nd
faithfully served were identified with the policy which he was pursuing.
Arrogant, overbearing, self-concentrated, accustomed to lead senates and
to guide the councils and share the secrets of kings, familiar with and
almost an actor in every event in the political history not only of his
own country but of every important state in Christendom during nearly two
generations of mankind, of unmatched industry, full of years and
experience, yet feeling within him the youthful strength of a thousand
intellects compared to most of those by which he was calumniated,
confronted, and harassed; he accepted the great fight which was forced
upon him. Irascible, courageous, austere, contemptuous, he looked around
and saw the Republic whose cradle he had rocked grown to be one of the
most powerful and prosperous among the states of the world, and could
with difficulty imagine that in this supreme hour of her strength and her
felicity she was ready to turn and rend the man whom she was bound by
every tie of duty to cherish and to revere.

Sir Dudley Carleton, the new English ambassador to the States, had
arrived during the past year red-hot from Venice. There he had perhaps
not learned especially to love the new republic which had arisen among
the northern lagunes, and whose admission among the nations had been at
last accorded by the proud Queen of the Adriatic, notwithstanding the
objections and the intrigues both of French and English representatives.
He had come charged to the brim with the political spite of James against
the Advocate, and provided too with more than seven vials of theological
wrath. Such was the King's revenge for Barneveld's recent successes. The
supporters in the Netherlands of the civil authority over the Church were
moreover to be instructed by the political head of the English Church
that such supremacy, although highly proper for a king, was "thoroughly
unsuitable for a many-headed republic." So much for church government. As
for doctrine, Arminianism and Vorstianism were to be blasted with one
thunderstroke from the British throne.

"In Holland," said James to his envoy, "there have been violent and sharp
contestations amongst the towns in the cause of religion . . . . . If
they shall be unhappily revived during your time, you shall not forget
that you are the minister of that master whom God hath made the sole
protector of His religion."

There was to be no misunderstanding in future as to the dogma