Strange to say, as the electors proceeded through the crowd from the hall of election to accompany the new emperor to the church where he was to receive the popular acclaim, the news reached them from Prague that the Elector-Palatine had been elected King of Bohemia.

Thus Frederic, by voting for Ferdinand, had made himself voluntarily a rebel should he accept the crown now offered him.  Had the news arrived sooner, a different result and even a different history might have been possible.

CHAPTER XIV.

Barneveld connected with the East India Company, but opposed to the West India Company—­Carleton comes from Venice inimical to Barneveld—­Maurice openly the Chieftain of the Contra-Remonstrants—­Tumults about the Churches—­“Orange or Spain” the Cry of Prince Maurice and his Party—­They take possession of the Cloister Church—­“The Sharp Resolve”—­Carleton’s Orations before the States-General.

King James never forgave Barneveld for drawing from him those famous letters to the States in which he was made to approve the Five Points and to admit the possibility of salvation under them.  These epistles had brought much ridicule upon James, who was not amused by finding his theological discussions a laughing-stock.  He was still more incensed by the biting criticisms made upon the cheap surrender of the cautionary towns, and he hated more than ever the statesman who, as he believed, had twice outwitted him.

On the other hand, Maurice, inspired by his brother-in-law the Duke of Bouillon and by the infuriated Francis Aerssens, abhorred Barneveld’s French policy, which was freely denounced by the French Calvinists and by the whole orthodox church.  In Holland he was still warmly sustained except in the Contra-Remonstrant Amsterdam and a few other cities of less importance.  But there were perhaps deeper reasons for the Advocate’s unpopularity in the great commercial metropolis than theological pretexts.  Barneveld’s name and interests were identified with the great East India Company, which was now powerful and prosperous beyond anything ever dreamt of before in the annals of commerce.  That trading company had already founded an empire in the East.  Fifty ships of war, fortresses guarded by 4000 pieces of artillery and 10,000 soldiers and sailors, obeyed the orders of a dozen private gentlemen at home seated in a back parlour around a green table.  The profits of each trading voyage were enormous, and the shareholders were growing rich beyond their wildest imaginings.  To no individual so much as to Holland’s Advocate was this unexampled success to be ascribed.  The vast prosperity of the East India Company had inspired others with the ambition to found a similar enterprise in the West.  But to the West India Company then projected and especially favoured in Amsterdam, Barneveld was firmly opposed.  He considered it as bound up with the spirit of military adventure and conquest, and as likely to bring on prematurely and unwisely a renewed conflict with Spain.  The same reasons which had caused him to urge the Truce now influenced his position in regard to the West India Company.