The Story of Nations - Holland/Chapter 23

After the death of Elizabeth and the accession of James, the English king held out hopes and then made large promises to the Dutch that he would join with them and the French king in freeing the Netherlands and in effectually ruining the house of Austria. But it may be doubted whether James, who, except in his persistent admiration of his own abilities, was the most fickle person who ever reigned, ever seriously intended what he promised. Nor, had he carried out his pledges, would he have prevented what some persons at that time foresaw, that to free the Netherlands from Spain would be (unless the treaty of Ghent, devised and, to a great extent, carried into effect by William the Silent, were carried into effect), that the Spanish provinces of Flanders would be occupied by France. There was nothing which Henry the Fourth of France more ardently desired than the acquisition of the whole of the Netherlands, from the French to the German border. For this he intrigued before and after the truce, and unquestionably had the life of this king been prolonged Holland would have finished a War. with Spain, only to begin another with France. The dream of Henry in 1605, was nearly realized by his grandson in 1672. Up to our own times, French governments have inherited and striven to give effect to the policy of Henry of Navarre, and nearly every great European war has found that the conquest or the defence of the Low Countries was the real object of the combat. It was so in the Thirty Years' War. It was so during the incessant struggle of Louis the Fourteenth's wars, down to the treaty, of Utrecht in 1712. In 1793 war was waged again with the same object; and in 1815, the battle of Waterloo settled the question for a time. The interference of France in the affairs of Belgium in 1830 had the same ultimate object, and had the war of 1870 been followed by French victories it is certain, in my opinion, that the frontier of France would have been extended to the farthest mouth of the Rhine, as well as to the upper and middle stream.

James soon got tired of the promises which he made, promises which he never intended to keep, and could not have kept if he would. He proclaimed himself a pacific monarch, and he set himself at once to make peace with Spain, which was entirely distasteful to his people, and to carry out a matrimonial alliance between his children and the Spanish monarchy, a project to which he adhered during the greater part of his life, to the infinite disgust of all Englishmen. From acts of friendship towards the Spanish Government he soon proceeded to co-operation with them. He did indeed nominally remain in alliance with the States, but he virtually helped the Spaniards in the last struggles of the war. He was not even deterred by the discovery of the powder plot, which every one at the time believed to be the work of the Spanish Jesuits. The attitude of James towards Holland at the beginning of the seventeenth century led, in the first instance, to that malignant bitterness which marked the relations of Englishmen and Dutchmen during the whole of that century, with occasional interruptions, and even for long after.

It seemed in the summer of 1606 that the conclusion of the War of Independence was as far off as ever. There were the same marches and sieges, the same attempts, to all appearance likely to be successful, to invade Holland, and to invade Flanders; but in reality the war was over. In the first place, the Dutch fleet was crippling the resources of Spain in the extremities of her empire, for it was by the tributes of the East and the West that the war was carried on. Now on sea Spaniard or Portuguese was no match for the Hollander. Besides, Spinola, whose credit on the Genoese exchange had supplied most of the funds needed for the war, since he undertook the command, was unable to meet the obligations which he had created. There was a panic and a crash in Genoa, and a number of merchants were ruined. Spinola could not pay his mercenaries; they mutinied, deserted, and the great general who had proved himself a competent rival of Maurice was rendered powerless on a sudden. Just as the war was coming to an end, some of those considerable persons who had seen its whole course, Justus Lipsius, Hohenlo, and Count John of Nassau, the only surviving brother of William the Silent, passed away.

The negotiations for a truce were first entrusted to the hands of a Brussels tradesman, and a Franciscan friar; the former soon disappearing, the latter employed during the whole negotiations. The first proposal was that a truce of ten or twelve years should be concluded, on the condition that Holland should relinquish their trade in the Indies. But there seemed to be no authority by which even a truce could be finally guaranteed. In the interval an armistice for eight months from May 4, 1607, was agreed to. It would have been better for the Spaniards if the armistice had been proposed a few months earlier; for on April 25th of the same year Heemskerk totally destroyed the Spanish fleet in the Bay of Gibraltar, and rendered it still more desirable that peace should be made even at some sacrifice of dignity with these formidable Hollanders. But the ruler of the King of Spain, the Duke of Lerma, was anxious to sacrifice as little dignity as possible.

It would weary my readers to give them even a slight sketch of the shifty and tortuous process by which the truce was negotiated, of how the conferences were broken off and resumed, till the armistice came to an end, and was renewed for short periods, while ambassadors and Dutch statesmen were squabbling at the Hague. For there were three points on which Spain was obstinate. It was insisted by the ancient rulers of Holland, and for forty years her baffled enemies, that the United Provinces should tolerate the open exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, that they should renounce their East India trade, and that they should allow themselves to be described as the subjects of Spain. To these three proposals they gave a most steady and resolute refusal, and to this refusal they adhered. But in this refusal they were not supported by the two Powers who had hitherto been considered their friends - the Kings of England and France. Both wished to get the India trade into their own hands, and both knew very well that Spain could not retain it. Besides, the Spanish Court was trying to bribe both Henry and James with the offer of the reversion of the Netherlands as a marriage portion with the Spanish infanta, to become a certainty after the death of the childless Archduke. But the first thing to which the Court of Spain yielded was the acknowledgment of independence, though even this under the condition that, the other two provisoes should be accepted. When at last the treaty was negotiated in 1609, all mention of India was dropped, and no mention was made of toleration for Catholic worship. But a truce of twelve years was substituted for peace. The treaty was signed on April 9th. No doubt the King of Spain and his advisers had satisfied themselves that the acknowledgment of independence was an empty form, that no faith need be kept with heretics, and would not be kept as soon as it was possible or convenient to break it.

It may seem strange to us, that the Dutch Republic should have refused so obstinately to admit the principle of religious liberty or even of toleration. But, in the first place, it was outrageous for this to be forced on them by a foreign government, which had already declared them free, and was itself the most intolerant government in existence. In negotiations between two independent states, it is sheer impertinence for one of the parties to claim that the other should do that which is a matter of internal action, however wise and good the policy might be. If at the time when Great Britain and the States of the American Union were negotiating the terms on which the Independence of the Union should be recognized, the Government of Great Britain had insisted that the treaty should contain a clause by which the United States should bind themselves to keep the ten commandments, the other parties to the treaty might have justly resented even so harmless a proposal. For there can be no independence as long as one of the contracting parties insists on a concession in a matter of domestic government.

And the question was not so simple as it seems to us, who have been familiar with toleration, or, what is better, religious equality. At that time, as we shall soon have occasion to see, religious opinion was the stimulus to political action. The immediate toleration of the old creed would have been the concession of a right that Dutch citizens should be allowed to conspire with a foreign enemy against the independence and honour of the state, to be in league with the enemy against whom the Dutch had done battle for forty years, who did not mean to relinquish in one particular the sovereignty which he claimed over them, and would probably, if his resources were equal to his designs, seek at the end of the time to subdue them. “Was it to be conceded,” they argued, “for a moment, that we should consent to foster political enemies, who would always conspire, and if they grew strong enough, would certainly rebel against the liberty which we have spent so much to achieve. If the Roman Catholics, in Holland, suffer some loss of religious freedom, if they are constrained to perform their devotions in private, they may thank the bad faith of Spain for the disabilities under which they labour. If a king or government thinks proper to allege that it will be bound by no promises and no pledges, it must not wonder that another government is distrustful of its secret emissaries, and watches them suspiciously.”

Besides, they might argue with justice, “a considerable part of the northern provinces of Holland is inhabited by a Roman Catholic population. These persons have been tolerated and treated kindly. We have no Inquisition which is to search them out and extinguish their tenets in their blood. Under our domestic regulations these persons give us little trouble, though sometimes we have been anxious about their attitude. But if we are to be told by a foreign Power that we are to let these people do what they choose in our state, as well as in churches set apart for them, we cannot answer for the consequences. The mass of our people belong to the Reformed Church, and have followed the model of the great saint and doctor, Calvin of Geneva. We cannot answer for their patience if they see that the rites of that religion which has striven to enslave us for forty years, are to be paraded and flaunted in our midst. However generously we may be disposed towards the Roman Catholics, we are bound to do our best to prevent the peace being broken among us. And if under the constitution which we have won for them, these persons prove quiet and peaceful, it is most probable that we shall do, of our own accord hereafter what no human power should or shall force us to do.”

There is yet something else to be said. We may be able to trust Dutchmen, however we may think that they err in matters of religious belief. They are our own people, and will not lightly commit treason against us. But the case is wholly different with the Jesuits and Friars. Yield to the King of Spain and the Archdukes on this point, and our country will be at once infested with these vermin, the common enemies of mankind, with whom honest men can no more have truce than with a wolf. We will have nothing to do with them. We have good reason to believe that they are false even to those who permit or protect them. To us, who openly declare our distrust or detestation of them, they are entirely inadmissible.”

Dutchmen who were familiar with matters of public business and the state of the country reasoned in this fashion, and were soon able to illustrate their reasonings by the example which the dagger of Ravaillac supplied. There was only one thing which Henry of France and James of England refused them. This was the formal recognition of their independence. All they could do was to guarantee them the truce. But the foolish King of England and the shrewd King of France were both gaping after the prize which Spain was dangling before their eyes, a royal marriage with the dower of the Low Countries. They were destined to be gulled. But I am pretty sure that if Henry had lived he would have anticipated the policy of his grandson.

When the peace or truce was signed, the King of Spain sent a message, hoping that the Dutch would treat their Catholic fellow subjects with kindness, and the French king's ambassador pleaded forcibly on the same side in forcible language. But of these personages, one had striven to exterminate by torture and fire every opinion which differed from his own, the other had been in the counsels of that party which had striven not only to keep the King of France from his hereditary rights, but had been privy to St. Bartholomew, and deep in the counsels of the League, the object of which was to exterminate the Huguenots. The devil was preaching righteousness, a gang of inquisitors, charity and forbearance. On the other hand, James of England was earnest in advocating the exclusion of all popish opinion. He had no love for Jesuits and priests, however much he might wish to ally himself with the prince who made his court their headquarters. He was still sniffing at the gunpowder which they put into St. Stephen's crypt. Before long he was to take part in the Gomarist and Arminian controversy, to endorse the extremest views of predestination, and before his reign was ended, to drive the professors of this creed over the Atlantic to New England.