n their frontiers, while Wesel lies at their principal gates.
Your Majesty now sees the good and upright intentions of those Provinces
and their friends. They have made a settlement between Brandenburg and
Neuburg, not in order to breed concord but confusion between those two,
not tranquillity for the country, but greater turbulence than ever
before. Nor have they done this with any other thought than that the
United Provinces might find new opportunities to derive the same profit
from fresh tumults as they have already done so shamelessly from those
which are past. After all I don't say that Wesel should never be
restored, if circumstances require it, and if your Majesty, approving the
Treaty of Xanten, should sanction the measure. But such a result should
be reached only after full consultation with your Majesty, to whose
glorious military exploits these splendid results are chiefly owing."
The treaty finally decided upon rejected the principle of alternate
possession, and established a permanent division of the territory in
dispute between Brandenburg and Neuburg.
The two portions were to be made as equal as possible, and lots were to
be thrown or drawn by the two princes for the first choice. To the one
side were assigned the Duchy of Cleve, the County of Mark, and the
Seigniories of Ravensberg and Ravenstein, with some other baronies and
feuds in Brabant and Flanders; to the other the Duchies of Julich and
Berg with their dependencies. Each prince was to reside exclusively
within the territory assigned to him by lot. The troops introduced by
either party were to be withdrawn, fortifications made since the
preceding month of May to be razed, and all persons who had been
expelled, or who had emigrated, to be restored to their offices,
property, or benefices. It was also stipulated that no place within the
whole debateable territory should be put in the hands of a third power.
These articles were signed by the ambassadors of France and England, by
the deputies of the Elector-Palatine and of the United Provinces, all
binding their superiors to the execution of the treaty. The arrangement
was supposed to refer to the previous conventions between those two
crowns, with the Republic, and the Protestant princes and powers. Count
Zollern, whom we have seen bearing himself so arrogantly as envoy from
the Emperor Rudolph to Henry IV., was now despatched by Matthias on as
fruitless a mission to the congress at Xanten, and
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