From The Quarterly Review. MOTLEY'S JOHN OF BARNEVELD AND SIXTEENTH-CENTURY DIPLOMACY.* nature he is fondest of swift political and military action. A statesman by profession, he has dared to dedicate nearly 800 WITH the publication of these two vol- pages to the last nine years of John of umes Mr. Motley has brought to a close Barneveld's life; and neither for oura series of most meritorious intellectual selves as critics, nor on the part of his labours. "The Rise of the Dutch Re-larger audience, are we in the least, on public," "The History of the United this account, disposed to grumble at him. Netherlands from 1584 to 1609," "The Life and Death of John of Barneveld," form a fine and continuous story, of which the writer and the nation celebrated by him have equal reason to be proud; a narrative which will remain a prominent ornament of American genius, while it has permanently enriched English literature on this as well as on the other side of the Atlantic. We congratulate warmly the indefatigable man of letters from beyond the seas, who has ransacked the archives of the Hague, Brussels, and London, who has come to rank as the greatest authority concerning one of the chief episodes in the history of European peoples, who has compiled from original documents, and, as it may fairly be said in view of the general public, for the first time, an important and entertaining and very instructive chapter in universal history. A citizen of the United States and an experienced diplomatist, Mr. Motley was by sympathy and training alike fitted to be the historian of "the United Provinces." The zest and thoroughness with which he identifies himself with the spirit of the Netherlanders give a genuine and solid value to his compositions; they are a constant stimulus to his industry and love of research; they spur him on, as he rummages among Statepapers or deciphers the unprinted letters, "in handwriting perhaps the worst that ever existed" (vol. i. p. ix), from which, as he tells us, he had to win the materials for his last book. Again, his own life as a servant of the State has implanted in him tastes which otherwise might not have had encouragement from him. By The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland; with a View of the Primary Causes and Movements of the Thirty Years' War. By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D., &c. Two vols. London, 1874. American historians turn generally with a strong appetite to the history of Spain, and next in order to those old Spanish territories in the Low Countries where they find so early the name of "the Republic." So Washington Irving, Prescott, Ticknor, and quite recently, beside Mr. Motley, Mr. Kirk, the historian of the prelude to Mr. Motley's period, the biographer of Charles the Bold. At the opening of the history of the New Western World, the Burgundian-Habsburg dynasty occupied a place not very unlike that occupied by the Roman Cæsars when the history of Western Europe began. This has been felt by American historians, as a rule; it has been felt, for instance, by both Mr. Prescott and Mr. Motley. It has affected, with characteristic difference, the imagination of each of these two writers. It gave a lofty and dignified charm to Mr. Prescott's style and historical fancy. Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Diocletian, all seemed to enter as indirect memories into Mr. Prescott's view of Charles V. Mr. Motley's clever sketch of Charles V. is, on the other hand, a burlesque; and from his grotesque caricature of Philip II. few of the combined vices of Tiberius, Claudius, and Domitian are absent. at times flings about his pen as if it were the brush of some angry Dutch painter turning from studies of coarse village interiors and herds of cattle, stung by his country's wrongs to portray and to gibbet the beast and savage under the purple and the crown. For, with Mr. Motley, every physical and mental trait, in almost every one who has the unhappiness to wield sovereign power, becomes monstrous and deformed. There never was a dwarf Laurin or a sprite Rübezahl, an elf-king or gnome-king, so despicable or distorted as Philip of Spain in Mr. Motley's pages, or, for the matter of that, as He James of England and Scotland. For an bering who were then the foes of both countries — in, amongst others, the concluding years of the seventeenth century. Sometimes we have felt surprise and mortification that America, possessing such promising historical scholars, should have turned her back so entirely on English history - we do not forget some most admirable chapters on English history in Mr. Kirk's book - but with some of Mr. Motley's observations in our mind, we confess, for the moment, to feeling every inclination to be gratefully acquiescent in the decrees which have ruled in this particular heretofore under the merciful Fates. To pass on. Mr. Motley's rough, sturdy, but highly picturesque English is remarkably adapted to his subject. Here and there, indeed, one might quarrel with a faint "Batavian" phrase or term. Such a word as "disreputation " (i. p. 320, and ii. p. 241) grates rather on the ear. The following is a more than Batavian, is a Siamese sentence: — The Holy Empire, which so ingeniously The consummate soldier, the unrivalled combined the worst characteristics of despot-statesman, each superior in his sphere to any ism and republicanism, kept all Germany and contemporary rival, each supplementing the half Europe in the turmoil of a perpetual other, and making up together, could they have presidential election. A theatre where trivial been harmonized, a double head such as no topersonages and graceless actors performed a | litical organism then existing could boast, were tragi-comedy of mingled folly, intrigue, and now in hopeless antagonism to each other. crime, and where earnestness and vigour were Vol. ii. pp. 151-2. destined to be constantly baffled, now offered the principal stage for the entertainment and excitement of Christendom. - Vol. i. p. 11. : 66 We cannot make out whether Mr. Mot ley means us to see a superhuman or a ludicrous exhibition of crime and podaWith regard to English foreign policy gra, when, in one long sentence, he during the times of which he has written, writes of an arch-offender, "Epernon, we give up argument with Mr. Motley, the true murderer of Henry," that he for if we commenced upon this topic, trampled on courts of justice and counwe know not when we should end. cils of ministers," that he "smothered forQuite briefly we do not agree with his ever the process of Ravaillac,” “and that estimate of James the First and his pol-he strode triumphantly over friends and icy, much less do we agree with his enemies throughout France, although so estimate of Elizabeth; we should be crippled by the gout that he could scarcely prepared, were there any necessity, to walk up stairs." (Vol. i. p. 230.) defend at length English policy toward But ordinarily Mr. Motley's style, if not the Netherlands-that it was tardy, free from blemishes, is very effective. cautious, now and then even foolish and Indeed we could not easily mention mistaken, we admit; we also assert, that another historian who possesses so fully it was generally and ultimately success- the art of bringing the actors and localful and beneficent; were there need of ities of the Past back into reality and proof, we should refer to the history of into the very presence of his readers. Holland and England — always remem- And these last two volumes have all the excellence in this respect of their prede- | vice to readers of Mr. Motley's works, cessors. The account, to cite one in- even though purposely we shall only stance, of Henry IV. of France is most rarely and incidentally touch upon the brilliant, and at the same time we think history of the Netherlands. We hope neither unjust nor unsound. Mr. Mot- that we may enable them to connect the ley shines particularly when he has to movement and the chiefs concerning deal with startling contradictions and whom he writes, with wider movements exaggerations in character. We are not and heroes of even greater originality and sure that the mystery of Henry's death more splendid parts. In this sort of suris not darkened beyond what history de-vey, not easily to be compressed at all mands by Mr. Motley, who strikes us as into the room at our disposal, the private too credulous of the wild reports that flew and separate fortunes of any single indiabout close to the event. But, as avidual can occupy our attention only in a whole, the picture is full of truth as of subordinate degree. We must send our colour. And with what illustrious historians is Mr. Motley here competing! In his elaborate likeness of Henry, he has drawn that complex creature in every mood and in all lights. How masterly is, also, this little vignette, sketched in a couple of strokes ! readers to Mr. Motley's last book for the history of John of Barneveld, which deserves their affectionate and studious perusal. A word or two we desire to devote to him, and this the more, since, for our objects, the epoch of his later life will not require such ample notice as the epoch to which the formation of the principles by which he was actuated belongs. John of Barneveld was one of the pupils, not one of the teachers, of the age, and yet the stubborn and rugged force of the Advocate of Holland will leave its dis The principal fault of Mr. Motley's tinct mark on the tide of public and uniDutch histories, with which we are im-versal revolutions. life and character corresponded so nearly with the extent and bias of an accurately limited time and of a widely diffused sentiment. His chequered and protracted career touches at their extremities the limits of a momentous period. His birth took place a few months after the death of Martin Luther; he was executed a few months after the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War. His biography ex pressed more than ever now that the suc- Seldom have a prominent politician's cession of them is finished, and we have re-read them as a set of works extending over the sixteenth century it implies more praise to him as a Dutch, than detraction from him as a European, historian - lies in the position which he gives to the story he has chosen to relate. He writes of the Low Countries as though in them was the centre of interest of the sixteenth century, as if not only in the history of military affairs, but every-pands naturally into a history of the where, in Politics and Thought, the Low Countries were right in the foreground, starting and proclaiming the prospectus of independence. We demur to this, and will attempt to give the grounds of our demurrer. We propose to make use of the present opportunity to review rapidly the situation and the perils of Christendom in the latter half of the sixteenth century. We shall try to trace the main springs to such lives as that of Barneveld. And we hope that our sketch will be of some ser Netherlands for more than seventy years. His activity as a lawyer and a publicist accompanies through every stage the rebellion of the United Provinces, and their transformation into free and prosperous states. It is scarcely too much to say of his pen, that it summarized, that it often directed and overruled the conduct of diplomatic business throughout the several leading kingdoms of Western Europe, during days when glorious pages in English and French, as well as in Dutch, annals were being filled in. Un Charles V. ruled for thirty-six years. The year 1556 may be taken as historically the central year of the century; chronologically it divides it into two fairly der the eye of princes like Elizabeth |newed far and near in Central Europe the Tudor, William the Silent, and Henri miseries of the dark ages, and the aspect Quatre, there were assigned to no man of the great national migrations ! such difficult negotiations and such dangerous missions as to him: nor did any man recommend himself for the fullest confidences by such noble proofs of sagacity and integrity. And there is no event which points more impressively the grow-equal halves. That is the date whening frowardness of impure motives, the lurking strength of jealousy and violence, the half-unconscious, the none the less wicked, usurpations of military and dynastic ambition than the trial or, to use the words employed long ago by Lord Macaulay, "the judicial murder" of John of Barneveld. That grey and venerable head fell as a kind of signal of war. An end was made of truce and prudence, and to the contrivances and precautions of cabinets. The scaffold which was erected for the 13th of May, 1619, on the Binnenhof at the Hague, claims to be commemorated beyond many a bloody field where thousands may have perished in a paltry cause. The words of a score of synods and councils, in defence of whose prolix decisions it would be vain to tempt philosopher or patriot to risk reputation and to sacrifice life, are outweighed by a few broken utterances, in which the staunch old steward of constitutional privilege, in the sight of the people he had served, and of the ministers of divine and human law who had doomed him to the block, summed up his account and bade farewell to the republic: "Men, do not believe that I am a traitor to the country. I have ever acted uprightly and loyally Christ shall be my guide... Be quick about it. Be quick." The "quick" act of the executioner declared how much, at all events for a while, the laborious achievements of statesmanship were despised and discredited. With the work of Barneveld, much of that of Sully and of the Cecils might be held to have been undone. Worse furies than those which their wisdom had managed to quell, or at least to restrain, were to be let loose. What were the campaigns in the Low Countries when compared with the devastation about to overwhelm Germany and the adjacent territories! Was not the fiery fame of Alva and his Spaniards to grow almost pale beside that of Tilly and Wallenstein, of Banner and Torstenson, of the Swedes and the Croats, and the whole huge mercenary rabble, without name and nearly without number, which for upwards of a quarter of a century re one year after his mother's death, one Thür! Bereitet mir, was euer Haus vermag, He had been outwitted by Maurice of Saxony; he had been foiled by the French before Metz; he had been forced to grant equal privileges with Catholic to Lutheran Electors, Princes, Estates; he had been humbled in the centre of his patrimonial and in the centre of his imperial power; he had trembled at Innsbruck, he had yielded at Augsburg; he had sent his son Philip beyond the seas, bridegroom to Aragonese Mary, now at last the Catholic Queen. In England he had hoped the days of Ferdinand and Isabella would renew themselves, his family-tree would strike root and flower again. "Philip and Mary," cried the herald at the wedding, "King and Queen of England, France, Naples, Jerusalem, and Ireland." But there was no blessing on that " bloody" reign, there came no heir from the Spanish match. And if Charles looked to Rome, it was to see a new and vigorous Pope, as Cardinal Caraffa, the bitterest and unreconciled enemy of his house and policy: a new Pope, he "Tis night, and the storm rages more and more, And, as you may afford, for me provide So, gathered to the dead while I suspire, was elected May 23rd, 1555: a vigorous with the world and Satan is brought by Pope, though in his eightieth year, who his panegyrists into awful proximity with remembered the free political atmos- that of the Divine Being, whose name phere of Italy in the fifteenth century, is there not here the pride of Spain? — is and longed to breathe it again. "Thou borne by the Society of Jesus, he was shalt go upon the lion and adder," Paul disabled, fighting against the French at IV. used to mutter to himself over the the siege of Pamplona, from the further thick, black, brimstone-flavoured Neapol-profession of carnal warfare. On his itan wine, of which he was fond, think- sick-bed, reading Amadis of Gaul and leing of the Spaniards who had overrun gends of the mendicant foundations, he the country where he and his beverage imagined himself called according to the were native. Charles could carry the laws of a celestial chivalry to be the burden of affairs no longer, he would try knight of the Blessed Virgin. The old no more to sustain the universal Church wars with the Moors, the contrast in the and to pacify the universal State. It was familiar Spanish romances between Jea toil beyond the strength of a man. rusalem and its king and his legions and Later, just before his death, he was heard the Soldan of Babylon, coloured still all to say, "In manus tuas tradidi ecclesiam his thought. In the spiritual Exercises tuam." Physical weakness had told on there is, to this day, commended to the him, his personal sins oppressed him, he Order "the contemplation of the kingwas troubled how to make his own peace dom of Christ Jesus under the similitude with God. Care was taken that the view of a terrestrial king calling out his subfrom his rooms should be bounded by jects to the strife." On the vigil of the the walls of the convent garden, and that Festival of the Annunciation and before his sleeping-chambers should be placed the image of Mary he hung up his sword so that he might follow the chapel music and took his palmer's staff into his hand; and the service of the mass. Yet heresy he went then to pray, to confess, and to tracked him into his last asylum. There scourge himself, to fast, a week at a time, was no escape from it. And, as people to Manresa, and, fitted at length for the liked to relate whether the story was journey, he passed on to Jerusalem. He quite true or not, the hopelessness of his was not allowed to stay there. He was task among men had come home to his not permitted on his return to Spain to mind most as he worked among mechan- preach without further acquaintance with isms; he had found it impossible only to theology. He travelled humbly to Paris; bring two clocks to tick in unison. he was dull at grammar, but he had Charles V. might turn in despair from visions which explained the mysteries of the world, but the hopes which had ani- the sacraments and the creeds. To remated Catholicism and Spain at the dawn turn to Jerusalem was still the idea that of the century were not extinguished. governed his plans. From Paris he and And Catholicism and Spain - though not a few friends went to Venice; a quaint always as represented by the House of thread they twine into the life of those Habsburg and the Papacy, were at the capitals of luxury and pleasure. Insumiddle of the century far more closely perable difficulties came in the way of the allied than at the beginning. The year voyage to Syria. The little band fared of Charles V.'s abdication is in the an- on to Rome, the object before it continunals of Catholicism not most memorable ing to be to preach to Saracens and Inon account of that event. The year 1556 dians. The Pope at the time was Paul is the year in which the greatest saint of III., who took no step of importance Spain not excepting St. Dominic, the without observing the constellations and most passionate and reverential worship-consulting his astrologers. One would per of the mystical Church; not excepting like to know what said now the stars and St. Francis- passed away from earth, the soothsayers. He sanctioned the new leaving a large field to his successors, and Order in the Bull,"Regimini Militantis confident of their joyful harvesting. It Ecclesiæ;" it was Spanish in its miliis the year in which died Ignatius Loyola. tary organization, in its regimental obediThe Order he founded has always re-ence; the company of Jesus, with Ignatained something of the national charac- tius for first General, restricted for a ter of the Spaniard of the sixteenth cen- short time to sixty souls, bound to do all tury. Loyola was born on a frontier, and the Pope's bidding, to go anywhere, to nourished in the literature and scenery Turks, heathens, and heretics, at once, of battles. Then, when he began to be unconditionally, without discussion, withabout thirty years old, for his conflict out reward. What the Templars had |