ouse of Austria. A third army
is to be brought into the Upper Palatinate, under command of the Duke of
Bavaria and others of the League, destined to thoroughly carry out its
designs against the Elector-Palatine, and the other electors, princes,
and estates belonging to the religion."

This intelligence, plucked by Barneveld out of the cabinet of the
Jesuits, had been duly communicated by him months before to those whom it
most concerned, and as usual it seemed to deepen the lethargy of the
destined victims and their friends. Not only the whole Spanish campaign
of the present year had thus been duly mapped out by the Advocate, long
before it occurred, but this long buried and forgotten correspondence of
the statesman seems rather like a chronicle of transactions already past,
so closely did the actual record, which posterity came to know too well,
resemble that which he saw, and was destined only to see, in prophetic
vision.

Could this political seer have cast his horoscope of the Thirty Years'
War at this hour of its nativity for the instruction of such men as
Walsingham or Burleigh, Henry of Navarre or Sully, Richelieu or Gustavus
Adolphus, would the course of events have been modified? These very
idlest of questions are precisely those which inevitably occur as one
ponders the seeming barrenness of an epoch in reality so pregnant.

"One would think," said Barneveld, comparing what was then the future
with the real past, "that these plans in Prague against the
Elector-Palatine are too gross for belief; but when I reflect on the
intense bitterness of these people, when I remember what was done within
living men's memory to the good elector Hans Frederic of Saxony for
exactly the same reasons, to wit, hatred of our religion, and
determination to establish Imperial authority, I have great apprehension.
I believe that the Roman League will use the present occasion to carry
out her great design; holding France incapable of opposition to her,
Germany in too great division, and imagining to themselves that neither
the King of Great Britain nor these States are willing or able to offer
effectual and forcible resistance. Yet his Majesty of Great Britain ought
to be able to imagine how greatly the religious matter in general
concerns himself and the electoral house of the Palatine, as principal
heads of the religion, and that these vast designs should be resisted
betimes, and with all possible means and might. My Lords the St