he should
be debarred from his functions, but the outcry from England was doing
more harm than good.

"The published extract from the letter of the Archbishop," he wrote, "to
the effect that the King will declare My Lords the States to be his
enemies if they are not willing to send the man away is doing much harm."

Truly, if it had come to this--that a King of England was to go to war
with a neighbouring and friendly republic because an obnoxious professor
of theology was not instantly hurled from a university of which his
Majesty was not one of the overseers--it was time to look a little
closely into the functions of governments and the nature of public and
international law. Not that the sword of James was in reality very likely
to be unsheathed, but his shriekings and his scribblings, pacific as he
was himself, were likely to arouse passions which torrents of blood alone
could satiate.

"The publishing and spreading among the community," continued Barneveld,
"of M. Winwood's protestations and of many indecent libels are also doing
much mischief, for the nature of this people does not tolerate such
things. I hope, however, to obtain the removal according to his Majesty's
desire. Keep me well informed, and send me word what is thought in
England by the four divines of the book of Vorstius, 'De Deo,' and of his
declarations on the points sent here by his Majesty. Let me know, too, if
there has been any later confession published in England than that of the
year 1562, and whether the nine points pressed in the year 1595 were
accepted and published in 1603. If so, pray send them, as they maybe made
use of in settling our differences here."

Thus it will be seen that the spirit of conciliation, of a calm but
earnest desire to obtain a firm grasp of the most reasonable relations
between Church and State through patient study of the phenomena exhibited
in other countries, were the leading motives of the man. Yet he was
perpetually denounced in private as an unbeliever, an atheist, a tyrant,
because he resisted dictation from the clergy within the Provinces and
from kings outside them.

"It was always held here to be one of the chief infractions of the laws
and privileges of this country," he said, "that former princes had placed
themselves in matter of religion in the tutelage of the Pope and the
Spanish Inquisition, and that they therefore on complaint of their good
subjects could take no orders on that subject. There