barbarous piece of mediaeval,
Sclavonic architecture, with its sombre arches, and its walls encrusted
with huge precious stones. The Estates of Bohemia, arrayed in splendid
Zchech costume, and kneeling on the pavement, were asked whether they
accepted Matthias, King of Hungary, as their lawful king. Thrice they
answered Aye. Cardinal Dietrichstein then put the historic crown of St.
Wenceslaus on the King's head, and Matthias swore to maintain the laws
and privileges of Bohemia, including the recent charters granting liberty
of religion to Protestants. Thus there was temporary, if hollow, truce
between the religious parties, and a sham reconciliation between the
Emperor and his brethren. The forlorn Rudolph moped away the few months
of life left to him in the Hradschin, and died 1612 soon after the new
year. The House of Austria had not been divided, Matthias succeeded his
brother, Leopold's visions melted into air, and it was for the future to
reveal whether the Majesty-Letter and the Compromise had been written on
very durable material.

And while such was the condition of affairs in Germany immediately
following the Cleve and Julich campaign, the relations of the Republic
both to England and France were become rapidly more dangerous than they
ever had been. It was a severe task for Barneveld, and enough to overtax
the energies of any statesman, to maintain his hold on two such slippery
governments as both had become since the death of their great monarchs.
It had been an easier task for William the Silent to steer his course,
notwithstanding all the perversities, short-comings, brow-beatings, and
inconsistencies that he had been obliged to endure from Elizabeth and
Henry. Genius, however capricious and erratic at times, has at least
vision, and it needed no elaborate arguments to prove to both those
sovereigns that the severance of their policy from that of the
Netherlands was impossible without ruin to the Republic and incalculable
danger themselves.

But now France and England were both tending towards Spain through a
stupidity on the part of their rulers such as the gods are said to
contend against in vain. Barneveld was not a god nor a hero, but a
courageous and wide-seeing statesman, and he did his best. Obliged by his
position to affect admiration, or at least respect, where no emotion but
contempt was possible, his daily bread was bitter enough. It was
absolutely necessary to humour those whom knew to be trav