all
comers in the slippery ring of diplomacy. For it was instinctively felt
that here were conclusions to be tried with a nation of deep, solid
thinkers, who were aware that a great crisis in the world's history had
occurred, and would put forth their most substantial men to deal with it:
Burghley and Walsingham, the great Queen herself, were no feather-weights
like the frivolous Henry III., and his minions. It was pity, however,
that the discussions about to ensue presented from the outset rather the
aspect of a hard hitting encounter of antagonists than that of a frank
and friendly congress between two great parties whose interests were
identical.

Since the death of William the Silent, there was no one individual in the
Netherlands to impersonate the great struggle of the Provinces with Spain
and Rome, and to concentrate upon his own head a poetical, dramatic, and
yet most legitimate interest. The great purpose of the present history
must be found in its illustration of the creative power of civil and
religious freedom. Here was a little republic, just born into the world,
suddenly bereft of its tutelary saint, left to its own resources, yet
already instinct with healthy vigorous life, and playing its difficult
part among friends and enemies with audacity, self-reliance, and success.
To a certain extent its achievements were anonymous, but a great
principle manifested itself through a series of noble deeds. Statesmen,
soldiers, patriots, came forward on all sides to do the work which was to
be done, and those who were brought into closest contact with the
commonwealth acknowledged in strongest language the signal ability with
which, self-guided, she steered her course. Nevertheless, there was at
this moment one Netherlander, the chief of the present mission to
England, already the foremost statesman of his country, whose name will
not soon be effaced from the record of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. That man was John of Olden-Barneveld.

He was now in his thirty-eighth year, having been born at Amersfoot on
the 14th of September, 1547. He bore an imposing name, for the
Olden-Barnevelds of Gelderland were a race of unquestionable and antique
nobility. His enemies, however, questioned his right to the descent which
he claimed. They did not dispute that the great grandfather, Class van
Olden-Barneveld, was of distinguished lineage and allied to many
illustrious houses, but they denied that Class was really t