“It was always held here to be one of the chief infractions of the laws and privileges of this country,” he said, “that former princes had placed themselves in matter of religion in the tutelage of the Pope and the Spanish Inquisition, and that they therefore on complaint of their good subjects could take no orders on that subject.  Therefore it cannot be considered strange that we are not willing here to fall into the same obloquy.  That one should now choose to turn the magistrates, who were once so seriously summoned on their conscience and their office to adopt the Reformation and to take the matter of religion to heart, into ignorants, to deprive them of knowledge, and to cause them to see with other eyes than their own, cannot by many be considered right and reasonable.  ‘Intelligenti pauca.’”

[The interesting letter from which I have given these copious extracts was ordered by its writer to be burned.  “Lecta vulcano” was noted at the end of it, as was not unfrequently the case with the Advocate.  It never was burned; but, innocent and reasonable as it seems, was made use of by Barneveld’s enemies with deadly effect.  J.L.M.]

Meantime M. de Refuge, as before stated, was on his way to the Hague, to communicate the news of the double marriage.  He had fallen sick at Rotterdam, and the nature of his instructions and of the message he brought remained unknown, save from the previous despatches of Aerssens.  But reports were rife that he was about to propose new terms of alliance to the States, founded on large concessions to the Roman Catholic religion.  Of course intense jealousy was excited at the English court, and calumny plumed her wings for a fresh attack upon the Advocate.  Of course he was sold to Spain, the Reformed religion was to be trampled out in the Provinces, and the Papacy and Holy Inquisition established on its ruins.  Nothing could be more diametrically the reverse of the fact than such hysterical suspicions as to the instructions of the ambassador extraordinary from France, and this has already appeared.  The Vorstian affair too was still in the same phase, the Advocate professing a willingness that justice should be done in the matter, while courteously but firmly resisting the arrogant pretensions of James to take the matter out of the jurisdiction of the States.

“I stand amazed,” he said, “at the partisanship and the calumnious representations which you tell me of, and cannot imagine what is thought nor what is proposed.  Should M. de Refuge make any such propositions as are feared, believe, and cause his Majesty and his counsellors to believe, that they would be of no effect.  Make assurances upon my word, notwithstanding all advices to the contrary, that such things would be flatly refused.  If anything is published or proven to the discredit of Vorstius, send it to me.  Believe that we shall not defend heretics nor schismatics against the pure Evangelical doctrine, but one cannot conceive here