The right conduct of foreign affairs was of peculiar importance at the moment, when Frederick Henry became stadholder, for a change of regime took place almost simultaneously both in France and England.  In Paris Cardinal Richelieu had just laid firm hands upon the reins of power, and the timorous and feeble James I died in the autumn of 1625.  Richelieu and Charles I were both hostile to Spain, and the republic had reason to hope for something more than friendly neutrality in the coming years of struggle with the united forces of the two Habsburg monarchies.

One of the chief difficulties which confronted the new stadholder was the religious question.  The prince himself, as was well known, was inclined to Remonstrant opinions.  He was, however, anxious not to stir up the smouldering embers of sectarian strife, and he made no effort to withdraw the placards against the Remonstrants, but confined himself to moderate in practice their severity.  He recalled from exile Van der Myle, Oldenbarneveldt’s son-in-law; made Nicholas van Reigersberg, De Groot’s brother-in-law, a member of the council; and released Hoogerbeets from his captivity at Loevestein.  When, however, De Groot himself, presuming on the stadholder’s goodwill, ventured to return to Holland without permission, the prince refused to receive him and he was ordered to leave the country once more.

The year 1626 was marked by no events of military importance; both sides were in lack of funds and no offensive operations were undertaken.  Much rejoicing, however, attended the birth of a son and heir to the Prince of Orange, May 27.  The child received the name of William.  Early in the following year Sir Dudley Carleton, as envoy-extraordinary of King Charles I, invested Frederick Henry at the Hague with the Order of the Garter.  This high distinction was not, however, a mark of really friendlier relations between the two countries.  The long-standing disputes as to fishing rights in the narrow seas and at Spitsbergen, and as to trading spheres in the East Indian Archipelago, remained unsettled; and in the unfortunate and ill-considered war, which broke out at this time between England and France, the sympathies of the States were with the latter.  Already those close relations between the French and the Dutch, which for the next decade were to be one of the dominating factors in determining the final issue of the Thirty Years’ War, were by the diplomatic efforts of Richelieu and of Aerssens being firmly established.  France advanced to the States a large subsidy by the aid of which the stadholder was enabled to take the field at the head of a really fine army and to give to the world a brilliant display of his military abilities.  Throughout his stadholderate the persistent aim which Frederick Henry held before himself was never aggression with a view to conquest, but the creation of a scientific frontier, covered by strong fortresses, within which the flat lands behind the defensive lines of the great