Grotius was freely allowed during his close imprisonment all the relaxations of study. His friends supplied him with quant.i.ties of books, which were usually brought into the fortress in a trunk two feet two inches long, which the governor regularly and carefully examined during the first year. But custom brought relaxation in the strictness of the prison rules; and the wife of the ill.u.s.trious prisoner, his faithful and constant visitor, proposed the plan of his escape, to which he gave a ready and, all hazards considered, a courageous a.s.sent. Shut up in this trunk for two hours, and with all the risk of suffocation, and of injury from the rude handling of the soldiers who carried it out of the fort, Grotius was brought clear off by the very agents of his persecutors, and safely delivered to the care of his devoted and discreet female servant, who knew the secret and kept it well. She attended the important consignment in the barge to the town of Gorc.u.m; and after various risks of discovery, providentially escaped, Grotius at length found himself safe beyond the limits of his native land. His wife, whose torturing suspense may be imagined the while, concealed the stratagem as long as it was possible to impose on the jailer with the pardonable and praiseworthy fiction of her husband"s illness and confinement to his bed.
The government, outrageous at the result of the affair, at first proposed to hold this interesting prisoner in place of the prey they had lost, and to proceed criminally against her. But after a fortnight"s confinement she was restored to liberty, and the country saved from the disgrace of so ungenerous and cowardly a proceeding. Grotius repaired to Paris, where he was received in the most flattering manner, and distinguished by a pension of one thousand crowns allowed by the king. He soon published his vindication--one of the most eloquent and unanswerable productions of its kind, in which those times of unjust accusations and illegal punishments were so fertile.
The expiration of the twelve years" truce was now at hand; and the United Provinces, after that long period of intestine trouble and disgrace, had once more to recommence a more congenial struggle against foreign enemies; for a renewal of the war with Spain might be fairly considered a return to the regimen best suited to the const.i.tution of the people. The republic saw, however, with considerable anxiety, the approach of this new contest. It was fully sensible of its own weakness. Exile had reduced its population; patriotism had subsided; foreign friends were dead; the troops were unused to warfare; the hatred against Spanish cruelty had lost its excitement; the finances were in confusion; Prince Maurice had no longer the activity of youth; and the still more vigorous impulse of fighting for his country"s liberty was changed to the dishonoring task of upholding his own tyranny.
The archdukes, encouraged by these considerations, had hopes of bringing back the United Provinces to their domination. They accordingly sent an emba.s.sy to Holland with proposals to that effect. It was received with indignation; and the amba.s.sador, Peckius, was obliged to be escorted back to the frontiers by soldiers, to protect him from the insults of the people. Military operations were, however, for a while refrained from on either side, in consequence of the deaths of Philip III. of Spain and the archduke Albert. Philip IV. succeeded his father at the age of sixteen; and the archd.u.c.h.ess Isabella found herself alone at the head of the government in the Belgian provinces. Olivarez became as sovereign a minister in Spain, as his predecessor the duke of Lerma had been; but the archd.u.c.h.ess, though now with only the t.i.tle of stadtholderess of the Netherlands, held the reins of power with a firm and steady hand.
In the celebrated thirty years" war which had commenced between the Protestants and Catholics of Germany, the former had met with considerable a.s.sistance from the United Provinces. Barneveldt, who foresaw the embarra.s.sments which the country would have to contend with on the expiration of that truce, had strongly opposed its meddling in the quarrel; but his ruin and death left no restraint on the policy which prompted the republic to aid the Protestant cause. Fifty thousand florins a month to the revolted Protestants, and a like sum to the princes of the union, were for some time advanced. Frederick, the elector palatine, son-in-law of the king of England, and nephew of the prince, was chosen by the Bohemians for their king; but in spite of the enthusiastic wishes of the English nation, James persisted in refusing to interfere in Frederick"s favor. France, governed by De Luynes, a favorite whose influence was deeply pledged, and, it is said, dearly sold to Spain, abandoned the system of Henry IV., and upheld the House of Austria. Thus the new monarch, only aided by the United Provinces, and that feebly, was soon driven from his temporary dignity; his hereditary dominions in the palatinate were overrun by the Spanish army under Spinola; and Frederick, utterly defeated at the battle of Prague, was obliged to take refuge in Holland.
James"s abandonment of his son-in-law has been universally blamed by almost every historian. He certainly allowed a few generous individuals to raise a regiment in England of two thousand four hundred chosen soldiers, who, under the command of the gallant Sir Horace Vere, could only vainly regret the impossibility of opposition to ten times their number of veteran troops.
This contest was carried on at first with almost all the advantages on the side of the House of Austria. Two men of extraordinary character, which presented a savage parody of military talent, and a courage chiefly remarkable for the ferocity into which it degenerated, struggled for a while against the imperial arms.
These were the count of Mansfield and Christian of Brunswick. At the head of two desperate bands, which, by dint of hard fighting, acquired something of the consistency of regular armies, they maintained a long resistance; but the duke of Bavaria, commanding the troops of the emperor, and Count Tilly at the head of those of Spain, completed in the year 1622 the defeat of their daring and semi-barbarous opponents.
Spinola was resolved to commence the war against the republic by some important exploit. He therefore laid siege to Berg-op-Zoom, a place of great consequence, commanding the navigation of the Meuse and the coasts of all the islands of Zealand. But Maurice, roused from the lethargy of despotism which seemed to have wholly changed his character, repaired to the scene of threatened danger; and succeeded, after a series of desperate efforts on both sides, to raise the siege, forcing Spinola to abandon his attempt with a loss of upward of twelve thousand men. Frederick Henry in the meantime had made an incursion into Brabant with a body of light troops; and ravaging the country up to the very gates of Mechlin, Louvain, and Brussels, levied contributions to the amount of six hundred thousand florins. The states completed this series of good fortune by obtaining the possession of West Friesland, by means of Count Mansfield, whom they had despatched thither at the head of his formidable army, and who had, in spite of the opposition of Count Tilly, successfully performed his mission.
We must now turn from these brief records of military affairs, the more pleasing theme for the historian of the Netherlands in comparison with domestic events, which claim attention but to create sensations of regret and censure. Prince Maurice had enjoyed without restraint the fruits of his ambitious daring.
His power was uncontrolled and unopposed, but it was publicly odious; and private resentments were only withheld by fear, and, perhaps, in some measure by the moderation and patience which distinguished the disciples of Arminianism. In the midst, however, of the apparent calm, a deep conspiracy was formed against the life of the prince. The motives, the conduct, and the termination of this plot, excite feelings of many opposite kinds. We cannot, as in former instances, wholly execrate the design and approve the punishment. Commiseration is mingled with blame, when we mark the sons of Barneveldt, urged on by the excess of filial affection to avenge their venerable father"s fate; and despite our abhorrence for the object in view, we sympathize with the conspirators rather than the intended victim. William von Stoutenbourg and Renier de Groeneveld were the names of these two sons of the late pensionary. The latter was the younger; but, of more impetuous character than his brother, he was the princ.i.p.al in the plot. Instead of any efforts to soften down the hatred of this unfortunate family, these brothers had been removed from their employments, their property was confiscated, and despair soon urged them to desperation. In such a time of general discontent it was easy to find accomplices. Seven or eight determined men readily joined in the plot; of these, two were Catholics, the rest Arminians; the chief of whom was Henry Slatius, a preacher of considerable eloquence, talent, and energy.
It was first proposed to attack the prince at Rotterdam; but the place was soon after changed for Ryswyk, a village near The Hague, and afterward celebrated by the treaty of peace signed there and which bears its name. Ten other a.s.sociates were soon engaged by the exertions of Slatius: these were Arminian artisans and sailors, to whom the actual execution of the murder was to be confided; and they were persuaded that it was planned with the connivance of Prince Frederick Henry, who was considered by the Arminians as the secret partisan of their sect. The 6th of February was fixed on for the accomplishment of the deed.
The better to conceal the design, the conspirators agreed to go unarmed to the place, where they were to find a box containing pistols and poniards in a spot agreed upon. The death of the Prince of Orange was not the only object intended. During the confusion subsequent to the hoped-for success of that first blow, the chief conspirators intended to excite simultaneous revolts at Leyden, Gouda, and Rotterdam, in which towns the Arminians were most numerous. A general revolution throughout Holland was firmly reckoned on as the infallible result; and success was enthusiastically looked for to their country"s freedom and their individual fame.
But the plot, however cautiously laid and resolutely persevered in, was doomed to the fate of many another; and the horror of a second murder (but with far different provocation from the first) averted from the ill.u.s.trious family to whom was still destined the glory of consolidating the country it had formed.
Two brothers named Blansaart, and one Parthy, having procured a considerable sum of money from the leading conspirators, repaired to The Hague, as they a.s.serted, for the purpose of betraying the plot; but they were forestalled in this purpose: four of the sailors had gone out to Ryswyk the preceding evening, and laid the whole of the project, together with the wages of their intended crime, before the prince; who, it would appear, then occupied the ancient chateau, which no longer exists at Ryswyk. The box of arms was found in the place pointed out by the informers, and measures were instantly taken to arrest the various accomplices. Several were seized. Groeneveld had escaped along the coast disguised as a fisherman, and had nearly effected his pa.s.sage to England, when he was recognized and arrested in the island of Vlieland.
Slatius and others were also intercepted in their attempts at escape.--Stoutenbourg, the most culpable of all, was the most fortunate; probably from the energy of character which marks the difference between a bold adventurer and a timid speculator.
He is believed to have pa.s.sed from The Hague in the same manner as Grotius quitted his prison; and, by the aid of a faithful servant, he accomplished his escape through various perils, and finally reached Brussels, where the archd.u.c.h.ess Isabella took him under her special protection. He for several years made efforts to be allowed to return to Holland; but finding them hopeless, even after the death of Maurice, he embraced the Catholic religion, and obtained the command of a troop of Spanish cavalry, at the head of which he made incursions into his native country, carrying before him a black flag with the effigy of a death"s head, to announce the mournful vengeance which he came to execute.
Fifteen persons were executed for the conspiracy. If ever mercy was becoming to a man, it would have been pre-eminently so to Maurice on this occasion; but he was inflexible as adamant. The mother, the wife, and the son of Groeneveld, threw themselves at his feet, imploring pardon. Prayers, tears and sobs were alike ineffectual. It is even said that Maurice asked the wretched mother "why she begged mercy for her son, having refused to do as much for her husband?" To which cruel question she is reported to have made the sublime answer--"Because my son is guilty, and my husband was not."
These b.l.o.o.d.y executions caused a deep sentiment of gloom. The conspiracy excited more pity for the victims than horror for the intended crime. Maurice, from being the idol of his countrymen, was now become an object of their fear and dislike. When he moved from town to town, the people no longer hailed him with acclamations; and even the common tokens of outward respect were at times withheld. The Spaniards, taking advantage of the internal weakness consequent on this state of public feeling in the States, made repeated incursions into the provinces, which were now united but in t.i.tle, not in spirit. Spinola was once more in the field, and had invested the important town of Breda, which was the patrimonial inheritance of the princes of Orange. Maurice was oppressed with anxiety and regret; and, for the sake of his better feelings, it may be hoped, with remorse. He could effect nothing against his rival; and he saw his own laurels withering from his careworn brow. The only hope left of obtaining the so much wanted supplies of money was in the completion of a new treaty with France and England.
Cardinal Richelieu, desirous of setting bounds to the ambition and the successes of the House of Austria, readily came into the views of the States; and an obligation for a loan of one million two hundred thousand livres during the year 1624, and one million more for each of the two succeeding years, was granted by the king of France, on condition that the republic made no new truce with Spain without his mediation.
An alliance nearly similar was at the same time concluded with England. Perpetual quarrels on commercial questions loosened the ties which bound the States to their ancient allies. The failure of his son"s intended marriage with the infanta of Spain had opened the eyes of King James to the way in which he was despised by those who seemed so much to respect him. He was highly indignant; and he undertook to revenge himself by aiding the republic. He agreed to furnish six thousand men, and supply the funds for their pay, with a provision for repayment by the States at the conclusion of a peace with Spain.
Prince Maurice had no opportunity of reaping the expected advantages from these treaties. Baffled in all his efforts for relieving Breda, and being unsuccessful in a new attempt upon Antwerp, he returned to The Hague, where a lingering illness, that had for some time exhausted him, terminated in his death on the 23d of April, 1625, in his fifty-ninth year. Most writers attribute this event to agitation at being unable to relieve Breda from the attack of Spinola. It is in any case absurd to suppose that the loss of a single town could have produced so fatal an effect on one whose life had been an almost continual game of the chances of war. But cause enough for Maurice"s death may be found in the wearing effects of thirty years of active military service, and the more wasting ravages of half as many of domestic despotism.
CHAPTER XVIII
TO THE TREATY OF MUNSTER
A.D. 1625--1648
Frederick Henry succeeded to almost all his brother"s t.i.tles and employments, and found his new dignities clogged with an acc.u.mulation of difficulties sufficient to appall the most determined spirit.
Everything seemed to justify alarm and despondency. If the affairs of the republic in India wore an aspect of prosperity, those in Europe presented a picture of past disaster and approaching peril.
Disunion and discontent, an almost insupportable weight of taxation, and the disputes of which it was the fruitful source, formed the subjects of internal ill. Abroad was to be seen navigation hara.s.sed and trammelled by the pirates of Dunkirk; and the almost defenceless frontiers of the republic exposed to the irruptions of the enemy. The king of Denmark, who endeavored to make head against the imperialist and Spanish forces, was beaten by Tilly, and made to tremble for the safety of his own States. England did nothing toward the common cause of Protestantism, in consequence of the weakness of the monarch; and civil dissensions for a while disabled France from resuming the system of Henry IV. for humbling the House of Austria.
Frederick Henry was at this period in his forty-second year.
His military reputation was well established; he soon proved his political talents. He commenced his career by a total change in the tone of government on the subject of sectarian differences.
He exercised several acts of clemency in favor of the imprisoned and exiled Arminians, at the same time that he upheld the dominant religion. By these measures he conciliated all parties; and by degrees the fierce spirit of intolerance became subdued. The foreign relations of the United Provinces now presented the anomalous policy of a fleet furnished by the French king, manned by rigid Calvinists, and commanded by a grandson of Admiral Coligny, for the purpose of combating the remainder of the French Huguenots, whom they considered as brothers in religion, though political foes; and during the joint expedition which was undertaken by the allied French and Dutch troops against Roch.e.l.le, the stronghold of Protestantism, the preachers of Holland put up prayers for the protection of those whom their army was marching to destroy. The states-general, ashamed of this unpopular union, recalled their fleet, after some severe fighting with that of the Huguenots.
Cardinal Richelieu and the king of France were for a time furious in their displeasure; but interests of state overpowered individual resentments, and no rupture took place.
Charles I. had now succeeded his father on the English throne.
He renewed the treaty with the republic, which furnished him with twenty ships to a.s.sist his own formidable fleet in his war against Spain. Frederick Henry had, soon after his succession to the chief command, commenced an active course of martial operations, and was successful in almost all his enterprises.
He took Groll and several other towns; and it was hoped that his successes would have been pushed forward upon a wider field of action against the imperial arms; but the States prudently resolved to act on the defensive by land, choosing the sea for the theatre of their more active operations. All the hopes of a powerful confederation against the emperor and the king of Spain seemed frustrated by the war which now broke out between France and England. The states-general contrived by great prudence to maintain a strict neutrality in this quarrel. They even succeeded in mediating a peace between the rival powers, which was concluded the following year; and in the meantime they obtained a more astonishing and important series of triumphs against the Spanish fleets than had yet been witnessed in naval conflicts.
The West India Company had confided the command of their fleet to Peter Hein, a most intrepid and intelligent sailor, who proved his own merits, and the sagacity of his employers on many occasions, two of them of an extraordinary nature. In 1627, he defeated a fleet of twenty-six vessels, with a much inferior force. In the following year, he had the still more brilliant good fortune, near Havana, in the island of Cuba, in an engagement with the great Spanish armament, called the Money Fleet, to indicate the immense wealth which it contained. The booty was safely carried to Amsterdam, and the whole of the treasure, in money, precious stones, indigo, etc., was estimated at the value of twelve million florins. This was indeed a victory worth gaining, won almost without bloodshed, and raising the republic far above the manifold difficulties by which it had been embarra.s.sed. Hein perished in the following year, in a combat with some of the pirates of Dunkirk--those terrible freebooters whose name was a watchword of terror during the whole continuance of the war.
The year 1629 brought three formidable armies at once to the frontiers of the republic, and caused a general dismay all through the United Provinces; but the immense treasures taken from the Spaniards enabled them to make preparations suitable to the danger; and Frederick Henry, supported by his cousin William of Na.s.sau, his natural brother Justin, and other brave and experienced officers, defeated every effort of the enemy. He took many towns in rapid succession; and finally forced the Spaniards to abandon all notion of invading the territories of the republic. Deprived of the powerful talents of Spinola, who was called to command the Spanish troops in Italy, the armies of the archd.u.c.h.ess, under the count of Berg, were not able to cope with the genius of the Prince of Orange. The consequence was the renewal of negotiations for a second truce. But these were received on the part of the republic with a burst of opposition. All parties seemed decided on that point; and every interest, however opposed on minor questions, combined to give a positive negative on this.
The grat.i.tude of the country for the services of Frederick Henry induced the provinces of which he was stadtholder to grant the reversion in this t.i.tle to his son, a child of three years old; and this dignity had every chance of becoming as absolute, as it was now p.r.o.nounced almost hereditary, by the means of an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men devoted to their chief.
However, few military occurrences took place, the sea being still chosen as the element best suited to the present enterprises of the republic. In the widely-distant settlements of Brazil and Batavia, the Dutch were equally successful; and the East and West India companies acquired eminent power and increasing solidity.
The year 1631 was signalized by an expedition into Flanders, consisting of eighteen thousand men, intended against Dunkirk, but hastily abandoned, in spite of every probability of success, by the commissioners of the states-general, who accompanied the army, and thwarted all the ardor and vigor of the Prince of Orange.
But another great naval victory in the narrow seas of Zealand recompensed the disappointments of this inglorious affair.
The splendid victories of Augustus Adolphus against the imperial arms in Germany changed the whole face of European affairs.
Protestantism began once more to raise its head; and the important conquests by Frederick Henry of almost all the strong places on the Meuse, including Maestricht, the strongest of all, gave the United Provinces their ample share in the glories of the war. The death of the archd.u.c.h.ess Isabella, which took place at Brussels in the year 1633, added considerably to the difficulties of Spain in the Belgian provinces. The defection of the count of Berg, the chief general of their armies, who was actuated by resentment on the appointment of the marquis of St. Croix over his head, threw everything into confusion, in exposing a widespread confederacy among the n.o.bility of these provinces to erect themselves into an independent republic, strengthened by a perpetual alliance with the United Provinces against the power of Spain. But the plot failed, chiefly, it is said, by the imprudence of the king of England, who let the secret slip, from some motives vaguely hinted at, but never sufficiently explained. After the death of Isabella, the prince of Brabancon was arrested. The prince of Epinoi and the duke of Burnonville made their escape; and the duke of Arschot, who was arrested in Spain, was soon liberated, in consideration of some discoveries into the nature of the plot. An armistice, published in 1634, threw this whole affair into complete oblivion.
The king of Spain appointed his brother Ferdinand, a cardinal and archbishop of Toledo, to the dignity of governor-general of the Netherlands. He repaired to Germany at the head of seventeen thousand men, and bore his share in the victory of Nordlingen; after which he hastened to the Netherlands, and made his entry into Brussels in 1634. Richelieu had hitherto only combated the house of Austria in these countries by negotiation and intrigue; but he now entered warmly into the proposals made by Holland for a treaty offensive and defensive between Louis XIII. and the republic. By a treaty soon after concluded (February 8, 1635) the king of France engaged to invade the Belgian provinces with an army of thirty thousand men, in concert with a Dutch force of equal number. It was agreed that if Belgium would consent to break from the Spanish yoke it was to be erected into a free state; if, on the contrary, it would not co-operate for its own freedom, France and Holland were to dismember, and to divide it equally.
The plan of these combined measures was soon acted on. The French army took the field under the command of the marshals De Chatillon and De Breeze; and defeated the Spaniards in a b.l.o.o.d.y battle, near Avein, in the province of Luxemburg, on the 20th of May, 1635, with the loss of four thousand men. The victors soon made a junction with the Prince of Orange; and the towns of Tirlemont, St. Trond, and some others, were quickly reduced. The former of these places was taken by a.s.sault, and pillaged with circ.u.mstances of cruelty that recall the horrors of the early transactions of the war. The Prince of Orange was forced to punish severely the authors of these offences. The consequences of this event were highly injurious to the allies. A spirit of fierce resistance was excited throughout the invaded provinces. Louvain set the first example. The citizens and students took arms for its defence; and the combined forces of France and Holland were repulsed, and forced by want of supplies to abandon the siege, and rapidly retreat. The prince-cardinal, as Ferdinand was called, took advantage of this reverse to press the retiring French; recovered several towns; and gained all the advantages as well as glory of the campaign.
The remains of the French army, reduced by continual combats, and still more by sickness, finally embarked at Rotterdam, to return to France in the ensuing spring, a sad contrast to its brilliant appearance at the commencement of the campaign.
The military events for several ensuing years present nothing of sufficient interest to induce us to record them in detail. A perpetual succession of sieges and skirmishes afford a monotonous picture of isolated courage and skill; but we see none of those great conflicts which bring out the genius of opposing generals, and show war in its grand results, as the decisive means of enslaving or emanc.i.p.ating mankind. The prince-cardinal, one of the many who on this b.l.o.o.d.y theatre displayed consummate military talents, incessantly employed himself in incursions into the bordering provinces of France, ravaged Picardy, and filled Paris with fear and trembling. He, however, reaped no new laurels when he came into contact with Frederick Henry, who, on almost every occasion, particularly that of the siege of Breda, in 1637, carried his object in spite of all opposition. The triumphs of war were balanced; but Spain and the Belgian provinces, so long upheld by the talent of the governor-general, were gradually become exhausted. The revolution in Portugal, and the succession of the duke of Braganza, under the t.i.tle of John IV., to the throne of his ancestors, struck a fatal blow to the power of Spain. A strict alliance was concluded between the new monarch of France and Holland; and hostilities against the common enemy were on all sides vigorously continued.
The successes of the republic at sea and in their distant enterprises were continual, and in some instances brilliant. Brazil was gradually falling into the power of the West India Company. The East India possessions were secure. The great victory of Van Tromp, known by the name of the battle of the Downs, from being fought off the coast of England, on the 21st of October, 1639, raised the naval reputation of Holland as high as it could well be carried.
Fifty ships taken, burned, and sunk, were the proofs of their admiral"s triumph; and the Spanish navy never recovered the loss.
The victory was celebrated throughout Europe, and Van Tromp was the hero of the day. The king of England was, however, highly indignant at the hardihood with which the Dutch admiral broke through the etiquette of territorial respect, and destroyed his country"s bitter foes under the very sanction of English neutrality.
But the subjects of Charles I. did not partake their monarch"s feelings. They had no sympathy with arbitrary and tyrannic government; and their joy at the misfortune of their old enemies the Spaniards gave a fair warning of the spirit which afterward proved so fatal to the infatuated king, who on this occasion would have protected and aided them.
In an unsuccessful enterprise in Flanders, Count Henry Casimir of Na.s.sau was mortally wounded, adding another to the list of those of that ill.u.s.trious family whose lives were lost in the service of their country. His brother, Count William Frederick, succeeded him in his office of stadtholder of Friesland; but the same dignity in the provinces of Groningen and Drent devolved on the Prince of Orange. The latter had conceived the desire of a royal alliance for his son William. Charles I. readily a.s.sented to the proposal of the states-general that this young prince should receive the hand of his daughter Mary. Emba.s.sies were exchanged; the conditions of the contract agreed on; but it was not till two years later that Van Tromp, with an escort of twenty ships, conducted the princess, then twelve years old, to the country of her future husband. The republic did not view with an eye quite favorable this advancing aggrandizement of the House of Orange. Frederick Henry had shortly before been dignified by the king of France, at the suggestion of Richelieu, with the t.i.tle of "highness," instead of the inferior one of "excellency"; and the states-general, jealous of this distinction granted to their chief magistrate, adopted for themselves the sounding appellation of "high and mighty lords." The Prince of Orange, whatever might have been his private views of ambition, had however the prudence to silence all suspicion, by the mild and moderate use which he made of the power, which he might perhaps have wished to increase, but never attempted to abuse.
On the 9th of November, 1641, the prince-cardinal Ferdinand died at Brussels in his thirty-third year; another instance of those who were cut off, in the very vigor of manhood, from worldly dignities and the exercise of the painful and inauspicious duties of governor-general of the Netherlands. Don Francisco de Mello, a n.o.bleman of highly reputed talents, was the next who obtained this onerous situation. He commenced his governorship by a succession of military operations, by which, like most of his predecessors, he is alone distinguished. Acts of civil administration are scarcely noticed by the historians of these men. Not one of them, with the exception of the archduke Albert, seems to have valued the internal interests of the government; and he alone, perhaps, because they were declared and secured as his own. De Mello, after taking some towns, and defeating the marshal De Guiche in the battle of Hannecourt, tarnished all his fame by the great faults which he committed in the famous battle of Rocroy. The duke of Enghien, then twenty-one years of age, and subsequently so celebrated as the great Conde, completely defeated De Mello, and nearly annihilated the Spanish and Walloon infantry. The military operations of the Dutch army were this year only remarkable by the gallant conduct of Prince William, son of the Prince of Orange, who, not yet seventeen years of age, defeated, near Hulst, under the eyes of his father, a Spanish detachment in a very warm skirmish.
Considerable changes were now insensibly operating in the policy of Europe. Cardinal Richelieu had finished his dazzling but tempestuous career of government, in which the hand of death arrested him on the 4th of December, 1642. Louis XIII. soon followed to the grave him who was rather his master than his minister. Anne of Austria was declared regent during the minority of her son, Louis XIV., then only five years of age; and Cardinal Mazarin succeeded to the station from which death alone had power to remove his predecessor.
The civil wars in England now broke out, and their terrible results seemed to promise to the republic the undisturbed sovereignty of the seas. The Prince of Orange received with great distinction the mother-in-law of his son, when she came to Holland under pretext of conducting her daughter; but her princ.i.p.al purpose was to obtain, by the sale of the crown jewels and the a.s.sistance of Frederick Henry, funds for the supply of her unfortunate husband"s cause.
The prince and several private individuals contributed largely in money; and several experienced officers pa.s.sed over to serve in the royalist army of England. The provincial states of Holland, however, sympathizing wholly with the parliament, remonstrated with the stadtholder; and the Dutch colonists encouraged the hostile efforts of their brethren, the Puritans of Scotland, by all the absurd exhortations of fanatic zeal. Boswell, the English resident in the name of the king, and Strickland, the amba.s.sador from the parliament, kept up a constant succession of complaints and remonstrances on occasion of every incident which seemed to balance the conduct of the republic in the great question of English politics. Considerable differences existed: the province of Holland, and some others, leaned toward the parliament; the Prince of Orange favored the king; and the states-general endeavored to maintain a neutrality.
The struggle was still furiously maintained in Germany. Generals of the first order of military talent were continually appearing, and successively eclipsing each other by their brilliant actions.
Gustavus Adolphus was killed in the midst of his glorious career, at the battle of Lutzen; the duke of Weimar succeeded to his command, and proved himself worthy of the place; Tilly and the celebrated Wallenstein were no longer on the scene. The emperor Ferdinand II. was dead, and his son Ferdinand III. saw his victorious enemies threaten, at last, the existence of the empire. Everything tended to make peace necessary to some of the contending powers, as it was at length desirable for all. Sweden and Denmark were engaged in a b.l.o.o.d.y and wasteful conflict. The United Provinces sent an emba.s.sy, in the month of June, 1644, to each of those powers; and by a vigorous demonstration of their resolution to a.s.sist Sweden, if Denmark proved refractory, a peace was signed the following year, which terminated the disputes of the rival nations.
Negotiations were now opened at Munster between the several belligerents. The republic was, however, the last to send its plenipotentiaries there; having signed anew treaty with France, by which they mutually stipulated to make no peace independent of each other. It behooved the republic, however, to contribute as much as possible toward the general object; for, among other strong motives to that line of conduct, the finances of Holland were in a state perfectly deplorable.
Every year brought the necessity of a new loan; and the public debt of the provinces now amounted to one hundred and fifty million florins, bearing interest at six and a quarter per cent. Considerable alarm was excited at the progress of the French army in the Belgian provinces; and escape from the tyranny of Spain seemed only to lead to the danger of submission to a nation too powerful and too close at hand not to be dangerous, either as a foe or an ally. These fears were increased by the knowledge that Cardinal Mazarin projected a marriage between Louis XIV. and the infanta of Spain, with the Belgian provinces, or Spanish Netherlands as they were now called, for her marriage portion. This project was confided to the Prince of Orange, under the seal of secrecy, and he was offered the marquisate of Antwerp as the price of his influence toward effecting the plan. The prince revealed the whole to the states-general. Great fermentation was excited; the stadtholder himself was blamed, and suspected of complicity with the designs of the cardinal. Frederick Henry was deeply hurt at this want of confidence, and the injurious publications which openly a.s.sailed his honor in a point where he felt himself ent.i.tled to praise instead of suspicion.
The French labored to remove the impression which this affair excited in the republic; but the states-general felt themselves justified by the intriguing policy of Mazarin in entering into a secret negotiation with the king of Spain, who offered very favorable conditions. The negotiations were considerably advanced by the marked disposition evinced by the Prince of Orange to hasten the establishment of peace. Yet, at this very period, and while anxiously wishing this great object, he could not resist the desire for another campaign; one more exploit, to signalize the epoch at which he finally placed his sword in the scabbard.