an den Berg was to give a guarantee to that effect.

Meantime the long controversy in the duchies having tacitly come to a
standstill upon the basis of 'uti possidetis,' the Spanish government had
leisure in the midst of their preparation for the general crusade upon
European heresy to observe and enjoy the internal religious dissensions
in their revolted provinces. Although they had concluded the convention
with them as with countries over which they had no pretensions, they had
never at heart allowed more virtue to the conjunction "as," which really
contained the essence of the treaty, than grammatically belonged to it.
Spain still chose to regard the independence of the Seven Provinces as a
pleasant fiction to be dispelled when, the truce having expired by its
own limitation, she should resume, as she fully meant to do, her
sovereignty over all the seventeen Netherlands, the United as well as the
obedient. Thus at any rate the question of state rights or central
sovereignty would be settled by a very summary process. The Spanish
ambassador was wroth, as may well be supposed, when the agent of the
rebel provinces received in London the rank, title, and recognition of
ambassador. Gondemar at least refused to acknowledge Noel de Caron as his
diplomatic equal or even as his colleague, and was vehement in his
protestations on the subject. But James, much as he dreaded the Spanish
envoy and fawned upon his master, was not besotted enough to comply with
these demands at the expense of his most powerful ally, the Republic of
the Netherlands. The Spanish king however declared his ambassador's
proceedings to be in exact accordance with his instructions. He was
sorry, he said, if the affair had caused discontent to the King of Great
Britain; he intended in all respects to maintain the Treaty of Truce of
which his Majesty had been one of the guarantors, but as that treaty had
but a few more years to run, after which he should be reinstated in his
former right of sovereignty over all the Netherlands, he entirely
justified the conduct of Count Gondemar.

It may well be conceived that, as the years passed by, as the period of
the Truce grew nearer and the religious disputes became every day more
envenomed, the government at Madrid should look on the tumultuous scene
with saturnine satisfaction. There was little doubt now, they thought,
that the Provinces, sick of their rebellion and that fancied independence
which had led them into