Let Spain guarantee the Treaty of Xanten, he said, and then she cannot
come back. All else is illusion. Moreover, the Emperor had given
positive orders that Wesel should not be given up. He was assured by
Villeroy that France would never put on her harness for Aachen, that
cradle of Protestantism. That was for the States-General to do, whom it
so much more nearly concerned. The whole aim of Barneveld was not to
destroy the Treaty of Xanten, but to enforce it in the only way in which
it could be enforced, by the guarantee of Spain. So secured, it would be
a barrier in the universal war of religion which he foresaw was soon to
break out. But it was the resolve of Spain, instead of pledging herself
to the treaty, to establish the legal control of the territory in the
hand of the Emperor. Neuburg complained that Philip in writing to him
did not give him the title of Duke of Julich and Cleve, although be had
been placed in possession of those estates by the arms of Spain. Philip,
referring to Archduke Albert for his opinion on this subject, was advised
that, as the Emperor had not given Neuburg the investiture of the
duchies, the King was quite right in refusing him the title. Even
should the Treaty of Xanten be executed, neither he nor the Elector of
Brandenburg would be anything but administrators until the question of
right was decided by the Emperor.

Spain had sent Neuburg the Order of the Golden Fleece as a reward for his
conversion, but did not intend him to be anything but a man of straw in
the territories which he claimed by sovereign right. They were to form a
permanent bulwark to the Empire, to Spain, and to Catholicism.

Barneveld of course could never see the secret letters passing between
Brussels and Madrid, but his insight into the purposes of the enemy was
almost as acute as if the correspondence of Philip and Albert had been in
the pigeonholes of his writing-desk in the Kneuterdyk.