Spaniards deemed him so much their enemy*, that their emissaries were supposed to threaten his life, France should attribute to him a preference of Spain. He had in fact no partiality for one or the other. He was one of those persons who, as Boderie himself says of the English people, think themselves so strong, and are so proud (si glorieux) within their island, that they think that no power, however great it may be, can do them injury. Villeroy, too, said justly, "His master and he have their own end, and think that they can maintain themselves in the state in which they are, in spite of the whole world." Boderie was, perhaps, justified in adding, in the then state of England, "neither can they injure others;" but neither he nor Villeroy formed a correct notion of the English minister, when they imagined that by rough language they might turn him from his purpose.§ If Cecil sometimes yielded too pliantly to the humours of his own master, he was in no instance diverted from his English policy by the menaces or the persuasion of a foreign power. At this time, apparently, a hint came from France of a desire to renew the war. "I must deal freely with you,” writes Salisbury to Winwood, through whom the suggestion had come, "that it must be a far greater interest which must draw his majesty into such an * Cornwallis apprised Cecil of an intrigue in Spain to alienate the king' favour from him by means of the queen, as one who for his own ends sought to cross her desire of amity with Spain; and warned him that there were plots against his life. Winwood gave similar information of danger from the papists. Winwood, ii. 159. 205, 265.-Cecil wrote: "For myself, of whose danger by bloody practices you express your care, I can but return you thanks, and commend myself to God's protection: and in that confidence assure you that I believe not all; only the more danger is laid before me, the more zealous it makes me of God's and my country's service." "I have learned to despise the malicious stings of evil tongues, which hate me for my religion, and my country. Yet your good office in seeking to suppress those things which might raise envy unto me, (though as false as the authors of the lies are) merits my acknowledg. ment with thanks. The discourse no doubt is written by some Jesuit."17th August and 5th February, 1606. p. 249, 293. About this time a tract was published, which is attributed to Salisbury, entitled, " An Answer to several scandalous papers scattered abroad under the colour of a Catholic Admonition." London, 1606. It is not in the Museum. See Winwood, 192. † P. i. 348. + P. 325, 326. Ib. Si vous en parlez vertement et sèchement; p. 326. action, than hath yet been propounded; for to undertake a war anew, which should have no other object than the settlement of a third party (which party may prove in the end as uncertain to us as any other*), were a work of too great difficulty to be compassed now, unless it might bring with it some access of power to this kingdom of one kind or other, to countervail the hazard and expense which we should be forced to undergo in it."† The refusal of assistance from England probably accelerated the conclusion of a truce between the United Provinces and the archdukes; who, for reasons which it puzzled Salisbury to discover, offered to acknowledge them as a free state. This event was desirable for all parties, notwithstanding that it was brought about without the interference of England. When secretary Prado avowed the circumstance to Cornwallis, adding that he thought it would come to little effect, for my lord of Salisbury would be adverse to any such agreement; “I answered," says the English minister, "that he much mistook lord Salisbury and his dispositions; for, might there be a good peace, safe, honourable, and profitable, for all parties interested; upon the peril of my soul I durst avow, that there is not a counsellor in christendom who would more willingly put his head and hand into it." Prado replied, that " none could understand it more ably, if his will were answerable to his power."§ Cornwallis was right. Salisbury was a practical statesman, and though he felt that his master ought to have been acquainted beforehand with the intention of the States, and though he could not penetrate the motives of Spain in acknowledging their independence, he readily fell in with this new course of events, whereby a desirable end appeared likely to be accomplished even by * Upon this most important and neglected consideration, as applicable not only to the United Provinces, but to any country in behalf of which England may have thought it proper to interfere, I take the liberty of referring to an article in the 19th vol. of the Foreign Quarterly Review, p.135. +21st February, 1606-7. ii. 297. See Boderie, ii. 18-79. 2d April, 1607. Winwood, iL 298, 305-6, 311. Birch, Neg, 267. undesired means. He only determined not to interfere further unless solicited by the States.* This difficulty was soon removed: while the several powers were preparing for the proposed conferences, the archdukes made a vigorous remonstrance against the aid given by England to the Dutch. Salisbury answered their representations, d'une façon si ouverte et si brusque†, that they could answer nothing. He told them that "there was nothing in the treaty which obliged England to abandon the states; that she had in truth aided and assisted them, as much as good faith permitted; and that she would continue to assist them, and that he would have it known, that there was no prince, be he who he might, who had recourse to England, to whose defence they would not run.' I doubt whether Cecil did hold this chivalrous language, with respect to the world in general; and the construction which, if Boderie is to be believed, he put upon the treaty with Spain, is more liberal than that which he had previously put forward. I cannot find in the domestic politics of England at this time any sufficient reason for the more warlike language which appears, not only in the questionable reports of Cecil's conferences, but in the instructions to the English plenipotentiaries which bear his name. I can, therefore, only seek that reason in the altered conduct of France, It was the opinion of the English ministers that without the co-operation of France, England could not effectually protect the states, or at least, without making efforts so great, as eventually to outweigh the advantages, precarious after all, of establishing the Dutch in an independent state. The instructions to Spencer and Winwood, now sent to the Low Countries, exhibited a determination to cooperate with France in securing the independence of the States, who were to be exhorted to embrace no conditions 6th June, 1607. iii. 313. Boderie, ii. 285. Boderie, 6th August, 1607, ii. 358. See Parl. Deb. 1819. xi. 1095. and 1248., for some notice of this case. Winwood, ii. 329. No date, but probably August 1607. of peace, where the point of renunciation should be either scanty or reserved.* It was proposed that France t and England should be parties to the treaty. But the plenipotentiaries were not authorised to propose a declaration of war against Spain, as the alternative of an independent establishment of the States. It appears to me, that Cecil was of opinion that it would be politic to make, jointly with France, a vigorous war for the defence of the United Provinces, rather than suffer them to be recovered by Spain; but he wisely preferred peace; and the state of the finances, his pacific disposition, and the still more pacific disposition of his master, and his distrust of the cordial co-operation of France, all induced him to keep the possibility of war as much in the background as possible, in his communications either with France or with the States, whom it might, he thought, induce to be unreasonable in their demands upon Spain.‡ * P. 331-2. † On first hearing of the truce, Henry IV. had expressed his readiness to act with England either in promoting the peace or renewing the war; thinking it probable, for no good reason, that James might now alter his habitual policy. Boderie, ii. 149. April 14. 1607. Boderie, July 4. 1608, iii. 366. What follows is from the instructions to Spencer and Winwood. "We think it fit that you do both, particularly to the French, and jointly with the rest, endeavour to understand what it is or can be expected of us in the point of war; of which there can be but two kinds: either by the joint resolution of France and us, or by the supplies of money underhand for the maintenance of that charge In the first point the language of the French will be found cautious and uncertain; wherein, in the name of their king, they will affirm nothing cate gorically. But if they shall say, that their king will not refuse with us to make war upon Spain, it may be asked, upon what grounds-we two being in peace with Spain-shall enter into war? If to maintain those countries that they fall not into the hands of Spain, those countries may be maintained, being settled in an assured peace, by the intervention of us two, and yet we may keep our peace with Spain. If the war shall be undertaken to dislodge the Spaniards out of those countries, what pretence can two Christian kings have to embrace so unjust and so unworthy a quarrel? And the Spaniards being dislodged, how shall those countries be bestowed, but that jealousy will arise between us two neighbour kings, which will break the amity between our realms? For the maintenance of the war underhand by a common treaty, it is in effect no more than to declare publicly that the princes will break their peace privately so as if the States or French king's commissioners shall maintain discourse in that kind, you may do well first to know of the States what it is that they would ask; and so comparing it with the dry and barren return that may be looked for of such a war as this hath been all this while, to consider whether it were not better to make an actual war, wherein there are many hopes which are not in the other form to be expected, so as if it should be granted and accepted, if the war be carried with no better resolution than Such being the sentiments and apprehensions of Cecil, it was probable that his policy would want decisiveness, and his language precision: but he who reads the correspondence of the French ambassador Boderie, together with that of the English minister, with Winwood and Cornwallis*, will not ascribe the slow and unsatisfactory proceeding in the negotiation entirely to the fault of Cecil or his master. "Il y' avait," says Boderie himself, une telle défiance aux esprits de ce Roi (king James) et de tous ceux de son conseil, telle envie, et telles restes de cette inimitie naturelle et ancienne, qui a toujours été entre cette nation, et la nôtre, que ce sera un grand miracle s'ils marchent jamais avec nous, avec la franchise et sincérité qui serait nécessaire pour en tirer profit. Nous fuisons d'ailleurs si peu de notre côté pour les guérir de celle maladie; que ce n'est pas merveille si nous en sentous tous les jours des nouveaux symptomes." And again: "Nous marchons les uns et les autres avec trop d' incertitude, et de défiance pour jamais rien faire de bon."+ But after all, as frequently happens after protracted and apparently useless and unskilful negotiations, the result was satisfactory enough. France threw no impediment in the way of peace but in order to secure to herself the full advantage of it, proposed and finally concluded a defensive league § with the States, to take effect after the conclusion of peace with Spain. Salisbury || made the same arrangement ¶ on the part of England, and when it appeared probable that the negotiations of the Dutch would end only in a long truce, the provisional league was extended to that case also.** This was effected in spite of objections made by it hath been these many years past, future ages shall fall again into the same trouble, miseries, and expense, which the French king and we desire to prevent."-Winwood, ii. 533. This is much too voluminous even to be abstracted. † Boderie, 3d May, 1608. iii. 237. October 1, 1608. iv. 1. January 1607-8. Dumont, v. pt. 2. p. 89. Birch. Neg. 280. Salisbury to Cornwallis, 13th November, 1607. Winwood, ii. 357. Also 369. 376. 413. 421. 26th June, 1608. Dumont, p. 94. **Salisbury to the Commissioners, 7th August, 1608. Winwood, ii. 427. |