habit, impatient of criticism, and having long acknowledged no master in
the chief business of state, he found himself at the conclusion of the
truce with his great occupation gone, and, although generously provided
for by the treasury of the Republic, yet with an income proportionately
limited.

Politics and theology were fields in which he had hardly served an
apprenticeship, and it was possible that when he should step forward as
a master in those complicated and difficult pursuits, soon to absorb the
attention of the Commonwealth and the world, it might appear that war
was not the only science that required serious preliminary studies.

Meantime he found himself not a king, not the master of a nominal
republic, but the servant of the States-General, and the limited
stadholder of five out of seven separate provinces.

And the States-General were virtually John of Barneveld. Could
antagonism be more sharply defined? Jealousy, that potent principle
which controls the regular movements and accounts for the aberrations of
humanity in widest spheres as well as narrowest circles far more
generally and conclusively than philosophers or historians have been
willing to admit, began forthwith to manifest its subtle and irresistible
influence.

And there were not to be wanting acute and dangerous schemers who saw
their profit in augmenting its intensity.

The Seven Provinces, when the truce of twelve years had been signed, were
neither exhausted nor impoverished. Yet they had just emerged from a
forty years' conflict such as no people in human history had ever waged