Life and Death of John of Barneveld — Complete (1609-1623) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 893 pages of information about Life and Death of John of Barneveld — Complete (1609-1623).

Life and Death of John of Barneveld — Complete (1609-1623) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 893 pages of information about Life and Death of John of Barneveld — Complete (1609-1623).

Maurice would have rejoiced, had the Marshal blundered longer along the road to the debateable land than he had done.  He had almost brought Julich to reduction.  A fortnight later the place surrendered.  The terms granted by the conqueror were equitable.  No change was to be made in the liberty of Roman Catholic worship, nor in the city magistracy.  The citadel and its contents were to be handed over to the Princes of Brandenburg and Neuburg.  Archduke Leopold and his adherents departed to Prague, to carry out as he best could his farther designs upon the crown of Bohemia, this first portion of them having so lamentably failed, and Sergeant-Major Frederick Pithan, of the regiment of Count Ernest Casimir of Nassau, was appointed governor of Julich in the interest of the possessory princes.

Thus without the loss of a single life, the Republic, guided by her consummate statesman and unrivalled general, had gained an immense victory, had installed the Protestant princes in the full possession of those splendid and important provinces, and had dictated her decrees on German soil to the Emperor of Germany, and had towed, as it were, Great Britain and France along in her wake, instead of humbly following those powers, and had accomplished all that she had ever proposed to do, even in alliance with them both.

The King of England considered that quite enough had been done, and was in great haste to patch up a reconciliation.  He thought his ambassador would soon “have as good occasion to employ his tongue and his pen as General Cecil and his soldiers have done their swords and their mattocks.”

He had no sympathy with the cause of Protestantism, and steadily refused to comprehend the meaning of the great movements in the duchies.  “I only wish that I may handsomely wind myself out of this quarrel, where the principal parties do so little for themselves,” he said.

De la Chatre returned with his troops to France within a fortnight after his arrival on the scene.  A mild proposition made by the French government through the Marshal, that the provinces should be held in seguestration by France until a decision as to the true sovereignty could be reached, was promptly declined.  Maurice of Nassau had hardly gained so signal a triumph for the Republic and for the Protestant cause only to hand it over to Concini and Villeroy for the benefit of Spain.  Julich was thought safer in the keeping of Sergeant Pithan.

By the end of September the States’ troops had returned to their own country.

Thus the Republic, with eminent success, had accomplished a brief and brilliant campaign, but no statesman could suppose that the result was more than a temporary one.  These coveted provinces, most valuable in themselves and from their important position, would probably not be suffered peacefully to remain very long under the protection of the heretic States-General and in the ‘Condominium’ of two Protestant

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Life and Death of John of Barneveld — Complete (1609-1623) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.