Besides Menin, Falck, and Buys, were Noel de Caron, an experienced diplomatist; the poet-soldier, Van der Does; heroic defender of Leyden; De Gryze, Hersolte, Francis Maalzoon, and three legal Frisians of pith and substance, Feitsma, Aisma, and Jongema; a dozen Dutchmen together—­as muscular champions as ever little republic sent forth to wrestle with all comers in the slippery ring of diplomacy.  For it was instinctively felt that here were conclusions to be tried with a nation of deep, solid thinkers, who were aware that a great crisis in the world’s history had occurred, and would put forth their most substantial men to deal with it:  Burghley and Walsingham, the great Queen herself, were no feather-weights like the frivolous Henry iii., and his minions.  It was pity, however, that the discussions about to ensue presented from the outset rather the aspect of a hard hitting encounter of antagonists than that of a frank and friendly congress between two great parties whose interests were identical.

Since the death of William the Silent, there was no one individual in the Netherlands to impersonate the great struggle of the Provinces with Spain and Rome, and to concentrate upon his own head a poetical, dramatic, and yet most legitimate interest.  The great purpose of the present history must be found in its illustration of the creative power of civil and religious freedom.  Here was a little republic, just born into the world, suddenly bereft of its tutelary saint, left to its own resources, yet already instinct with healthy vigorous life, and playing its difficult part among friends and enemies with audacity, self-reliance, and success.  To a certain extent its achievements were anonymous, but a great principle manifested itself through a series of noble deeds.  Statesmen, soldiers, patriots, came forward on all sides to do the work which was to be done, and those who were brought into closest contact with the commonwealth acknowledged in strongest language the signal ability with which, self-guided, she steered her course.  Nevertheless, there was at this moment one Netherlander, the chief of the present mission to England, already the foremost statesman of his country, whose name will not soon be effaced from the record of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  That man was John of Olden-Barneveld.

He was now in his thirty-eighth year, having been born at Amersfoot on the 14th of September, 1547.  He bore an imposing name, for the Olden-Barnevelds of Gelderland were a race of unquestionable and antique nobility.  His enemies, however, questioned his right to the descent which he claimed.  They did not dispute that the great grandfather, Class van Olden-Barneveld, was of distinguished lineage and allied to many illustrious houses, but they denied that Class was really the great grandfather of John.  John’s father, Gerritt, they said, was a nameless outcast, a felon, a murderer, who had escaped the punishment