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 troops, more than sufficient to watch and intimidate the little army of Munster. The bishop was able to plead force majeure with much plausibility; no step was ever taken on his part to carry out the scheme of invasion, and he made a separate peace with the Dutch at Cleves in April 1666. Temple was at Brussels when he heard that this step was impending, and he hurried to Munster in the hope of preventing it. After an adventurous journey by way of Düsseldorf and Dortmund (see his spirited letter to Sir J. Temple, dated Brussels, 10 May 1666), he was received with apparent cordiality and initiated into the episcopal mode of drinking out of a large bell with the clapper removed; but during these festivities he learned that the treaty had been irrevocably signed. Several bills of exchange from England were already on their way, and the bishop, on the pretext of the dangerous state of the country, entreated Temple to seek his safety by a circuitous retreat by way of Cologne. The young diplomat had formed a very erroneous judgment of Von Ghalen, but he saw through this artifice. He found means of getting out of the city unobserved, and, after fifty hours' most severe travelling amid considerable dangers, he succeeded in intercepting a little of the money. At the best the negotiation was not a conspicuous success, and Temple was much exercised in his mind as to ‘how to speak of it so as to avoid misrepresentation.’ Happily, his employers in this ill-conceived scheme were not dissatisfied, and in October 1665 he was accredited envoy at the viceregal court at Brussels, a post which he had specially desired, receiving 500l. for equipage and 100l. a month salary (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1666, p. 80). In January 1665–6 he was further gratified by the unexpected honour of a baronetcy, and in the following April he moved his family to Brussels from Sheen (ib.)

Temple's duties at Brussels were to watch over Spanish neutrality; to promote a good understanding between England and Spain; and, later on, to suggest any possible means of mediating between Spain and France. He got permission to go to Breda in July 1667, when peace was concluded between England and the United Provinces. In the meantime Louis and Turenne were taking town after town in Flanders. Brussels itself was threatened, and Temple had to send his family home, retaining only the favoured Lady Giffard. The professions of Louis towards the Dutch were friendly, but the alarm caused in Holland was great; and Dutch suspicions were soon shared by Temple. He visited Amsterdam and The Hague in September 1667, and had some intercourse with the grand pensionary, John de Witt, with whom his relations were to develop into a notable friendship. De Witt was acutely sensitive to the danger from the French garrisons in Flanders, yet a policy of conciliation towards France seemed to be the only course open to him. Temple dwelt in his correspondence to Arlington upon the dangers of such an entente; for a long time the English ministers appeared deaf to the tale of French aggrandisement, but on 25 Nov., in response to his representations, Temple received a most important despatch. He was instructed to ascertain from De Witt whether the states would really and effectively enter into a league with Great Britain for the protection of the Spanish Netherlands. The matter was one of considerable delicacy, but De Witt was pleased by the Englishman's frank statement of the situation, and finally signified his acquiescence in Temple's views as far as was compatible with a purely defensive alliance.

Having hastened to England to report the matter in full, Temple was supported in the council by Arlington and Sir Orlando Bridgeman [q. v.], and his sanguine anticipations were held to outweigh the objections of Clifford and the anti-Dutch councillors. He returned to The Hague with instructions on 2 Jan. 1668; and though De Witt was somewhat taken aback by the suddenness of the English monarch's conversion to his own specific (of a joint mediation, and a defensive league to enforce it), Temple managed to persuade him of its sincerity, and he undertook to procure the co-operation of the deputies of the various states. The same evening Temple visited the Swedish envoy Christopher Delfique, count Dhona, omitting the formal ceremony of introduction on the ground that ‘ceremonies were made to facilitate business, not to hinder it.’ When the French ambassador D'Estrades heard a rumour of the negotiation, he observed slightingly, ‘We will discuss it six weeks hence;’ but so favourable was the impression that Temple had made on the minds of the pensionary and the ministers that business which was estimated to last two or three months was despatched in five days (the commissioners from the seven provinces taking the unprecedented step of signing without previous instruction from the states), and the treaty, named the triple alliance, as drafted by Temple and modified by De Witt, was actually sealed on 23 Jan. (the signature of the Swedish envoy was affixed three days later). Flassan attributes this triumph to Temple's adherence to the maxim that in