfare of the house of Nassau.  He had been ready thus to go on
+to the end, but he saw himself environed by enemies, and felt that his
+usefulness had been destroyed.  He wished, therefore, in the interest of
+the country, not from any fear for himself, to withdraw from the storm,
+and for a time at least to remain in retirement.  The displeasure and
+hatred of the great were nothing new to him, he said.  He had never
+shrunk from peril when he could serve his fatherland; for against all
+calumnies and all accidents he had worn the armour of a quiet conscience.
+But he now saw that the truce, in itself an unpleasant affair, was made
+still more odious by the hatred felt towards him.  He begged the
+provinces, therefore, to select another servant less hated than
+himself to provide for the public welfare.
+
+Having said these few words with the dignity which was natural to him he
+calmly walked out of the Assembly House.
+
+The personal friends of Barneveld and the whole truce party were in
+consternation.  Even the enemies of the Advocate shrank appalled at the
+prospect of losing the services of the foremost statesman of the
+commonwealth at this critical juncture.  There was a brief and animated
+discussion as soon as his back was turned.  Its result was the
+appointment of a committee of five to wait upon Barneveld and solemnly to
+request him to reconsider his decision.  Their efforts were successful.
+After a satisfactory interview with the committee he resumed his
+functions with greater authority than ever.  Of course there were not
+wanting many to whisper that the whole proceeding had been a comedy, and
+that Barneveld would have been more embarrassed than he had ever been in
+his life had his resignation been seriously accepted.  But this is easy
+to say, and is always said, whenever a statesman who feels himself
+aggrieved, yet knows himself useful, lays dawn his office.  The Advocate
+had been the mark of unceasing and infamous calumnies.  He had incurred
+the deadly hatred of the highest placed, the most powerful, and the most
+popular man in the commonwealth.  He had more than once been obliged to
+listen to opprobrious language from the prince, and it was even whispered
+that he had been threatened with personal violence.  That Maurice was
+perpetually denouncing him in public and private, as a traitor, a papist,
+a Spanish partisan, was notorious.  He had just been held up to the
+States of the union and of his own province by unknown voices as a
+criminal worthy of death.  Was it to be wondered at that a man of sixty,
+who had passed his youth, manhood, and old age in the service of the
+republic, and was recognised by all as the ablest, the most experienced,
+the most indefatigable of her statesmen, should be seriously desirous of
+abandoning an office which might well seem to him rather a pillory than a
+post of honour?
+
+"As for neighbour Barneveld," said recorder Aerssens, little dreaming of
+the foul witness he was to bear against that neighbour at a terrible
+moment to come, "I do what I can and wish to help him with my blood.  He
+is more courageous than I.  I should have sunk long ago, had I been
+obliged to stand against such tempests.  The Lord God will, I hope, help
+him and direct his understanding for the good of all Christendom, and for
+his own honour.  If he can steer this ship into a safe harbour we ought
+to raise a golden statue of him.  I should like to contribute my mite to
+it.  He deserves twice much honour, despite all his enemies, of whom he
+has many rather from envy than from reason.  May the Lord keep him in
+health, or it will go hardly with us all."
+
+Thus spoke some of his grateful countrymen when the Advocate was
+contending at a momentous crisis with storms threatening to overwhelm
+the republic.  Alas! where is the golden statue?
+
+He believed that the truce was the most advantageous measure that the
+country could adopt.  He believed this with quite as much sincerity as
+Maurice held to his conviction that war was the only policy.  In the
+secret letter of the French ambassador there is not a trace of suspicion
+as to his fidelity to the commonwealth, not the shadow of proof of the
+ridiculous accusation that he wished to reduce the provinces to the
+dominion of Spain.  Jeannin, who had no motive for concealment in his
+confidential correspondence with his sovereign, always rendered
+unequivocal homage to the purity and patriotism of the Advocate and the
+Prince.
+
+He returned to the States-General and to the discharge of his functions
+as Advocate-General of Holland.  His policy for the time was destined to
+be triumphant, his influence more extensive than ever.  But the end of
+these calumnies and anonymous charges was not yet.
+
+Meantime the opposition to the truce was confined to the States of
+Zeeland and two cities of Holland.  Those cities were very important
+ones, Amsterdam and Delft, but they were already wavering in their
+opposition.  Zeeland stoutly maintained that the treaty of Utrecht
+forbade a decision of the question of peace and war except by a unanimous
+vote of the whole confederacy.  The other five provinces and the friends
+of the truce began with great vehemence to declare that the question at
+issue was now changed.  It was no longer to be decided whether there
+should be truce or war with Spain, but whether a single member of the
+confederacy could dictate its law to the other six States.  Zeeland, on
+her part, talked loudly of seceding from the union, and setting up for an
+independent, sovereign commonwealth.  She would hardly have been a very
+powerful one, with her half-dozen cities, one prelate, one nobleman, her
+hundred thousand burghers at most, bustling and warlike as they were, and
+her few thousand mariners, although the most terrible fighting men that
+had ever sailed on blue water.  She was destined ere long to abandon her
+doughty resolution of leaving her sister provinces to their fate.
+
+Maurice had not slackened in his opposition to the truce, despite the
+renewed vigour with which Barneveld pressed the measure since his return
+to the public councils.  The prince was firmly convinced that the kings
+of France and England would assist the republic in the war with Spain so
+soon as it should be renewed.  His policy had been therefore to force the
+hand of those sovereigns, especially that of Henry, and to induce him to
+send more stringent instructions to Jeannin than those with which he
+believed him to be furnished.  He had accordingly despatched a secret
+emissary to the French king, supplied with confidential and explicit
+instructions.  This agent was a Captain Lambert.  Whether it was "Pretty
+Lambert," "Dandy Lambert"--the vice-admiral who had so much distinguished
+himself at the great victory of Gibraltar--does not distinctly appear.
+If it were so, that hard-hitting mariner would seem to have gone into
+action with the French Government as energetically as he had done
+eighteen months before, when, as master of the Tiger, he laid himself
+aboard the Spanish admiral and helped send the St. Augustine to the
+bottom.  He seemed indisposed to mince matters in diplomacy.  He
+intimated to the king and his ministers that Jeannin and his colleagues
+were pushing the truce at the Hague much further and faster than his
+Majesty could possibly approve, and that they were obviously exceeding
+their instructions.  Jeannin, who was formerly so much honoured and
+cherished throughout the republic, was now looked upon askance because
+of his intimacy with Barneveld and his partisans.  He assured the king
+that nearly all the cities of Holland, and the whole of Zeeland, were
+entirely agreed with Maurice, who would rather die than consent to the
+proposed truce.  The other provinces, added Lambert, would be obliged,
+will ye nill ye, to receive the law from Holland and Zeeland.  Maurice,
+without assistance from France or any other power, would give Spain and
+the archdukes as much exercise as they could take for the next fifty
+years before he would give up, and had declared that he would rather die
+sword in hand than basely betray his country by consenting to such a
+truce.  As for Barneveld, he was already discovering the blunders which
+he had made, and was trying to curry favour with Maurice.  Barneveld and
+both the Aprasens were traitors to the State, had become the objects of
+general hatred and contempt, and were in great danger of losing their
+lives, or at least of being expelled from office.
+
+Here was altogether too much zeal on the part of Pretty Lambert; a
+quality which, not for the first time, was thus proved to be less useful
+in diplomatic conferences than in a sea-fight.  Maurice was obliged to
+disavow his envoy, and to declare that his secret instructions had never
+authorized him to hold such language.  But the mischief was done.  The
+combustion in the French cabinet was terrible.  The Dutch admiral had
+thrown hot shot into the powder-magazine of his friends, and had done no
+more good by such tactics than might be supposed.  Such diplomacy was
+denounced as a mere mixture of "indiscretion and impudence."  Henry was
+very wroth, and forthwith indited an imperious letter to his cousin
+Maurice.
+
+"Lambert's talk to me by your orders," said the king, "has not less
+astonished than scandalized me.  I now learn the new resolution which
+you have taken, and I observe that you have begun to entertain suspicions
+as to my will and my counsels on account of the proposition of truce."
+
+Henry's standing orders to Jeannin, as we know, were to offer Maurice a
+pension of almost unlimited amount, together with ample rewards to all
+such of his adherents as could be purchased, provided they would bring
+about the incorporation of the United Provinces into France.  He was
+therefore full of indignation that the purity of his intentions and the
+sincerity of his wish for the independence of the republic could be
+called in question.
+
+"People have dared to maliciously invent," he continued, "that I am the
+enemy of the repose and the liberty of the United Provinces, and that I
+was afraid lest they should acquire the freedom which had been offered
+them by their enemies, because I derived a profit from their war, and
+intended in time to deprive them of their liberty.  Yet these falsehoods
+and jealousies have not been contradicted by you nor by anyone else,
+although you know that the proofs of my sincerity and good faith have
+been entirely without reproach or example.  You knew what was said,
+written, and published everywhere, and I confess that when I knew this
+malice, and that you had not taken offence at it, I was much amazed and
+very malcontent."
+
+Queen Elizabeth, in her most waspish moods, had not often lectured the
+States-General more roundly than Henry now lectured his cousin Maurice.
+
+The king once more alluded to the secret emissary's violent talk, which
+had so much excited his indignation.
+
+"If by weakness and want of means," he said, "you are forced to abandon
+to your enemies one portion of your country in order to defend the other-
+as Lambert tells me you are resolved to do, rather than agree to the
+truce without recognition of your sovereignty for ever--I pray you to
+consider how many accidents and reproaches may befal you.  Do you suppose
+that any ally of the States, or of your family, would risk his reputation
+and his realms in such a game, which would seem to be rather begun in
+passion and despair than required by reason or necessity?"
+
+Here certainly was plain speaking enough, and Maurice could no longer
+expect the king for his partner, should he decide to risk once more the
+bloody hazard of the die.
+
+But Henry was determined to leave no shade of doubt on the subject.
+
+"Lambert tells me," he said, "that you would rather perish with arms in
+your hands than fall shamefully into inevitable ruin by accepting truce.
+I have been and am of a contrary opinion.  Perhaps I am mistaken, not
+knowing as well as you do the constitution of your country and the wishes
+of your people.  But I know the general affairs of Christendom better
+than you do, and I can therefore judge more soundly on the whole matter
+than you can, and I know that the truce, established and guaranteed as
+proposed, will bring you more happiness than you can derive from war."
+
+Thus the king, in the sweeping, slashing way with which he could handle
+an argument as well as a sword, strode forward in conscious strength,
+cutting down right and left all opposition to his will.  He was
+determined, once for all, to show the stadholder and his adherents that
+the friendship of a great king was not to be had by a little republic on
+easy terms, nor every day.  Above all, the Prince of Nassau was not to
+send a loud-talking, free and easy Dutch sea-captain to dictate terms to
+the King of France and Navarre.  "Lambert tells me"--and Maurice might
+well wish that Pretty Lambert had been sunk in the bay of Gibraltar,
+Tiger and all, before he had been sent on this diplomatic errand,
+"Lambert tells me," continued his Majesty, "that you and the States-
+General would rather that I should remain neutral, and let you make war
+in your own fashion, than that I should do anything more to push on this
+truce.  My cousin, it would be very easy for me, and perhaps more
+advantageous for me and my kingdom than you think, if I could give you
+this satisfaction, whatever might be the result.  If I chose to follow
+this counsel, I am, thanks be to God, in such condition, that I have no
+neighbour who is not as much in need of me as I can be of him, and who is
+not glad to seek for and to preserve my friendship.  If they should all
+conspire against me moreover, I can by myself, and with no assistance but
+heaven's, which never failed me yet, wrestle with them altogether, and
+fling them all, as some of my royal predecessors have done.  Know then,
+that I do not favour war nor truce for the United Provinces because of
+any need I may have of the one or the other for the defence of my own
+sceptre.  The counsels and the succours, which you have so largely
+received from me, were given because of my consideration for the good of
+the States, and of yourself in particular, whom I have always favoured
+and cherished, as I have done others of your house on many occasions."
+
+The king concluded his lecture by saying, that after his ambassadors had
+fulfilled their promise, and had spoken the last word of their master at
+the Hague, he should leave Maurice and the States to do as they liked.
+
+"But I desire," he said, "that you and the States should not do that
+wrong to yourselves or to me as to doubt the integrity of my counsels nor
+the actions of my ambassadors: I am an honest man and a prince of my
+word, and not ignorant of the things of this world.  Neither the States
+nor you, with your adherents, can permit my honour to be compromised
+without tarnishing your own, and without being branded for ingratitude.
+I say not this in order to reproach you for the past nor to make you
+despair of the future, but to defend the truth.  I expect, therefore,
+that you will not fall into this fault, knowing you as I do.  I pay more
+heed to what you said in your letter than in all Lambert's fine talk,
+and you will find out that nobody wishes your prosperity and that of
+the States more sincerely than I do, or can be more useful to you
+than I can."
+
+     [I have abbreviated this remarkable letter, but of course the text
+     of the passages cited is literally given.  J.L.M.]
+
+There could be but little doubt in the mind of Prince Maurice, after this
+letter had been well pondered, that Barneveld had won the game, and that
+the peace party had triumphed.
+
+To resume the war, with the French king not merely neutral but angry and
+covertly hostile, and with the sovereign of Great Britain an almost open
+enemy in the garb of an ally, might well seem a desperate course.
+
+And Maurice, although strongly opposed to the truce, and confident in his
+opinions at this crisis, was not a desperado.
+
+He saw at once the necessity of dismounting from the high horse upon
+which, it must be confessed, he had been inclined for more rough-riding
+of late than the situation warranted.  Peace was unattainable, war was
+impossible, truce was inevitable; Barneveld was master of the field.
+
+The prince acquiesced in the result which the letter from the French king
+so plainly indicated.  He was, however, more incensed than ever against
+Barneveld; for he felt himself not only checkmated but humiliated by the
+Advocate, and believed him a traitor, who was selling the republic to
+Spain.  It was long since the two had exchanged a word.
+
+Maurice now declared, on more than one occasion, that it was useless for
+him any longer to attempt opposition to the policy of truce.  The States
+must travel on the road which they had chosen, but it should not be under
+his guidance, and he renounced all responsibility for the issue.
+
+Dreading disunion, however, more than ought else that could befal the
+republic, he now did his best to bring about the return of Zeeland to the
+federal councils.  He was successful.  The deputies from that province
+reappeared in the States-General on the 11th November.  They were still
+earnest, however, in their opposition to the truce, and warmly
+maintained, in obedience to instructions, that the Union of Utrecht
+forbade the conclusion of a treaty except by unanimous consent of the
+Seven Provinces.  They were very fierce in their remonstrances, and again
+talked loudly of secession.
+
+After consultation with Barneveld, the French envoys now thought it their
+duty to take the recalcitrant Zeelanders in hand; Maurice having, as it
+were, withdrawn from the contest.
+
+On the 18th November, accordingly, Jeannin once more came very solemnly
+before the States-General, accompanied by his diplomatic colleagues.
+
+He showed the impossibility of any arrangement, except by the submission
+of Zeeland to a vote of the majority.  "It is certain," he said, "that
+six provinces will never be willing to be conquered by a single one, nor
+permit her to assert that, according to a fundamental law of the
+commonwealth, her dissent can prevent the others from forming a definite
+conclusion.
+
+"It is not for us," continued the president, "who are strangers in your
+republic, to interpret your laws, but common sense teaches us that, if
+such a law exist, it could only have been made in order to forbid a
+surrender.
+
+"If any one wishes to expound it otherwise, to him we would reply,
+in the words of an ancient Roman, who said of a law which seemed to him
+pernicious, that at least the tablet upon which it was inscribed, if it
+could not be destroyed, should be hidden out of sight.  Thus at least the
+citizens might escape observing it, when it was plain that it would cause
+detriment to the republic, and they might then put in its place the most
+ancient of all laws, 'salus populi suprema lex.'"
+
+The president, having suggested this ingenious expedient of the antique
+Roman for getting rid of a constitutional provision by hiding the
+statute-book, proceeded to give very practical reasons for setting, up
+the supreme law of the people's safety on this occasion.  And, certainly,
+that magnificent common-place, which has saved and ruined so many States,
+the most effective weapon in the political arsenal, whether wielded by
+tyrants or champions of freedom, was not unreasonably recommended at this
+crisis to the States in their contest with the refractory Zeelanders.
+It was easy to talk big, but after all it would be difficult for that
+doughty little sandbank, notwithstanding the indomitable energy which it
+had so often shown by land and sea, to do battle by itself with the whole
+Spanish empire.  Nor was it quite consistent with republican principles
+that the other six provinces should be plunged once more into war, when
+they had agreed to accept peace and independence instead, only that
+Zeeland should have its way.
+
+The orator went on to show the absurdity, in his opinion, of permitting
+one province to continue the war, when all seven united had not the means
+to do it without the assistance of their allies.  He pointed out, too,
+the immense blunders that would be made, should it be thought that the
+Kings of France and England were so much interested in saving the
+provinces from perdition as to feel obliged in any event to render them
+assistance.
+
+"Beware of committing an irreparable fault," he said, "on so insecure a
+foundation.  You are deceiving yourselves: And, in order that there may
+be no doubt on the subject, we declare to you by express command that if
+your adversaries refuse the truce, according to the articles presented to
+you by us, it is the intention of our kings to assist you with armies and
+subsidies, not only as during the past, but more powerfully than before.
+If, on the contrary, the rupture comes from your side, and you despise
+the advice they are giving you, you have no succour to expect from
+them.  The refusal of conditions so honourable and advantageous to your
+commonwealth will render the war a useless one, and they are determined
+to do nothing to bring the reproach upon themselves."
+
+The president then intimated; not without adroitness, that the republic
+was placing herself in a proud position by accepting the truce, and that
+Spain was abasing herself by giving her consent to it.  The world was
+surprised that the States should hesitate at all.
+
+There was much more of scholastic dissertation in the president's
+address, but enough has been given to show its very peremptory character.
+
+If the war was to go on it was to be waged mainly by Zeeland alone.  This
+was now plain beyond all peradventure.  The other provinces had resolved
+to accept the proposed treaty.  The cities of Delft and Amsterdam, which
+had stood out so long among the estates of Holland, soon renounced their
+opposition.  Prince Maurice, with praiseworthy patriotism, reconciled
+himself with the inevitable, and now that the great majority had spoken,
+began to use his influence with the factious minority.
+
+On the day after Jeannin's speech he made a visit to the French
+ambassadors.  After there had been some little discussion among them,
+Barneveld made his appearance.  His visit seemed an accidental one, but
+it had been previously arranged with the envoys.
+
+The general conversation went on a little longer, when the Advocate,
+frankly turning to the Prince, spoke of the pain which he felt at the
+schism between them.  He defended himself with honest warmth against the
+rumours circulated, in which he was accused of being a Spanish partisan.
+His whole life had been spent in fighting Spain, and he was now more
+determined than ever in his hostility to that monarchy.  He sincerely
+believed that by the truce now proposed all the solid advantages of the
+war would be secured, and that such a result was a triumphant one for the
+republic.  He was also most desirous of being restored to the friendship
+and good opinion of the house of Nassau; having proved during his whole
+life his sincere attachment to their interests--a sentiment never more
+lively in his breast than at that moment.
+
+This advance was graciously met by the stadholder, and the two
+distinguished personages were, for the time at least, reconciled.
+
+It was further debated as to the number of troops that it be advisable
+for the States to maintain during the truce and Barneveld expressed his
+decided opinion that thirty thousand men, at least, would be required.
+This opinion gave the prince at least as much pleasure as did the
+personal devotion expressed by the Advocate, and he now stated his
+intention of working with the peace party.
+
+The great result was now certain.  Delft and Amsterdam withdrew from
+their opposition to the treaty, so that Holland was unanimous before the
+year closed; Zeeland, yielding to the influence of Maurice, likewise gave
+in her adhesion to the truce.
+
+The details of the mode in which the final arrangement was made are not
+especially interesting.  The discussion was fairly at an end.  The
+subject had been picked to the bones.  It was agreed that the French
+ambassadors should go over the frontier, and hold a preliminary interview
+with the Spanish commissioners at Antwerp.
+
+The armistice was to be continued by brief and repeated renewals, until
+it should be superseded by the truce of years:
+
+Meantime, Archduke Albert sent his father confessor, Inigo Brizuela, to
+Spain, in order to make the treaty posed by Jeannin palatable to the
+king?
+
+The priest was to set forth to Philip, as only a ghostly confessor
+could do with full effect, that he need not trouble himself about the
+recognition by the proposed treaty of the independence of the United
+Provinces.  Ambiguous words had been purposely made use of in this
+regard, he was to explain, so that not only the foreign ambassadors were
+of opinion that the rights of Spain were not curtailed, but the emptiness
+of the imaginary recognition of Dutch freedom had been proved by the
+sharp criticism of the States.
+
+It is true that Richardot, in the name of the archduke, had three months
+before promised the consent of the king, as having already been obtained.
+But Richardot knew very well when he made the statement that it was
+false.  The archduke, in subsequent correspondence with the ambassadors
+in December, repeated the pledge.  Yet, not only had the king not given
+that consent, but he had expressly refused it by a courier sent in
+November.
+
+Philip, now convinced by Brother Inigo that while agreeing to treat with
+the States-General as with a free commonwealth, over which he pretended
+to no authority, he really meant that he was dealing with vassals over
+whom his authority was to be resumed when it suited his convenience, at
+last gave his consent to the, proposed treaty.  The royal decision was,
+however, kept for a time concealed, in order that the States might become
+more malleable.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+A truce he honestly considered a pitfall of destruction
+Alas! we must always have something to persecute
+Argument is exhausted and either action or compromise begins
+Beware of a truce even more than of a peace
+Could handle an argument as well as a sword
+God alone can protect us against those whom we trust
+Humble ignorance as the safest creed
+Man is never so convinced of his own wisdom
+Peace was unattainable, war was impossible, truce was inevitable
+Readiness at any moment to defend dearly won liberties
+Such an excuse was as bad as the accusation
+The art of ruling the world by doing nothing
+To doubt the infallibility of Calvin was as heinous a crime
+What exchequer can accept chronic warfare and escape bankruptcy
+Words are always interpreted to the disadvantage of the weak
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v82
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
+From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609
+
+By John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+History United Netherlands, Volume 83, 1609
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+     Vote of the States-General on the groundwork of the treaty--
+     Meeting of the plenipotentiaries for arrangement of the truce--
+     Signing of the twelve years' truce--Its purport--The negotiations
+     concluded--Ratification by the States-General, the Archdukes, and
+     the King of Spain--Question of toleration--Appeal of President
+     Jeannin on behalf of the Catholics--Religious liberty the fruit of
+     the war--Internal arrangements of the States under the rule of
+     peace--Deaths of John Duke of Cleves and Jacob Arminius--Doctrines
+     of Arminius and Gomarus--Theological warfare--Twenty years' truce
+     between the Turkish and Roman empires--Ferdinand of Styria--
+     Religious peace--Prospects of the future.
+
+On the 11th January, 1609, the States-General decided by unanimous vote
+that the first point in the treaty should be not otherwise fixed than,
+thus:--
+
+"That the archdukes--to superfluity--declare, as well in their own name
+as in that of the King of Spain, their willingness to treat with the
+lords States of the United Provinces in the capacity of, and as holding
+them for, free countries, provinces, and states, over which they have no
+claim, and that they are making a treaty with them in those said names
+and qualities."
+
+It was also resolved not to permit that any ecclesiastical or secular
+matters, conflicting with the above-mentioned freedom, should be
+proposed; nor that any delay should be sought for, by reason of the
+India navigation or any other point.
+
+In case anything to the contrary should be attempted by the king or the
+archdukes, and the deliberations protracted in consequence more than
+eight days, it was further decided by unanimous vote that the
+negotiations should at once be broken off, and the war forthwith renewed,
+with the help, if possible, of the kings, princes, and states, friends of
+the good cause.
+
+This vigorous vote was entirely the work of Barneveld, the man whom his
+enemies dared to denounce as the partisan of Spain, and to hold up as a
+traitor deserving of death.  It was entirely within his knowledge that a
+considerable party in the provinces had grown so weary of the war, and so
+much alarmed at the prospect of the negotiations for truce coming to
+nought, as to be ready to go into a treaty without a recognition of
+the independence of the States.  This base faction was thought to be
+instigated by the English Government, intriguing secretly with President
+Richardot.  The Advocate, acting in full sympathy with Jeannin,
+frustrated the effects of the manoeuvre by obtaining all the votes
+of Holland and Zeeland for this supreme resolution.  The other five
+provinces dared to make no further effort in that direction against
+the two controlling states of the republic.
+
+It was now agreed that the French and English ambassadors should delay
+going to Antwerp until informed of the arrival in that city of Spinola
+and his colleagues; and that they should then proceed thither, taking
+with them the main points of the treaty, as laid down by themselves, and
+accepted with slight alterations by the States.
+
+When the Spanish commissioners had signed these points the
+plenipotentiaries were to come to Antwerp in order to settle other
+matters of less vital import.  Meantime, the States-General were to be
+summoned to assemble in Bergen-op-Zoom, that they might be ready to deal
+with difficulties, should any arise.
+
+The first meeting took place on the 10th February, 1609.  The first
+objection to the draught was made by the Spaniards.  It was about words
+and wind.  They liked not the title of high and puissant lords which was
+given to the States-General, and they proposed to turn the difficulty by
+abstaining from giving any qualifications whatever, either to the
+archdukes or the republican authorities.  The States refused to lower
+these ensigns of their new-born power.  It was, however, at last agreed
+that, instead of high and mighty, they should be called illustrious and
+serene.
+
+This point being comfortably adjusted, the next and most important one
+was accepted by the Spaniards.  The independence of the States was
+recognised according to the prescribed form.  Then came the great bone of
+contention, over which there had been such persistent wrangling--the
+India trade.
+
+The Spanish Government had almost registered a vow in heaven that the
+word India should not be mentioned in the treaty.  It was no less certain
+that India was stamped upon the very heart of the republic, and could not
+be torn from it while life remained.  The subtle diplomatists now
+invented a phrase in which the word should not appear, while the thing
+itself should be granted.  The Spaniards, after much altercation, at last
+consented.
+
+By the end of February, most of the plenipotentiaries thought it safe to
+request the appearance of the States-General at Bergen-op-Zoom.
+
+Jeannin, not altogether satisfied, however, with the language of the
+Spaniards in regard to India, raised doubts as to the propriety of
+issuing the summons.  Putting on his most reverend and artless expression
+of countenance, he assured Richardot that he had just received a despatch
+from the Hague, to the effect that the India point would, in all
+probability, cause the States at that very moment to break off the
+negotiations.  It was surely premature, therefore, to invite them to
+Bergen.  The despatch from the Hague was a neat fiction on the part of
+the president, but it worked admirably.  The other president, himself
+quite as ready at inventions as Jeannin could possibly be, was
+nevertheless taken in; the two ex-leaguers being, on the whole, fully
+a match for each other in the art of intrigue.  Richardot, somewhat
+alarmed, insisted that the States should send their plenipotentiaries to
+Antwerp as soon as possible.  He would answer for it that they would not
+go away again without settling upon the treaty.  The commissioners were
+forbidden, by express order from Spain, to name the Indies in writing,
+but they would solemnly declare, by word of mouth, that the States should
+have full liberty to trade to those countries; the King of Spain having
+no intention of interfering with such traffic during the period of the
+truce.
+
+The commissioners came to Antwerp.  The States-General assembled at
+Bergen.  On the 9th April, 1609, the truce for twelve years was signed.
+This was its purport:
+
+The preamble recited that the most serene princes and archdukes, Albert
+and Isabella Clara Eugenic, had made, on the 24th April, 1607, a truce
+and cessation of arms for eight months with the illustrious lords the
+States-General of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, in quality of,
+and as holding them for, states, provinces, and free countries, over
+which they pretended to nothing; which truce was ratified by his Catholic
+Majesty, as to that which concerned him, by letters patent of 18th
+September, 1607; and that, moreover, a special power had been given to
+the archdukes on the 10th January, 1608, to enable them in the king's
+name as well as their own to do everything that they might think proper
+to bring about a peace or a truce of many years.
+
+It then briefly recited the rupture of the negotiations for peace, and
+the subsequent, proposition, originated by the foreign ambassadors, to
+renew the conference for the purpose of concluding a truce.  The articles
+of the treaty thus agreed upon were:
+
+That the archdukes declared, as well in their own name as that of the
+king, that they were content to treat with the lords the States-General
+of the United Provinces in quality of, and as holding them for,
+countries, provinces, and free states, over which they pretended
+to nothing, and to, make with them a truce on certain following
+conditions--to wit:
+
+That the truce should be good, firm, loyal, inviolable, and for the term
+of twelve years, during which time there was to be cessation of all acts
+of hostility between the king, archdukes, and States-General, as well by
+sea and other waters as by land, in all their kingdoms, countries, lands,
+and lordships, and for all their subjects and inhabitants of whatever
+quality and condition, without exception of places or of persons.
+
+That each party should remain seized of their respective possessions,
+and be not troubled therein during the truce.
+
+That the subjects and inhabitants of the respective countries should
+preserve amity and good correspondence during the truce, without
+referring to past offences, and should freely and securely entertain
+communication and traffic with each other by land and sea.  This
+provision, however, was to be expressly understood as limited by the king
+to the kingdoms and countries possessed by him in Europe, and in other
+places and seas where the subjects of other kings and princes, his
+friends and allies, have amicable traffic.  In regard, however, to
+places, cities, ports, and harbours which he possessed outside of those
+limits, the States and their subjects were to exercise no traffic,
+without express permission of the king.  They could, however, if they
+chose, trade with the countries of all other princes, potentates, and
+peoples who were willing to permit it; even outside those limits, without
+any hindrance by the king;
+
+That the truce should begin in regard to those distant countries after a
+year from date, unless actual notification could be sooner served there
+on those concerned;
+
+That the subjects of the United Provinces should have the same liberty
+and privilege within the States of the king and archdukes as had been
+accorded to the subjects of the by the King of Great Britain, according
+to the last treaty made with that sovereign;
+
+That letters of marque and reprisal should not be granted during the
+truce, except for special cause, and in cases permitted by the laws and
+imperial constitutions, and according to the rules therein prescribed;
+
+That those who had retired into neutral territory during the war were
+also to enjoy the benefit of the truce, and could reside wherever they
+liked without being deprived of their property;
+
+That the treaty should be ratified by the archdukes and the States-
+General within four days.  As to the ratification of the king, the
+archdukes were bound to deliver it in good and due form within three
+months, in order that the lords the States-General, their subjects and
+inhabitants, might enjoy effectively the fruits of the treaty;
+
+That the treaty should be published everywhere immediately after the
+ratification of the archdukes and States-General.
+
+This document was signed by the ambassadors of the Kings of France and
+Great Britain, as mediators, and then by the deputies of the archdukes,
+and afterwards by those of the lords the States-General.
+
+There were thirty-eight articles in all, but the chief provisions
+have been indicated.  The other clauses, relating to boundaries,
+confiscations, regulations of duties, frontier fortifications,
+the estates of the Nassau family, and other sequestrated property,
+have no abiding interest.
+
+There was also a secret and special treaty which was demanded of the King
+of Spain by the States-General, and by him accorded.
+
+This secret treaty consisted of a single clause.  That clause was made up
+of a brief preamble and of a promise.  The preamble recited textually
+article fourth of the public treaty relative to the India trade.  The
+promise was to this effect.
+
+For the period of the truce the Spanish commissioners pledged the faith
+of the king and of his successors that his Majesty would cause no
+impediment, whether by sea or land, to the States nor their subjects,
+in the traffic that thereafter might be made in the countries of all
+princes, potentates, and peoples who might permit the same, in whatever
+place it might be, even without the limits designated, and everywhere
+else, nor similarly to those carrying on such traffic with them, and that
+the king and his successors would faithfully carry into effect everything
+thus laid, down, so that the said traffic should be free and secure,
+consenting even, in order that the clause might be the more authentic,
+that it should be considered as inserted in the principal treaty, and as
+making part thereof.
+
+It will be perceived that the first article of all, and the last or
+secret article, contained the whole marrow of the treaty.  It may be well
+understood, therefore, with what wry faces the Spanish plenipotentiaries
+ultimately signed the document.
+
+After two years and a quarter of dreary negotiation, the republic had
+carried all its points, without swerving a hair's breadth from the
+principles laid down in the beginning.  The only concession made was that
+the treaty was for a truce of twelve years, and not for peace.  But as
+after all, in those days, an interval of twelve years might be almost
+considered an eternity of peace, and as calling a peace perpetual can
+never make it so, the difference was rather one of phraseology than of
+fact.
+
+On the other hand, the States had extorted from their former sovereign a
+recognition of their independence.
+
+They had secured the India trade.
+
+They had not conceded Catholic worship.
+
+Mankind were amazed at this result--an event hitherto unknown in
+history.  When before had a sovereign acknowledged the independence of
+his rebellious subjects, and signed a treaty with them as with equals?
+When before had Spain, expressly or by implication, admitted that the
+East and West Indies were not her private property, and that navigators
+to those regions, from other countries than her own, were not to be
+chastised as trespassers and freebooters?
+
+Yet the liberty of the Netherlands was acknowledged in terms which
+convinced the world that it was thenceforth an established fact.  And
+India was as plainly expressed by the omission of the word, as if it had
+been engrossed in large capitals in Article IV.
+
+The King's Government might seek solace in syntax.  They might triumph in
+Cardinal Bentivoglio's subtleties, and persuade themselves that to treat
+with the republic as a free nation was not to hold it for a free nation
+then and for ever.  But the whole world knew that the republic really was
+free, and that it had treated, face to face, with its former sovereign,
+exactly as the Kings of France or Great Britain, or the Grand Turk, might
+treat with him.  The new commonwealth had taken its place among the
+nations of the earth.  Other princes and potentates made not the
+slightest difficulty in recognising it for an independent power and
+entering into treaties and alliances with it as with any other realm.
+
+To the republic the substantial blessing of liberty: to his Catholic
+Majesty the grammatical quirk.  When the twelve years should expire,
+Spain might reconquer the United Provinces if she could; relying upon the
+great truth that an adverb was not a preposition.  And France or Great
+Britain might attempt the same thing if either felt strong enough for the
+purpose.  Did as plausible a pretext as that ever fail to a state
+ambitious of absorbing its neighbours?
+
+Jeannin was right enough in urging that this famous clause of recognition
+ought to satisfy both parties.  If the United Provinces, he said,
+happened not to have the best muskets and cannons on their side when it
+should once more come to blows, small help would they derive from verbal
+bulwarks and advantages in the text of treaties.
+
+Richardot consoled himself with his quibbles; for quibbles were his daily
+bread. "Thank God our truce is made," said he, "and we have only lost the
+sovereignty for twelve years, if after that we have the means or the will
+to resume the war--whatever Don Pedro de Toledo may say."
+
+Barneveld, on his part, was devoutly and soberly pleased with the result.
+"To-day we have concluded our negotiations for the truce," he wrote to
+Aerssens.  "We must pray to the Lord God, and we must do our highest duty
+that our work may redound to his honour and glory, and to the nation's
+welfare.  It is certain that men will make their criticisms upon it
+according to their humours.  But those who love their country, and all
+honest people who know the condition of the land, will say that it is
+well done."
+
+Thus modestly, religiously, and sincerely spoke a statesman, who felt
+that he had accomplished a great work, and that he had indeed brought the
+commonwealth through the tempest at last.
+
+The republic had secured the India trade.  On this point the negotiators
+had taken refuge in that most useful figure of speech for hard-pressed
+diplomatists and law-makers--the ellipsis.  They had left out the word
+India, and his Catholic Majesty might persuade himself that by such
+omission a hemisphere had actually been taken away from the Dutch
+merchants and navigators.  But the whole world saw that Article IV.
+really contained both the East and West Indies.  It hardly needed the
+secret clause to make assurance doubly sure.
+
+President Richardot was facetiously wont to observe that this point in
+the treaty was so obscure that he did not understand it himself.  But he
+knew better.  He understood it very well.  The world understood it very
+well.  The United Provinces had throughout the negotiations ridiculde the
+idea of being excluded from any part of the old world or, the new by
+reason of the Borgian grant.  All the commissioners knew that the war
+would be renewed if any attempt were to be seriously made to put up those
+famous railings around the ocean, of which the Dutch diplomatists spoke
+in such bitter scorn.  The Spanish plenipotentiaries, therefore, had
+insisted that the word itself should be left out, and that the republic
+should be forbidden access to territories subject to the crown of Spain.
+So the Hollanders were thenceforth to deal directly with the kings of
+Sumatra and the Moluccas, and the republics of Banda, and all the rich
+commonwealths and principalities of nutmegs; cloves, and indigo, unless,
+as grew every day more improbable, the Spaniards and Portuguese could
+exclude them from that traffic by main force.   And the Orange flag of
+the republic was to float with equal facility over all America, from the
+Isle of Manhattan to the shores of Brazil and the Straits of Magellan,
+provided Philip had not ships and soldiers to vindicate with the sword
+that sovereignty which Spanish swords and Spanish genius had once
+acquired.
+
+As for the Catholic worship, the future was to prove that liberty for the
+old religion and for all forms of religion was a blessing more surely to
+flow from the enlightened public sentiment of a free people emerging out
+of the most tremendous war for liberty ever waged, than from the
+stipulations of a treaty with a foreign power.
+
+It was characteristic enough of the parties engaged in the great
+political drama that the republic now requested from France and Great
+Britain a written recognition of its independence, and that both France
+and England refused.
+
+It was strange that the new commonwealth, in the very moment of extorting
+her freedom from the ancient tyranny, should be so unconscious of her
+strength as to think free papers from neutral powers a boon.  As if the
+sign-manual of James and Henry were a better guarantee than the trophies
+of the Nassaus, of Heemskerk, of Matelieff, and of Olden-Barneveld!
+
+It was not strange that the two sovereigns should decline the
+proposition; for we well know the secret aspirations of each, and it
+was natural that they should be unwilling to sign a formal quit-claim,
+however improbable it might be that those dreams should ever become
+a reality.
+
+Both powers, however, united in a guarantee of the truce.
+
+This was signed on the 17th June, and stipulated that, without their
+knowledge and consent, the States should make no treaty during the period
+of truce with the King of Spain or the archdukes.  On the other hand, in
+case of an infraction of the truce by the enemy, the two kings agreed to
+lend assistance to the States in the manner provided--by the treaties
+concluded with the republic previously to the negotiation of the truce.
+
+The treaty had been at once ratified by the States-General, assembled for
+the purpose with an extraordinary number of deputies at Bergen-op-Zoom.
+It was also ratified without delay by the archdukes.  The delivery of the
+confirmation by his Catholic Majesty had been promised within three
+months after the signatures of the plenipotentiaries.
+
+It would however have been altogether inconsistent with the dignity and
+the traditions of the Spanish court to fulfil this stipulation.  It was
+not to be expected that "I the King" could be written either by the
+monarch himself, or by his alter ego the Duke of Lerma, in so short a
+time as a quarter of a year.
+
+Several weeks accordingly went by after the expiration of the stated
+period.  The ratification did not come, and the Netherlanders began to
+be once more indignant.  Before the storm had risen very high, however,
+the despatches arrived.  The king's signature was ante-dated 7th April,
+being thus brought within the term of three months, and was a thorough
+confirmation of what had been done by his plenipotentiaries.
+
+His Majesty, however, expressed a hope that during the truce the States
+would treat their Catholic subjects with kindness.
+
+Certainly no exception could be taken to so reasonable an intimation as
+this.  President Jeannin, too, just before his departure, handed in to
+the States-General an eloquent appeal on behalf of the Catholics of the
+Netherlands; a paper which was not immediately made public.
+
+"Consider the great number of Catholics," he said, "in your territory,
+both in the cities and the country.  Remember that they have worked with
+you; spent their property, have been exposed to the same dangers, and
+have always kept their fidelity to the commonwealth inviolate as long as
+the war endured, never complaining that they did not enjoy liberty of
+religious worship, believing that you had thus, ordained because the
+public safety required such guaranty.  But they always promised
+themselves, should the end of the war be happy, and should you be placed
+in the enjoyment of entire freedom, that they too would have some part in
+this good fortune, even as they had been sharers in the inconveniences,
+the expenses, and the perils of the war.
+
+"But those cannot be said to share in any enjoyment from whom has been
+taken the power of serving God according to the religion in which they
+were brought up.  On the contrary, no slavery is more intolerable nor
+more exasperates the mind than such restraint.  You know this well, my
+lords States; you know too that it was the principal, the most puissant
+cause that made you fly to arms and scorn all dangers, in order to effect
+your deliverance from this servitude.  You know that it has excited
+similar movements in various parts of Christendom, and even in the
+kingdom of France, with such fortunate success everywhere as to make it
+appear that God had so willed it, in order to prove that religion ought
+to be taught and inspired by the movements which come from the Holy
+Ghost, and not by the force of man.  Thus kings and princes should be
+induced by the evils and ruin which they and their subjects have suffered
+from this cause, as by a sentiment of their own interest, to take more
+care than has hitherto been taken to practise in good earnest those
+remedies which were wont to be used at a time when the church was in
+its greatest piety, in order to correct the abuses and errors which the
+corruption of mankind had tried to introduce as being the true and sole
+means of uniting all Christians in one and the same creed."
+
+Surely the world had made progress in these forty years of war.  Was it
+not something to gain for humanity, for intellectual advancement, for
+liberty of thought, for the true interests of religion, that a Roman
+Catholic, an ex-leaguer, a trusted representative of the immediate
+successor of Charles IX. and Henry III., could stand up on the blood-
+stained soil of the Netherlands and plead for liberty of conscience
+for all mankind?
+
+"Those cannot be said to share in, any enjoyment from whom has been taken
+the power of serving God according to the religion in which they have
+been brought up.  No slavery is more intolerable nor more exasperating to
+the mind than such restraint."
+
+Most true, O excellent president!  No axiom in mathematics is more
+certain than this simple statement.  To prove its truth William the
+Silent had lived and died.  To prove it a falsehood, emperors, and kings,
+and priests, had issued bans, and curses, and damnable decrees.  To root
+it out they had butchered, drowned, shot, strangled, poisoned, tortured,
+roasted alive, buried alive, starved, and driven mad, thousands and tens
+of thousands of their fellow creatures.  And behold there had been almost
+a century of this work, and yet the great truth was not rooted out after
+all; and the devil-worshippers, who had sought at the outset of the great
+war to establish the Holy Inquisition in the Netherlands upon the ruins
+of religious and political liberty, were overthrown at last and driven
+back into the pit.  It was progress; it was worth all the blood and
+treasure which had been spilled, that, instead of the Holy Inquisition,
+there was now holy liberty of thought.
+
+That there should have been a party, that there should have been an
+individual here and there, after the great victory was won, to oppose the
+doctrine which the Catholic president now so nobly advocated, would be
+enough to cause every believer in progress to hide his face in the dust,
+did we not know that the march of events was destined to trample such
+opposition out of existence, and had not history proved to us that the
+great lesson of the war was not to be rendered nought by the efforts of a
+few fanatics.  Religious liberty was the ripened and consummate fruit,
+and it could not but be gathered.
+
+"Consider too," continued the president, "how much injury your refusal,
+if you give it, will cause to those of your religion in the places where
+they are the weakest, and where they are every day imploring with tears
+and lamentations the grace of those Catholic sovereigns to whom they are
+subject, to enable them to enjoy the same religious liberty which our
+king is now demanding in favour of the Catholics among you.  Do not cause
+it to come again into the minds of those sovereigns and their peoples,
+whom an inconsiderate zeal has often driven into violence and ferocity
+against protestants, that a war to compel the weakest to follow the
+religion of the strongest is just and lawful."
+
+Had not something been gained for the world when this language was held
+by a Catholic on the very spot where less than a half century before the
+whole population of the Netherlands, men, women, and children, had been
+condemned to death by a foreign tyrant, for the simple reason that it was
+just, legal, and a Christian duty to punish the weak for refusing to
+follow the religion of the strong?
+
+"As for the perils which some affect to fear," said Jeannin, further, "if
+this liberty of worship is accorded, experience teaches us every day that
+diversity of religion is not the cause of the ruin of states, and that a
+government does not cease to be good, nor its subjects to live in peace
+and friend ship with one another, rendering due obedience to the laws and
+to their, rulers as well as if they had all been of the same religion,
+without having another thought, save for the preservation of the dignity
+and grandeur of the state in which God had caused them to be born.  The
+danger is not in the permission, but in the prohibition of religious
+liberty."
+
+All this seems commonplace enough to us on the western side of the
+Atlantic, in the middle of the nineteenth century, but it would have been
+rank blasphemy in New England in the middle of the seventeenth, many
+years after Jeannin spoke.  It was a horrible sound, too, in the ears of
+some of his audience.
+
+To the pretence so often urged by the Catholic persecutors, and now set
+up by their Calvinistic imitators; that those who still clung to the old
+religion were at liberty to depart from the land, the president replied
+with dignified scorn.
+
+"With what justice," he asked, "can you drive into, exile people who have
+committed no offence, and who have helped to conquer the very country
+from which you would now banish them?  If you do drive them away, you
+will make solitudes in your commonwealth, which will, be the cause of
+evils such as I prefer that you should reflect upon without my declaring
+them now.  Although these reasons," he continued, "would seem sufficient
+to induce you to accord the free and public exercise of the Catholic
+religion, the king, not hoping as much as that, because aware that you
+are not disposed to go so far, is content to request only this grace in
+behalf of the Catholics, that you will tolerate them, and suffer them to
+have some exercise of their religion within their own households, without
+interference or inquiry on that account, and without execution of the
+rigorous decrees heretofore enforced against them."
+
+Certainly if such wholesome, moderate, and modest counsels as these had
+been rejected, it would have been sound doctrine to proclaim that the
+world did not move.  And there were individuals enough, even an
+influential party, prepared to oppose them for both technical and
+practical reasons.  And the cause of intolerance derived much warmth
+and comfort at this juncture from that great luminary of theology and
+political philosophy, the King of Great Britain.  Direful and solemn were
+the warnings uttered by James to the republic against permitting the old
+religion, or any religion save his own religion, to obtain the slightest
+foothold within her borders.
+
+"Let the religion be taught and preached in its parity throughout your
+provinces without the least mixture," said Sir Ralph Winwood, in the name
+of his sovereign.
+
+"On this foundation the justice of your cause is built.  There is but one
+verity.  Those who are willing to tolerate any religion, whatever it may
+be, and try to make you believe that liberty for both is necessary in
+your commonwealth, are paving the way towards atheism."
+
+Such were the counsels of King James to the united States of the
+Netherlands against harbouring Catholics.  A few years later he was
+casting forth Calvinists from his own dominions as if they had been
+lepers; and they went forth on their weary pilgrimage to the howling
+wilderness of North America, those exiled Calvinists, to build a greater
+republic than had ever been dreamed of before on this planet; and they
+went forth, not to preach, but in their turn to denounce toleration and
+to hang heretics.  "He who would tolerate another religion that his own
+may be tolerated, would if need be, hang God's bible at the devil's
+girdle."  So spoke an early Massachusetts pilgrim, in the very spirit,
+almost the very words of the royal persecutor; who had driven him into
+outer darkness beyond the seas.  He had not learned the lesson of the
+mighty movement in which he was a pioneer, any more than Gomarus or
+Uytenbogaart had comprehended why the Dutch republic had risen.
+
+Yet the founders of the two commonwealths, the United States of the
+seventeenth and of the nineteenth centuries, although many of them
+fiercely intolerant, through a natural instinct of resistance, not only
+to the oppressor but to the creed of the oppressor, had been breaking out
+the way, not to atheism, as King James believed, but to the only garden
+in which Christianity can perennially flourish--religious liberty.
+
+Those most ardent and zealous path-finders may be forgiven, in view of
+the inestimable benefits conferred by them upon humanity, that they did
+not travel on their own road.  It should be sufficient for us, if we make
+due use of their great imperishable work ourselves; and if we never cease
+rendering thanks to the Omnipotent, that there is at least one great
+nation on the globe where the words toleration and dissenter have no
+meaning whatever.
+
+For the Dutch fanatics of the reformed church, at the moment of the
+truce, to attempt to reverse the course of events, and to shut off the
+mighty movement of the great revolt from its destined expanse, was as
+hopeless a dream as to drive back the Rhine, as it reached the ocean,
+into the narrow channel of the Rheinwald glacier whence it sprang.
+
+The republic became the refuge for the oppressed of all nations, where
+Jews and Gentiles, Catholics, Calvinists, and Anabaptistis, prayed after
+their own manner to the same God and Father.  It was too much, however,
+to hope that passions which had been so fiercely bubbling during fifty
+years would subside at once, and that the most intense religious hatreds
+that ever existed would exhale with the proclamation of truce.  The march
+of humanity is rarely rapid enough to keep pace with the leaders in its
+most sublime movements, and it often happens that its chieftains are
+dwarfed in the estimation of the contemporaneous vulgar, by the very
+distance at which they precede their unconscious followers.  But even if
+the progress of the human mind towards the truth is fated to be a spiral
+one, as if to remind us that mankind is of the earth, earthy--a worm in
+the dust while inhabiting this lower sphere--it is at least a consolation
+to reflect upon the gradual advancement of the intellect from age to age.
+
+The spirit of Torquemada, of Charles, of Philip, of Titelmann, is even
+now not extinct on this globe, but there are counter forces at work,
+which must ultimately blast it into insignificance.  At the moment of the
+great truce, that evil spirit was not exorcised from the human breast,
+but the number of its victims and the intensity of its influence had
+already miraculously diminished.
+
+The truce was made and announced all over the Netherlands by the ringing
+of bells, the happy discharge of innocent artillery, by illuminations, by
+Te Deums in all the churches.  Papist and Presbyterian fell on their
+knees in every grand cathedral or humblest village church, to thank God
+that what had seemed the eternal butchery was over.  The inhabitants of
+the united and of the obedient Netherlands rushed across the frontiers
+into a fraternal embrace; like the meeting of many waters when the flood-
+gates are lifted.  It was pity that the foreign sovereignty, established
+at Brussels, could not then and there have been for ever swept away, and
+self-government and beneficent union extended over all the seventeen
+Netherlands, Walloon and Flemish, Catholic and reformed.  But it hardly
+needs a word to show that the course of events had created a deeper chasm
+between the two sections than the gravest physical catastrophe could have
+produced.  The opposing cliffs which religious hatred had rent asunder,
+and between which it seemed destined to flow for ever, seemed very close,
+and yet eternally separated.
+
+The great war had established the republic; and apparently doomed the
+obedient Netherlands to perpetual servitude.
+
+There were many details of minor importance to be settled between the
+various governments involved in these great transactions; but this
+history draws to its predestined close, and it is necessary to glide
+rapidly over matters which rather belong to a later epoch than the one
+now under consideration.
+
+The treaty between the republic and the government of Great Britain,
+according to which each was to assist the other in case of war with four
+thousand troops and twenty ships of war, was confirmed in the treaty of
+truce.  The debt of the United Provinces to the Crown of England was
+definitely reckoned at 8,184,080 florins, and it was settled by the truce
+that 200,000 florins should be paid semi-annually, to begin with the year
+1611, until the whole debt should be discharged.
+
+The army establishment of the republic was fixed during the truce at
+thirty thousand infantry and three thousand horse.  This was a reduction
+from the war footing of fifteen thousand men.  Of the force retained,
+four thousand were a French legion maintained by the king, two thousand
+other French at the expense of the States, and distributed among other
+troops, two thousand Scotch, three thousand English, three thousand
+Germans.  The rest were native Netherlanders, among whom, however, were
+very few Hollanders and Zeelanders, from which races the navy, both
+public and mercantile, was almost wholly supplied.
+
+The revenue of the United Provinces was estimated at between seven and
+eight millions of florins.
+
+It is superfluous to call attention again to the wonderful smallness of
+the means, the minuteness of the physical enginry, as compared with more
+modern manifestations, especially in our own land and epoch, by which so
+stupendous a result had been reached.  In the midst of an age in which
+regal and sacerdotal despotism had seemed as omnipotent and irreversible
+as the elemental laws of the universe, the republic had been reproduced.
+A commonwealth of sand-banks, lagoons, and meadows, less than fourteen
+thousand square miles in extent, had done battle, for nearly half a
+century, with the greatest of existing powers, a realm whose territory
+was nearly a third of the globe, and which claimed universal monarchy.
+And this had been done with an army averaging forty-six thousand men,
+half of them foreigners hired by the job, and by a sea-faring population,
+volunteering into ships of every class and denomination, from a fly-boat
+to a galleot of war.
+
+And when the republic had won its independence, after this almost eternal
+warfare, it owed four or five millions of dollars, and had sometimes an
+annual revenue of nearly that amount.
+
+It was estimated by Barneveld, at the conclusion of the truce, that the
+interest on the public debt of Spain was about thrice the amount of the
+yearly income of the republic, and it was characteristic of the financial
+ideas of the period, that fears were entertained lest a total repudiation
+of that burthen by the Spanish Government would enable it to resume the
+war against the provinces with redoubled energy.
+
+The annual salary of Prince Maurice, who was to see his chief occupation
+gone by the cessation of the war, was fixed by the States at 120,000
+florins.  It was agreed, that in case of his marriage he should receive
+a further yearly sum of 25,000 florins, and this addition was soon
+afterwards voted to him outright, it being obvious that the prince would
+remain all his days a bachelor.
+
+Count Frederic Henry likewise received a military salary of 25,000
+florins, while the emoluments of Lewis William were placed at 36,000
+florins a year.
+
+It must be admitted that the republic was grateful.  70,000 dollars a
+year, in the seventeenth century, not only for life, but to be inherited
+afterwards by his younger brother, Frederic Henry, was surely a
+munificent sum to be accorded from the puny exchequer of the States-
+General to the chief magistrate of the nation.
+
+The mighty transatlantic republic, with its population of thirty or forty
+millions, and its revenue of five hundred millions of dollars, pays
+25,000 dollars annually for its president during his four years of
+office, and this in the second half of the nineteenth century, when a
+dollar is worth scarcely one-fifth of its value two hundred and fifty
+years ago.
+
+Surely here is improvement, both in the capacity to produce and in the
+power to save.
+
+In the year 1609, died John, the last sovereign of Cleves and Juliers,
+and Jacob Arminius, Doctor of Divinity at Leyden.  It would be difficult
+to imagine two more entirely dissimilar individuals of the human family
+than this lunatic duke and that theological professor.  And yet, perhaps,
+the two names, more concisely than those of any other mortals, might
+serve as an index to the ghastly chronicle over which a coming generation
+was to shudder.  The death of the duke was at first thought likely to
+break off the negotiations for truce.  The States-General at once
+declared that they would permit no movements on the part of the Spanish
+party to seize the inheritance in behalf of the Catholic claimants.
+Prince Maurice, nothing loth to make use of so well-timed an event in
+order to cut for ever the tangled skein at the Hague, was for marching
+forthwith into the duchies.
+
+But the archdukes gave such unequivocal assurances of abstaining from
+interference, and the desire for peace was so strong both in the obedient
+and in the United Provinces, that the question of the duchies was
+postponed.  It was to serve as both torch and fuel for one of the longest
+and most hideous tragedies that had ever disgraced humanity.  A thirty
+years' war of demons was, after a brief interval, to succeed the forty
+years' struggle between slaves and masters, which had just ended in the
+recognition of Dutch independence.
+
+The gentle Arminius was in his grave, but a bloody harvest was fast
+ripening from the seeds which he had sown.  That evil story must find its
+place in the melancholy chapter where the fortunes of the Dutch republic
+are blended with the grim chronicle of the thirty years' war.  Until the
+time arrives for retracing the course of those united transactions to
+their final termination in the peace of Westphalia, it is premature to
+characterize an epoch which, at the moment with which we are now
+occupied, had not fairly begun.
+
+The Gomarites accused the Arminians of being more lax than Papists, and
+of filling the soul of man with vilest arrogance and confidence in good
+works; while the Arminians complained that the God of the Gomarites was
+an unjust God, himself the origin of sin.
+
+The disputes on these themes had been perpetual in the provinces ever
+since the early days of the Reformation.  Of late, however, the acrimony
+of theological conflict had been growing day by day more intense.  It was
+the eternal struggle of religious dogma to get possession of the State,
+and to make use of political forces in order to put fetters on the human
+soul; to condemn it to slavery where most it requires freedom.
+
+The conflict between Gomarus and Arminius proceeded with such ferocity
+in Leyden, that, since the days of the memorable siege, to which the
+university owed its origin, men's minds had never been roused to such
+feverish anxiety: The theological cannonades, which thundered daily from
+the college buildings and caused all Holland to quake, seemed more
+appalling to the burghers than the enginry of Valdez and Boisot had ever
+seemed to their fathers.
+
+The Gomarite doctrine gained most favour with the clergy, the Arminian
+creed with the municipal magistracies.  The magistrates claimed that
+decisions concerning religious matters belonged to the supreme authority.
+The Gomarites contended that sacred matters should be referred to synods
+of the clergy.  Here was the germ of a conflict which might one day shake
+the republic to its foundations.
+
+Barneveld, the great leader of the municipal, party, who loved political
+power quite as well as he loved his country; was naturally a chieftain of
+the Arminians; for church, matters were no more separated from political
+matters in the commonwealth at that moment than they were in the cabinets
+of Henry, James, or Philip.
+
+It was inevitable therefore that the war party should pour upon his head
+more than seven vials of theological wrath.  The religious doctrines
+which he espoused were, odious not only because they were deemed vile in
+themselves but because he believed in them.
+
+Arminianism was regarded as a new and horrible epidemic, daily gaining
+ground, and threatening to destroy the whole population.  Men deliberated
+concerning the best means to cut off communication with the infected
+regions, and to extirpate the plague even by desperate and heroic
+remedies, as men in later days take measures against the cholera or the
+rinderpest.
+
+Theological hatred was surely not extinct in the Netherlands.  It was a
+consolation, however, that its influence was rendered less noxious by the
+vastly increased strength of principles long dormant in the atmosphere.
+Anna van der Hoven, buried alive in Brussels, simply because her
+Calvinistic creed was a crime in the eyes of the monks who murdered her,
+was the last victim to purely religious persecution.  If there were one
+day to be still a tragedy or two in the Netherlands it was inevitable
+that theological hatred would be obliged to combine with political party
+spirit in its most condensed form before any deadly effect could be
+produced.
+
+Thus the year 1609 is a memorable one in the world's history.  It forms a
+great landmark in human progress.  It witnessed the recognition of a
+republic, powerful in itself, and whose example was destined to be most
+influential upon the career of two mighty commonwealths of the future.
+The British empire, just expanding for wider flight than it had hitherto
+essayed, and about to pass through a series of vast revolutions,
+gathering strength of wing as it emerged from cloud after cloud; and the
+American republic, whose frail and obscure beginnings at that very
+instant of time scarcely attracted a passing attention from the
+contemporaneous world--both these political organisms, to which so much
+of mankind's future liberties had been entrusted, were deeply indebted to
+the earlier self-governing commonwealth.
+
+The Dutch republic was the first free nation to put a girdle of
+empire around the earth.  It had courage, enterprise, intelligence,
+perseverance, faith in itself, the instinct of self-government and self-
+help, hatred of tyranny, the disposition to domineer, aggressiveness,
+greediness, inquisitiveness, insolence, the love of science, of liberty,
+and of money--all this in unlimited extent.  It had one great defect, it
+had no country.  Upon that meagre standing ground its hand had moved the
+world with an impulse to be felt through all the ages, but there was not
+soil enough in those fourteen thousand, square miles to form the
+metropolis of the magnificent empire which the genius of liberty had
+created beyond the seas.
+
+That the political institutions bequeathed by the United States of the
+seventeenth century have been vastly improved, both in theory and
+practice, by the United States of the nineteenth, no American is likely
+to gainsay.  That the elder Republic showed us also what to avoid, and
+was a living example of the perils besetting a Confederacy which dared
+not become a Union, is a lesson which we might take closely to heart.
+
+But the year 1609 was not only memorable as marking an epoch in Dutch
+history.  It was the beginning of a great and universal pause.  The world
+had need of rest.  Disintegration had been going on too rapidly, and it
+was absolutely necessary that there should be a new birth, if
+civilization were not to vanish.
+
+A twenty years' truce between the Turkish and Holy Roman empires was
+nearly simultaneous with the twelve years' truce between Spain and the
+United Provinces.  The Emperor Rudolph having refused to ratify the
+treaty which his brother Matthias had made, was in consequence partially
+discrowned.  The same archduke who, thirty years before, had slipped away
+from Vienna in his nightgown; with his face blackened, to outwit and
+outgeneral William the Silent at Brussels, was now--more successful in
+his manoeuvres against his imperial brother.  Standing at the head of his
+army in battle array, in the open fields before the walls of Prague, he
+received--from the unfortunate Rudolph the crown and regalia of Hungary,
+and was by solemn treaty declared sovereign of that ancient and
+chivalrous kingdom.
+
+His triumphal entrance into Vienna succeeded, where, surrounded by great
+nobles and burghers, with his brother Maximilian at his side, with
+immense pomp and with flowers strewn before his feet, he ratified that
+truce with Ahmed which Rudolph had rejected.  Three months later he was
+crowned at Pressburg, having first accepted the conditions proposed by
+the estates of Hungary.  Foremost among these was the provision that the
+exercise of the reformed religion should be free in all the cities and
+villages beneath his sceptre, and that every man in the kingdom was to
+worship God according to his conscience.
+
+In the following March, at the very moment accordingly when the
+conclusive negotiations were fast ripening at Antwerp, Matthias granted
+religious peace for Austria likewise.  Great was the indignation of his
+nephew Leopold, the nuncius, and the Spanish ambassador in consequence,
+by each and all of whom the revolutionary mischief-maker, with his
+brother's crown on his head, was threatened with excommunication.
+
+As for Ferdinand of Styria, his wrath may well be imagined.  He refused
+religious peace in his dominions with scorn ineffable.  Not Gomarus in
+Leyden could have shrunk from Arminianism with more intense horror than
+that with which the archduke at Gratz recoiled from any form of
+Protestantism.  He wrote to his brother-in-law the King of Spain and to
+other potentates--as if the very soul of Philip II. were alive within
+him--that he would rather have a country without inhabitants than with a
+single protestant on its soil.  He strongly urged upon his Catholic
+Majesty--as if such urging were necessary at the Spanish court--the
+necessity of extirpating heresy, root and branch.
+
+Here was one man at least who knew what he meant, and on whom the dread
+lessons of fifty years of bloodshed had been lost.  Magnificent was the
+contempt which this pupil of the Jesuits felt for any little progress
+made by the world since the days of Torquemada.  In Ferdinand's view Alva
+was a Christian hero, scarcely second to Godfrey of Bouillon, Philip II.
+a sainted martyr, while the Dutch republic had never been born.
+
+And Ferdinand was one day to sit on the throne of the holy Roman Empire.
+Might not a shudder come over the souls of men as coming events vaguely
+shaped themselves to prophetic eyes?
+
+Meantime there was religious peace in Hungary, in Austria, in Bohemia, in
+France, in Great Britain, in the Netherlands.  The hangman's hands were
+for a period at rest, so far as theology had need of them.  Butchery in
+the name of Christ was suspended throughout Christendom.  The Cross and
+the Crescent, Santiago and the Orange banner, were for a season in
+repose.
+
+There was a vast lull between two mighty storms.  The forty years' war
+was in the past, the thirty years' war in the not far distant future.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+Forth-three years had passed since the memorable April morning in which
+the great nobles of the, Netherlands presented their "Request" to the
+Regent Margaret at Brussels.
+
+They had requested that the holy Spanish Inquisition might not be
+established on their soil to the suppression of all their political and
+religious institutions.
+
+The war which those high-born "beggars" had then kindled, little knowing
+what they were doing, had now come to a close, and the successor of
+Philip II., instead of planting the Inquisition in the provinces, had
+recognised them as an independent, sovereign, protestant republic.
+
+In the ratification which he had just signed of the treaty of truce the
+most Catholic king had in his turn made a Request.  He had asked the
+States-General to deal kindly with their Catholic subjects.
+
+That request was not answered with the age and faggot; with the avenging
+sword of mercenary legions.  On the contrary, it was destined to be
+granted.  The world had gained something in forty-three years.  It had at
+least begun to learn that the hangman is not the most appropriate teacher
+of religion.
+
+During the period of apparent chaos with which this history of the great
+revolt has been occupied, there had in truth been a great reorganization,
+a perfected new birth.  The republic had once more appeared in the world.
+
+Its main characteristics have been indicated in the course of the
+narrative, for it was a polity which gradually unfolded itself out of the
+decay and change of previous organisms.
+
+It was, as it were, in their own despite and unwittingly that the United
+Provinces became a republic at all.
+
+In vain, after originally declaring their independence of the ancient
+tyrant, had they attempted to annex themselves to France and to England.
+The sovereignty had been spurned.  The magnificent prize which France for
+centuries since has so persistently coveted, and the attainment of which
+has been a cardinal point of her perpetual policy--the Low Countries and
+the banks of the Rhine--was deliberately laid at her feet, and as
+deliberately refused.
+
+It was the secret hope of the present monarch to repair the loss which
+the kingdom had suffered through the imbecility of his two immediate
+predecessors.  But a great nation cannot with impunity permit itself to
+be despotically governed for thirty years by lunatics.  It was not for
+the Bearnese, with all his valour, his wit, and his duplicity, to obtain
+the prize which Charles IX. and Henry III. had thrown away.  Yet to make
+himself sovereign of the Netherlands was his guiding but most secret
+thought during all the wearisome and tortuous negotiations which preceded
+the truce; nor did he abandon the great hope with the signature of the
+treaty of 1609.
+
+Maurice of Nassau too was a formidable rival to Henry.  The stadholder-
+prince was no republican.  He was a good patriot, a noble soldier, an
+honest man.  But his father had been offered the sovereignty of Holland
+and Zeeland, and the pistol of Balthasar Gerard had alone, in all human
+probability, prevented the great prince from becoming constitutional
+monarch of all the Netherlands, Batavian and Belgic.
+
+Maurice himself asserted that not only had he been offered a million of
+dollars, and large estates besides in Germany, if he would leave the
+provinces to their fate, but that the archdukes had offered, would he
+join his fortunes with theirs, to place him in a higher position over all
+the Netherlands than he had ever enjoyed in the United Provinces, and
+that they had even unequivocally offered him the sovereignty over the
+whole land.
+
+Maurice was a man of truth, and we have no right to dispute the accuracy
+of the extraordinary statement.  He must however have reflected upon the
+offer once made by the Prince of Darkness from the mountain top, and have
+asked himself by what machinery the archdukes proposed to place him in
+possession of such a kingdom.
+
+There had, however, been serious question among leading Dutch
+statesmen of making him constitutional, hereditary monarch of the United
+Netherlands.  As late as 1602 a secret conference was held at the house
+of Olden-Barneveld, in which the Advocate had himself urged the claims of
+the prince to the sovereignty, and reminded his guests that the signed
+and sealed documents--with the concurrence of the Amsterdam municipality
+alone lacking--by which William the Silent had been invited to assume the
+crown were still in the possession of his son.
+
+Nothing came of these deliberations.  It was agreed that to stir in the
+matter at that moment would be premature, and that the pursuit by Maurice
+of the monarchy in the circumstances then existing would not only over-
+burthen him with expense, but make him a more conspicuous mark than ever
+for the assassin.  It is certain that the prince manifested no undue
+anxiety at any period in regard to those transactions.
+
+Subsequently, as Olden-Barneveld's personal power increased, and as the
+negotiations for peace became more and more likely to prove successful,
+the Advocate lost all relish for placing his great rival on a throne.
+The whole project, with the documents and secret schemes therewith
+connected, became mere alms for oblivion.  Barneveld himself, although of
+comparatively humble birth and station, was likely with time to exercise
+more real power in the State than either Henry or Maurice; and thus while
+there were three individuals who in different ways aspired to supreme
+power, the republic, notwithstanding, asserted and established itself.
+
+Freedom of government and freedom, of religion were, on the whole,
+assisted by this triple antagonism.  The prince, so soon as war was
+over, hated the Advocate and his daily increasing power more and more.
+He allied himself more closely than ever with the Gomarites and the
+clerical party in general, and did his best to inflame the persecuting
+spirit, already existing in the provinces, against the Catholics and the
+later sects of Protestants.
+
+Jeannin warned him that "by thus howling with the priests" he would be
+suspected of more desperately ambitious designs than he perhaps really
+cherished.
+
+On the other hand, Barneveld was accused of a willingness to wink at the
+introduction, privately and quietly, of the Roman Catholic worship.  That
+this was the deadliest of sins, there was no doubt whatever in the minds
+of his revilers.  When it was added that he was suspected of the Arminian
+leprosy, and that he could tolerate the thought that a virtuous man or
+woman, not predestined from all time for salvation, could possibly find
+the way to heaven, language becomes powerless to stigmatize his
+depravity.  Whatever the punishment impending over his head in this world
+or the next, it is certain that the cause of human freedom was not
+destined on the whole to lose ground through the life-work of Barneveld.
+
+A champion of liberties rather than of liberty, he defended his
+fatherland with heart and soul against the stranger; yet the government
+of that fatherland was, in his judgments to be transferred from the hand
+of the foreigner, not to the self-governing people, but to the provincial
+corporations.  For the People he had no respect, and perhaps little
+affection.  He often spoke of popular rights with contempt.  Of popular
+sovereignty he had no conception.  His patriotism, like his ambition, was
+provincial.  Yet his perceptions as to eternal necessity in all healthy
+governments taught him that comprehensible relations between the state
+and the population were needful to the very existence of a free
+commonwealth.  The United Provinces, he maintained, were not a republic,
+but a league of seven provinces very loosely hung together, a mere
+provisional organization for which it was not then possible to substitute
+anything better.  He expressed this opinion with deep regret, just as the
+war of independence was closing, and added his conviction that, without
+some well-ordered government, no republic could stand.
+
+Yet, as time wore on, the Advocate was destined to acquiesce more and
+more in this defective constitution.  A settled theory there was none,
+and it would have been difficult legally and historically to establish
+the central sovereignty of the States-General as matter of right.
+
+Thus Barneveld, who was anything but a democrat, became, almost
+unwittingly, the champion of the least venerable or imposing of all
+forms of aristocracy--an oligarchy of traders who imagined themselves
+patricians.  Corporate rights, not popular liberty, seemed, in his view,
+the precious gains made by such a prodigious expenditure of time, money,
+and blood.  Although such acquisitions were practically a vast addition
+to the stock of human freedom then existing in the world, yet torrents of
+blood and millions of treasure were to be wasted in the coming centuries
+before mankind was to convince itself that a republic is only to be made
+powerful and perpetual by placing itself upon the basis of popular right
+rather than on that of municipal privilege.
+
+The singular docility of the Dutch people, combined with the simplicity,
+honesty, and practical sagacity of the earlier burgher patricians, made
+the defects of the system tolerable for a longer period than might have
+been expected; nor was it until theological dissensions had gathered to
+such intensity as to set the whole commonwealth aflame that the grave
+defects in the political structure could be fairly estimated.
+
+It would be anticipating a dark chapter in the history of the United
+Provinces were the reader's attention now to be called to those fearful
+convulsions.  The greatest reserve is therefore necessary at present in
+alluding to the subject.
+
+It was not to be expected that an imperious, energetic but somewhat
+limited nature like that of Barneveld should at that epoch thoroughly
+comprehend the meaning of religious freedom.  William the Silent alone
+seems to have risen to that height.  A conscientious Calvinist himself,
+the father of his country would have been glad to see Protestant and
+Papist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Anabaptist living together in harmony
+and political equality.  This was not to be.  The soul of the immortal
+prince could not inspire the hearts of his contemporaries.  That
+Barneveld was disposed to a breadth of religious sympathy unusual in
+those days, seems certain.  It was inevitable, too, that the mild
+doctrines of Arminius should be more in harmony with such a character
+than were the fierce dogmas of Calvin.  But the struggle, either to force
+Arminianism upon the Church which considered itself the established one
+in the Netherlands, or to expel the Calvinists from it, had not yet
+begun; although the seeds of religious persecution of Protestants by
+Protestants had already been sown broadcast.
+
+The day was not far distant when the very Calvinists, to whom, more than
+to any other class of men, the political liberties of Holland, England,
+and America are due, were to be hunted out of churches into farm-houses,
+suburban hovels, and canal-boats by the arm of provincial sovereignty and
+in the name of state-rights, as pitilessly as the early reformers had
+been driven out of cathedrals in the name of emperor and pope; and when
+even those refuges for conscientious worship were to be denied by the
+dominant sect.  And the day was to come, too, when the Calvinists,
+regaining ascendency in their turn, were to hunt the heterodox as they
+had themselves been hunted; and this, at the very moment when their
+fellow Calvinists of England were driven by the Church of that kingdom
+into the American wilderness.
+
+Toleration--that intolerable term of insult to all who love liberty--had
+not yet been discovered.  It had scarcely occurred to Arminian or
+Presbyterian that civil authority and ecclesiastical doctrine could be
+divorced from each other.  As the individual sovereignty of the seven
+states established itself more and more securely, the right of provincial
+power to dictate religious dogmas, and to superintend the popular
+conscience, was exercised with a placid arrogance which papal
+infallibility could scarcely exceed.  The alternation was only between
+the sects, each in its turn becoming orthodox, and therefore persecuting.
+The lessened intensity of persecution however, which priesthood and
+authority were now allowed to exercise, marked the gains secured.
+
+Yet while we censure--as we have a right to do from the point of view
+which we have gained after centuries--the crimes committed by bigotry
+against liberty, we should be false, to our faith in human progress did
+we not acknowledge our debt of gratitude to the hot gospellers of Holland
+and England.
+
+The doctrine of predestination, the consciousness of being chosen
+soldiers of Christ, inspired those puritans, who founded the
+commonwealths of England, of Holland, and of America, with a contempt
+of toil, danger, and death which enabled them to accomplish things
+almost supernatural.
+
+No uncouthness of phraseology, no unlovely austerity of deportment,
+could, except to vulgar minds, make that sublime enthusiasm ridiculous,
+which on either side the ocean ever confronted tyranny with dauntless
+front, and welcomed death on battle-field, scaffold, or rack with perfect
+composure.
+
+The early puritan at least believed.  The very intensity of his belief
+made him--all unconsciously to himself, and narrowed as was his view of
+his position--the great instrument by which the widest human liberty was
+to be gained for all mankind.
+
+The elected favourite of the King of kings feared the power of no earthly
+king.  Accepting in rapture the decrees of a supernatural tyranny, he
+rose on mighty wings above the reach of human wrath.  Prostrating himself
+before a God of vengeance, of jealousy, and of injustice, be naturally
+imitated the attributes which he believed to be divine.  It was
+inevitable, therefore, that Barneveld, and those who thought with him,
+when they should attempt to force the children of Belial into the company
+of the elect and to drive the faithful out of their own churches, should
+be detested as bitterly as papists had ever been.
+
+Had Barneveld's intellect been broad enough to imagine in a great
+republic the separation of Church and State, he would deserve a tenderer
+sympathy, but he would have been far in advance of his age.  It is not
+cheerful to see so powerful an intellect and so patriotic a character
+daring to entrust the relations between man and his Maker to the decree
+of a trading corporation.  But alas! the world was to wait for centuries
+until it should learn that the State can best defend religion by letting
+it alone, and that the political arm is apt to wither with palsy when it
+attempts to control the human conscience.
+
+It is not entirely the commonwealth of the United Netherlands that is of
+importance in the epoch which I have endeavoured to illustrate.  History
+can have neither value nor charm for those who are not impressed with a
+conviction of its continuity.
+
+More than ever during the period which we call modern history has this
+idea of the continuousness of our race, and especially of the inhabitants
+of Europe and America, become almost oppressive to the imagination.
+There is a sense of immortality even upon earth when we see the
+succession of heritages in the domains of science, of intellectual and
+material wealth by which mankind, generation after generation, is
+enriching itself.
+
+If this progress be a dream, if mankind be describing a limited circle
+instead of advancing towards the infinite; then no study can be more
+contemptible than the study of history.
+
+Few strides more gigantic have been taken in the march of humanity than
+those by which a parcel of outlying provinces in the north of Europe
+exchanged slavery to a foreign despotism and to the Holy Inquisition
+for the position of a self-governing commonwealth, in the, front rank of
+contemporary powers, and in many respects the foremost of the world.  It
+is impossible to calculate the amount of benefit tendered to civilization
+by the example of the Dutch republic.  It has been a model which has been
+imitated, in many respects, by great nations.  It has even been valuable
+in its very defects; indicating to the patient observer many errors most
+important to avoid.
+
+Therefore, had the little republic sunk for ever in the sea so soon as
+the treaty of peace had been signed at Antwerp, its career would have
+been prolific of good for all succeeding time.
+
+Exactly at the moment when a splendid but decaying despotism, founded
+upon wrong--upon oppression of the human body and the immortal soul, upon
+slavery, in short, of the worst kind--was awaking from its insane dream
+of universal empire to a consciousness of its own decay, the new republic
+was recognised among the nations.
+
+It would hardly be incorrect to describe the Holland of the beginning
+of the seventeenth century as the exact reverse of Spain.  In, the
+commonwealth labour was most honourable; in the kingdom it was vile.
+In the north to be idle was accounted and punished as a crime.  In the
+southern peninsula, to be contaminated with mechanical, mercantile,
+commercial, manufacturing pursuits, was to be accursed.  Labour was for
+slaves, and at last the mere spectacle of labour became so offensive that
+even the slaves were expelled from the land.  To work was as degrading in
+the south as to beg or to steal was esteemed unworthy of humanity in the
+north.  To think a man's thought upon high matters of religion and
+government, and through a thousand errors to pursue the truth; with the
+aid of the Most High and with the best use of human reason, was a
+privilege secured by the commonwealth, at the expense of two generations
+of continuous bloodshed.  To lie fettered, soul and body, at the feet of
+authority wielded by a priesthood in its last stage of corruption, and
+monarchy almost reduced to imbecility, was the lot of the chivalrous,
+genial; but much oppressed Spaniard.
+
+The pictures painted of the republic by shrewd and caustic observers, not
+inclined by nature or craft to portray freedom in too engaging colours,
+seem, when contrasted with those revealed of Spain, almost like
+enthusiastic fantasies of an ideal commonwealth.
+
+During the last twenty years of the great war the material prosperity of
+the Netherlands had wonderfully increased.  They had, become the first
+commercial nation in the world.  They had acquired the supremacy of the
+seas.  The population of Amsterdam had in twenty years increased from
+seventy thousand to a hundred and thirty thousand, and was destined to be
+again more than doubled in the coming decade.  The population of Antwerp
+had sunk almost as rapidly as that of its rival had increased; having
+lessened by fifty thousand during the same period.  The commercial
+capital of the obedient provinces, having already lost much of its famous
+traffic by the great changes in the commercial current of the world, was
+unable to compete with the cities of the United Provinces in the vast
+trade which the geographical discoveries of the preceding century had
+opened to civilization.  Freedom of thought and action were denied, and
+without such liberty it was impossible for oceanic commerce to thrive.
+Moreover, the possession by the Hollanders of the Scheld forts below
+Antwerp, and of Flushing at the river's mouth, suffocated the ancient
+city, and would of itself have been sufficient to paralyze all its
+efforts.
+
+In Antwerp the exchange, where once thousands of the great merchants of
+the earth held their daily financial parliament, now echoed to the
+solitary footfall of the passing stranger.  Ships lay rotting at the
+quays; brambles grow in the commercial streets.  In Amsterdam the city
+had been enlarged by two-thirds, and those who swarmed thither to seek
+their fortunes could not wait for the streets to be laid out and houses
+to be built, but established themselves in the environs, building
+themselves hovels and temporary residences, although certain to find
+their encampments swept away with the steady expanse of the city.  As
+much land as could be covered by a man's foot was worth a ducat in gold.
+
+In every branch of human industry these republicans took the lead.  On
+that scrap of solid ground, rescued by human energy from the ocean, were
+the most fertile pastures in the world.  On those pastures grazed the
+most famous cattle in the world.  An ox often weighed more than two
+thousand pounds.   The cows produced two and three calves at a time, the
+sheep four and five lambs.  In a single village four thousand kine were
+counted.  Butter and cheese were exported to the annual value of a
+million, salted provisions to an incredible extent.  The farmers were
+industrious, thriving, and independent.  It is an amusing illustration of
+the agricultural thrift and republican simplicity of this people that on
+one occasion a farmer proposed to Prince Maurice that he should marry his
+daughter, promising with her a dowry of a hundred thousand florins.
+
+The mechanical ingenuity of the Netherlanders, already celebrated by
+Julius Caesar and by Tacitus, had lost nothing of its ancient fame.  The
+contemporary world confessed that in many fabrics the Hollanders were at
+the head of mankind.  Dutch linen, manufactured of the flax grown on
+their own fields or imported from the obedient provinces, was esteemed a
+fitting present for kings to make and to receive.  The name of the
+country had passed into the literature of England as synonymous with the
+delicate fabric itself.  The Venetians confessed themselves equalled, if
+not outdone, by the crystal workers and sugar refiners of the northern
+republic.  The tapestries of Arras--the name of which Walloon city had
+become a household word of luxury in all modern languages--were now
+transplanted to the soil of freedom, more congenial to the advancement of
+art.  Brocades of the precious metals; splendid satins and velvets;
+serges and homely fustians; laces of thread and silk; the finer and
+coarser manufactures of clay and porcelain; iron, steel, and all useful
+fabrics for the building and outfitting of ships; substantial broadcloths
+manufactured of wool imported from Scotland--all this was but a portion
+of the industrial production of the provinces.
+
+They supplied the deficiency of coal, not then an article readily
+obtained by commerce, with other remains of antediluvian forests long
+since buried in the sea, and now recovered from its depths and made
+useful and portable by untiring industry.  Peat was not only the fuel
+for the fireside, but for the extensive fabrics of the country, and its
+advantages so much excited the admiration of the Venetian envoys that
+they sent home samples of it, in the hope that the lagunes of Venice
+might prove as prolific of this indispensable article as the polders of
+Holland.
+
+But the foundation of the national wealth, the source of the apparently
+fabulous power by which the republic had at last overthrown her gigantic
+antagonist, was the ocean.  The republic was sea-born and sea-sustained.
+
+She had nearly one hundred thousand sailors, and three thousand ships.
+The sailors were the boldest, the best disciplined, and the most
+experienced in the-world, whether for peaceable seafaring or ocean
+warfare.  The ships were capable of furnishing from out of their number
+in time of need the most numerous and the best appointed navy then known
+to mankind.
+
+The republic had the carrying trade for all nations.  Feeling its very
+existence dependent upon commerce, it had strode centuries in advance of
+the contemporary world in the liberation of trade.  But two or three per
+cent. ad valorem was levied upon imports; foreign goods however being
+subject, as well as internal products, to heavy imposts in the way of
+both direct and indirect taxation.
+
+Every article of necessity or luxury known was to be purchased in
+profusion and at reasonable prices in the warehouses of Holland.
+
+A swarm of river vessels and fly-boats were coming daily through the
+rivers of Germany, France and the Netherlands, laden with the
+agricultural products and the choice manufactures of central and western
+Europe.  Wine and oil, and delicate fabrics in thread and wool, came from
+France, but no silks, velvets, nor satins; for the great Sully had
+succeeded in persuading his master that the white mulberry would not grow
+in his kingdom, and that silk manufactures were an impossible dream for
+France.  Nearly a thousand ships were constantly employed in the Baltic
+trade.   The forests of Holland were almost as extensive as those which
+grew on Norwegian hills, but they were submerged.  The foundation of a
+single mansion required a grove, and wood was extensively used in the
+superstructure.  The houses, built of a framework of substantial timber,
+and filled in with brick or rubble, were raised almost as rapidly as
+tents, during the prodigious expansion of industry towards the end of the
+war.  From the realms of the Osterlings, or shores of the Baltic, came
+daily fleets laden with wheat and other grains so that even in time of
+famine the granaries of the republic were overflowing, and ready to
+dispense the material of life to the outer world.
+
+Eight hundred vessels of lesser size but compact build were perpetually
+fishing for herrings on the northern coasts.  These hardy mariners, the
+militia of the sea, who had learned in their life of hardship and daring
+the art of destroying Spanish and Portuguese armadas, and confronting the
+dangers of either pole, passed a long season on the deep.  Commercial
+voyagers as well as fishermen, they salted their fish as soon as taken
+from the sea, and transported them to the various ports of Europe, thus
+reducing their herrings into specie before their return, and proving that
+a fishery in such hands was worth more than the mines of Mexico and Peru.
+
+It is customary to speak of the natural resources of a country as
+furnishing a guarantee of material prosperity.  But here was a republic
+almost without natural resources, which had yet supplied by human
+intelligence and thrift what a niggard nature had denied.  Spain was
+overflowing with unlimited treasure, and had possessed half the world in
+fee; and Spain was bankrupt, decaying, sinking into universal pauperism.
+Holland, with freedom of thought, of commerce, of speech, of action,
+placed itself, by intellectual power alone, in the front rank of
+civilization.
+
+From Cathay, from the tropical coasts of Africa, and from farthest Ind,
+came every drug, spice, or plant, every valuable jewel, every costly
+fabric, that human ingenuity had discovered or created.  The Spaniards,
+maintaining a frail tenure upon a portion of those prolific regions,
+gathered their spice harvests at the point of the sword, and were
+frequently unable to prevent their northern rivals from ravaging such
+fields as they had not yet been able to appropriate.
+
+Certainly this conduct of the Hollanders was barbarism and supreme
+selfishness, if judged by the sounder political economy of our time.
+Yet it should never be forgotten that the contest between Spain and
+Holland in those distant regions, as everywhere else, was war to the
+knife between superstition and freedom, between the spirits of progress
+and of dogma.  Hard blows and foul blows were struck in such a fight, and
+humanity, although gaining at last immense results, had much to suffer
+and much to learn ere the day was won.
+
+But Spain was nearly beaten out of those eastern regions, and the very
+fact that the naval supremacy of the republic placed her ancient tyrant
+at her mercy was the main reason for Spain to conclude the treaty of
+truce.  Lest she should lose the India trade entirely, Spain consented to
+the treaty article by which, without mentioning the word, she conceded
+the thing.  It was almost pathetic to witness, as we have witnessed, this
+despotism in its dotage, mumbling so long over the formal concession to
+her conqueror of a portion of that India trade which would have been
+entirely wrested from herself had the war continued.  And of this Spain
+was at heart entirely convinced.  Thus the Portuguese, once the lords and
+masters, as they had been the European discoverers, of those prolific
+regions and of the ocean highways which led to them, now came with
+docility to the republic which they had once affected to despise,
+and purchased the cloves and the allspice, the nutmegs and the cinnamon,
+of which they had held the monopoly; or waited with patience until the
+untiring Hollanders should bring the precious wares to the peninsula
+ports.
+
+A Dutch Indianian would make her voyage to the antipodes and her return
+in less time than was spent by a Portuguese or a Spaniard in the outward
+voyage.  To accomplish such an enterprise in two years was accounted a
+wonder of rapidity, and when it is remembered that inland navigation
+through France by canal and river from the North Sea to the Mediterranean
+was considered both speedier and safer, because the sea voyage between
+the same points might last four or five months, it must be admitted that
+two years occupied in passing from one end of the earth to the other and
+back again might well seem a miracle.
+
+The republic was among the wealthiest and the most powerful of organized
+States.  Her population might be estimated at three millions and a half,
+about equal to that of England at the same period.  But she was richer
+than England.  Nowhere in the world was so large a production in
+proportion to the numbers of a people.  Nowhere were so few unproductive
+consumers.  Every one was at work.  Vagabonds, idlers, and do-nothings,
+such as must be in every community, were caught up by the authorities and
+made to earn their bread.  The devil's pillow, idleness, was smoothed for
+no portion of the population.
+
+There were no beggars, few paupers, no insolently luxurious and
+ostentatiously idle class.  The modesty, thrift, and simple elegance of
+the housekeeping, even among the wealthy, was noted by travellers with
+surprise.  It will be remembered with how much amused wonder, followed by
+something like contempt, the, magnificent household of Spinola, during
+his embassy at the Hague, was surveyed by the honest burghers of Holland.
+The authorities showed their wisdom in permitting the absurd exhibition,
+as an example of what should be shunned, in spite of grave remonstrances
+from many of the citizens.  Drunken Helotism is not the only form of
+erring humanity capable of reading lessons to a republic.
+
+There had been monasteries, convents, ecclesiastical establishments of
+all kinds in the country, before the great war between Holland and the
+Inquisition.  These had, as a matter of course, been confiscated as the
+strife went on.  The buildings, farms, and funds, once the property of
+the Church, had not, however, been seized upon, as in other Protestant
+lands, by rapacious monarchs, and distributed among great nobles
+according to royal caprice.  Monarchs might give the revenue of a
+suppressed convent to a cook, as reward for a successful pudding; the
+surface of Britain and the continent might be covered with abbeys and
+monasteries now converted into lordly palaces--passing thus from the dead
+hand of the Church into the idle and unproductive palm of the noble; but
+the ancient ecclesiastical establishments of the free Netherlands were
+changed into eleemosynary institutions, admirably organized and
+administered with wisdom and economy, where orphans of the poor, widows
+of those slain in the battles for freedom by land and sea, and the aged
+and the infirm, who had deserved well of the republic in the days of
+their strength, were educated or cherished at the expense of the public,
+thus endowed from the spoils of the Church.
+
+In Spain, monasteries upon monasteries were rising day by day, as if
+there were not yet receptacles enough for monks and priests, while
+thousands upon thousands of Spaniards were pressing into the ranks of
+the priesthood, and almost forcing themselves into monasteries, that
+they might be privileged to beg, because ashamed to work.  In the
+United Netherlands the confiscated convents, with their revenues,
+were appropriated for the good of those who were too young or too old to
+labour, and too poor to maintain themselves without work.  Need men look
+further than to this simple fact to learn why Spain was decaying while
+the republic was rising?
+
+The ordinary budget of the United Provinces was about equal to that of
+England, varying not much from four millions of florins, or four hundred
+thousand pounds.  But the extraordinary revenue was comparatively without
+limits, and there had been years, during the war, when the citizens had
+taxed themselves as highly as fifty per cent. on each individual income,
+and doubled the receipts of the exchequer.  The budget was proposed once
+a year, by the council of state, and voted by the States-General, who
+assigned the quota of each province; that of Holland being always one-
+half of the whole, that of Zeeland sixteen per cent., and that of the
+other five of course in lesser proportions.  The revenue was collected
+in the separate provinces, one-third of the whole being retained for
+provincial expenses, and the balance paid into the general treasury.
+There was a public debt, the annual interest of which amounted to 200,000
+florins.  During the war, money had been borrowed at as high a rate as
+thirty-six per cent., but at the conclusion of hostilities the States
+could borrow at six per cent., and the whole debt was funded on that
+basis.  Taxation was enormously heavy, but patriotism caused it to be
+borne with cheerfulness, and productive industry made it comparatively
+light.  Rents were charged twenty-five per cent.  A hundred per cent. was
+levied upon beer, wine, meat, salt, spirits.  Other articles of necessity
+and luxury were almost as severely taxed.  It is not easy to enumerate
+the tax-list, scarcely anything foreign or domestic being exempted, while
+the grave error was often committed of taxing the same article, in
+different forms, four, five, and six times.
+
+The people virtually taxed themselves, although the superstition
+concerning the State, as something distinct from and superior to the
+people, was to linger long and work infinite mischief among those seven
+republics which were never destined to be welded theoretically and
+legally into a union.  The sacredness of corporations had succeeded,
+in a measure, to the divinity which hedges kings.  Nevertheless, those
+corporations were so numerous as to be effectively open to a far larger
+proportion of the population than, in those days, had ever dreamed before
+of participating in the Government.  The magistracies were in general
+unpaid and little coveted, being regarded as a burthen and a
+responsibility rather than an object of ambition.  The jurisconsults,
+called pensionaries, who assisted the municipal authorities, received,
+however, a modest salary, never exceeding 1500 florins a year.
+
+These numerous bodies, provincial and municipal, elected themselves
+themselves by supplying their own vacancies.  The magistrates were
+appointed by the stadholder, on a double or triple nomination from the
+municipal board.  This was not impartial suffrage nor manhood suffrage.
+The germ of a hateful burgher-oligarchy was in the system, but, as
+compared with Spain, where municipal magistracies were sold by the crown
+at public auction; or with France, where every office in church, law,
+magistrature, or court was an object of merchandise disposed of in open
+market, the system was purity itself, and marked a great advance in the
+science of government.
+
+It should never be forgotten, moreover, that while the presidents
+and judges of the highest courts of judicature in other civilized lands
+were at the mercy of an irresponsible sovereign, and held office--even
+although it had been paid for in solid specie--at his pleasure, the
+supreme justices of the high courts of appeal at the Hague were nominated
+by a senate, and confirmed by a stadholder, and that they exercised their
+functions for life, or so long as they conducted themselves virtuously in
+their high office--'quamdiu se bene gesserint.'
+
+If one of the great objects of a civilized community is to secure to all
+men their own--'ut sua tenerent'--surely it must be admitted that the
+republic was in advance of all contemporary States in the laying down of
+this vital principle, the independence of judges.
+
+As to the army and navy of the United Provinces, enough has been said,
+in earlier chapters of these volumes, to indicate the improvements
+introduced by Prince Maurice, and now carried to the highest point of
+perfection ever attained in that period.  There is no doubt whatever,
+that for discipline, experience, equipment, effectiveness of movement,
+and general organization, the army of the republic was the model army of
+Europe.  It amounted to but thirty thousand infantry and two thousand
+five hundred cavalry, but this number was a large one for a standing army
+at the beginning of the seventeenth century.  It was composed of a
+variety of materials, Hollanders, Walloons, Flemings, Scotch, English,
+Irish, Germans, but all welded together into a machine of perfect
+regularity.  The private foot-soldier received twelve florins for a so-
+called month of forty-two days, the drummer and corporal eighteen, the
+lieutenant fifty-two, and the captain one hundred and fifty florins.
+Prompt payment was made every week.  Obedience was implicit; mutiny, such
+as was of periodical recurrence in the archduke's army, entirely unknown.
+The slightest theft was punished with the gallows, and there was
+therefore no thieving.
+
+The most accurate and critical observers confessed, almost against their
+will, that no army in Europe could compare with the troops of the States.
+As to the famous regiments of Sicily, and the ancient legions of Naples
+and Milan, a distinguished Venetian envoy, who had seen all the camps and
+courts of Christendom, and was certainly not disposed to overrate the
+Hollanders at the expense of the Italians, if any rivalry between them
+had been possible, declared that every private soldier in the republic
+was fit to be a captain in any Italian army; while, on the other hand,
+there was scarcely an Italian captain who would be accepted as a private
+in any company of the States.  So low had the once famous soldiery of
+Alva, Don John, and Alexander Farnese descended.
+
+The cavalry of the republic was even more perfectly organized than was
+the infantry.  "I want words to describe its perfection," said Contarini.
+The pay was very high, and very prompt.  A captain received four hundred
+florins a month (of forty-two days), a lieutenant one hundred and eighty
+florins, and other officers and privates in proportion.  These rates
+would be very high in our own day.  When allowance is made for the
+difference in the value of money at the respective epochs, the salaries
+are prodigious; but the thrifty republic found its account in paying well
+and paying regularly the champions on whom so much depended, and by whom
+such splendid services had been rendered.
+
+While the soldiers in the pay of Queen Elizabeth were crawling to her
+palace gates to die of starvation before her eyes; while the veterans of
+Spain and of Italy had organized themselves into a permanent military,
+mutinous republic, on the soil of the so-called obedient Netherland,
+because they were left by their masters without clothing or food; the
+cavalry and infantry of the Dutch commonwealth, thanks to the organizing
+spirit and the wholesome thrift of the burgher authorities, were
+contented, obedient, well fed, well clothed, and well paid; devoted to
+their Government, and ever ready to die in its defence.
+
+Nor was it only on the regular army that reliance was placed.  On the
+contrary, every able-bodied man in the country was liable to be called
+upon to serve, at any moment, in the militia.  All were trained to arms,
+and provided with arms, and there had been years during this perpetual
+war in which one man out of three of the whole male population was ready
+to be mustered at any moment into the field.
+
+Even more could be said in praise of the navy than has been stated of the
+armies of the republic; for the contemporary accounts of foreigners, and
+of foreigners who were apt to be satirical, rather than enthusiastic,
+when describing the institutions, leading personages, and customs of
+other countries, seemed ever to speak of the United Provinces in terms of
+eulogy.  In commerce, as in war, the naval supremacy of the republic was
+indisputable.  It was easy for the States to place two thousand vessels
+of war in commission, if necessary, of tonnage varying from four hundred
+to twelve hundred tons, to man them with the hardiest and boldest sailors
+in the world, and to despatch them with promptness to any quarter of the
+globe.
+
+It was recognised as nearly impossible to compel a war-vessel of the
+republic to surrender.  Hardly an instance was on her naval record of
+submission, even to far superior force, while it was filled with the
+tragic but heroic histories of commanders who had blown their ships,
+with every man on board, into the air, rather than strike their flag.
+Such was the character, and such the capacity of the sea-born republic.
+
+That republic had serious and radical defects, but the design remained to
+be imitated and improved upon, centuries afterwards.  The history of the
+rise and progress of the Dutch republic is a leading chapter in the
+history of human liberty.
+
+The great misfortune of the commonwealth of the United Provinces, next to
+the slenderness of its geographical proportions, was the fact that it was
+without a centre and without a head, and therefore not a nation capable
+of unlimited vitality.  There were seven states.  Each claimed to be
+sovereign.  The pretension on the part of several of them was ridiculous.
+Overyssel, for example, contributed two and three-quarters per cent. of
+the general budget.  It was a swamp of twelve hundred square miles in
+extent, with some heath-spots interspered, and it numbered perhaps a
+hundred thousand inhabitants.  The doughty Count of Embden alone could
+have swallowed up such sovereignty, have annexed all the buckwheat
+patches and cranberry marshes of Overyssel to his own meagre territories,
+and nobody the wiser.
+
+Zeeland, as we have seen, was disposed at a critical moment to set up
+its independent sovereignty.  Zeeland, far more important than Overyssel,
+had a revenue of perhaps five hundred thousand dollars,--rather a slender
+budget for an independent republic, wedged in as it was by the most
+powerful empires of the earth, and half drowned by the ocean, from which
+it had scarcely emerged.
+
+There was therefore no popular representation, and on the other hand no
+executive head.  As sovereignty must be exercised in some way, however,
+in all living commonwealths, and as a low degree of vitality was
+certainly not the defect of those bustling provinces, the supreme
+functions had now fallen into the hands of Holland.
+
+While William the Silent lived, the management of war, foreign affairs,
+and finance, for the revolted provinces, was in his control.  He was
+aided by two council boards, but the circumstances of history and the
+character of the man had invested him with an inevitable dictatorship.
+
+After his death, at least after Leicester's time, the powers of the
+state-council, the head of which, Prince Maurice, was almost always
+absent at the wars, fell into comparative disuse.  The great functions
+of the confederacy passed into the possession of the States-General.
+That body now came to sit permanently at the Hague.  The number of its
+members, deputies from the seven provinces-envoys from those seven
+immortal and soulless sovereigns--was not large.  The extraordinary
+assembly held at Bergen-op-Zoom for confirmation of the truce was
+estimated by, Bentivoglio at eight hundred.  Bentivoglio, who was on the
+spot, being then nuncius at Brussels, ought to have been able to count
+them, yet it is very certain that the number was grossly exaggerated.
+
+At any rate the usual assembly at the Hague rarely amounted to one
+hundred members.  The presidency was changed once a week, the envoy of
+each province taking his turn as chairman.
+
+Olden-Barneveld, as member for Holland, was always present in the diet.
+As Advocate-General of the leading province, and keeper of its great
+seal, more especially as possessor of the governing intellect of the
+whole commonwealth, be led the administration of Holland, and as the
+estates of Holland contributed more than half of the whole budget of
+the confederacy, it was a natural consequence of the actual supremacy of
+that province, and of the vast legal hand political experience of the
+Advocate, that Holland should, govern the confederacy, and that Barneveld
+should govern Holland.
+
+The States-General remained virtually supreme, receiving envoys from all
+the great powers, sending abroad their diplomatic representatives, to
+whom the title and rank of ambassador was freely accorded, and dealing
+in a decorous and dignified way with all European affairs.  The ability
+of the republican statesmen was as fully recognised all over the earth,
+as was the genius of their generals and great naval commanders.
+
+The People did not exist; but this was merely because, in theory, the
+People had not been invented.  It was exactly because there was a People
+--an energetic and intelligent People--that the republic was possible.
+
+No scheme had yet been devised for laying down in primary assemblies
+a fundamental national law, for distributing the various functions
+of governmental power among selected servants, for appointing
+representatives according to population or property, and for holding
+all trustees responsible at reasonable intervals to the nation itself.
+
+Thus government was involved, fold within fold, in successive and
+concentric municipal layers.  The States-General were the outer husk,
+of which the separate town-council was the kernel or bulb.  Yet the
+number of these executive and legislative boards was so large, and the
+whole population comparatively so slender, as to cause the original
+inconveniences from so incomplete a system to be rather theoretic than
+practical.  In point of fact, almost as large a variety of individuals
+served the State as would perhaps have been the case under a more
+philosophically arranged democracy.  The difficulty was rather in
+obtaining a candidate for the post than in distributing the posts
+among candidates.
+
+Men were occupied with their own affairs.  In proportion to their
+numbers, they were more productive of wealth than any other nation then
+existing.  An excellent reason why the people were so, well governed, so
+productive, and so enterprising, was the simple fact that they were an
+educated people.  There was hardly a Netherlander--man, woman, or child--
+that could not read and write.  The school was the common property of the
+people, paid for among the municipal expenses.  In the cities, as well as
+in the rural districts, there were not only common schools but classical
+schools.  In the burgher families it was rare to find boys who had not
+been taught Latin, or girls unacquainted with French.  Capacity to write
+and speak several modern languages was very common, and there were many
+individuals in every city, neither professors nor pedants, who had made
+remarkable progress in science and classical literature.  The position,
+too, of women in the commonwealth proved a high degree of civilization.
+They are described as virtuous, well-educated, energetic, sovereigns
+in their households, and accustomed to direct all the business at home.
+"It would be ridiculous," said Donato, "to see a man occupying himself
+with domestic house-keeping.  The women do it all, and command
+absolutely."  The Hollanders, so rebellious against Church and
+King, accepted with meekness the despotism of woman.
+
+The great movement of emancipation from political and ecclesiastical
+tyranny had brought with it a general advancement of the human intellect.
+The foundation of the Leyden university in memory of the heroism
+displayed by the burghers during the siege was as noble a monument
+as had ever been raised by a free people jealous of its fame.  And the
+scientific lustre of the university well sustained the nobility of its
+origin.  The proudest nation on earth might be more proud of a seat of
+learning, founded thus amidst carnage and tears, whence so much of
+profound learning and brilliant literature had already been diffused.
+The classical labours of Joseph Scaliger, Heinsius father and son the
+elder Dousa, almost as famous with his pen in Latin poetry as his sword
+had made him in the vernacular chronicle; of Dousa the son, whom Grotius
+called "the crown and flower of all good learning, too soon snatched
+away by envious death, than whom no man more skilled in poetry, more
+consummate in acquaintance with ancient science and literature, had ever
+lived;" of Hugo Grotius himself, who at the age of fifteen had taken his
+doctor's degree at Leyden who as a member of Olden-Barneveld's important
+legation to France and England very soon afterwards had excited the
+astonishment of Henry IV. and Elizabeth, who had already distinguished
+himself by editions of classic poets, and by original poems and dramas in
+Latin, and was already, although but twenty-six years of age; laying the
+foundation of that magnificent reputation as a jurist, a philosopher, a
+historian, and a statesman, which was to be one of the enduring glories
+of humanity, all these were the precious possessions of the high school
+of Leyden.
+
+The still more modern university of Franeker, founded amid the din
+of perpetual warfare in Friesland, could at least boast the name of
+Arminius, whose theological writings and whose expansive views were
+destined to exert such influence over his contemporaries and posterity.
+
+The great history of Hoofd, in which the splendid pictures and the
+impassioned drama of the great war of independence were to be preserved
+for his countrymen through all time, was not yet written.  It was soon
+afterwards, however, to form not only a chief source of accurate
+information as to the great events themselves, but a model of style
+never since surpassed by any prose writer in either branch of the
+German tongue.
+
+Had Hoofd written for a wider audience, it would be difficult to name a
+contemporary author of any nation whose work would have been more
+profoundly studied or more generally admired.
+
+But the great war had not waited to be chronicled by the classic and
+impassioned Hoofd.  Already there were thorough and exhaustive narrators
+of what was instinctively felt to be one of the most pregnant episodes of
+human history.  Bor of Utrecht, a miracle of industry, of learning, of
+unwearied perseverance, was already engaged in the production of those
+vast folios in which nearly all the great transactions of the forty
+years' war were conscientiously portrayed, with a comprehensiveness of
+material and an impartiality of statement, such as might seem almost
+impossible for a contemporary writer.  Immersed in attentive study and
+profound contemplation, he seemed to lift his tranquil head from time to
+time over the wild ocean of those troublous times, and to survey with
+accuracy without being swayed or appalled by the tempest.  There was
+something almost sublime in his steady, unimpassioned gaze.
+
+Emanuel van Meteren, too, a plain Protestant merchant of Antwerp and
+Amsterdam, wrote an admirable history of the war and of his own times,
+full of precious details, especially rich in statistics--a branch of
+science which he almost invented--which still, remains as one of the
+leading authorities, not only for scholars, but for the general reader.
+
+Reyd and Burgundius, the one the Calvinist private secretary of Lewis
+William, the other a warm Catholic partisan, both made invaluable
+contemporaneous contributions to the history of the war.
+
+The trophies already secured by the Netherlanders in every department of
+the fine arts, as well as the splendour which was to enrich the coming
+epoch, are too familiar to the world to need more than a passing
+allusion.
+
+But it was especially in physical science that the republic was taking a
+leading part in the great intellectual march of the nations.
+
+The very necessities of its geographical position had forced it to pre-
+eminence in hydraulics and hydrostatics.  It had learned to transform
+water into dry land with a perfection attained by no nation before or
+since.  The wonders of its submarine horticulture were the despair of all
+gardeners in the world.
+
+And as in this gentlest of arts, so also in the dread science of war, the
+republic had been the instructor of mankind.
+
+The youthful Maurice and his cousin Lewis William had so restored
+and improved the decayed intelligence of antique strategy, that the
+greybeards of Europe became docile pupils in their school.  The
+mathematical teacher of Prince Maurice amazed the contemporary world with
+his combinations and mechanical inventions; the flying chariots of Simon
+Stevinua seeming products of magical art.
+
+Yet the character of the Dutch intellect was averse to sorcery.  The
+small but mighty nation, which had emancipated itself from the tyranny of
+Philip and of the Holy Inquisition, was foremost to shake off the fetters
+of superstition.  Out of Holland came the first voice to rebuke one of
+the hideous delusions of the age.  While grave magistrates and sages of
+other lands were exorcising the devil by murdering his supposed victims,
+John Wier, a physician of Grave, boldly denounced the demon which had
+taken possession, not of the wizards, but of the judges.
+
+The age was lunatic and sick, and it was fitting that the race which had
+done so much for the physical and intellectual emancipation of the world,
+should have been the first to apply a remedy for this monstrous madness.
+Englishmen and their descendants were drowning and hanging witches in New
+England, long after John Wier had rebuked and denounced the belief in
+witchcraft.
+
+It was a Zeelander, too; who placed the instrument in the hand of Galileo
+by which that daring genius traced the movements of the universe, and
+who, by another wondrous invention, enabled future discoverers to study
+the infinite life which lies all around us, hidden not by its remoteness
+but it's minuteness.  Zacharias Jansens of Middelburg, in 1590, invented
+both the telescope and the microscope.
+
+The wonder-man of Alkmaar, Cornelius Drebbel, who performed such
+astounding feats for the amusement of Rudolph of Germany and James of
+Britain, is also supposed to have invented the thermometer and the
+barometer.  But this claim has been disputed.  The inventions of Jansens
+are proved.
+
+Willebrod Snellius, mathematical professor of Leyden, introduced the true
+method of measuring the degrees of longitude and latitude, and Huygens,
+who had seen his manuscripts, asserted that Snellius had invented, before
+Descartes, the doctrine of refraction.
+
+But it was especially to that noble band of heroes and martyrs, the great
+navigators and geographical discoverers of the republic, that science is
+above all indebted.
+
+Nothing is more sublime in human story than the endurance and audacity
+with which those pioneers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
+confronted the nameless horrors of either pole, in the interests of
+commerce, and for the direct purpose of enlarging the bounds of the human
+intellect.
+
+The achievements, the sufferings, and the triumphs of Barendz and Cordes,
+Heemskerk, Van der Hagen, and many others, have been slightly indicated
+in these pages.  The contributions to botany, mineralogy, geometry,
+geography, and zoology, of Linschoten, Plancius, Wagenaar, and Houtmann,
+and so many other explorers of pole and tropic, can hardly be overrated.
+
+The Netherlanders had wrung their original fatherland out of the grasp of
+the ocean.  They had confronted for centuries the wrath of that ancient
+tyrant, ever ready to seize the prey of which he had been defrauded.
+
+They had waged fiercer and more perpetual battle with a tyranny more
+cruel than the tempest, with an ancient superstition more hungry than the
+sea.  It was inevitable that a race, thus invigorated by the ocean,
+cradled to freedom by their conflicts with its power, and hardened almost
+to invincibility by their struggle against human despotism, should be
+foremost among the nations in the development of political, religious,
+and commercial freedom.
+
+The writer now takes an affectionate farewell of those who have followed
+him with an indulgent sympathy as he has attempted to trace the origin
+and the eventful course of the Dutch commonwealth.  If by his labours
+a generous love has been fostered for that blessing, without which
+everything that this earth can afford is worthless--freedom of thought,
+of speech, and of life--his highest wish has been fulfilled.
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+About equal to that of England at the same period
+An unjust God, himself the origin of sin
+Butchery in the name of Christ was suspended
+Calling a peace perpetual can never make it so
+Chieftains are dwarfed in the estimation of followers
+Each in its turn becoming orthodox, and therefore persecuting
+Exorcising the devil by murdering his supposed victims
+Foremost to shake off the fetters of superstition
+God of vengeance, of jealousy, and of injustice
+Gomarites accused the Arminians of being more lax than Papists
+Hangman is not the most appropriate teacher of religion
+He often spoke of popular rights with contempt
+John Wier, a physician of Grave
+Necessity of extirpating heresy, root and branch
+Nowhere were so few unproductive consumers
+Paving the way towards atheism (by toleration)
+Privileged to beg, because ashamed to work
+Religious persecution of Protestants by Protestants
+So unconscious of her strength
+State can best defend religion by letting it alone
+Taxed themselves as highly as fifty per cent
+The People had not been invented
+The slightest theft was punished with the gallows
+Tolerate another religion that his own may be tolerated
+Toleration--that intolerable term of insult
+War to compel the weakest to follow the religion of the strongest
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext History of United Netherlands, v83
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS, ENTIRE 1600-09 UNITED NETHERLANDS:
+
+A penal offence in the republic to talk of peace or of truce
+A sovereign remedy for the disease of liberty
+A man incapable of fatigue, of perplexity, or of fear
+A truce he honestly considered a pitfall of destruction
+About equal to that of England at the same period
+Abstinence from unproductive consumption
+Accepting a new tyrant in place of the one so long ago deposed
+Alas! we must always have something to persecute
+Alas! the benighted victims of superstition hugged their chains
+All the ministers and great functionaries received presents
+An unjust God, himself the origin of sin
+Argument is exhausted and either action or compromise begins
+As if they were free will not make them free
+As neat a deception by telling the truth
+Because he had been successful (hated)
+Began to scatter golden arguments with a lavish hand
+Bestowing upon others what was not his property
+Beware of a truce even more than of a peace
+But the habit of dissimulation was inveterate
+Butchery in the name of Christ was suspended
+By turns, we all govern and are governed
+Calling a peace perpetual can never make it so
+Cargo of imaginary gold dust was exported from the James River
+Certain number of powers, almost exactly equal to each other
+Chieftains are dwarfed in the estimation of followers
+Conceit, and procrastination which marked the royal character
+Constitute themselves at once universal legatees
+Contempt for treaties however solemnly ratified
+Converting beneficent commerce into baleful gambling
+Could handle an argument as well as a sword
+Crimes and cruelties such as Christians only could imagine
+Culpable audacity and exaggerated prudence
+Defeated garrison ever deserved more respect from friend or foe
+Delay often fights better than an army against a foreign invader
+Despised those who were grateful
+Diplomacy of Spain and Rome--meant simply dissimulation
+Do you want peace or war?  I am ready for either
+Draw a profit out of the necessities of this state
+Each in its turn becoming orthodox, and therefore persecuting
+Eloquence of the biggest guns
+England hated the Netherlands
+Even the virtues of James were his worst enemies
+Exorcising the devil by murdering his supposed victims
+Foremost to shake off the fetters of superstition
+Four weeks' holiday--the first in eleven years
+Friendly advice still more intolerable
+Gigantic vices are proudly pointed to as the noblest
+God alone can protect us against those whom we trust
+God of vengeance, of jealousy, and of injustice
+Gold was the only passkey to justice
+Gomarites accused the Arminians of being more lax than Papists
+Haereticis non servanda fides
+Hangman is not the most appropriate teacher of religion
+He often spoke of popular rights with contempt
+He who confessed well was absolved well
+His own past triumphs seemed now his greatest enemies
+Human fat esteemed the sovereignst remedy (for wounds)
+Humble ignorance as the safest creed
+Hundred thousand men had laid down their lives by her decree
+Idea of freedom in commerce has dawned upon nations
+Idiotic principle of sumptuary legislation
+If to do be as grand as to imagine what it were good to do
+Impossible it is to practise arithmetic with disturbed brains
+Indulging them frequently with oracular advice
+Insensible to contumely, and incapable of accepting a rebuff
+It is certain that the English hate us (Sully)
+John Castel, who had stabbed Henry IV.
+John Wier, a physician of Grave
+Justified themselves in a solemn consumption of time
+Languor of fatigue, rather than any sincere desire for peace
+Logic of the largest battalions
+Looking down upon her struggle with benevolent indifference
+Made peace--and had been at war ever since
+Man is never so convinced of his own wisdom
+Man who cannot dissemble is unfit to reign
+Men who meant what they said and said what they meant
+Men fought as if war was the normal condition of humanity
+Much as the blind or the deaf towards colour or music
+Nations tied to the pinafores of children in the nursery
+Natural tendency to suspicion of a timid man
+Necessity of extirpating heresy, root and branch
+Negotiated as if they were all immortal
+Night brings counsel
+No retrenchments in his pleasures of women, dogs, and buildings
+No generation is long-lived enough to reap the harvest
+Not safe for politicians to call each other hard names
+Nowhere were so few unproductive consumers
+One of the most contemptible and mischievous of kings (James I)
+Passion is a bad schoolmistress for the memory
+Paving the way towards atheism (by toleration)
+Peace seemed only a process for arriving at war
+Peace founded on the only secure basis, equality of strength
+Peace was unattainable, war was impossible, truce was inevitable
+Philip of Macedon, who considered no city impregnable
+Prisoners were immediately hanged
+Privileged to beg, because ashamed to work
+Proclaiming the virginity of the Virgin's mother
+Readiness at any moment to defend dearly won liberties
+Religious persecution of Protestants by Protestants
+Repose under one despot guaranteed to them by two others
+Requires less mention than Philip III himself
+Rules adopted in regard to pretenders to crowns
+Served at their banquets by hosts of lackeys on their knees
+Sick soldiers captured on the water should be hanged
+So unconscious of her strength
+State can best defend religion by letting it alone
+Steeped to the lips in sloth which imagined itself to be pride
+Subtle and dangerous enemy who wore the mask of a friend
+Such an excuse was as bad as the accusation
+Take all their imaginations and extravagances for truths
+Taxed themselves as highly as fifty per cent
+The art of ruling the world by doing nothing
+The slightest theft was punished with the gallows
+The wisest statesmen are prone to blunder in affairs of war
+The pigmy, as the late queen had been fond of nicknaming him
+The expenses of James's household
+The People had not been invented
+The small children diminished rapidly in numbers
+This obstinate little republic
+To shirk labour, infinite numbers become priests and friars
+To negotiate was to bribe right and left, and at every step
+To doubt the infallibility of Calvin was as heinous a crime
+To negotiate with Government in England was to bribe
+Tolerate another religion that his own may be tolerated
+Toleration--that intolerable term of insult
+Triple marriages between the respective nurseries
+Unlearned their faith in bell, book, and candle
+Unproductive consumption being accounted most sagacious
+Unwise impatience for peace
+Usual expedient by which bad legislation on one side countered
+War was the normal and natural condition of mankind
+War was the normal condition of Christians
+War to compel the weakest to follow the religion of the strongest
+We have been talking a little bit of truth to each other
+What was to be done in this world and believed as to the next
+What exchequer can accept chronic warfare and escape bankruptcy
+When all was gone, they began to eat each other
+Word peace in Spanish mouths simply meant the Holy Inquisition
+Words are always interpreted to the disadvantage of the weak
+World has rolled on to fresher fields of carnage and ruin
+You must show your teeth to the Spaniard
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Entire 1600-09 United Netherlands
+by John Lothrop Motley
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS 1584-1609, COMPLETE
+
+A hard bargain when both parties are losers
+A penal offence in the republic to talk of peace or of truce
+A despot really keeps no accounts, nor need to do so
+A free commonwealth--was thought an absurdity
+A burnt cat fears the fire
+A pusillanimous peace, always possible at any period
+A man incapable of fatigue, of perplexity, or of fear
+A sovereign remedy for the disease of liberty
+A truce he honestly considered a pitfall of destruction
+Able men should be by design and of purpose suppressed
+About equal to that of England at the same period
+Abstinence from unproductive consumption
+Accepting a new tyrant in place of the one so long ago deposed
+Accustomed to the faded gallantries
+Act of Uniformity required Papists to assist
+Alas! we must always have something to persecute
+Alas! the benighted victims of superstition hugged their chains
+Alexander's exuberant discretion
+All fellow-worms together
+All business has been transacted with open doors
+All Italy was in his hands
+All the ministers and great functionaries received presents
+Allow her to seek a profit from his misfortune
+An unjust God, himself the origin of sin
+Anarchy which was deemed inseparable from a non-regal form
+Anatomical study of what has ceased to exist
+And thus this gentle and heroic spirit took its flight
+Are wont to hang their piety on the bell-rope
+Argument is exhausted and either action or compromise begins
+Arminianism
+Artillery
+As logical as men in their cups are prone to be
+As if they were free will not make them free
+As neat a deception by telling the truth
+As lieve see the Spanish as the Calvinistic inquisition
+At length the twig was becoming the tree
+Auction sales of judicial ermine
+Baiting his hook a little to his appetite
+Beacons in the upward path of mankind
+Because he had been successful (hated)
+Been already crimination and recrimination more than enough
+Began to scatter golden arguments with a lavish hand
+Being the true religion, proved by so many testimonies
+Beneficent and charitable purposes (War)
+Bestowing upon others what was not his property
+Beware of a truce even more than of a peace
+Bomb-shells were not often used although known for a century
+Bungling diplomatists and credulous dotards
+Burning of Servetus at Geneva
+But the habit of dissimulation was inveterate
+Butchery in the name of Christ was suspended
+By turns, we all govern and are governed
+Calling a peace perpetual can never make it so
+Canker of a long peace
+Cargo of imaginary gold dust was exported from the James River
+Casting up the matter "as pinchingly as possibly might be"
+Certain number of powers, almost exactly equal to each other
+Certainly it was worth an eighty years' war
+Chief seafaring nations of the world were already protestant
+Chieftains are dwarfed in the estimation of followers
+Children who had never set foot on the shore
+Chronicle of events must not be anticipated
+College of "peace-makers," who wrangled more than all
+Conceding it subsequently, after much contestation
+Conceit, and procrastination which marked the royal character
+Condemned first and inquired upon after
+Conformity of Governments to the principles of justice
+Considerable reason, even if there were but little justice
+Constant vigilance is the price of liberty
+Constitute themselves at once universal legatees
+Contempt for treaties however solemnly ratified
+Continuing to believe himself invincible and infallible
+Converting beneficent commerce into baleful gambling
+Could do a little more than what was possible
+Could handle an argument as well as a sword
+Courage and semblance of cheerfulness, with despair in his heart
+Court fatigue, to scorn pleasure
+Crimes and cruelties such as Christians only could imagine
+Culpable audacity and exaggerated prudence
+Deal with his enemy as if sure to become his friend
+Decline a bribe or interfere with the private sale of places
+Defeated garrison ever deserved more respect from friend or foe
+Defect of enjoying the flattery, of his inferiors in station
+Delay often fights better than an army against a foreign invader
+Demanding peace and bread at any price
+Despised those who were grateful
+Diplomacy of Spain and Rome--meant simply dissimulation
+Diplomatic adroitness consists mainly in the power to deceive
+Disciple of Simon Stevinus
+Dismay of our friends and the gratification of our enemies
+Disordered, and unknit state needs no shaking, but propping
+Disposed to throat-cutting by the ministers of the Gospel
+Divine right of kings
+Do you want peace or war?  I am ready for either
+Done nothing so long as aught remained to do
+Draw a profit out of the necessities of this state
+During this, whole war, we have never seen the like
+Each in its turn becoming orthodox, and therefore persecuting
+Eat their own children than to forego one high mass
+Elizabeth, though convicted, could always confute
+Elizabeth (had not) the faintest idea of religious freedom
+Eloquence of the biggest guns
+England hated the Netherlands
+Englishmen and Hollanders preparing to cut each other's throats
+Enmity between Lutherans and Calvinists
+Even the virtues of James were his worst enemies
+Even to grant it slowly is to deny it utterly
+Ever met disaster with so cheerful a smile
+Every one sees what you seem, few perceive what you are
+Evil is coming, the sooner it arrives the better
+Evil has the advantage of rapidly assuming many shapes
+Exorcising the devil by murdering his supposed victims
+Faction has rarely worn a more mischievous aspect
+Famous fowl in every pot
+Fed on bear's liver, were nearly poisoned to death
+Fellow worms had been writhing for half a century in the dust
+Find our destruction in our immoderate desire for peace
+Fitter to obey than to command
+Five great rivers hold the Netherland territory in their coils
+Fled from the land of oppression to the land of liberty
+Fool who useth not wit because he hath it not
+For his humanity towards the conquered garrisons (censured)
+For us, looking back upon the Past, which was then the Future
+Forbidding the wearing of mourning at all
+Foremost to shake off the fetters of superstition
+Four weeks' holiday--the first in eleven years
+French seem madmen, and are wise
+Friendly advice still more intolerable
+Full of precedents and declamatory commonplaces
+Future world as laid down by rival priesthoods
+German Highland and the German Netherland
+German-Lutheran sixteenth-century idea of religious freedom
+Gigantic vices are proudly pointed to as the noblest
+God of vengeance, of jealousy, and of injustice
+God alone can protect us against those whom we trust
+God of wrath who had decreed the extermination of all unbeliever
+God, whose cause it was, would be pleased to give good weather
+Gold was the only passkey to justice
+Gomarites accused the Arminians of being more lax than Papists
+Guilty of no other crime than adhesion to the Catholic faith
+Had industry been honoured instead of being despised
+Haereticis non servanda fides
+Hanging of Mary Dyer at Boston
+Hangman is not the most appropriate teacher of religion
+Hard at work, pouring sand through their sieves
+Hardly an inch of French soil that had not two possessors
+Hardly a distinguished family in Spain not placed in mourning
+He often spoke of popular rights with contempt
+He did his work, but he had not his reward
+He who confessed well was absolved well
+He spent more time at table than the Bearnese in sleep
+He sat a great while at a time.  He had a genius for sitting
+Henry the Huguenot as the champion of the Council of Trent
+Her teeth black, her bosom white and liberally exposed (Eliz.)
+Heretics to the English Church were persecuted
+Hibernian mode of expressing himself
+High officers were doing the work of private, soldiers
+Highest were not necessarily the least slimy
+His invectives were, however, much stronger than his arguments
+His own past triumphs seemed now his greatest enemies
+His insolence intolerable
+His inordinate arrogance
+Historical scepticism may shut its eyes to evidence
+History is but made up of a few scattered fragments
+History is a continuous whole of which we see only fragments
+Holland was afraid to give a part, although offering the whole
+Holy institution called the Inquisition
+Honor good patriots, and to support them in venial errors
+Hugo Grotius
+Human fat esteemed the sovereignst remedy (for wounds)
+Humanizing effect of science upon the barbarism of war
+Humble ignorance as the safest creed
+Humility which was but the cloak to his pride
+Hundred thousand men had laid down their lives by her decree
+I will never live, to see the end of my poverty
+I am a king that will be ever known not to fear any but God
+I did never see any man behave himself as he did
+Idea of freedom in commerce has dawned upon nations
+Idiotic principle of sumptuary legislation
+Idle, listless, dice-playing, begging, filching vagabonds
+If to do be as grand as to imagine what it were good to do
+Ignorance is the real enslaver of mankind
+Imagining that they held the world's destiny in their hands
+Imposed upon the multitudes, with whom words were things
+Impossible it was to invent terms of adulation too gross
+Impossible it is to practise arithmetic with disturbed brains
+In times of civil war, to be neutral is to be nothing
+Individuals walking in advance of their age
+Indulging them frequently with oracular advice
+Inevitable fate of talking castles and listening ladies
+Infamy of diplomacy, when diplomacy is unaccompanied by honesty
+Infinite capacity for pecuniary absorption
+Inhabited by the savage tribes called Samoyedes
+Innocent generation, to atone for the sins of their forefathers
+Inquisitors enough; but there were no light vessels in The Armada
+Insensible to contumely, and incapable of accepting a rebuff
+Intelligence, science, and industry were accounted degrading
+Intentions of a government which did not know its own intentions
+Intolerable tendency to puns
+Invaluable gift which no human being can acquire, authority
+Invincible Armada had not only been vanquished but annihilated
+It is certain that the English hate us (Sully)
+John Castel, who had stabbed Henry IV.
+John Wier, a physician of Grave
+Justified themselves in a solemn consumption of time
+King had issued a general repudiation of his debts
+King was often to be something much less or much worse
+Labour was esteemed dishonourable
+Languor of fatigue, rather than any sincere desire for peace
+Leading motive with all was supposed to be religion
+Life of nations and which we call the Past
+Little army of Maurice was becoming the model for Europe
+Logic of the largest battalions
+Longer they delay it, the less easy will they find it
+Look for a sharp war, or a miserable peace
+Looking down upon her struggle with benevolent indifference
+Lord was better pleased with adverbs than nouns
+Loud, nasal, dictatorial tone, not at all agreeable
+Loving only the persons who flattered him
+Luxury had blunted the fine instincts of patriotism
+Made peace--and had been at war ever since
+Magnificent hopefulness
+Make sheep of yourselves, and the wolf will eat you
+Man is never so convinced of his own wisdom
+Man had no rights at all  He was property
+Man who cannot dissemble is unfit to reign
+Maritime heretics
+Matter that men may rather pray for than hope for
+Matters little by what name a government is called
+Meet around a green table except as fencers in the field
+Men who meant what they said and said what they meant
+Men fought as if war was the normal condition of humanity
+Mendacity may always obtain over innocence and credulity
+Military virtue in the support of an infamous cause
+Mistakes might occur from occasional deviations into sincerity
+Mondragon was now ninety-two years old
+Moral nature, undergoes less change than might be hoped
+More catholic than the pope
+Much as the blind or the deaf towards colour or music
+Myself seeing of it methinketh that I dream
+Names history has often found it convenient to mark its epochs
+National character, not the work of a few individuals
+Nations tied to the pinafores of children in the nursery
+Natural tendency to suspicion of a timid man
+Necessity of kingship
+Necessity of extirpating heresy, root and branch
+Negotiated as if they were all immortal
+Neighbour's blazing roof was likely soon to fire their own
+Never did statesmen know better how not to do
+Never peace well made, he observed, without a mighty war
+New Years Day in England, 11th January by the New Style
+Night brings counsel
+Nine syllables that which could be more forcibly expressed in on
+No retrenchments in his pleasures of women, dogs, and buildings
+No generation is long-lived enough to reap the harvest
+Nor is the spirit of the age to be pleaded in defence
+Not many more than two hundred Catholics were executed
+Not a friend of giving details larger than my ascertained facts
+Not distinguished for their docility
+Not of the genus Reptilia, and could neither creep nor crouch
+Not safe for politicians to call each other hard names
+Nothing cheap, said a citizen bitterly, but sermons
+Nothing could equal Alexander's fidelity, but his perfidy
+Nowhere were so few unproductive consumers
+Obscure were thought capable of dying natural deaths
+Octogenarian was past work and past mischief
+Often necessary to be blind and deaf
+One-third of Philip's effective navy was thus destroyed
+One could neither cry nor laugh within the Spanish dominions
+One of the most contemptible and mischievous of kings (James I)
+Only citadel against a tyrant and a conqueror was distrust
+Oration, fertile in rhetoric and barren in facts
+Others that do nothing, do all, and have all the thanks
+Passion is a bad schoolmistress for the memory
+Past was once the Present, and once the Future
+Patriotism seemed an unimaginable idea
+Pauper client who dreamed of justice at the hands of law
+Paving the way towards atheism (by toleration)
+Peace and quietness is brought into a most dangerous estate
+Peace seemed only a process for arriving at war
+Peace founded on the only secure basis, equality of strength
+Peace would be destruction
+Peace-at-any-price party
+Peace was unattainable, war was impossible, truce was inevitable
+Philip II. gave the world work enough
+Philip of Macedon, who considered no city impregnable
+Picturesqueness of crime
+Placid unconsciousness on his part of defeat
+Plea of infallibility and of authority soon becomes ridiculous
+Portion of these revenues savoured much of black-mail
+Possible to do, only because we see that it has been done
+Pray here for satiety, (said Cecil) than ever think of variety
+Prisoners were immediately hanged
+Privileged to beg, because ashamed to work
+Proceeds of his permission to eat meat on Fridays
+Proclaiming the virginity of the Virgin's mother
+Rarely able to command, having never learned to obey
+Readiness at any moment to defend dearly won liberties
+Rebuked him for his obedience
+Religion was rapidly ceasing to be the line of demarcation
+Religion was not to be changed like a shirt
+Religious persecution of Protestants by Protestants
+Repentance, as usual, had come many hours too late
+Repose under one despot guaranteed to them by two others
+Repose in the other world, "Repos ailleurs"
+Repudiation of national debts was never heard of before
+Requires less mention than Philip III himself
+Resolved thenceforth to adopt a system of ignorance
+Respect for differences in religious opinions
+Rich enough to be worth robbing
+Righteous to kill their own children
+Road to Paris lay through the gates of Rome
+Round game of deception, in which nobody was deceived
+Royal plans should be enforced adequately or abandoned entirely
+Rules adopted in regard to pretenders to crowns
+Sacked and drowned ten infant princes
+Sacrificed by the Queen for faithfully obeying her orders
+Sages of every generation, read the future like a printed scroll
+Security is dangerous
+Seeking protection for and against the people
+Seem as if born to make the idea of royalty ridiculous
+Seems but a change of masks, of costume, of phraseology
+Self-assertion--the healthful but not engaging attribute
+Selling the privilege of eating eggs upon fast-days
+Sentiment of Christian self-complacency
+Served at their banquets by hosts of lackeys on their knees
+Sewers which have ever run beneath decorous Christendom
+She relieth on a hope that will deceive her
+Shift the mantle of religion from one shoulder to the other
+Shutting the stable-door when the steed is stolen
+Sick soldiers captured on the water should be hanged
+Simple truth was highest skill
+Sixteen of their best ships had been sacrificed
+Slain four hundred and ten men with his own hand
+So often degenerated into tyranny (Calvinism)
+So unconscious of her strength
+Soldiers enough to animate the good and terrify the bad
+Some rude lessons from that vigorous little commonwealth
+Spain was governed by an established terrorism
+Spaniards seem wise, and are madmen
+Sparing and war have no affinity together
+Stake or gallows (for) heretics to transubstantiation
+State can best defend religion by letting it alone
+States were justified in their almost unlimited distrust
+Steeped to the lips in sloth which imagined itself to be pride
+Strangled his nineteen brothers on his accession
+Strength does a falsehood acquire in determined and skilful hand
+String of homely proverbs worthy of Sancho Panza
+Subtle and dangerous enemy who wore the mask of a friend
+Succeeded so well, and had been requited so ill
+Such an excuse was as bad as the accusation
+Such a crime as this had never been conceived (bankruptcy)
+Sure bind, sure find
+Sword in hand is the best pen to write the conditions of peace
+Take all their imaginations and extravagances for truths
+Taxed themselves as highly as fifty per cent
+Tension now gave place to exhaustion
+That crowned criminal, Philip the Second
+That unholy trinity--Force; Dogma, and Ignorance
+The very word toleration was to sound like an insult
+The blaze of a hundred and fifty burning vessels
+The expenses of James's household
+The worst were encouraged with their good success
+The history of the Netherlands is history of liberty
+The great ocean was but a Spanish lake
+The divine speciality of a few transitory mortals
+The sapling was to become the tree
+The nation which deliberately carves itself in pieces
+The most thriving branch of national industry (Smuggler)
+The record of our race is essentially unwritten
+The busy devil of petty economy
+The small children diminished rapidly in numbers
+The People had not been invented
+The Alcoran was less cruel than the Inquisition
+The wisest statesmen are prone to blunder in affairs of war
+The art of ruling the world by doing nothing
+The slightest theft was punished with the gallows
+The pigmy, as the late queen had been fond of nicknaming him
+Their existence depended on war
+There are few inventions in morals
+There was apathy where there should have been enthusiasm
+There is no man fitter for that purpose than myself
+They were always to deceive every one, upon every occasion
+They had come to disbelieve in the mystery of kingcraft
+They liked not such divine right nor such gentle-mindedness
+They chose to compel no man's conscience
+Thirty-three per cent. interest was paid (per month)
+Thirty thousand masses should be said for his soul
+This obstinate little republic
+Those who argue against a foregone conclusion
+Thought that all was too little for him
+Three hundred and upwards are hanged annually in London
+Three or four hundred petty sovereigns (of Germany)
+Tis pity he is not an Englishman
+To negotiate with Government in England was to bribe
+To negotiate was to bribe right and left, and at every step
+To work, ever to work, was the primary law of his nature
+To attack England it was necessary to take the road of Ireland
+To shirk labour, infinite numbers become priests and friars
+To doubt the infallibility of Calvin was as heinous a crime
+Toil and sacrifices of those who have preceded us
+Tolerate another religion that his own may be tolerated
+Tolerating religious liberty had never entered his mind
+Toleration--that intolerable term of insult
+Torturing, hanging, embowelling of men, women, and children
+Tranquil insolence
+Tranquillity rather of paralysis than of health
+Triple marriages between the respective nurseries
+Trust her sword, not her enemy's word
+Twas pity, he said, that both should be heretics
+Under the name of religion (so many crimes)
+Undue anxiety for impartiality
+Universal suffrage was not dreamed of at that day
+Unlearned their faith in bell, book, and candle
+Unproductive consumption being accounted most sagacious
+Unproductive consumption was alarmingly increasing
+Unwise impatience for peace
+Upon their knees, served the queen with wine
+Upper and lower millstones of royal wrath and loyal subserviency
+Use of the spade
+Usual expedient by which bad legislation on one side countered
+Utter want of adaptation of his means to his ends
+Utter disproportions between the king's means and aims
+Uttering of my choler doth little ease my grief or help my case
+Valour on the one side and discretion on the other
+Waiting the pleasure of a capricious and despotic woman
+Walk up and down the earth and destroy his fellow-creatures
+War was the normal and natural condition of mankind
+War to compel the weakest to follow the religion of the strongest
+War was the normal condition of Christians
+Wasting time fruitlessly is sharpening the knife for himself
+We have the reputation of being a good housewife
+We must all die once
+We mustn't tickle ourselves to make ourselves laugh
+We have been talking a little bit of truth to each other
+We were sold by their negligence who are now angry with us
+Wealthy Papists could obtain immunity by an enormous fine
+Weapons
+Weary of place without power
+What exchequer can accept chronic warfare and escape bankruptcy
+What was to be done in this world and believed as to the next
+When persons of merit suffer without cause
+When all was gone, they began to eat each other
+Whether murders or stratagems, as if they were acts of virtue
+While one's friends urge moderation
+Who the "people" exactly were
+Whole revenue was pledged to pay the interest, on his debts
+Wish to sell us the bear-skin before they have killed the bear
+With something of feline and feminine duplicity
+Word peace in Spanish mouths simply meant the Holy Inquisition
+Words are always interpreted to the disadvantage of the weak
+World has rolled on to fresher fields of carnage and ruin
+Worn nor caused to be worn the collar of the serf
+Wrath of bigots on both sides
+Wrath of that injured personage as he read such libellous truths
+Write so illegibly or express himself so awkwardly
+You must show your teeth to the Spaniard
+
+
+
+
+
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