keep the whole matter for the present profoundly secret because "Prince
Maurice and the Gomarists had the forces of the country at their
disposition." In case the plot was sprung too suddenly therefore, he
feared that with the assistance of England Maurice might, at the head of
the Gomarists and the army, make himself sovereign of Holland and Duke of
Cleve, while he and the rest of the Spanish partisans might be in prison
with Barneveld for trying to accomplish what Barneveld had been trying to
prevent.

The opinions and utterances of such a man as James I. would be of little
worth to our history had he not happened to occupy the place he did. But
he was a leading actor in the mournful drama which filled up the whole
period of the Twelve Years' Truce. His words had a direct influence on
great events. He was a man of unquestionable erudition, of powers of
mind above the average, while the absolute deformity of his moral
constitution made him incapable of thinking, feeling, or acting rightly
on any vital subject, by any accident or on any occasion. If there were
one thing that he thoroughly hated in the world, it was the Reformed
religion. If in his thought there were one term of reproach more
loathsome than another to be applied to a human creature, it was the word
Puritan. In the word was subversion of all established authority in
Church and State--revolution, republicanism, anarchy. "There are degrees
in Heaven," he was wont to say, "there are degrees in Hell, there must be
degrees on earth."

He forbade the Calvinist Churches of Scotland to hold their customary
Synod in 1610, passionately reviling them and their belief, and declaring
"their aim to be nothing else than to deprive kings and princes of their
sovereignty, and to reduce the whole world to a popular form of
government where everybody would be master."