All these private conversations of Barneveld, who was known to be the chief of the peace party, were duly reported by Verreyken in secret notes to the archduke and to Spinola.  Of course they produced their effect.  It surely might have been seen that the tricks and shifts of an antiquated diplomacy were entirely out of place if any wholesome result were desired.  But the habit of dissimulation was inveterate.  That the man who cannot dissemble is unfit to reign, was perhaps the only one of his father’s golden rules which Philip iii. could thoroughly comprehend, even if it be assumed that the monarch was at all consulted in regard to this most important transaction of his life.  Verreyken and the friar knew very well when they brought the document that it would be spurned by the States, and yet they were also thoroughly aware that it was the king’s interest to, begin the negotiations as soon as possible.  When thus privately and solemnly assured by the Advocate that they were really wasting their time by being the bearers of these royal evasions, they learned therefore nothing positively new, but were able to assure their employers that to thoroughly disgust the peace party was not precisely the mode of terminating the war.

Verreyken now received public and formal notification that a new instrument must be procured from the king.  In the ratification which had been sent, that monarch spoke of the archdukes as princes and sovereign proprietors of all the Netherlands.  The clause by which, according to the form prescribed by the States, and already adopted by the archdukes, the United Provinces were described as free countries over which no authority was claimed had been calmly omitted, as if, by such a subterfuge, the independence of the republic could be winked out of existence.  Furthermore, it was objected that the document was in Spanish, that it was upon paper instead of parchment, that it was not sealed with the great, but with the little seal, and that it was subscribed.

“I the King.”  This signature might be very appropriate for decrees issued by a monarch to his vassals, but could not be rightly appended, it was urged, to an instrument addressed to a foreign power.  Potentates, treating with the States-General of the United Provinces, were expected to sign their names.

Whatever may be thought of the technical requirements in regard to the parchment, the signature, and the seal, it would be difficult to characterize too strongly the polity of the Spanish Government in the most essential point.  To seek relief from the necessity of recognising-at least in the sense of similitude, according to the subtlety of Bentivoglio—­the freedom of the provinces, simply by running the pen through the most important line of a most important document, was diplomacy in its dotage.  Had not Marquis Spinola, a man who could use his brains and his pen as well as his sword, expressly implored the politicians of Madrid not to change even a comma in the form of ratification which he sent to Spain?