With the turn of the year, affairs were growing darker and darker.  The League was rolling up its forces in all directions; its chiefs proposed absurd conditions of pacification, while war was already raging, and yet scarcely any government but that of the Netherlands paid heed to the rising storm.  James, fatuous as ever, listened to Gondemar, and wrote admonitory letters to the Archduke.  It was still gravely proposed by the Catholic party that there should be mutual disbanding in the duchies, with a guarantee from Marquis Spinola that there should be no more invasion of those territories.  But powers and pledges from the King of Spain were what he needed.

To suppose that the Republic and her allies would wait quietly, and not lift a finger until blows were actually struck against the Protestant electors or cities of Germany, was expecting too much ingenuousness on the part of statesmen who had the interests of Protestantism at heart.  What they wanted was the signed, sealed, ratified treaty faithfully carried out.  Then if the King of Spain and the Archdukes were willing to contract with the States never to make an attempt against the Holy German Empire, but to leave everything to take its course according to the constitutions, liberties, and traditions and laws of that empire, under guidance of its electors, princes, estates, and cities, the United Provinces were ready, under mediation of the two kings, their allies and friends, to join in such an arrangement.  Thus there might still be peace in Germany, and religious equality as guaranteed by the “Majesty-Letter,” and the “Compromise” between the two great churches, Roman and Reformed, be maintained.  To bring about this result was the sincere endeavour of Barneveld, hoping against hope.  For he knew that all was hollowness and sham on the part of the great enemy.  Even as Walsingham almost alone had suspected and denounced the delusive negotiations by which Spain continued to deceive Elizabeth and her diplomatists until the Armada was upon her coasts, and denounced them to ears that were deafened and souls that were stupified by the frauds practised upon them, so did Barneveld, who had witnessed all that stupendous trickery of a generation before, now utter his cries of warning that Germany might escape in time from her impending doom.

“Nothing but deceit is lurking in the Spanish proposals,” he said.  “Every man here wonders that the English government does not comprehend these malversations.  Truly the affair is not to be made straight by new propositions, but by a vigorous resolution of his Majesty.  It is in the highest degree necessary to the salvation of Christendom, to the conservation of his Majesty’s dignity and greatness, to the service of the princes and provinces, and of all Germany, nor can this vigorous resolution be longer delayed without enormous disaster to the common weal . . . . .  I have the deepest affection for the cause of the Duke of Savoy, but I cannot further it so long as I cannot tell what his Majesty specifically is resolved to do, and what hope is held out from Venice, Germany, and other quarters.  Our taxes are prodigious, the ordinary and extraordinary, and we have a Spanish army at our front door.”