iod of European history have been received by the public, and his
anxious hope that the present volumes may be thought worthy of attention.
They are the result at least of severe and conscientious labour at the
original sources of history, but the subject is so complicated and
difficult that it may well be feared that the ability to depict and
unravel is unequal to the earnestness with which the attempt has been
made.

LONDON, 1873.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD, v1, 1609

CHAPTER I.

John of Barneveld the Founder of the Commonwealth of the United
Provinces--Maurice of Orange Stadholder, but Servant to the States-
General--The Union of Utrecht maintained--Barneveld makes a
Compromise between Civil Functionaries and Church Officials--
Embassies to France, England, and to Venice--the Appointment of
Arminius to be Professor of Theology at Leyden creates Dissension--
The Catholic League opposed by the Great Protestant Union--Death of
the Duke of Cleve and Struggle for his Succession--The Elector of
Brandenburg and Palatine of Neuburg hold the Duchies at Barneveld's
Advice against the Emperor, though having Rival Claims themselves--
Negotiations with the King of France--He becomes the Ally of the
States-General to Protect the Possessory Princes, and prepares for
war.

I propose to retrace the history of a great statesman's career. That
statesman's name, but for the dark and tragic scenes with which it was
ultimately associated, might after the lapse of two centuries and a half
have faded into comparative oblivion, so impersonal and shadowy his
presence would have seemed upon the great European theatre where he was
so long a chief actor, and where his efforts and his achievements were
foremost among those productive of long enduring and widespread results.

There is no doubt whatever that John of Barneveld, Advocate and Seal
Keeper of the little province of Holland during forty years of as
troubled and fertile an epoch as any in human history, was second to none
of his contemporary statesmen. Yet the singular constitution and
historical position of the republic whose destinies he guided and the
peculiar and abnormal office which he held combined to cast a veil over
his individuality. The ever-teeming brain, the restless almost
omnipresent hand, the fertile pen, the eloquent and ready tongue, were
seen, heard, and obeyed by the great European public, by the