“I have studied that subject,” said James, “as well as anybody, and have come to the conclusion that nothing certain can be laid down in regard to it.  I have myself not always been of one mind about it, but I will bet that my opinion is the best of any, although I would not hang my salvation upon it.  My Lords the States would do well to order their doctors and teachers to be silent on this topic.  I have hardly ventured, moreover, to touch upon the matter of justification in my own writings, because that also seemed to hang upon predestination.”

Thus having spoken with the air of a man who had left nothing further to be said on predestination or justification, the King rose, took off his hat, and drank a bumper to the health of the States-General and his Excellency Prince Maurice, and success to the affair of Cleve.

After dinner there was a parting interview in the gallery.  The King, attended by many privy councillors and high functionaries of state, bade the commissioners a cordial farewell, and, in order to show his consideration for their government, performed the ceremony of knighthood upon them, as was his custom in regard to the ambassadors of Venice.  The sword being presented to him by the Lord Chamberlain, James touched each of the envoys on the shoulder as he dismissed him.  “Out of respect to My Lords the States,” said they in their report, “we felt compelled to allow ourselves to be burthened with this honour.”

Thus it became obvious to the States-General that there was but little to hope for from Great Britain or France.  France, governed by Concini and by Spain, was sure to do her best to traverse the designs of the Republic, and, while perfunctorily and grudgingly complying with the letter of the Hall treaty, was secretly neutralizing by intrigue the slender military aid which de la Chatre was to bring to Prince Maurice.  The close alliance of France and Protestantism had melted into air.  On the other hand the new Catholic League sprang into full luxuriance out of the grave of Henry, and both Spain and the Pope gave their hearty adhesion to the combinations of Maximilian of Bavaria, now that the mighty designs of the French king were buried with him.  The Duke of Savoy, caught in the trap of his own devising, was fain to send his son to sue to Spain for pardon for the family upon his knees, and expiated by draining a deep cup of humiliation his ambitious designs upon the Milanese and the matrimonial alliance with France.  Venice recoiled in horror from the position she found herself in as soon as the glamour of Henry’s seductive policy was dispelled, while James of Great Britain, rubbing his hands with great delight at the disappearance from the world of the man he so admired, bewailed, and hated, had no comfort to impart to the States-General thus left in virtual isolation.  The barren burthen of knighthood and a sermon on predestination were all he could bestow upon the high commissioners in place of the alliance which he eluded, and the military assistance which he point-blank refused.  The possessory princes, in whose cause the sword was drawn, were too quarrelsome and too fainthearted to serve for much else than an incumbrance either in the cabinet or the field.