History of the United Netherlands, 1603-04 | Page 9

in London, but James was daily expecting and De Bethune dreading her
arrival.

The ambassador knew very well that, although the king talked big in
her absence about the forms which he intended to prescribe for her
conduct, he would take orders from her as soon as she arrived, refuse
her nothing, conceal nothing from her, and tremble before her as usual.
The king was not specially prejudiced in favour of the French monarch
or his ambassador, for he had been told that Henry had occasionally
spoken of him as captain of arts and doctor of arms, and that both the
Marquis de Rosny and his brother were known to have used highly
disrespectful language concerning him.
Before his audience, De Rosny received a private visit from Barneveld
and the deputies of the States-General, and was informed that since his
arrival they had been treated with more civility by the king. Previously
he had refused to see them after the first official reception, had not been
willing to grant Count Henry of Nassau a private audience, and had
spoken publicly of the States as seditious rebels.
Oh the 21st June Barneveld had a long private interview with the
ambassador at Arundel palace, when he exerted all his eloquence to
prove the absolute necessity of an offensive and defensive alliance
between France and the United Provinces if the independence of the
republic were ever to be achieved. Unless a French army took the field
at once, Ostend would certainly fall, he urged, and resistance to the
Spaniards would soon afterwards cease.
It is not probable that the Advocate felt in his heart so much despair as
his words indicated, but he was most anxious that Henry should openly
declare himself the protector of the young commonwealth, and not
indisposed perhaps to exaggerate the dangers, grave as they were
without doubt, by which its existence was menaced.
The ambassador however begged the Hollander to renounce any such
hopes, assuring him that the king had no intention of publicly and
singly taking upon his shoulders the whole burden of war with Spain,
the fruits of which would not be his to gather. Certainly before there
had been time thoroughly to study the character and inclinations of the
British monarch it would be impossible for De Rosny to hold out any
encouragement in this regard. He then asked Barneveld what he had
been able to discover during his residence in London as to the personal
sentiments of James.
The Advocate replied that at first the king, yielding to his own natural

tendencies, and to the advice of his counsellors, had refused the Dutch
deputies every hope, but that subsequently reflecting, as it would seem,
that peace would cost England very dear if English inaction should
cause the Hollanders to fall again under the dominion of the Catholic
king, or to find their only deliverance in the protection of France, and
beginning to feel more acutely how much England had herself to fear
from a power like Spain, he had seemed to awake out of a profound
sleep, and promised to take these important affairs into consideration.
Subsequently he had fallen into a dreary abyss of indecision, where he
still remained. It was certain however that he would form no resolution
without the concurrence of the King of France, whose ambassador he
had been so impatiently expecting, and whose proposition to him of a
double marriage between their respective children had given him much
satisfaction.
De Rosny felt sure that the Dutch statesmen were far too adroit to put
entire confidence in anything said by James, whether favourable or
detrimental to their cause. He conjured Barneveld therefore, by the
welfare of his country, to conceal nothing from him in regard to the
most secret resolutions that might have been taken by the States in the
event of their being abandoned by England, or in case of their being
embarrassed by a sudden demand on the part of that power for the
cautionary towns offered to Elizabeth.
Barneveld, thus pressed, and considering the ambassador as the
confidential counsellor of a sovereign who was the republic's only
friend, no longer hesitated. Making a merit to himself of imparting an
important secret, he said that the state-council of the commonwealth
had resolved to elude at any cost the restoration of the cautionary
towns.
The interview was then abruptly terminated by the arrival of the
Venetian envoy.
The 22nd of June arrived. The marquis had ordered mourning suits for
his whole embassy and retinue, by particular command of his sovereign,
who wished to pay this public tribute to the memory of the great queen.
To his surprise and somewhat to his indignation, he was however
informed that no one, stranger or native, Scotchman or Englishman,
had been permitted to present himself