disposed to censure the dissimulation from the standing-ground of a lofty
morality--it should not be forgotten that Barneveld never hinted at any
possible connivance on his part with an infraction of the laws. Whatever
might be the result of time, of persuasion, of policy, he never led
Henry or his ministers to believe that the people of the Netherlands
could be deprived of their liberty by force or fraud. He was willing to
play a political game, in which he felt himself inferior to no man,
trusting to his own skill and coolness for success. If the tyrant were
defeated, and at the same time made to serve the cause of the free
commonwealth, the Advocate believed this to be fair play.

Knowing himself surrounded by gamblers and tricksters, he probably did
not consider himself to be cheating because he did not play his cards
upon the table.

So when Buzanval informed him early in October that the possession of
Sluys and other Flemish towns would not be sufficient for the king, but
that they must offer the sovereignty on even more favourable conditions
than had once been proposed to Henry III., the Advocate told him roundly
that my lords the States were not likely to give the provinces to any
man, but meant to maintain their freedom and their rights. The envoy
replied that his Majesty would be able to gain more favour perhaps with
the common people of the country.

When it is remembered that the States had offered the sovereignty of the
provinces to Henry III., abjectly and as it were without any conditions
at all, the effrontery of Henry IV. may be measured, who claimed the same
sovereignty, after twenty years of republican independence, upon even
more favourable terms than those which his predecessor had rejected.