The reply to this elaborate farewell was curt and somewhat crusty.  “Had they known,” said the states’ envoys, “that their transparencies and worthinesses had no better intention, and the Duke of Terranova no ampler commission, the whole matter might have been despatched, not in six months, but in six days.”

Thus ended the conferences, and the imperial commissioners departed.  Nevertheless, Schwartzenburg remained yet a little time at Cologne, while five of the states’ envoys also protracted their stay, in order to make their private peace with the King.  It is hardly necessary to observe that the chief of these penitents was the Duke of Aerschot.  The ultimatum of the states was deposited by the departing envoys with Schwartzenburg, and a comparison of its terms with those offered by the imperial mediators, as the best which could be obtained from Spain, shows the hopelessness of the pretended negotiation.  Departure of the foreign troops, restitution of all confiscated property, unequivocal recognition of the Ghent treaty and the perpetual edict, appointment to office of none but natives, oaths of allegiance to the King and the states-general, exercise of the Reformed religion and of the Confession of Augsburg in all places where it was then publicly practised:  such were the main demands of the patriot party.

In the secret instructions furnished by the states to their envoys, they were told to urge upon his Majesty the absolute necessity, if he wished to retain the provinces, of winking at the exercise of the Reformed and the Augsburg creeds.  “The new religion had taken too deep root,” it was urged, “ever to be torn forth, save with the destruction of the whole country.”

Thus, after seven dreary months of negotiation, after protocols and memoranda in ten thousand folia, the august diplomatists had travelled round to the points from which they had severally started.  On the one side, unlimited prerogative and exclusive Catholicism; on the other, constitutional liberty, with freedom of conscience for Catholic and Protestant alike:  these were the claims which each party announced at the commencement, and to which they held with equal firmness at the close of the conferences.

The congress had been expensive.  Though not much had been accomplished for the political or religious advancement of mankind, there had been much excellent eating and drinking at Cologne during the seven months.  Those drouthy deliberations had needed moistening.  The Bishop of Wurtzburg had consumed “eighty hogsheads of Rhenish wine and twenty great casks of beer.”  The expense of the states’ envoys were twenty-four thousand guldens.  The Archbishop of Cologne had expended forty thousand thalers.  The deliberations were, on the whole, excessively detrimental to the cause of the provinces, “and a great personage” wrote to the states-general, that the King had been influenced by no motive save to cause dissension.  This was an exaggeration, for his Majesty would have been well pleased to receive the whole of the country on the same terms which had been accepted by the Walloons.  Meantime, those southern provinces had made their separate treaty, and the Netherlands were permanently dissevered.  Maestricht had fallen.  Disunion and dismay had taken possession of the country.