Life and Death of John of Barneveld Part 37

Thus the deed was done. The sword was drawn. It was drawn in self-defence and in deliberate answer to the Stadholder's defiance when he rapped his sword hilt in face of the a.s.sembly, but still it was drawn. The States of Holland were declared sovereign and supreme. The National Synod was peremptorily rejected. Any decision of the supreme courts of the Union in regard to the subject of this resolution was nullified in advance.

Thenceforth this measure of the 4th August was called the "Sharp Resolve." It might prove perhaps to be double-edged.

It was a stroke of grim sarcasm on the part of the Advocate thus solemnly to invite the Stadholder's aid in carrying out a law which was aimed directly at his head; to request his help for those who meant to defeat with the armed hand that National Synod which he had pledged himself to bring about.

The question now arose what sort of men-at-arms it would be well for the city governments to enlist. The officers of the regular garrisons had received distinct orders from Prince Maurice as their military superior to refuse any summons to act in matters proceeding from the religious question. The Prince, who had chief authority over all the regular troops, had given notice that he would permit nothing to be done against "those of the Reformed religion," by which he meant the Contra-Remonstrants and them only.

In some cities there were no garrisons, but only train-bands. But the train bands (Schutters) could not be relied on to carry out the Sharp Resolve, for they were almost to a man Contra-Remonstrants. It was therefore determined to enlist what were called "Waartgelders;" soldiers, inhabitants of the place, who held themselves ready to serve in time of need in consideration of a certain wage; mercenaries in short.

This resolution was followed as a matter of course by a solemn protest from Amsterdam and the five cities who acted with her.

On the same day Maurice was duly notified of the pa.s.sage of the law. His wrath was great. High words pa.s.sed between him and the deputies. It could hardly have been otherwise expected. Next-day he came before the a.s.sembly to express his sentiments, to complain of the rudeness with which the resolution of 4th August had been communicated to him, and to demand further explanations. Forthwith the Advocate proceeded to set forth the intentions of the States, and demanded that the Prince should a.s.sist the magistrates in carrying out the policy decided upon. Reinier Pauw, burgomaster of Amsterdam, fiercely interrupted the oration of Barneveld, saying that although these might be his views, they were not to be held by his Excellency as the opinions of all. The Advocate, angry at the interruption, answered him sternly, and a violent altercation, not unmixed with personalities, arose. Maurice, who kept his temper admirably on this occasion, interfered between the two and had much difficulty in quieting the dispute. He then observed that when he took the oath as stadholder these unfortunate differences had not arisen, but all had been good friends together. This was perfectly true, but he could have added that they might all continue good friends unless the plan of imposing a religious creed upon the minority by a clerical decision were persisted in. He concluded that for love of one of the two great parties he would not violate the oath he had taken to maintain the Reformed religion to the last drop of his blood. Still, with the same 'pet.i.tio principii' that the Reformed religion and the dogmas of the Contra-Remonstrants were one and the same thing, he a.s.sured the a.s.sembly that the authority of the magistrates would be sustained by him so long as it did not lead to the subversion of religion.

Clearly the time for argument had pa.s.sed. As Dudley Carleton observed, men had been disputing 'pro aris' long enough. They would soon be fighting 'pro focis.'

In pursuance of the policy laid down by the Sharp Resolution, the States proceeded to a.s.sure themselves of the various cities of the province by means of Waartgelders. They sent to the important seaport of Brielle and demanded a new oath from the garrison. It was intimated that the Prince would be soon coming there in person to make himself master of the place, and advice was given to the magistrates to be beforehand with him. These statements angered Maurice, and angered him the more because they happened to be true. It was also charged that he was pursuing his Leicestrian designs and meant to make himself, by such steps, sovereign of the country. The name of Leicester being a byword of reproach ever since that baffled n.o.ble had a generation before left the Provinces in disgrace, it was a matter of course that such comparisons were excessively exasperating. It was fresh enough too in men's memory that the Earl in his Netherland career had affected sympathy with the strictest denomination of religious reformers, and that the profligate worldling and arrogant self-seeker had used the mask of religion to cover flagitious ends. As it had indeed been the object of the party at the head of which the Advocate had all his life acted to raise the youthful Maurice to the stadholderate expressly to foil the plots of Leicester, it could hardly fail to be unpalatable to Maurice to be now accused of acting the part of Leicester.

He inveighed bitterly on the subject before the state council: The state council, in a body, followed him to a meeting of the States-General. Here the Stadholder made a vehement speech and demanded that the States of Holland should rescind the "Sharp Resolution," and should desist from the new oaths required from the soldiery. Barneveld, firm as a rock, met these bitter denunciations. Speaking in the name of Holland, he repelled the idea that the sovereign States of that province were responsible to the state council or to the States-General either. He regretted, as all regretted, the calumnies uttered against the Prince, but in times of such intense excitement every conspicuous man was the mark of calumny.

The Stadholder warmly repudiated Leicestrian designs, and declared that he had been always influenced by a desire to serve his country and maintain the Reformed religion. If he had made mistakes, he desired to be permitted to improve in the future.

Thus having spoken, the soldier retired from the a.s.sembly with the state council at his heels.

The Advocate lost no time in directing the military occupation of the princ.i.p.al towns of Holland, such as Leyden, Gouda, Rotterdam, Schoonhoven, Hoorn, and other cities.

At Leyden especially, where a strong Orange party was with difficulty kept in obedience by the Remonstrant magistracy, it was found necessary to erect a stockade about the town-hall and to plant caltrops and other obstructions in the squares and streets.

The broad s.p.a.ce in front; of the beautiful medieval seat of the munic.i.p.al government, once so sacred for the sublime and pathetic scenes enacted there during the famous siege and in the magistracy of Peter van der Werff, was accordingly enclosed by a solid palisade of oaken planks, strengthened by rows of iron bars with barbed p.r.o.ngs: The entrenchment was called by the populace the Arminian Fort, and the iron spear heads were baptized Barneveld's teeth. Cannon were planted at intervals along the works, and a company or two of the Waartgelders, armed from head to foot, with snaphances on their shoulders, stood ever ready to issue forth to quell any disturbances. Occasionally a life or two was lost of citizen or soldier, and many doughty blows were interchanged.

It was a melancholy spectacle. No commonwealth could be more fortunate than this republic in possessing two such great leading minds. No two men could be more patriotic than both Stadholder and Advocate. No two men could be prouder, more overbearing, less conciliatory.

"I know Mons. Barneveld well," said Sir Ralph Winwood, "and know that he hath great powers and abilities, and malice itself must confess that man never hath done more faithful and powerful service to his country than he. But 'finis coronat opus' and 'il di lodi lacera; oportet imperatorem stantem mori.'"

The cities of Holland were now thoroughly "waartgeldered," and Barneveld having sufficiently shown his "teeth" in that province departed for change of air to Utrecht. His failing health was a.s.signed as the pretext for the visit, although the atmosphere of that city has never been considered especially salubrious in the dog-days.

Meantime the Stadholder remained quiet, but biding his time. He did not choose to provoke a premature conflict in the strongholds of the Arminians as he called them, but with a true military instinct preferred making sure of the ports. Amsterdam, Enkhuyzen, Flus.h.i.+ng, being without any effort of his own within his control, he quietly slipped down the river Meuse on the night of the 29th September, accompanied by his brother Frederic Henrys and before six o'clock next morning had introduced a couple of companies of trustworthy troops into Brielle, had summoned the magistrates before him, and compelled them to desist from all further intention of levying mercenaries. Thus all the fortresses which Barneveld had so recently and in such masterly fas.h.i.+on rescued from the grasp of England were now quietly reposing in the hands of the Stadholder.

Maurice thought it not worth his while for the present to quell the mutiny--as he considered it the legal and const.i.tutional defence of vested right--as great jurists like Barneveld and Hugo Grotius accounted the movement--at its "fountain head Leyden or its chief stream Utrecht;"

to use the expression of Carleton. There had already been bloodshed in Leyden, a burgher or two having been shot and a soldier stoned to death in the streets, but the Stadholder deemed it unwise to precipitate matters. Feeling himself, with his surpa.s.sing military knowledge and with a large majority of the nation at his back, so completely master of the situation, he preferred waiting on events. And there is no doubt that he was proving himself a consummate politician and a perfect master of fence. "He is much beloved and followed both of soldiers and people,"

said the English amba.s.sador, "he is a man 'innoxiae popularitatis' so as this jealousy cannot well be fastened upon him; and in this cause of religion he stirred not until within these few months he saw he must declare himself or suffer the better party to be overborne."

The chief tribunal-high council so called-of the country soon gave evidence that the "Sharp Resolution" had judged rightly in reckoning on its hostility and in nullifying its decisions in advance.

They decided by a majority vote that the Resolution ought not to be obeyed, but set aside. Amsterdam, and the three or four cities usually acting with her, refused to enlist troops.

Rombout Hoogerbeets, a member of the tribunal, informed Prince Maurice that he "would no longer be present on a bench where men disputed the authority of the States of Holland, which he held to be the supreme sovereignty over him."

This was plain speaking; a distinct enunciation of what the States' right party deemed to be const.i.tutional law.

And what said Maurice in reply?

"I, too, recognize the States of Holland as sovereign; but we might at least listen to each other occasionally."

Hoogerbeets, however, deeming that listening had been carried far enough, decided to leave the tribunal altogether, and to resume the post which he had formerly occupied as Pensionary or chief magistrate of Leyden.

Here he was soon to find himself in the thick of the conflict. Meantime the States-General, in full a.s.sembly, on 11th November 1617, voted that the National Synod should be held in the course of the following year.

The measure was carried by a strict party vote and by a majority of one.

The representatives of each province voting as one, there were four in favour of to three against the Synod. The minority, consisting of Holland, Utrecht, and Overyssel, protested against the vote as an outrageous invasion of the rights of each province, as an act of flagrant tyranny and usurpation.

The minority in the States of Holland, the five cities often named, protested against the protest.

The defective part of the Netherland const.i.tutions could not be better ill.u.s.trated. The minority of the States of Holland refused to be bound by a majority of the provincial a.s.sembly. The minority of the States-General refused to be bound by the majority of the united a.s.sembly.

This was reducing politics to an absurdity and making all government impossible. It is however quite certain that in the munic.i.p.al governments a majority had always governed, and that a majority vote in the provincial a.s.semblies had always prevailed. The present innovation was to govern the States-General by a majority.

Yet viewed by the light of experience and of common sense, it would be difficult to conceive of a more preposterous proceeding than thus to cram a religious creed down the throats of half the population of a country by the vote of a political a.s.sembly. But it was the seventeenth and not the nineteenth century.

Moreover, if there were any meaning in words, the 13th Article of Union, reserving especially the disposition over religious matters to each province, had been wisely intended to prevent the possibility of such tyranny.

When the letters of invitation to the separate states and to others were drawing up in the general a.s.sembly, the representatives of the three states left the chamber. A solitary individual from Holland remained however, a burgomaster of Amsterdam.

Uytenbogaert, conversing with Barneveld directly afterwards, advised him to accept the vote. Yielding to the decision of the majority, it would be possible, so thought the clergyman, for the great statesman so to handle matters as to mould the Synod to his will, even as he had so long controlled the States-Provincial and the States-General.

"If you are willing to give away the rights of the land," said the Advocate very sharply, "I am not."

Probably the priest's tactics might have proved more adroit than the stony opposition on which Barneveld was resolved.

But it was with the aged statesman a matter of principle, not of policy.

His character and his personal pride, the dignity of opinion and office, his respect for const.i.tutional law, were all at stake.

Shallow observers considered the struggle now taking place as a personal one. Lovers of personal government chose to look upon the Advocate's party as a faction inspired with an envious resolve to clip the wings of the Stadholder, who was at last flying above their heads.

There could be no doubt of the bitter animosity between the two men.

There could be no doubt that jealousy was playing the part which that master pa.s.sion will ever play in all the affairs of life. But there could be no doubt either that a difference of principle as wide as the world separated the two antagonists.

Even so keen an observer as Dudley Carleton, while admitting the man's intellectual power and unequalled services, could see nothing in the Advocate's present course but prejudice, obstinacy, and the insanity of pride. "He doth no whit spare himself in pains nor faint in his resolution," said the Envoy, "wherein notwithstanding he will in all appearance succ.u.mb ere afore long, having the disadvantages of a weak body, a weak party, and a weak cause." But Carleton hated Barneveld, and considered it the chief object of his mission to destroy him, if he could. In so doing he would best carry out the wishes of his sovereign.

The King of Britain had addressed a somewhat equivocal letter to the States-General on the subject of religion in the spring of 1617. It certainly was far from being as satisfactory as, the epistles of 1613 prepared under the Advocate's instructions, had been, while the exuberant commentary upon the royal text, delivered in full a.s.sembly by his amba.s.sador soon after the reception of the letter, was more than usually didactic, offensive, and ignorant. Sir Dudley never omitted an opportunity of imparting instruction to the States-General as to the nature of their const.i.tution and the essential dogmas on which their Church was founded. It is true that the great lawyers and the great theologians of the country were apt to hold very different opinions from his upon those important subjects, but this was so much the worse for the lawyers and theologians, as time perhaps might prove.

The King in this last missive had proceeded to unsay the advice which he had formerly bestowed upon the States, by complaining that his earlier letters had been misinterpreted. They had been made use of, he said, to authorize the very error against which they had been directed. They had been held to intend the very contrary of what they did mean. He felt himself bound in conscience therefore, finding these differences ready to be "hatched into schisms," to warn the States once more against pests so pernicious.

Although the royal language was somewhat vague so far as enunciation of doctrine, a point on which he had once confessed himself fallible, was concerned, there was nothing vague in his recommendation of a National Synod. To this the opposition of Barneveld was determined not upon religious but upon const.i.tutional grounds. The confederacy did not const.i.tute a nation, and therefore there could not be a national synod nor a national religion.

Carleton came before the States-General soon afterwards with a prepared oration, wearisome as a fast-day sermon after the third turn of the hour-gla.s.s, pragmatical as a schoolmaster's harangue to fractious little boys.

He divided his lecture into two heads--the peace of the Church, and the peace of the Provinces--starting with the first. "A Jove principium," he said, "I will begin with that which is both beginning and end. It is the truth of G.o.d's word and its maintenance that is the bond of our common cause. Reasons of state invite us as friends and neighbours by the preservation of our lives and property, but the interest of religion binds us as Christians and brethren to the mutual defence of the liberty of our consciences."

He then proceeded to point out the only means by which liberty of conscience could be preserved. It was by suppressing all forms of religion but one, and by silencing all religious discussion. Peter t.i.telman and Philip II. could not have devised a more pithy formula. All that was wanting was the axe and f.a.ggot to reduce uniformity to practice.

Then liberty of conscience would be complete.