nwood complained, "honoured, recognized
as a singularity and ornament to the Academy in place of the late Joseph
Scaliger."--"The friendship of the King and the heresy of Vorstius are
quite incompatible," said the Envoy.

Meantime the Advocate, much distressed at the animosity of England
bursting forth so violently on occasion of the appointment of a divinity
professor at Leyden, and at the very instant too when all the acuteness
of his intellect was taxed to keep on good or even safe terms with
France, did his best to stem these opposing currents. His private letters
to his old and confidential friend, Noel de Carom, States' ambassador in
London, reveal the perplexities of his soul and the upright patriotism by
which he was guided in these gathering storms. And this correspondence,
as well as that maintained by him at a little later period with the
successor of Aerssens at Paris, will be seen subsequently to have had a
direct and most important bearing upon the policy of the Republic and
upon his own fate. It is necessary therefore that the reader, interested
in these complicated affairs which were soon to bring on a sanguinary war
on a scale even vaster than the one which had been temporarily suspended,
should give close attention to papers never before exhumed from the musty
sepulchre of national archives, although constantly alluded to in the
records of important state trials. It is strange enough to observe the
apparent triviality of the circumstances out of which gravest events seem
to follow. But the circumstances were in reality threads of iron which
led down to the very foundations of the earth.

"I wish to know," wrote the Advocate to Caron, "from whom the Archbishop
of Canterbury received the advices concerning Vorstius in order to find
out what is meant by all this."

It will be remembered that Whitgift was of opinion that James was
directly inspired by the Holy Ghost, and that as he affected to deem him
the anointed High-priest of England, it was natural that he should
encourage the King in his claims to be 'Pontifex maximus' for the
Netherlands likewise.

"We are busy here," continued Barneveld, "in examining all things for the
best interests of the country and the churches. I find the nobles and
cities here well resolved in this regard, although there be some
disagreements 'in modo.' Vorstius, having been for many years professor
and minister of theology at Steinfurt, having manifested his learning in