ter of Aerssens--Claim for the "Third"--Recall
of Aerssens--Rivalry between Maurice and Barneveld, who always
sustains the separate Sovereignties of the Provinces--Conflict
between Church and State added to other Elements of Discord in the
Commonwealth--Religion a necessary Element in the Life of all
Classes.

Thus the Republic had placed itself in as proud a position as it was
possible for commonwealth or kingdom to occupy. It had dictated the
policy and directed the combined military movements of Protestantism. It
had gathered into a solid mass the various elements out of which the
great Germanic mutiny against Rome, Spain, and Austria had been
compounded. A breathing space of uncertain duration had come to interrupt
and postpone the general and inevitable conflict. Meantime the Republic
was encamped upon the enemy's soil.

France, which had hitherto commanded, now obeyed. England, vacillating
and discontented, now threatening and now cajoling, saw for the time at
least its influence over the councils of the Netherlands neutralized by
the genius of the great statesman who still governed the Provinces,
supreme in all but name. The hatred of the British government towards the
Republic, while in reality more malignant than at any previous period,
could now only find vent in tremendous, theological pamphlets, composed
by the King in the form of diplomatic instructions, and hurled almost
weekly at the heads of the States-General, by his ambassador, Dudley
Carleton.

Few men hated Barneveld more bitterly than did Carleton. I wish to
describe as rapidly, but as faithfully, as I can the outline at least of
the events by which one of the saddest and most superfluous catastrophes
in modern history was brought about. The web was a complex one, wrought
apparently of many materials; but the more completely it is unravelled
the more clearly we shall detect the presence of the few simple but
elemental fibres which make up the tissue of most human destinies,
whether illustrious or obscure, and out of which the most moving pictures
of human history are composed.

The religious element, which seems at first view to be the all pervading
and controlling one, is in reality rather the atmosphere which surrounds
and colours than the essence which constitutes the tragedy to be
delineated.

Personal, sometimes even paltry, jealousy; love of power, of money, of
place; rivalry between civil and military ambition for predomi