It was certainly not the highest expression of religious toleration for the civil authority to forbid the clergymen of the country from discussing in their pulpits the knottiest and most mysterious points of the schoolmen lest the “common people” should be puzzled.  Nevertheless, where the close union of Church and State and the necessity of one church were deemed matters of course, it was much to secure subordination of the priesthood to the magistracy, while to enjoin on preachers abstention from a single exciting cause of quarrel, on the ground that there was more than one path to salvation, and that mutual toleration was better than mutual persecution, was; in that age, a stride towards religious equality.  It was at least an advance on Carleton’s dogma, that there was but one unique and solitary truth, and that to declare heretics not punishable with death was an insult to the government of the Republic.

The States-General answered the Ambassador’s plea, made in the name of his master, for immediate and unguaranteed evacuation of the debatable land by the arguments already so often stated in the Advocate’s instructions to Caron.  They had been put to great trouble and expense already in their campaigning and subsequent fortification of important places in the duchies.  They had seen the bitter spirit manifested by the Spaniards in the demolition of the churches and houses of Mulheim and other places.  “While the affair remained in its present terms of utter uncertainty their Mightinesses,” said the States-General, “find it most objectionable to forsake the places which they have been fortifying and to leave the duchies and all their fellow-religionists, besides the rights of the possessory princes a prey to those who have been hankering for the territories for long years, and who would unquestionably be able to make themselves absolute masters of all within a very few days.”

A few months later Carleton came before the States-General again and delivered another elaborate oration, duly furnished to him by the King, upon the necessity of the National Synod, the comparative merits of Arminianism and Contra-Remonstrantism, together with a full exposition of the constitutions of the Netherlands.

It might be supposed that Barneveld and Grotius and Hoogerbeets knew something of the law and history of their country.

But James knew much better, and so his envoy endeavoured to convince his audience.

He received on the spot a temperate but conclusive reply from the delegates of Holland.  They informed him that the war with Spain—­the cause of the Utrecht Union—­was not begun about religion but on account of the violation of liberties, chartered rights and privileges, not the least of which rights was that of each province to regulate religious matters within its borders.