yet
they were far earlier than the actual facts. And now to please the
English king, the States had listened to his suggestion that his name and
that of the King of France should be signed as mediators to a new
arrangement proposed in lieu of the Xanten treaty. James had suggested
this, Lewis had agreed to it. Yet before the ink had dried in James's
pen, he was proposing that the names of the mediating sovereigns should
be omitted from the document? And why? Because Gondemar was again
whispering in his ear. "They are renewing the negotiations in England,"
said the Advocate, "about the alliance between the Prince of Wales and
the second daughter of Spain; and the King of Great Britain is seriously
importuning us that the Archdukes and My Lords the States should make
their pledges 'impersonaliter' and not to the kings." James was also
willing that the name of the Emperor should appear upon it. To prevent
this, Barneveld would have had himself burned at the stake. It would be
an ignominious and unconditional surrender of the whole cause.

"The Archduke will never be contented," said the Advocate, "unless his
Majesty of Great Britain takes a royal resolution to bring him to reason.
That he tries to lay the fault on us is pure malice. We have been ready
and are still ready to execute the treaty of Xanten. The Archduke is the
cause of the dispute concerning the act. We approved the formularies of
their Majesties, and have changed them three times to suit the King of
Great Britain. Our Provincial States have been notified in the matter, so
that we can no longer digest the Spanish impudence, and are amazed that
his Majesty can listen any more to the Spanish ministers. We fear that
those ministers are working through many hands, in order by one means or
another to excite quarrels between his Majesty, us, and the respective
inhabitants of the two countries . . . . . Take every precaution that no
attempt be made there to bring the name of the Emperor into the act. This
would be contrary to their Majesties' first resolution, very prejudicial
to the Elector of Brandenburg, to the duchies, and to ourselves. And it
is indispensable that the promise be made to the two kings as mediators,
as much for their reputation and dignity as for the interests of the
Elector, the territories, and ourselves. Otherwise too the Spaniards will
triumph over us as if they had driven us by force of arms into this
promise."

The seat of war, at the openi