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, he 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.
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
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
THE LIFE AND DEATH of JOHN OF BARNEVELD, ADVOCATE OF HOLLAND
WITH A VIEW OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR
By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.
1880
MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, Project Gutenberg Edition, Volume 99
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD, 1609-1623, Complete
PREFACE:
These volumes make a separate work in themselves. They form also the natural sequel to the other histories already published by the Author, as well as the necessary introduction to that concluding portion of his labours which he has always desired to lay before the public; a History of the Thirty Years' War.
For the two great wars which successively established the independence of Holland and the disintegration of Germany are in reality but one; a prolonged Tragedy of Eighty Years. The brief pause, which in the Netherlands was known as the Twelve Years' Truce with Spain, was precisely the epoch in which the elements were slowly and certainly gathering for the renewal over nearly the whole surface of civilized Europe of that immense conflict which for more than forty years had been raging within the narrow precincts of the Netherlands.
The causes and character of the two wars were essentially the same. There were many changes of persons and of scenery during a struggle which lasted for nearly three generations of mankind; yet a natural succession both of actors, motives, and events will be observed from the beginning to the close.
The designs of Charles V. to establish universal monarchy, which he had passionately followed for a lifetime through a series of colossal crimes against humanity and of private misdeeds against individuals, such as it has rarely been permitted to a single despot to perpetrate, had been baffled at last. Disappointed, broken, but even to our own generation never completely unveiled, the tyrant had withdrawn from the stage of human affairs, leaving his son to carry on the great conspiracy against Human Right, independence of nations, liberty of thought, and equality of religions, with the additional vigour which sprang from intensity of conviction.
For Philip possessed at least that superiority over his father that he was a sincere bigot. In the narrow and gloomy depths of his soul he had doubtless persuaded himself that it was necessary for the redemption of the human species that the empire of the world should be vested in his hands, that Protestantism in all its forms should be extirpated as a malignant disease, and that to behead, torture, burn alive, and bury alive all heretics who opposed the decree of himself and the Holy Church was the highest virtue by which he could merit Heaven.
The father would have permitted Protestantism if Protestantism would have submitted to universal monarchy. There would have been small difficulty in the early part of his reign in effecting a compromise between Rome and Augsburg, had the gigantic secular ambition of Charles not preferred to weaken the Church and to convert conscientious religious reform into political mutiny; a crime against him who claimed the sovereignty of Christendom.
The materials for the true history of that reign lie in the Archives of Spain, Austria, Rome, Venice, and the Netherlands, and in many other places. When out of them one day a complete and authentic narrative shall have been constructed, it will be seen how completely the policy of Charles foreshadowed and necessitated that of Philip, how logically, under the successors of Philip, the Austrian dream of universal empire ended in the shattering, in the minute subdivision, and the reduction to a long impotence of that Germanic Empire which had really belonged to Charles.
Unfortunately the great Republic which, notwithstanding the aid of England on the one side and of France on the other, had withstood almost single-handed the onslaughts of Spain, now allowed the demon of religious hatred to enter into its body at the first epoch of peace, although it had successfully exorcised the evil spirit during the long and terrible war.
There can be no doubt whatever that the discords within the interior of the Dutch Republic during the period of the Truce, and their tragic catastrophe, had weakened her purpose and partially paralysed her arm. When the noble Commonwealth went forward to the renewed and general conflict which succeeded the concentrated one in which it had been the chief actor, the effect of those misspent twelve years became apparent.
Indeed the real continuity of the war was scarcely broken by the fitful, armistice. The death of John of Cleve, an event almost simultaneous with the conclusion of the Truce, seemed to those gifted with political vision the necessary precursor of a new and more general war.
The secret correspondence of Barneveld shows the almost prophetic accuracy with which he indicated the course of events and the approach of an almost universal conflict, while that tragedy was still in the future, and was to be enacted after he had been laid in his bloody grave. No man then living was so accustomed as he was to sweep the political horizon, and to estimate the signs and portents of the times. No statesman was left in Europe during the epoch of the Twelve Years' Truce to compare with him in experience, breadth of vision, political tact, or administrative sagacity.
Imbued with the grand traditions and familiar with the great personages of a most heroic epoch; the trusted friend or respected counsellor of William the Silent, Henry IV., Elizabeth, and the sages and soldiers on whom they leaned; having been employed during an already long lifetime in the administration of greatest affairs, he stood alone after the deaths of Henry of France and the second Cecil, and the retirement of Sully, among the natural leaders of mankind.
To the England of Elizabeth, of Walsingham, Raleigh, and the Cecils, had succeeded the Great Britain of James, with his Carrs and Carletons, Nauntons, Lakes, and Winwoods. France, widowed of Henry and waiting for Richelieu, lay in the clutches of Concini's, Epernons, and Bouillons, bound hand and foot to Spain. Germany, falling from Rudolph to Matthias, saw Styrian Ferdinand in the background ready to shatter the fabric of a hundred years of attempted Reformation. In the Republic of the Netherlands were the great soldier and the only remaining statesman of the age. At a moment when the breathing space had been agreed upon before the conflict should be renewed; on a wider field than ever, between Spanish-Austrian world-empire and independence of the nations; between the ancient and only Church and the spirit of religious Equality; between popular Right and royal and sacerdotal Despotism; it would have been desirable that the soldier and the statesman should stand side by side, and that the fortunate Confederacy, gifted with two such champions and placed by its own achievements at the very head of the great party of resistance, should be true to herself.
These volumes contain a slight and rapid sketch of Barneveld's career up to the point at which the Twelve Years' Truce with Spain was signed in the year 1609. In previous works the Author has attempted to assign the great Advocate's place as part and parcel of history during the continuance of the War for Independence. During the period of the Truce he will be found the central figure. The history of Europe, especially of the Netherlands, Britain, France, and Germany, cannot be thoroughly appreciated without a knowledge of the designs, the labours, and the fate of Barneveld.
The materials for estimating his character and judging his judges lie in the national archives of the land of which he was so long the foremost citizen. But they have not long been accessible. The letters, state papers, and other documents remain unprinted, and have rarely been read. M. van Deventer has published three most interesting volumes of the Advocate's correspondence, but they reach only to the beginning of 1609. He has suspended his labours exactly at the moment when these volumes begin. I have carefully studied however nearly the whole of that correspondence, besides a mass of other papers. The labour is not light, for the handwriting of the great Advocate is perhaps the worst that ever existed, and the papers, although kept in the admirable order which distinguishes the Archives of the Hague, have passed through many hands at former epochs before reaching their natural destination in the treasure-house of the nation. Especially the documents connected with the famous trial were for a long time hidden from mortal view, for Barneveld's judges had bound themselves by oath to bury the proceedings out of sight. And the concealment lasted for centuries. Very recently a small portion of those papers has been published by the Historical Society of Utrecht. The "Verhooren," or Interrogatories of the Judges, and the replies of Barneveld, have thus been laid before the reading public of Holland, while within the last two years the distinguished and learned historian, Professor Fruin, has edited the "Verhooren" of Hugo Grotius.
But papers like these, important as they are, make but a slender portion of the material out of which a judgment concerning these grave events can be constructed. I do not therefore offer an apology for the somewhat copious extracts which I have translated and given in these volumes from the correspondence of Barneveld and from other manuscripts of great value—most of them in the Royal Archives of Holland and Belgium—which are unknown to the public.
I have avoided as much as possible any dealings with the theological controversies so closely connected with the events which I have attempted to describe. This work aims at being a political study. The subject is full of lessons, examples, and warnings for the inhabitants of all free states. Especially now that the republican system of government is undergoing a series of experiments with more or less success in one hemisphere—while in our own land it is consolidated, powerful, and unchallenged—will the conflicts between the spirits of national centralization and of provincial sovereignty, and the struggle between the church, the sword, and the magistracy for supremacy in a free commonwealth, as revealed in the first considerable republic of modern history, be found suggestive of deep reflection.
Those who look in this work for a history of the Synod of Dordtrecht will look in vain. The Author has neither wish nor power to grapple with the mysteries and passions which at that epoch possessed so many souls. The Assembly marks a political period. Its political aspects have been anxiously examined, but beyond the ecclesiastical threshold there has been no attempt to penetrate.
It was necessary for my purpose to describe in some detail the relations of Henry IV. with the Dutch Republic during the last and most pregnant year of his life, which makes the first of the present history. These relations are of European importance, and the materials for appreciating them are of unexpected richness, in the Dutch and Belgian Archives.
Especially the secret correspondence, now at the Hague, of that very able diplomatist Francis Aerssens with Barneveld during the years 1609, 1610, and 1611, together with many papers at Brussels, are full of vital importance.
They throw much light both on the vast designs which filled the brain of Henry at this fatal epoch and on his extraordinary infatuation for the young Princess of Conde by which they were traversed, and which was productive of such widespread political anal tragical results. This episode forms a necessary portion of my theme, and has therefore been set forth from original sources.
I am under renewed obligations to my friend M. Gachard, the eminent publicist and archivist of Belgium, for his constant and friendly offices to me (which I have so often experienced before), while studying the documents under his charge relating to this epoch; especially the secret correspondence of Archduke Albert with Philip III, and his ministers, and with Pecquius, the Archduke's agent at Paris.
It is also a great pleasure to acknowledge the unceasing courtesy and zealous aid rendered me during my renewed studies in the Archives at the Hague—lasting through nearly two years—by the Chief Archivist, M. van den Berg, and the gentlemen connected with that institution, especially M. de Jonghe and M. Hingman, without whose aid it would have been difficult for me to decipher and to procure copies of the almost illegible holographs of Barneveld.
I must also thank M. van Deventer for communicating copies of some curious manuscripts relating to my subject, some from private archives in Holland, and others from those of Simancas.
A single word only remains to be said in regard to the name of the statesman whose career I have undertaken to describe.
His proper appellation and that by which he has always been known in his own country is Oldenbarneveld, but in his lifetime and always in history from that time to this he has been called Barneveld in English as well as French, and this transformation, as it were, of the name has become so settled a matter that after some hesitation it has been adopted in the present work.
The Author would take this opportunity of expressing his gratitude for the indulgence with which his former attempts to illustrate an important period of European history have been received by the public, and his anxious hope that the present volumes may be thought worthy of attention. They are the result at least of severe and conscientious labour at the original sources of history, but the subject is so complicated and difficult that it may well be feared that the ability to depict and unravel is unequal to the earnestness with which the attempt has been made.
LONDON, 1873.
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD, v1, 1609