Hugo Grotius and England - Hugh Trevor-Roper

From
Counter-Reformation
to .
Glorious Revolution
H ugh T revor-R oper
Seeker & W a rb u rg
London
First published in Great Britain in 1992
by Martin Seeker & Warburg Limited
Michelin House, 81 Fulham Road, London sw 3 6 rb
Copyright © 1992 by Hugh Trevor-Roper
A CIP catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library
i s b n o 436 42513 o
The author has asserted his moral rights
Phototypeset by Wilmaset Ltd, Birkenhead, Wirral

Printed by
Clays Ltd, St Ives pic
4
Hugo Grotius and England
H ugo G ro tiu s’s love-affair with England - a platonic love for an

idealized England - is a rom ance in two chapters, w ith an epilogue.
T h e first chapter coincided w ith the nine years o f European peace
w hich began w ith the truce between Spain and the N etherlands in
1609 and ended w ith the European crisis o f 1618, the prelude to the
T h irty Y ears W ar; the second w ith the time when England was an
island o f peace in that w ar, the eleven years o f C harles I ’s ‘personal
governm ent’ , between 1629 and 1640. T h e epilogue can aw ait its
turn. B ut first there is a necessary prologue.
Seen through this end o f the historical telescope, G rotius is
fam ous as a law yer, one o f the greatest, most philosophical o f
law yers, universally respected as the founder o f international law. I f
you w ish to study him in O xford, you are diverted from the Bodleian
to the L a w L ib rary. T h e G rotius Society, w hich com m em orates
him, is a society o f scholarly law yers. But G rotius him self would not
have accepted that label. He was a law yer o f course, ju st as Ja cq u es
A ugu ste de T h ou , Francis Bacon and the first E arl o f C larendon
were lawyers: it was a necessary preparation for public service. But
the study and practice o f the law was not w hat gave purpose to his
life. In all his vast surviving correspondence, he seldom refers to
w hat he calls studia ista arida et inamoena, those dry and disagreeable
studies. H e was a hum anist scholar, who began his career by editing
a m inor classical text: the approved first step for an intellectual, the
equivalent o f the m odern Ph.D . T h en he went on to write Latin
poetry, tragedy, history. Finally, w hile never abandoning any o f
these pursuits, he settled for religion: specifically, he sought to
48 From Counter-Reformation to Glorious Revolution
restore, w hile it was still possible, the shattered unity and ruined
peace o f the C hu rch .
From the very beginning, this problem had haunted him. H ow
could it not, at that time, in that place: in the b rief interval between
two great holy w ars, in the divided Netherlands? In 1601, at the age
o f eighteen, he published his first poem , Adamus Exul, a foretaste o f
Paradise Lost. Its m essage, as he pointed out at the time, was
ecum enical, and in sending a copy o f it to Justus Lipsius, he assured
that great arbiter o f C h ristian stoicism , that he intended never to
w rite anyth in g that w as not ‘catholic and ecum enical, as the early
Fathers w ould sa y ’ . 1 T h irty years later, w riting to the G erm an
Socinian Joh an n C rell, he w ould sum m arize his own intellectual
biography: ‘from m y earliest years, w hile I was thrust from one
discipline to another, nothing delighted me m ore than religious
m editation. T h is was m y relaxation in prosperity, m y solace in
adversity. T h en as now I sought means o f peace am ong C h ristia n s’ -
but look now, he exclaim ed (for he was w riting in 1632, in the m idst
o f the T h irty Y ears W ar), and see w hat C hristians are doing to each
other . . . ! It was to m itigate the savagery o f that ever-spreading
w ar, ‘unw orthy not m erely o f C hristian s but o f m en’ , he explained in
another letter, that he had w ritten the book by w hich he is now
rem em bered, and w hich, like all great works, has transcended the
circum stances w hich provoked it, De Jure Belli ac Pads .2
In all this G rotius saw h im self as a disciple - an avow ed disciple -
o f his fellow D utch m an , Erasm us. Erasm us to him was ‘the
universal teacher o f h u m an ity’ , the constant model by w hich he
m easured other men and himself. H is earliest prose w ork is lyrical in
praise o f E rasm u s.3 T h e books that he wrote throughout his life, the
very lan guage that he used in them, recall his m aster. Like Erasm us,
he deplored the schism o f the C h u rch and thought that it could be
healed if exact scholarship w ere used to extract the true m eaning,
and thus show the essential rationality, o f C hristian doctrine - w hat
E rasm us had called philosophia Christi. T h en the abuses w hich had
grow n up in unenlightened times could be identified and rejected
and the inessential but harm less variations, the products o f time and
custom , tolerated as adiaphora, things indifferent. T o ensure this, the
theologians, w ith their pedantry and love o f controversy, must be
kept in order by lay pow er, by ‘the m agistrate’ ; and it w ould be a
good thing if the m agistrate were to keep international peace too, for
w ar is not only evil in itself but also inflames the ideological hatreds
Hugo Grotius and England 49
w hich the theologians have inspired. In pursuit o f this ideal,
G rotius, like Erasm us, cam e to think that a crucial role could be
played by E ngland. H ow ever, he did not at first ascribe this role to
E ngland. L ike Erasm us, he cam e to E ngland by w ay o f France.
For it was in France - the France o f H enri IV , after the peace with
Spain in 1598 - that the resum ption o f the Erasm ian program m e
first seemed possible. T h ere, in the circle o f Jacqu es-A u gu ste de
T h ou , the architect o f the Edict o f N antes, the greatest historian o f
his age, and one o f the central figures in the E uropean R epublic o f
Letters, H uguenots and C ath olics conceived the idea o f a reunion,
w ithin their country, o f the two religions, so recently at w ar, and
dared to cite the officially forbidden nam e o f Erasm us. D e T h o u ,
w riting his great History o f His Own Time, called on scholars
throughout Europe to provide him w ith m aterial, and he had talent
spotted G rotius w hile he was still a student — a very precocious
student, the star pupil o f the great Scaliger - at Leiden U niversity.
T h e youn g G rotius cam e to Paris in 1598 w ith a D utch delegation to
the peace conference - he was then fifteen, and cam e in attendance
on the D utch representative Joh an van O ld enbarn evelt, w ho w ould
be his constant patron — and there he met m em bers o f de T h o u ’s
circle and w as accepted into it. H e missed de T h o u himself, but
w rote to him afterw ards, and they becam e regular correspondents.
G rotiu s’s earliest publications were dedicated to French statesm en
and scholars w hom he had met in Paris and knew as friends o f de
T h ou.
H ow ever, in the end France let them all dow n. G rad u ally it
becam e clear that the m ovem ent for the reunion o f the C hurches in
France, though initiated in good faith by the H uguenots and the
C ath olic friends o f de T h ou , was being used by the hard-line
C ath olics, the dévots, as a trap: a device to soften up the H uguenot
élite and then pick them o ff one by one. T h e orchestrator o f this
cam paign w as the fam ous and fashionable convertisseur, him self a
convert, C ard in al du Perron. Its operation is vivid ly illustrated in
the diary and correspondence o f the greatest H uguenot scholar after
Scaliger, Isaac C asaubon. C asaubon had been lured to France from
H olland to be librarian to H enri IV , but then found him self
rem orselessly pestered by the C ardinal and his acolytes. T h e clim ax
cam e in N ovem ber 1609, when de T h o u ’s History, after long
resistance by de T h o u and his friends, was placed on the Rom an
Index o f Prohibited Books as too conciliatory to heretics. O n e o f the

charges m ade against it w as that de T h o u had praised Erasm us as
grande huius saeculi decus, the great glory o f this age. N ext year H enri
I V w as assassinated, and under the regency o f his w idow , M arie de
M édicis, the dévots took over in France. C asaub on now decided that
he had had enough: he accepted the invitation o f the A rch b ish op o f
C an terb u ry, D r Bancroft, and em igrated secretly to E ngland.
E ngland , Jaco bean E ngland, had now replaced the France o f H enri
I V as the possible centre o f a reunited, reform ed, universal C hu rch .
T h e om ens, in general, seemed good. T h e truce o f 1609 between

Spain and the N etherlands had com pleted the general pacification
o f Europe begun in 1598. T h e long religious w ar had now, it seemed,
com e to an end and the ferocity o f sectarian passions could be
abated. In the N etherlands, the architect o f the truce, Joh an van
O ld en b arn evelt, was in pow er and G rotius with him. T h a t entailed
the suprem acy o f the States o f H olland in the D utch legislature and
o f the ‘A rm in ia n ’ party, the ‘R em onstrants’ , in the D utch C hu rch .
G rotius, now Pensionary o f R otterdam and so a pow erful figure in
the States o f H olland, had m ade his own religious position clear by
publish ing a funeral poem in praise o f their intellectual leader,
A rm inius, w ho had ju st died. M eanw hile there had been the revolt
o f V en ice against the P ap acy, w hich w ould lead to an alliance
betw een V en ice and the N etherlands. N orth and South m ight now
meet on the via media.
So too, perhaps, m ight E ast and W est. G rotius had learned, from
D u tch friends who had travelled in the East, o f prom ising develop
m ents w ithin the captive G reek C hurch . For there too Rom an
aggression, and in particular the creation o f the U n iate C h u rch in
the U krain e in 1596, had provoked a counter-m ovem ent. T h is had
been articulated by the Patriarch o f A lexan d ria, M eletius Pegas.
L ike G rotius, M eletius had wished to end the dam aging schism in
the C h u rch - in his case the Eastern schism - not by surrender to
Rom e, but by rediscovery o f fundam entals and toleration o f differ
ences. G rotius therefore saw him as an ally, and between 1609 and
1611 he w rote a treatise advocating religious toleration and entitled
it, in m em ory o f the patriarch, Meletius. H ow ever, C alvin ist critics
were shocked by G ro tiu s’s treatise: they smelt, as they often would
in his works, the dreadful heresy o f Socinianism — nationalism ,
corrupt hum an reason applied to sacred texts. Socinianism was
p articularly m alodorous at that time; the K in g o f E ngland, w hom it
w ould be im prudent to offend, was using very strong language about
it; and G rotius did not publish his work. It was not published -
indeed, it w as thought lost - till 1988.4
T h u s the historical conjuncture now seemed favourable for a
return to the Erasm ian model. But politically how could it be
achieved? G rotius had considered this carefully. Som etim es he saw
Poland as his model. Poland, at that time, was the most tolerant
country in Europe: com plete religious toleration had been gu aran
teed by its constitution since 1573, and the three m ain Protestant
C hurches had a w orking political consensus: the consensus o f
Sandom ierz o f 1570. B ut Poland also sm elt o f Socinianism , w hich
had its headquarters there, at R acow , com plete w ith a learned
sem inary and a printing-press, churning out heretical books.
P olitically, G rotius decided, all the indicators pointed to E n g
land. T h e m ost persuasive o f these indicators w as C asaub on .
C a sa u b o n ’s letters from England — not only to G rotius in the
N etherlands but also to de T h o u in France - w ere lyrical in their
praise o f E ngland, o f its K in g , Jam es I, and o f the A n glican C hu rch :
a com prehensive, tolerant C h u rch w hich had rejected Rom an
superstition and arrogant Rom an claim s but had preserved conti
nuity w ith the past; a C h u rch with learned bishops, decent
cerem onies, pure doctrine; a C h u rch w hich w as even now discard
ing C alvin ist rigour and stabilizing itself on the basis o f the G reek
Fathers - C hrysostom , Basil, G regory o f N azianzu s - so m uch more
civilized than the R om an A ugustine, whose grim doctrine o f
Predestination had set so fatal an exam ple . . . For C asaub on had
had some very disagreeable experiences in his native G eneva and
hated C alvin ist intolerance quite as m uch as that o f Rom e.
A ll this w as m usic to G ro tiu s’s ears, and he responded in kind,
setting out his program m e. It was not an idle fancy, he insisted, but
the fruit o f careful thought and discussion. T h e plan was to go back
behind the C o u n cil o f T ren t, the source o f all the trouble, and begin
again w here Erasm us left off. O n that basis there should be a new
G eneral C ouncil. In the first instance it must be a Protestant
C oun cil, to draw up the rules: m oderate rules, like those o f the
consensus o f Sandom ierz in P oland,5 w hich liberal C ath olics m ight
afterw ards be able to accept. I f that m eant isolating and extruding
the extrem e C alvinists along with the Pope and the Jesuits, w hy not?
A nd then, perhaps, the G reek and A siatic C hurches, under leaders
like the late P atriarch M eletius, w ould com e in. A s for the m eeting-
place o f this C oun cil, G rotius had no doubts: ‘ I have chosen’ , he
w rote to C asaub on , ‘your B ritain, and for its president and
m oderator the w isest o f K in g s ’ , K in g Jam es. N ow w as the time, for
so favourable a conjuncture m ight never recur: ‘every age does not
produce learned C h ristian K in gs, nor w ill England alw ays have a
C a sa u b o n ’ - Casauhonum Erasmi simillimum, C asau b on the m odern
E rasm u s.6
‘ 7 have chosen your B ritain ’ : so the D utch m an to the Frenchm an.
H ow often has it happened in history? W e think o f the Polish, Swiss

and Italian im m igrants o f the m id-sixteenth century, the Scots,
G erm ans and C zech s o f the m id-seventeenth century, and no doubt
m any other E uropeans w ho have planned to establish rational
m odels o f society am ong these bum bling islanders. B ut let us not
forestall the story. C asau b o n duly responded. H e saw some difficult
ies. It w as not easy to catch K in g Jam es: when he was not out
hunting, he w as pressing C asau b o n to get on w ith his refutation o f
B aronius, and w hen caught, he w as som ew hat evasive. Y es, he liked
the idea o f a C ouncil; but no, he did not think that he should
sum m on it: he was a m em ber, not the head o f the universal
C h u rch . . . Poof, replied G rotius, that w as no problem : we can get
the G erm an Princes to invite him as the obvious person: the
essential thing is to keep the theologians in their place, for no good
comes from their disputes: princes, lay m agistrates, are the only
effective reformers. T h e D utch A rm inians rely on the States o f
H ollan d to control or side-track the C alvin ist clergy; the K in g o f
E ngland is the suprem e governor o f the most perfect o f Churches.
G rotius was consum ed w ith zeal for his project. T h e peace, the
unity, the repair o f the C h u rch , are his constant refrain. T h en, in
1613, he had his chance. H e was sent to E ngland by his friend
O ld en b arn evelt on an official m ission - ostensibly a trade mission -
w ith secret instructions to broach his project: the project o f a
G eneral C o u n cil o f the Protestant Churches, to be held in England.
So, like Erasm us, G rotius cam e to E ngland, and, like Erasm us, he
was enchanted by w hat he found there. Jam es I was so friendly, so
e r u d it e - ju s t like the youn g H enry V I I I . T h e clergy whom he m e t -
C asau b o n saw to it that he m et the right ones: L an celot A ndrew es,
Bishop o f Ely, and John O verall, D ean o f St P au l’s - were so
cultured and scholarly, ju s t like Joh n C olet and Th om as M ore, and
had all the right ideas. H e also met Sir H enry Savile, the learned and
m agnificent W arden o f M erton C ollege, O xford, w ho had ju st
published his great edition o f Chrysostom . He discovered that there
w as an independent English ‘A rm in ia n ’ m ovem ent, though it was
not yet called by that nam e. T h e C h u rch o f E ngland, in fact, was not
at all as it w as represented by C alvinists abroad. H e even found
several theologians w ho were ‘not hard, rough, stiff-necked, but
sm ooth, fair-m inded, am iable, both learned and ch aritable’ . O n ly
A rch bish op A b b o t was rather cool, but G rotius had already been
w arned about him and w as prepared for that. T o protect him self he
decided to get in first and underm ine A b b o t w ith the K in g. T h is w as
not a very good idea. T h e K in g listened to him and smiled, but was
evidently not very pleased. H ow ever, on parting, he invited G rotius
to keep him inform ed about developm ents in the N etherlands,
w hich was encouraging.8
G rotius w as now m ore than ever convinced that religion w as too
im portant a m atter to be left to the theologians, and w hen he
returned to the N etherlands he m ade his view s very clear, in politics
and in a treatise w hich he published in justification o f his politics.9
T h e treatise reached K in g Jam es, who, for various reasons, w as not
too well pleased: he thought that he ought at least to have been
inform ed more directly. T h e K in g was also still uneasy about
Socinianism , o f w hich the D utch A rm inians were being accused by
their C alvin ist rivals. G rotius w as eager to clear h im self o f any such
suspicion and w rote a treatise to do so ;10 w hich how ever did not
im prove m atters: in fact, rather the contrary; for G rotius then found
h im self in direct correspondence w ith real Socinians and discovered
a large area o f agreem ent with them, w hich he was too honest to
deny.
G rotius clearly believed that his visit to England had been a great
success. H e w ould rem em ber it nostalgically long afterwards.
Englishm en were less sure. H e had heard w hat he wished to hear,
w hich w as often his own voice. A rchbishop A b b o t com plained that,
at a dinner given by A ndrew es at E ly H ouse, G rotius had ‘over
w helm ed them w ith talk’ the whole time. O f course A b b o t was an
enem y, so he w ould, w o u ld n ’t he? B ut A ndrew es also had some
reservations, w hich he was too polite to show. N either A ndrew es nor
O verall, nor other high A nglican s after th em ,11 could support
G rotiu s’s E rastian view s, his insistence on lay control o f the C hurch .
T h o u gh they were h appy to use the royal suprem acy when it
favoured their cause, as it generally did in their time, they were not
prepared to endorse it absolutely. K in gs, after all, can change.

G rotius sent letters o f explanation to both A ndrew es and O vera ll
and asked them to put things right w ith the K in g , but his
explanations did not m ake m atters better. A ndrew es respected
G rotius as ‘a very learned and able m an ’ , 12 but he was him self a very
cautious courtier-bishop and was not to be hustled in dom estic
m atters by a foreign visitor. Even C asau b on had been shocked by
G ro tiu s’s language about A b b o t, w ho w as, after all, the K in g ’s
personal nom inee. C asau b o n did his best to make peace; but in 1614
he died, and so G rotius lost his essential interm ediary. T h is was a
great blow to him , as to K in g Jam es and the w orld o f scholarship.
U ndeterred, G rotius pursued his ideal o f a reform ed, reunited,
ecum enical C h u rch w hich w ould m arginalize the extrem ists on both
sides. N atu rally he was soon em broiled with the C alvinists in the
N etherlands. H is old m entor, de T h o u , wrote to him urging him to
keep out o f such controversies and concentrate on scholarship and
p ub lic service. H e rem inded him that Erasm us, C assander, and
others w ho had tried to reunite the C h u rch had not only failed but
also ended hated by all p arties.14 G eorge C assander was another
N etherlander, a B elgian, w ho in 1564 had draw n up a plan o f
conciliation between C ath olics and Protestants for the Em peror
F erdinand I and then for his successor M axim ilian IT C asaub on
had recently draw n G ro tiu s’s attention to his work, and he had now
becom e second only to Erasm us in G rotiu s’s lengthening list o f
precursors in that ca u se .15 H ow ever, G rotius did not accept de
T h o u ’s advice. T h o u gh he w ished to put an end to the divisive
controversies o f religion, he w anted to win his own controversies
first. So he took up his pen to rebut the charge o f Socinianism and
explored the earlier history o f the encouraging ‘A rm in ia n ’ m ove
m ent w hich he had discovered in England: the controversies o f Peter
B aro, the prom ising developm ents in C am b rid ge, the great w ork o f
R ich ard H ooker. T o strengthen his cause and correct C alvin ist
m isinterpretations, he also encouraged his learned friend G erard
V ossius, professor at Leiden, to explore the true history o f the
ancient Pelagian m ovem ent, so castigated by St A ugustine and his
rigid followers.
Besides, there w ere such encouraging signs abroad, all pointing to
E ngland. In France Pierre du M oulin, ‘the Pope o f the H uguen ots’ ,
w ho had supported the French m ovem ent for reunion under H enri
IV , w as now the trusted agent o fja m e s I, a successor, as it seemed,
to C asaubon: he even hoped to be rew arded w ith an English
bishopric. Philippe du Plessis-M ornay, the founder o f the liberal
C alvin ist college o f Saum ur, w hom G rotius venerated, was at the
centre o f an international network. In Italy, there was the famous
Servite friar, Paolo Sarpi, in touch w ith E ngland through the
English am bassador and with H olland through his H uguenot
adviser on foreign affairs, the physician Pierre A sselineau, and
O ld en b arn evelt’s son-in-law Cornelius van der M ijle. Sarpi was
now preparing for publication his devastating exposure o f the true
history o f the C oun cil o f Trent: tim ely propaganda for the cause.
T h en , in 1615, at a dinner-table in R otterdam , G rotius met an
exciting new convert: M arcanton io de D om inis, the C ath olic
A rch bish op o f Spalato, on his w ay to E ngland to becom e A nglican
D ean o f W indsor and M aster o f the Savoy. In his baggage the
A rch bish op was carryin g the m anuscript o f S a rp i’s work, to be
printed. F inally, in the East, there was C yril L ucaris, Patriarch o f
A lexan d ria, a pupil o f G ro tiu s’s hero M eletius. H e was already in
touch w ith the D utch A rm inians, especially G rotiu s’s friend and
m entor Johannes W tenbogaer, and was seeking contact with the
C h u rch o f E ngland.* A fter his arrival in E ngland, de Dom inis
published his own great work, De República Ecclesiastica, a manifesto
for the party, ju d g e d by them unanswerable. T h e author sent a copy
to the States G eneral in the N etherlands, and another to the
P atriarch in E gypt, urging him to follow his exam ple and unite the
G reek C h u rch w ith ‘this most flourishing C h u rch o f E n glan d ’ .
W h at a noble prospect! V en ice and the G reek C h u rch — and if
V en ice, then (it was confidently said) all Italy; and if the G reek
C hu rch , then the scattered C hristian C hurches in the O ttom an
Em pire, even M uscovy. So the two great schisms o f Christendom -
the Eastern schism o f 1054 and the W estern schism o f the Refor
m ation - w ould be reversed; the fragm ented C hristian w orld w ould
be reassem bled, purged o f its abuses, in a great ecclesiastical
republic, accepting as its model and titular head the episcopal
C h u rch o f Jacobean E ngland.
Seen in retrospect, this visionary alliance was very fragile. It was
not at all clear that the kind o f union im agined by all these men was
the same. V enetians and Greeks, French H uguenots and D utch
Arm inians w ould soon discover their differences, for all were
*See below, p. 92.

conditioned by the special circum stances o f their recent history.

E ven the ‘A rm in ian s’ o f England — w ho were not yet called by that
nam e and w ould alw ays disown it — were shy o f too close an
association w ith their controversial D utch allies, and K in g Jam es,
w ho had responsibilities o f governm ent, and had other reasons for
distrusting G rotius, was certainly not w illing to com m it him self to
such an alliance. B ut the time for retrospection has not yet arrived
and for the m om ent we are looking through the eyes o f G rotius, w ho
clung to the hope that, in a peaceful Europe, the A rm inians o f the
N etherlands, sustained by the lay authority o f the States o f H olland,
in alliance w ith the high A n glican s in England, sustained by K in g
Jam es, could lead the w ay to the reunification o f C hristendom .
U nfortun ately, every premiss in this argum ent w ould be proved
w rong. In the later m onths o f 1617, as the internal struggle in the
N etherlands grew more intense, religious differences becam e politi
cal. O n one side the A rm inians cam e to be seen as the p arty o f
‘appeasem en t’ , prepared to sacrifice national unity in order to
prolong the truce w ith Spain; on the other, the Stadholder, M aurice,
Prince o f O ran ge, put him self at the head o f the C alvin ist party, as
the party o f resistance, and prepared to end, if necessary by force,
the rule o f O ld en b arn evelt and Grotius; and in this he was
supported by K in g Jam es.
K in g J a m e s’s am bassador at T h e H ague was Sir D u d ley C arle-
ton, a diplom atist form ed in the E lizabethan tradition. A s am bassa
dor, he was a m an under orders, but he executed his orders with a
w ill - and also w ith authority, for he had a seat in the A ssem bly o f
the States G eneral: a relic o f the E lizabethan protectorate. W hen he
told G rotius, as the spokesm an o f the A rm inian party, that he was
instructed to press for the calling o f a national synod o f the D utch
clergy, in w hich the A rm inians w ould inevitably be outvoted,
G rotius dem urred. H e suggested that an outside um pire w ould do
better to try to reconcile the parties rather than put his w eight
behind one o f th em .16 T h is advice, w hich was no doubt unrealistic,
w as not liked; the struggle becam e fiercer; the am bassador em erged
as a strong partisan on one side, and G rotius, now deputy to
O ld en b arn evelt, as the anim ator and articulator o f the other.
Relations betw een them were soon very strained. T h e am bassador,
in his despatches, denounced G rotius as ‘this pedantical fellow ’ , ‘one
o f the ch ief brouillons\ a ‘boutefeu\ ‘a busy brain and an instrum ent for
the rest’ , m arked by ‘tem erity’ , ‘indiscretion’ , and ‘shameless
im pudence’ . Pam phlets flew, and ‘p lacard s’ were published against
them. G rotius sought to have the am bassador’s speech in the
A ssem bly o f the States G eneral suppressed. In his own speeches and
pam phlets, in order to enlist English support, he likened the D utch
C alvinists to the English Puritans and he assured his countrym en
that the established C hu rch o f England was on the A rm inian side,
citing the nam e o f A ndrew es. B usy friends prom ptly reported this to
A ndrew es, w ho at once took fright. H e had met G rotius only twice,
he said: once at that dinner-party, when G rotius had hogged the
conversation, and once at supper, and had had no discussion w ith
him except ‘w hat then passed at tab le’ . H e was alarm ed to learn that
G rotius now ‘fathered m any things upon him w hich were neither so
nor so’ . A n officious friend advised Andrew es to ‘be more w ary
hereafter’ , although he added, when inform ing the am bassador o f
his demarche, that ‘for aught I know, he hath used caution enough
that w a y ’ . A ndrew es was a very discreet courtier w ho took great care
not to expose himself.
G rotius, o f course, knew nothing o f these private reactions. T h e
am bassador’s hostility was clear enough to him, but he still naively
trusted in A ndrew es and K in g Jam es. H e hoped to be sent to
E ngland again as a deputy: then perhaps he could have undercut
the am bassador as he had tried to undercut A rch bish op A bbot; but
the am bassador knew how to prevent that: he rem inded the K in g
that G rotius was ‘a young petulant brain, not unknown to Y o u r
M a jesty ’ . So, in D ecem ber 1617, G rotius took a bold step. O n b eh alf
o f the Rem onstrant p arty he sent an ‘express agen t’ to London w ith
letters to his ch ief allies there, A ndrew es, O verall and M arcanton io
de D om inis, asking them to introduce the agent to the K in g so that
he could present their case and correct the reports o f the am bassa
dor. A ndrew es and O verall prudently did nothing, but de D om inis -
innocent foreigner - handed the letter to the King.. T h e K in g ’s
answer was such that de D om inis, m uch m ortified, did not dare to
report it to G rotius. B ut G rotius w ould learn it soon enough: the
letter, or a copy o f it, was sent to the am bassador and w ould form
part o f the charge now building up against G rotius in the N ether
lands. As the am bassador som ew hat sm ugly reported, ‘ I have
reserved it for so fit an opp ortunity’ . 17
T h e ‘op p ortun ity’ was the ruin o f G rotius and his party. For
m eanwhile the crunch had come. In A ugu st 1618 the States
G eneral, rem odelled by the Prince o f O ran ge, ordered the arrest o f
O ld en b arn evelt and G rotius. T h ree months later the national

synod, w hich they had fought to prevent, met at D ordt. It was a
general council o f the Protestant C hurches all right, but how
different from the council envisaged by G rotius five years ago! N ot
in E ngland under the presidency o f a pacific K in g and a cultivated
A n g lican episcopate, but in H olland, dom inated by the intransigent
C alvin ist clergy, against a background o f revolution and the rum ble
o f approaching war. T h e A rm inian ministers w ould be driven out,
unheard. B y the time the Synod o f D ordt was closed, having
reaffirm ed all those harsh dogm as against w hich the A rm inians had
protested, a novel court, presided over by a political ju d g e, had sent
O ld en b arn evelt to the scaffold, G rotius to perpetual im prisonm ent.
T h e Princess o f O ran ge, more hum ane than her husband, called on
C arleto n and asked him to intercede for G rotius, that his sentence
m ight be com m uted to exile; but the am bassador refused: he had no
com m ission from H is M ajesty, he said. Besides, such an appeal
w ould be useless, ‘because they here apprehend the sharpness both
o f his tongue and pen, being abroad, but w hilst he is in their hands,
he w ill be kept in obedience, for fear o f the sw ord’ . '8
T h e dram atic events o f 1618—19 not only ruined the A rm inian
p arty in the N etherlands. T h e y also shattered the ecum enical party
on w hich G rotius had built his hopes. Som e m em bers o f it m oved
over to the right. M arcanton io de D om inis returned ignom iniously
to Rom e. It did him no good: he w ould die there in the prison o f the
Inquisition. O thers m oved left. Paolo Sarpi supported the stiff
C alvin ists at D ordt; du M oulin becam e one o f them. So, in effect,
did the Patriarch C yril, and thereby fragm ented instead o f uniting
his C h u rch . T h u s ended the chim era o f E rasm ian reunion and, w ith
it, the political career o f G rotius in his own country and the first
chapter o f his rom ance with the C h u rch o f E ngland.
Im prisoned in the fortress o f Loevestein, alone, ‘behind iron bars’ ,

w ith the prospect o f a lifetime o f cap tivity before him, G rotius had
time for reflexion and study. H e also had plenty o f books, delivered
to him regularly in large crates by his devoted wife. B ut w hat is
study to a prisoner? ‘T h e best solace o f all unhappiness, how crude
and insipid it becomes w ithout conversation with other scholars!’
In this state o f depression, after six months o f confinem ent, he
contrived to send a letter to L ancelot A ndrew es, whom he still,
perhaps naively, considered a friend. It is an eloquent, dignified and
very m oving letter, an apologia for his life and its steady purpose -
the restoration o f the unity and peace o f the C h u rch ‘w ithout
violence to the truth ’ , and with toleration on the Polish model. A s for
his political life, he denies any breach o f the law: he had acted
alw ays under the legitim ate authority o f the States o f H olland. He
sets out the injustice o f his trial and his present fate. ‘ I hear that the
best o f K in g s gave some orders on my b e h a lf — w hat they were, he
knows not — ‘ I w ish that dominus C arleton had been a little fairer to
me. M y friends sought to soften him, but the zeal o f p arty blinds
men stran gely.’ T h en comes the positive plea, the purpose o f the
letter. H e longs for liberty: liberty which is alm ost as dear as life,
w hich some men prefer even to life itself. ‘O h that the most learned
o f K in g s w ould deign to sum m on me to some literary work, so that I
m ight be w ith you until our storms have blown over, or w ould find
some w ay o f succouring this his suppliant! I have not dared to write
to him, fearing lest I do it amiss, w hich is m y m isfortune.’
G rotius apparently believed that K in g Jam es had w ished to help
him but had been frustrated by his am bassador. H e apparently
recognized, too, that he was not his own best advocate. H is cri de
coeur evidently reached A ndrew es (for the letter is in an English
archive), but that cool and courtly high churchm an was not m oved
to act, or to re p ly .19
So G rotius resigned him self to solitude and captivity. He read,
thought and wrote. In particular he w rote, in D utch and in verse,
w hat was to becom e his most popular w ork, his little book on T h e
T ru th o f the C hristian Religion: the equivalent, for his century, o f
E rasm us’s Enchiridion Militis Christiani. In that book Erasm us had
expressed his rational, sim ple ‘philosophy o f C h rist’ for ordinary
men, and thereby he had captivated Europe. G rotius addressed his
sim ilar m essage, in the first instance, to D utchm en — m erchants and
sailors — travelling to the Far East. It was to solace their long
journeys and to enable them to convert the M uslim s, H indus and
pagans o f their new colonial empire. In its later, L atin version,
w hich w ould be translated into m any modern languages, it too, like
the Enchiridion, w ould becom e a best-seller, although o f course, since
it sought to sustain C hristian ity by hum an reason, not m iracles,
revelation or authority, it too smelt o f ‘Socinianism ’ , and critics were
quick to notice that it nowhere m entioned the im portant doctrine
o f the T rin ity. In prison, G rotius also, as he w rote, ‘resum ed the
study o f the law w hich had been suspended through m y other
6o From Counter-Reformation to Glorious Revolution
avocation s’ ,20 and so laid the base for his other fam ous work, De Jure
Belli ac Pads. T h en , in 1621, he m ade his dram atic escape from
prison, carried out under the noses o f his w ardens in one o f those
great crates w hich had brought him his reading m atter. O n ce
outside the castle, the French am bassador, his old H uguenot friend
B enjam in A u b éry du M aurier, had him spirited across the frontier
to A n tw erp , and thence to Paris. It was there that the new phase o f
his life began.
A t first all prom ised well. ‘Profuit mihi career’ , he wrote, ‘proderit,
spero, et exilium’ : T profited from prison; I shall profit, I hope, from
exile.’21 H e had friends in Paris. T h e French governm ent had
supported the A rm in ian party in the N etherlands, and now the
K in g o f France, ignoring the clam our o f his D utch enem ies, assured
him a pension o f 3,000 livres per annum. D e T h ou was dead, but the
circle o f his friends rem ained: the cabinet Dupuy, ranged around de
T h o u ’s librarian and executor Pierre D u p u y and his brother Jean. It
w as the club o f the libertins érudits o f Paris. T h e y included the great
organizer o f the R ep u blic o f Letters, N icolas Fabri de Peiresc, who
encouraged G rotius to w rite his De Jure Belli ac Pads, published in
Paris in 1625 and dedicated to Louis X I I I . G rotius also w rote and
published his Apologeticus, a clear, im pressive and w onderfully
m agnanim ous defence o f the defeated p arty in the N etherlands.
A ltogeth er, the first few years after his liberation w ere productive
and happy. H e was in an E rasm ian m ilieu in a civilized and friendly
capital.
H ow ever, as the years passed, life in Paris becam e less agreeable.
O u tsid e the charm ed circle, there were the dévots, and G rotius, like
C asau b o n before him, found h im self first pressed, then persecuted
by the convertisseurs. T h e process had begun on his first arrival in a
C ath o lic city, in A ntw erp, when he was still in a prom ising state o f
physical and m ental disequilibrium after his dram atic escape.
T h ere he had been met and cherished by officious C ath olic clergy
w ho afterw ards followed up their good offices w ith letters o f friendly
advice. T h e A rm inian cause, they assurred him, was now dead. In
Paris he w ould no doubt have run into his old friend and fellow exile,
Peter Bertius. D riven from his professorial chair in Leiden, Bertius
w as now a C a th o lic convert. W h y then, asked the Jesuit A ndré
Schott, did not G rotius accept the same logic? A n d then there was
his other old friend M arcanton io de D om inis. H e was now back in
Rom e, living very com fortably, w ith eight servants and a generous
Hugo Grotius and England 6i
pension from the H oly Father (he had not yet disappeared into the
dungeon o f the H oly Office) . . . T o all these letters G rotiu s’s replies
were friendly but firm. Y es, he had alw ays wished for religious
unity, but not on their terms: papal infallibility, m andatory
doctrines unsupported by Scripture or reason . . . A s for M arcan-
tonio de Dom inis, he had lost his personal reputation by repudiating
his own profession o f faith, but his book, w hich G rotius had studied
in prison, was convincing. ‘T ru th , supported by valid reasons, m ust
not be rejected, w hoever m ay have uttered it.’22
So G rotius stood, unshakeable, on the narrow E rasm ian bridge,
protesting its solidity even as it was shot to pieces under him and his
com panions leapt o ff it, one by one, to right or to left. In spite o f his
firm answers, his persecutors did not give up. T h e y boasted that he
w as on the brink o f surrender: even his closest friend am ong the
D utch A rm inians, G erard V ossius, feared the w orst.23 A n d if this
was the pressure from A ntw erp, how m uch heavier in Paris itself!
N or was this all: there was also the C ath o lic censorship. For m any
years G rotius had been w orking on a history o f the D utch revolt
against Spain, com m issioned at first by the States G eneral when he
was collecting m aterial from de T h ou . H e had also w ritten, in 1614,
a w ork on the authority o f the civil pow er in religious m atters, and
he was now busy on his Annotations o f the four G ospels. A ll these, he
discovered, were unacceptable to the C ath o lic censors and could not
be published ‘so long as I live in F ran ce’ .24 U n d er these various
pressures he began to think o f leaving France. H e w ould look for
‘some corner’ in L utheran G erm any — perhaps Speyer — where he
could live in freedom and bring up his fam ily, for France was now in
a state o f turm oil, with civil w ar against the H uguenots, ‘and I am
w eary o f the pressure to go to m ass’ .25
In spite o f these frustrations, G rotius rem ained in Paris till 1631.
B y then Richelieu had arbitrarily stopped his pension and em i
gration was a financial necessity.26 T h e situation in the N etherlands
had changed too. Prince M aurice had died in 1625 and his
successor, his brother Frederick H enry, was well disposed to
G rotius. So, in 1631 - not w ithout difficulty, for his enemies were
still powerful - he obtained leave to return to the N etherlands. His
first stay was in Rotterdam , and his first visit there a pilgrim age to
the house o f Erasm us. T h en he m oved to A m sterdam . B ut he found
the atm osphere hostile; his enemies were determ ined to drive him
out; the Stadholder yielded to their pressure; and in A p ril 1632 he
was forced to leave. H e chose to settle in H am burg, w hich he found

very dull — no com pany, no books, he m ight as well be in prison
again - but at least he was not pestered by convertisseurs. H is stay in
his own country had lasted only nine months, but, if I am right, it
had an interesting consequence to w hich I shall refer in m y epilogue.
In all this time G rotius had never lost sight o f England. It is true,
his form er friends — or supposed friends — there were dying off:
O vera ll in 1619, Savile in 1622, K in g Jam es in 1625, A ndrew es in
1626. B ut on his arrival in Paris he becam e friendly w ith the British
am bassador, the fam ous deist Lord H erbert o f C h irb u ry (who
unfortunately was w ithdraw n next y ear);27 C a sa u b o n ’ s son M eric
w as now established in E ngland as a canon o f C an terb u ry cathe
dral; and he had a w ell-placed D utch friend in Francis Junius, the
learned librarian o f that great patron o f the arts, the Earl o f A rundel.
G rotius invited Junius to translate into L atin his book on T h e T ru th
o f the C h ristian Religion, and this led to a correspondence through
w hich he discovered some new English adm irers. T h ese included
C hristop her W ren, D ean o f W indsor, whose brother, the form idable
M atth ew W ren, w as the leader o f the high -C h urch party in
C am b rid ge, and, more im portant still, ‘D r L au d, now bishop o f St
D a v id ’s, w ho is in high favour with the Prince o f W a les’ — i.e. the
future K in g C harles I.
G rotius lost no time: he w rote direct to W ren and sent, through
him , a m essage to L a u d .28 M eanw hile his constant ally, G erard
V ossiu s, w ho was the brother-in-law o f Junius, was establishing
links w ith E ngland. Soon he w ould be w riting regularly to L au d and
thus providing G rotius w ith another channel to him. So, by 1628,
G rotius could feel that he had restored his position in England.
W hen it was reported to him that he was said to have enemies there,
he w as indignant: ‘m y w ritings’ , he retorted, ‘show how m uch I
adm ired K in g Jam es. Francis Junius knows that I have friends
there. M y opinions . . . are supported by the best and most learned
o f the bishops and the flower o f C am b rid ge U n iversity’ .29 B y this
time his old enem y A rch bish op A b b o t w as in eclipse and L au d, now
Bishop o f London, was effective m aster o f the English C hurch .
It is clear from his correspondence that as he becam e disillusioned
w ith France, G rotius hoped for some form al offer from England.
A fter all, C asaub on , du M oulin, Vossius, Junius, all had been given
posts or sinecures in E ngland, so w hy not he? H e had failed with
A ndrew es, but L au d was now m ore powerful and more determ ined,
than A ndrew es had ever been. In 1631, w hile still in Paris, and
uncertain w hether he w ould be allowed back to the N etherlands, he
wrote to L au d , apparently feeling his w ay. L au d did not reply
directly to him: he was ju s t too busy, he told V ossius; but he was in a
generous mood and added that he w ould do anything that he could
for G rotius, as for V ossius or Ju n iu s.30 T h e n cam e the perm ission to
return to the N etherlands. A t first, G rotius hoped that he w ould be
allow ed to live there perm anently. H e could then m ake a living by
practising the law. W hen that hope failed, he began to look for
asylum and em ploym ent abroad. News o f his difficulties soon
reached foreign courts, and several Protestant princes began to
show interest.
In F ebru ary 1632, w hile he was still in the N etherlands, hints
w ere conveyed to him o f a possible offer from Sw eden. G ustavus
A dolphus w as now sweeping trium phant through G erm any, and it
w as known that he had a great respect for G rotius. H ow ever,
G rotius was unenthusiastic. ‘ M y spirit shrinks from the life o f
cam p s’ , he w rote,31 and at once he m obilized the faithful Vossius in
A m sterdam . R em em bering L a u d ’s generous offer, Vossius w rote to
him setting out G ro tiu s’s predicam ent in detail and expressing his
fear that this great scholar was about to leave his ungrateful country
in disgust; ‘and this I fear all the m ore’, he added, ‘because I know
that m any kings and princes are trying to lure him to their countries
w ith large offers o f honours and benefits. B ut if he m ust live outside
his own country, I w ould grudge him to any other country except
G reat B ritain, w here I know how useful he could be to His M ajesty,
our Lord K in g C harles, and the whole kingdom ’ .32 W hile he w aited
for an answ er to this second and indirect approach, G rotius received
renewed hints from Sw eden, but again he stalled, ‘for a w arm breeze
has also been w afted to me from England. I must take m y time and
deliberate before taking the p lu n ge’ .33
L au d also took his time. W hen he finally replied to V ossius, his
answ er was firm and clear, but disappointing. I f G rotius should
indeed choose to leave his country again, he w rote, how fortunate for
him that so m any kings and princes are com peting to receive him! It
is gratifying to learn that he w ould prefer Britain above all other
countries and no one appreciates his virtues m ore than I, ‘but as
things now stand w ith us, such a thing is quite out o f the question’ .34
T h e w arm breeze had now becom e a som ew hat chill w ind, and
V ossius shrank from passing the m essage on to G rotius, w ho by now
had left the N etherlands and was in H am burg. In a w arm and

tactful letter, he advised G rotius to close with the Sw edish offer.
W h a t other prince, he asked, could com pare w ith his virtuous,
victorious adm irer, now in G erm any, G ustavu s A dolph u s?35
L o n ely and bored in H am burg, G rotius still hesitated. H avin g
ap paren tly draw n a blank through V ossius, he turned to his other
ch ie f contact w ith L au d , M eric C asaub on . T o him he sent a letter
full o f com plim entary rem arks about L au d and asked G asaubon to
show it to L au d. G asaubon did so, and reported that it had been a
great success: L au d had expressed his adm iration for G rotius, had
snatched the letter from G asau b o n ’s hand, read it, and then, ‘ though
otherw ise im pervious to flattery and singularly indifferent to other
m en’s opinions o f h im ’ , kept it.36 T h is was very encouraging, and
G rotius still m ade no response to the Sw edish suggestions. T h en , in
N ovem ber 1632, at the battle o f L iitzen, G ustavu s A dolph u s w as
killed, and any argum ent based on his virtues, victories and
personal adm iration for G rotius dissolved. T h a t chance, it seemed,
had gone.
So G rotius stayed on in H am burg, becalm ed. B ut then, a few
m onths later, the Sw edish offer was renewed. It cam e in a personal
letter from A xel O xenstjern a, G ran d C han cellor and now, after the
K in g ’s death, R egent o f Sweden. G ould G rotius, he asked, spare
time from his M uses to come from H am b urg to Berlin, to visit him?
A ga in G rotius stalled. A year later, the G rand C h an cellor returned
to the m atter. H e sent G rotius a flattering letter, repeating his
invitation and enclosing m oney for travelling expenses. G rotius
returned the flattery, but also the money. H e could not leave
H am b u rg at present, he said. T o his brother W illem , his regular
confidant, he wrote that he did not trust the Swedes, their offers
w ere too vague. ‘ I know their tricks’ , w hy cannot they speak
clearly?37 Besides, other possible patrons were now in the field. T h e
K in g o f D enm ark had offered ‘a large stipend’ , and the K in g o f
Poland and the D uke o f H olstein were interested too38 - or least so it
was said, but still there w as nothing concrete. ‘ I f your K in g wishes
to use m y services’ , G rotius w rote to a Socinian friend in Poland,
‘once I know in w hat capacity, I shall not take long to decide’ ; but he
im m ediately added that in England the new A rchbishop — for L aud
w as now A rch bish op o f C an terb u ry - shared all his views: a prudent
m an, a pattern o f prim itive C hristian ity, sound in all his opinions,
and as powerful in the State as in the C hurch; and he sang the
praises o f the A n glican C h u rch as now constituted: its respect for
tradition, its repudiation o f Rom an abuses, its rejection o f the brutal
doctrine o f double predestination.39 E vidently G rotius was still
looking to England. But still only com plim ents cam e back from
L am beth. Vossius and C asaub on together lam ented the disgrace o f
the age, that a m an for whom all the kings o f Europe ought to
com pete should suffer the miseries o f a w andering exile.
F inally, after two years o f procrastination, G rotius surrendered to
the only offer w hich seemed serious. H e accepted O xen stjern a’s
invitation to visit him in Frankfurt,40 and in 1635 he returned to
Paris as Sw edish am bassador to the court o f France. O n e o f the first
letters w hich he w rote in his new cap acity was to L au d , con gratu lat
ing him (rather belatedly) on his elevation to C an terb u ry, praising
him for his w ork in restoring the purity o f prim itive C hristian ity,
and expressing the hope that he m ight now have personal access to
his good w ill.41
So began the last phase o f G ro tiu s’s career: his ten years in the
service not o f his own country, from w hich he had been excluded,
nor o f the pacific K in g o f E ngland, w hich he w ould have preferred,
but o f the belligerent, conquering, im perialist m onarchy o f Sweden.
A s an am bassador, it is generally agreed, he was not a great success,
but at least it was a delicious revenge. C ries o f horror rose from his
im placable enemies in the N etherlands. Richelieu, w ho had so
m eanly squeezed him out o f France, was m ortified to see him return
in grandeur and pressed repeatedly for his recall. B ut he pressed in
vain. T h e all-conquering Swedes were the arbiters o f Europe and
liked to show it; so the C ard in al had to sw allow the bitter pill. His
relations with the new am bassador, predictably, were very bad, and
after the first year all contact between them ceased.42 G ro tiu s’s
relations with his D utch colleague were no better: he was the son o f
Reinier Pauw , the president o f the kangaroo court w hich had
condem ned G rotius in 1619, and was a m ortal enem y. Since France
and the N etherlands were the allies o f Sweden in the w ar, this m ust
have been som ew hat inconvenient.
D id G rotius care? Perhaps not m uch, for he was not really
interested in politics or w ar - certainly not in Sw edish im perialism .
H e had different priorities. T o him his em bassy was a post o f honour
from w hich he could continue his more im portant task o f reuniting
C hristendom . So he satisfied his official conscience by sending to
O xenstjern a long letters containing (it was said) only the gossip o f
the Pont N e u f translated into elegant L atin , and m eanw hile pursued
his own special interests. H e edited and translated classical texts,
corresponded w ith European savants — w ith G alileo on the reckon
ing o f longitude, w ith Louis C ap p el on H ebrew punctuation, w ith
Peiresc on the lost G reek works o f Porphyry, w ith his Socinian
friends on Pythagoras — planned the publication or republication o f
his own w ritings, and prepared his last great work, his m assive
Annotations on the B ible. T hese w ere to serve the sam e purpose as
E rasm u s’s Paraphrases’, that is, by correct scholarly m ethods to
extract the true m eaning o f the sacred texts and provide a univer
sally acceptable, rationally defensible basis o f general reconcil
iation. H e also engaged in a series o f controversies w hich did not
alw ays further this irenic design: controversies w ith the dreadful
C alvin ists Sam uel D esm arets and A ndré R ivet — two French
H uguenots p reaching virulent orthodoxy in the N etherlands —
controversy over C y ril L ucaris and the historic doctrine o f the G reek
C h u rch , controversy over the identity and chronology o f A ntichrist,
over the charges o f Socinianism levelled against him, and — a very
unnecessary controversy — over the origin o f the A m erican Indians.
O xenstjern a thought all o f these controversies unnecessary, and
said so.44 H e soon becam e dissatisfied w ith his am bassador in Paris,
and sent other agents, nom inally to support but actually to
underm ine him, and starved him o f funds. T h is did not im prove
their relations.
H ow ever, in Paris G rotius now had one valued friend and ally. In
1635, the sam e year in w hich he re-entered the city as am bassador,
there arrived also a new British am bassador, V iscou n t Scudam ore
o f Sligo. Scudam ore was not a very successful am bassador. A
H erefordshire squire, w ithout diplom atic experience or gifts, he
soon becam e unpopular with the governm ent to w hich he was ac
credited,45 and his own governm ent found it convenient to im pose
upon him an unw elcom e colleague to supply his defects. In all these
respects his position was sim ilar to that o f G rotius, and m ade them
natural allies. B ut there was also a stronger bond between them.
L ike G rotius, Scudam ore was an enthusiastic adm irer o f Laud. H e
and L au d had risen together in the clientèle o f the D uke o f
B uckingham , to whom the one owed his successive bishoprics and
the other his (Irish) peerage. It was to L au d that Scudam ore now
owed his em bassy in Paris. T h anks to this com m on enthusiasm , he
and G rotius soon becam e friends and had frequent conversations

together.46 T h ro u gh Scudam ore, G rotius now hoped, once again, as
in 1613, to offer his program m e o f C hristian reunion to the rulers o f
E ngland.
O f course the political situation had changed m uch since 1613;
but in E ngland at least it had changed for the better. T h ere the high-
C h u rch p arty w as now stronger than ever, E ngland itself was at
peace — an island o f peace in a w arring w orld — and if the
N etherlands had been lost, w hy should not a new beginning be
m ade w ith Sweden? Lutheranism - episcopal Lutheranism , the
L utheranism o f M elanchthon, w hom G rotius venerated only a little
less than E rasm us — w as quite acceptable and could no doubt be
adjusted to the perfect A n glican m odel; and then perhaps, E ngland
and Sweden h aving set the pace, the D anes too m ight com e in, and
even, in certain p articular circum stances — who knows? - the
French; for there were m any sound French bishops w ho had a great
respect for the C h u rch o f England. ‘T ru ly , m y L o rd ’ , Scudam ore
reported to the A rch bish op, w hen reporting this schem e, T am
persuaded that he doth unfeignedly and highly love and reverence
your person and proceedings. B ody and soul he professeth h im self to
be for the C h u rch o f E ngland, and gives his ju d gm en t o f it that it is
the likeliest to last o f any C hu rch this day in b ein g .’47
L au d , in his reply, poured some rather tepid w ater on these w arm
fantasies, at w hich G rotius, according to Scudam ore, ‘seemed to be
surprised and quailed m uch in his hopes’ , but he did not abandon
them. Perhaps the D anes and the French should be dropped, at least
for the time being, but A nglo-Sw edish ecclesiastical union, he
insisted, w as possible. A d m ittedly the Sw edish bishops being ‘stiff
L u th eran s’ , w ere not likely to be very accom m odating, but the
business should be entrusted to the lay rulers, ‘the m agistrate’ , not
to them, and o f course the C alvinists, being beyond the pale, should
be kept firm ly out. A n d w hy should not this A nglo-Sw edish C h u rch
union form part o f a political alliance, cem ented by a royal m arriage
— the youn g Prince o f W ales with the youn g Q ueen C hristina? T h u s
(Grotius suggested to Scudam ore) the form idable Swedish arm y
could be engaged to w in back the P alatinate for the dispossessed
electoral fam ily and the spectacle o f such a sound Protestant alliance
m ight even - perhaps - cool the ferocious tem per o f the rebellious
Scots.48 T o O xenstjern a G rotius sang the praises o f L au d and the
English C h u rch , urging him to pay no attention to the slanders o f his
opponents and dw elling w ith satisfaction on the fulsom e com pli

ments w hich he h im self received from the A rch bish op and the
excellent relations between them .49
O xen stjern a m ust have been som ew hat surprised by his am bassa
d o r’s engouement for the A rch bish op o f C an terbu ry. Surely, he must
have thought, there w as some confusion o f interest here: confusion
betw een G ro tiu s’s personal program m e o f religious reunion, to
w hich E ngland w as central, and his official function as the represen
tative o f Sw eden, to w hich it was m arginal, even irrelevant.
M oreover, the confusion was com pounded by the activities o f a rival
evangelist preaching a different form o f reunion in the sam e field at
the sam e time: the indefatigable Protestant m issionary, John D ury.
D ury, like G rotius, w as an idealist, but their ideals were not quite
the same. H e wished to achieve not reunion for the peace o f the
C h u rch but union o f all Protestants for the holy war: in particular,
union o f Lutherans and C alvinists. T h is suited Sw edish policy in
G erm an y, and both G ustavu s and after him, O xenstjerna, listened
to him. A s Sw edish am bassador, G rotius m ight therefore be
expected to support D u ry ’s mission, or at least to give objective
advice on its prospects. But G rotius already had his own view s on
the m atter. H e had no use for the C alvinists, w hom he regarded as
quite irreconcilable and wished to exclude from any schem e, and he
felt confident that L au d, to w hom he could represent all C alvinists
as Puritans, w ould agree. H e therefore urged D ury, w ho had
consulted him in 1633-4, before he entered the Sw edish service, to
be ruled by the A rch bish op o f C an terbu ry, ‘on whose encourage
m ent the w elfare o f this business w ill w holly depen d’ .50
V e ry little encouragem ent would come from the A rchbishop. T o
him D u ry was, at best, a nuisance. He had, indeed, m any supporters
in E ngland, but they were the interventionists, advocates o f English
involvem ent in continental affairs, even in the war, w hether for
ideological reasons or in order to recover the Palatinate for its
dispossessed Elector. L au d was totally opposed to such a policy. H e
rem em bered, only too well, w hat had happened when England was
last involved in w ar, in the 1620s: a turbulent Parliam ent calling for
his im peachm ent. H e was unfam iliar with the com plexities o f
E uropean politics and indifferent to the misfortunes o f the Palatine
fam ily whose rash adventure in 1618 had started all the trouble. H e
had no more use for the Swedish Lutherans, w hom G rotius would
sponsor, than for the G erm an C alvinists w hom they both rejected.
H e had quite enough trouble enforcing the authority o f his C h u rch

at home w ithout seeking to extend it abroad. O f course the decencies
had to be preserved - the Q ueen o f B ohem ia was the K in g ’s sister,
and D u ry ’s influential English backers had to be hum oured - but he
preserved them in a som ew hat devious w ay. H e gave D u ry letters o f
recom m endation to the British am bassador in G erm an y but wrote
p rivately to the am bassador to pay no attention to them .51 H e can
hardly have relished the intervention o f G rotius seeking to divert
D u ry ’s efforts into his own project o f A nglo-Sw edish C h u rch union;
and perhaps O xenstjern a did not relish his am bassador’s reports o f
the an yw ay lukew arm and am biguous comm ents o f the A rch bish op
on D u ry .52 D ury w as not deceived by all these am biguities. In the
end he regarded both L au d and G rotius as enemies.
I f L au d lacked enthusiasm for G ro tiu s’s European diplom acy, he
had even less desire to be involved in his religious controversies.
L au d disliked controversy and — once he had won the com petition
for pow er - did his best to silence it in England. H e did not w ant the
theological hornets’ nest to be stirred w hile he was at w ork in the
garden, and he w ould have been glad if his own too vocal supporters
— those C am b rid ge men, for instance: D r Brooke, M r Pocklington,
and the noisy Peterhouse m afia - w ould shut u p.53 G rotius was a
very distinguished m an, respected throughout Europe, and praise
from him was gratifying; but w hy must he rush into controversy so
often? O n this at least, L au d found him self in agreem ent w ith
O xenstjerna.
For instance, there was the question o f E rastianism . G rotius w as a
convinced Erastian. H e relied on ‘the m agistrate’ - the C hristian
Prince or the States o f H olland - to keep the theologians in order and
thus secure ‘the peace o f the C h u rch ’ . In 1614, during the religious
struggle in the N etherlands, he had w ritten a treatise on the subject,
w hich he wished to publish. H e had sent a copy o f it to O verall
soliciting his opinion and that o f A ndrew es;54 but it had not been
relished, and when G rotius escaped from prison, O v e ra ll’s librarian,
D r C osin (for O vera ll had now died), sent it back w ithout com
m ent.55 G rotius then tried to publish his treatise in Paris, but the
C ath olic censors stopped that. U ndeterred, he now sent it to Laud.
T h e result was predictable. N o m an profited more from the royal
suprem acy in E ngland than Laud. H e used it again and again to
enforce his ecclesiastical policy, and C harles I w as h appy to put it at
his disposal. B ut to argue for it theoretically was most unsafe. W ho
yo From Counter-Reformation to Glorious Revolution
could tell w hat kind o f a lay ruler w ould succeed C harles I? It was
better to insist — but not too aggressively — that episcopacy w as Jure
divino. L au d did not return G ro tiu s’s m anuscript. N or did he
com m ent on it. H e sent a m essage to G rotius through his agent
abroad, Stephen Goffe, advising him not to publish it at present, as
inopportune. G rotius accepted the advice, and his treatise, De
Imperio Summarum Potestatum circa sacra was not published till after his
d eath .56 A n E nglish translation w ould be published after the
execution o f C harles I, under a governm ent whose Erastian policy
fully vindicated the apprehensions o f A ndrew es and L au d.
A noth er sign o f danger appeared in 1635, when the governm ent o f
C harles I decided to assert itself at sea, claim ing exclusive sover
eignty over undefined home w aters. In support o f this policy Joh n
Selden w as persuaded to update a legal opinion w hich he had
w ritten in the reign o f Jam es I to counter D utch claim s to com plete
freedom o f the seas. T h e D utch claim had been set out by G rotius
and published in 1609 as Mare Liberum. Selden’s counter-claim ,
w hich had rem ained unpublished as that particular crisis subsided,
was now published as Mare Clausum. T h e D utch governm ent was
thoroughly alarm ed, and L au d w ho had persuaded Selden to revise
his w ork for the occasion, feared that G rotius w ould re-enter the
fray. H e therefore w rote to Scudam ore expressing the hope that
G rotius w ould be w iser than to w aste his tim e answ ering Selden. In
this case the hint w as unnecessary. G rotius was no longer retained
by the D utch governm ent. O n reading Selden’s treatise he observed
that it w as very respectful tow ards him. A n d he saw clearly enough
that his Sw edish m asters w ould not appreciate the idea o f Mare
Liberum: they were aim ing at dominium maris Baltici ,57 So on this issue
he rem ained silent.
Far m ore dangerous, to L au d, was G rotiu s’s reputation for
‘Socin ian ism ’ : a heresy m ore dam aging even than Erastianism . Not
that G rotius w as himself, strictly speaking, a Socinian — he had
explicitly w ritten against the heresy - but, like Erasm us, he believed
that the C hristian m essage, rightly understood, like the ideal system
o f law , was in harm ony w ith hum an reason and could be defended
by it; and that, in itself, was enough to provoke the charge. A fter all,
w as not Erasm us him self the true father o f Socinianism ? L ike other
‘rational theologians’ , G rotius soon discovered that the mere process
o f defining his position in relation to Socinianism in its narrowest
sense strengthened the suspicion that he favoured it in a w ider sense,
and this suspicion w as increased by his friendly discussions w ith the

Socinians in Poland, w here it was officially tolerated. T h e sam e
process occurred in relation to popery: the more G rotius defined his
aversion from its p articular abuses, the nearer he was said to
approach its idealized form. So, having begun by seeking a m iddle
position inter Socinianam licentiam etpapisticam tyrannidem, he w ould end
by being accused o f favouring both. L a u d ’s fate was sim ilar — but the
order was reversed. W hereas G rotius was accused at first o f
Socinianism and later o f popery, L au d was already, by 1635, w idely
slandered as a papist, and had no desire to be still further sm eared as
a ‘Socin ian’ . A n d yet this was a charge that too close an association
w ith G rotius could bring.
It was brought dangerously close to him by the case o f his own
form er chaplain Sam son Johnson. A s chaplain to the British
am bassador in G erm any, Sir R obert A nstruther, Johnson had met
G rotius in H am b urg in 1632 and had becom e an ardent disciple. In
1635 he had returned to England arm ed w ith a strong letter o f
support from G rotius to L au d. L au d then recom m ended him as
chaplain to the exiled Q ueen o f Bohem ia at T h e H ague. T h ere the
sensitive noses o f the C alvin ist clergy soon picked up a fam iliar
scent: Socinianism o f course, and popery. Johnson firm ly repudi
ated both charges. H e had a cast-iron defence, he said: he was a
disciple o f the great H ugo G rotius, whose tract against Socinianism
(‘for Socinianism !’ cried his accusers) he had republished at O xford.
T h a t put the fat in the fire, not only for G rotius but also for L au d.
T h e drum ecclesiastic was beaten and English-speaking spies were
sent to listen to Jo h n so n ’s sermons. T h e y discovered sinister goings-
on, and com plained to the Q ueen o f Bohem ia, w ho (they said) was
m uch put out: w hy, she asked, had the K in g and the A rch bish op
sent her such a man? H ad she not trouble enough already? Letters o f
violent denunciation also cam e to L au d. T o protect himself, L au d
obliged Johnson to clear him self in public, but it did no good. N or
did L a u d ’s official denunciation o f both popery and Socinianism in
the fam ous canons o f 1640: indeed, they rather rebounded on him,
for w hile they enabled him to get rid o f the Bishop o f G loucester, as a
secret papist (which he w as), the Bishop turned on him and accused
him o f Socinianism . In 1642 Johnson, w ho rem ained on good terms
w ith both G rotius and L au d (and with the Q ueen o f Bohem ia),
w ould be accused in the Long Parliam ent o f Socinianism , and
finally kicked out o f his chaplaincy thanks to the efforts o f his
form er friend, now colleague at T h e H ague, the evangelist D ury;

and next year the rabid C alvin ist Francis C heyn ell w ould denounce
the w hole L au d ian C h u rch as a Socinian m afia organized and
directed by the A rch b ish o p .58
A ltogether, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that L au d , like
A ndrew es before him, found the enthusiastic support o f G rotius
rather a liab ility than an assest. H e returned his com plim ents,
expressed his respect and adm iration, but was careful to give him no
encouragem ent and avoided direct correspondence. H e sent his
m essages through interm ediaries, excusing h im self for not w riting
direct: one o f G ro tiu s’s letters ‘was most welcom e, but I have no
time to rep ly’ ; to another, he ‘w ould have had an answ er if
im portant business had not intervened’ .59 H ow ever, when G rotius
was in real need, L au d, unlike A ndrew es, cam e to his aid. In 1639 it
seemed likely that his appointm ent in Paris w ould come to an end.
H e w as persona non grata to Richelieu. O xenstjern a had turned
against him, Scudam ore had been recalled to England in J a n u ary o f
that year, and his successor, his form er colleague the E arl o f
Leicester, had different view s. G rotius appealed to Scudam ore in
E ngland, Scudam ore to Laud; and L au d responded. In the nam e o f
C harles I, he offered asylum in E ngland for G rotius and his fam ily, if
they should need it. G rotius was deeply moved: ‘all m y life’ , he
w rote, ‘ I shall labour to show m y gratitude by very hum ble
service’ .60
In fact G rotius did not need to take up the offer. Richelieu was not
prepared to expel him, and O xenstjerna, w ho w ould glad ly have
recalled him, kept him in Paris (we are told61) for the sole purpose o f
annoying Richelieu. A n y w a y , by the end o f 1640, asylum in E ngland
w as no longer attractive: if anyone then needed asylum abroad, it
was the A rchbishop, w ho was in the T o w er o f London. T h e
overthrow o f his C h u rch , the centrepiece o f G rotiu s’s plan o f
reunion, had begun.
A fter the recall o f Scudam ore, G rotius had virtu ally no contact
w ith England. His policy o f an A nglo-Sw edish alliance, w hich he
was still pressing in the autum n o f 1640,62 was bankrupt. Perhaps it
had alw ays been a chim era: since 1638 C harles I had been relying
on Spanish support, quite incom patible w ith it. A fter the m eeting o f
the L ong Parliam ent, and the fall o f the A rchbishop, G rotius could
only record the increasingly depressing news from E ngland and
lam ent the personal m isfortunes o f the A rchbishop. In 1641 the new
British am bassador, Sir R ichard Brow ne, brought some account o f
him: he had visited him in the T o w e r and found him ‘strong in body
and m in d’ .63 G rotius was able to send a m essage o f m oral support
back to him through another visitor. T h is was E dw ard Pococke, the
first occupant o f the chair o f A ra b ic w hich L au d had founded at
O xford. Pococke planned to translate G ro tiu s’s book on T h e T ru th
o f the C hristian R eligion into A rab ic, and as he was passing through
Paris on his w ay back from the East, he took the opportunity to call
on its author. A cco rd in g to Pococke’s biographer, G rotius sent
practical as well as m oral exhortation to L au d, recom m ending that
the A rchbishop escape from the T o w e r as he him self had once done
from the castle o f Loevestein; but the advice, though duly delivered,
was rejected.64 A s the crisis in E ngland w orsened, G rotius m ust
have been painfully rem inded o f the revolution in the N etherlands
over tw enty years ago: a great statesm an ju d ic ia lly m urdered;
‘A rm in ian ism ’ overthrow n; its cham pions scattered, driven into
exile, sometimes converted; ‘C alvin ism ’ trium phant. A n d still there
was no end to the E uropean war.
A s his hopes o f support from E ngland faded, G rotius becam e ever
more anxious to declare his m essage openly to the w orld. ‘I am
uncertain how m uch o f life is left to m e’ , he w rote in the spring o f
1640, ‘and I wish, above all, to leave a testim ony o f m y opinions on
the events w hich are so gravely shaking C hristen dom ’ . Therefore it
was essential that his w ritings — all o f them, old and new — be
published and distributed w ithout delay. I f they rem ained in
m anuscript, how could he trust his heirs not to let them perish? T h a t
had been the fate o f so m any useful works. So orders, sometim es
im perative and testy, flew from Paris to H olland, the only country
where they could evade the censors, to his patient and devoted
brother W illem , his confidant and literary agent, and to his few
reliable - that is, R em onstrant - friends. M eanw hile his pen was
busier than ever. H e republished, with his own notes, C assan d er’s
plan o f reconciliation o f 1564, his Annotations on the B ible swelled to
a huge bulk, polem ical treaties were dashed off, the C alvin ist
hornets swatted as they swooped, b uzzing furiously, from their nests
in T h e H ague and A m sterdam . O f course it was an unending battle,
but the aim was constant, and it had to be fought. T o those, like
Vossius, who thought that, in such troubled times, a period o f
silence w ould be prudent, he was severe. Such tim idity, he wrote,
was unw orthy o f a m an o f V o ssiu s’s age: the tem porary success o f
sedition - he was referring to the trouble in England - should not

divert us. It had not diverted Erasm us, C assander, C asaub on ,
M elan ch th on . . . ‘O u r lives are not in our ow n hands. W e shall
serve either our own age or another . . . I f Erasm us and C assander
had w aited till there were no p opular seditions, they w ould have
condem ned them selves to eternal silence.’ O f course it was hard
w ork sw im m ing against the current, ‘but we are not alone.
E rasm us, C assander, C asau b on went before us; and now there is
M illeteriu s’ .65
T h e nam e o f M illeterius comes as a shock, for M illeterius -
T h éo p h ile B rachet, sieur de la M illetière, a H uguenot laym an —was
quite unfit for such distinguished com pany. A noisy controversial
ist, he had begun by advocating rebellion, but had now em erged as a
preacher o f reunion. G rotius had been suspicious o f him at first:
w hat, he asked, could be the m otives o f this volte-face? V an ity?
E xhibitionism ? O r was he perhaps a paid hack o f Richelieu?66 For
by now R ichelieu was seeking — cautiously, obliquely, secretively -
to revive the old program m e o f reunion w ithin France: C ath olics
and H uguenots to be join ed in a G allican ‘p atriarch ate’ , largely
independent o f Rom e. It was a return to the early years o f H enri IV .
T h e C a rd in a l’s ch ief agents in this operation w ere the brothers
D u p u y, G ro tiu s’s closest friends in Paris, and G rotius was well
aw are o f the m achinery behind it. Its patron, he told his brother,
was the C ard in a l himself, ‘a man so fortunate that he had never
failed in any o f his undertakings’ . T h e m ovem ent, he thought, m ight
w ell succeed — the C ard in al him self was hopeful — so w hy not back
it? Even if it should fail, ‘ought we not to plant trees for future
generations?’ ‘E ven if we succeed only in reducing m utual hatred
and m aking C hristians gentler and more civil to each other, is not
that w orth our labour and trouble?’67
It was in 1640, as he was losing hope o f England, that G rotius
em erged as a supporter o f la M illetière — that is, in effect, o f
R ich elieu ’s proposed patriarchate. Richelieu seems to have w el
com ed his support: perhaps that is w hy he no longer sought
G ro tiu s’s recall. T h e w hole operation was conducted behind a veil o f
secrecy, but by 1642, the sharp-eyed C alvin ist vigilantes noted that
the C ard in al was transferring his interest from la M illetière to
G rotius as a more reputable publicist, and in the same year G rotius
m anaged to insert a few little com plim ents to Richelieu in his Prayer
for Ecclesiastical Peace.6S H ow ever, in the end, it all cam e to nothing.
A s before, as afterw ards, Rom e knew how to deal with such
deviations: personal subm ission first, discussion (if any) afterw ards,
was its m essage to those w ho w ould treat with it; and on R ich elieu ’s
death, in D ecem ber 1642, the whole project evaporated.*
W ith the N etherlands lost to m ilitant C alvinism , the m irage o f a
French ‘p atriarch ate’ dissolving, and England, by now, engulfed in
civil w ar, w here was G rotius to turn? H e was bored w ith his Swedish
em bassy and longed to be freed from it. He was bored w ith France
too: his door in Paris was locked against visitors, even old friends. As
for the N etherlands, ‘I ceased long ago to be a H o llan d er’ . But he
rem ained a citizen o f the world: ‘m y thoughts are not directed to any
one country, but to all countries, and I thank G od that there are
great men in E ngland, G erm any, D enm ark, Poland, w ho think
seriously o f these things’ ; and he had a m essage for posterity w hich
must be delivered: ‘ I cannot tell y o u ’ , he wrote to his brother, ‘how
eager I am to see all m y works p ublish ed’ .69 B ut w hat was his
m essage to the élite o f C hristendom , to posterity? C ontem poraries
were not at all sure. T h e y were sure only that he w as not one o f
them. T o the C alvinists he was either a papist or a Socinian or both:
purus putus Socinianus cried the D utch C alvin ist Johannes de L a et;7°
‘Triden tin e P opery!’ scream ed the Scotch C alvin ist R obert B aillie.71
T h is was the standard C alvin ist view: the view o f R ichard B axter
and Joh n O w en in England. His fellow-irenist D ury concluded that
he w as an agent o f the Pope, but the R om an C hu rch put his books
on the Index. T o G u i Patin, conservative, anti-papal C ath olic,
libertin érudit, w ho knew him in Paris and was devoted to him - they
had m uch in comm on: love o f Erasm us, dislike o f monks and
Jesuits, hatred o f Richelieu, that cold-hearted m achiavellian w ar
m onger w ho had m urdered their friend, the son o f the great de T h ou
*For Grotius’s involvement in Richelieu’s plans, see Pierre Blet, ‘Le Plan de
Richelieu pur la réunion des Protestants’ , Gregorianum X L V I I I (1967); Hans Bots
and Pierre Leroy, ‘La Mort de Richelieu vue par les Protestants’ , Lias iv.i
(Amsterdam 1977). Grotius’s support for the plan incidentally raises a teasing
question mentioned in my Catholics, Anglicans and Puritans (p. 100). The most
substantial manifesto of the project was the huge two-volume compilation by the
Dupuy brothers on the liberties of the Gallican Church, of which two sets were sent
to Laud in 1639 and deposited by him in Oxford libraries as useful to the Church of
England. But how did they come to Laud? Were they perhaps sent to him by
Grotius - and conveyed (since the work was denounced by the Catholic hierarchy
in France) in the diplomatic bags of the returning Lord Scudamore? But this is pure
speculation.
— he w as a m ystery, feu M . Grotius, dont Von ignore la religion’ : it had

been a com plete enigm a, he said, for the last tw enty years.72
G rotius h im self knew, or thought that he knew. A gain and again,
in his correspondence and controversies, he defined his position. H e
was for the reunion o f C hristendom on the the basis o f the doctrines
agreed by the C h u rch in its ‘three best centuries’ , when G reek and
L atin C hu rch es w ere still united, episcopacy was established, and
the R om an p rim acy w as no m ore than a presidency over equal
bishops gathered in national C hu rch es and legislating through
G eneral C ouncils: a great eccelesiastical republic as defined by his
one-tim e friend M arcan ton io de D om inis. T h ose doctrines w ere to
be discovered by hum anist scholarship and hum an reason applied
to the sacred texts as they had been applied by the great scholars -
his m aster Scaliger, his friend C asau b on - to the classical texts.
T h en the abuses w hich had grow n up in time could be identified and
purged aw ay and the harm less variations from place to place
tolerated. T h is had been the m essage o f Erasm us, w ho had cleaned
the sacred texts and extracted the philosophy o f C hrist, and that
process could be continued. N ot only Rom an abuses and errors had
to be purged: there w ere also the new Protestant inventions: the
identification o f A n tichrist with the Pope, now m andatory am ong
good C alvin ists, and the fable o f the fem ale Pope Joan, happily
exposed by the H uguenot scholar Blondel. T h u s continuing scholar
ship w ould establish an agreed basis, ideological confrontations
w ould cease, and the horrible w ars o f the time, w hich w ere born and
nourished from such confrontations,73 w ould lose their justification ,
or at least their ferocity and could them selves be regulated by
reason, by international law , as set out in De Jure Belli ac Pads.
It sounds so sim ple, so rational; but how could such a result be
achieved w hen religion had been so deeply entangled in politics and
its differences hardened by history? A t first G rotius believed that
Protestantism , w hich had already corrected m any o f the abuses o f
the C h u rch , should be the starting-point, and he had seen in his own
country, the N etherlands, in that golden age ‘after the governorship
o f the E arl o f L eicester’ ,74 until the Synod o f D ordt - i.e. from 1589
until 1618, the era o f O ld en b arn evelt and the A rm inian ascendancy
— and in Jaco bean E ngland, the E ngland o f H ooker and A ndrew es,
the nucleus around w hich the other C hurches could grad u ally be
reunited. B ut then the traum atic events o f 1618 - the revolution in
the N etherlands, his own im prisonm ent and then exile, and the
beginning of the Thirty Years W ar — had destroyed that hope. From
then on, Calvinism, the radical Calvinism of the Dutch preachers
and the militant Huguenots of France, was rejected altogether. No
reunion, Grotius now believed, could accommodate them. Their
horrible doctrine o f ‘double predestination’, their intolerance, their
intellectual despotism, ruled them out.
So, in the 1630s, Grotius turned from Calvinism to Lutheranism,
from the Netherlands to Sweden. Perhaps the moderate Lutheran
ism of Melanchthon, of the Augsburg confession, could be fused
with the Anglicanism of the Church of England to form the essential
nucleus of the new unity. After all, the English ‘Arm inians’ had at
first been known as ‘Lutherans’ . But then, in 1640, it was the turn of
the English ‘Arm inians’ to founder in revolution, a revolution very
similar to that of the Netherlands in 1618. T o Grotius that was a
shattering blow, and in his last years, he shifted the basis of his ideal
reunion yet again: this time from Protestant (but not too Protestant)
England to Catholic (but not too Catholic) France. A union of the
Protestant Churches alone, he now decided, was impossible:
acknowledging no central authority, they would continue to split
into different Churches, congregations, sects, as was happening in
England with the rise of the Independents.75 Therefore the Roman
Church must be included in the mixture as a necessary coagulating
element. But in order to qualify for such inclusion, it must first pass
certain tests. It must accept the Erasmian conditions: abolition of
the post-Tridentine papal monarchy, rule by General Councils,
repudiation of papal infallibility and claims to depose rulers,
abolition or reform o f monasticism. Such reforms he hoped to see
carried out by Richelieu. It was the kind of reformation carried out
in England by Henry V I I I - who, however, had been driven into
schism, which was perhaps unnecessary: after all, the K in g of Spain,
as K ing of Sicily, had already secured independence without such
an open breach. Perhaps Richelieu would achieve the same.76
O f course his enemies seized on this hypothetical acceptance of
Catholicism. Did it not justify all their accusations? Even modern
scholars have described it as a ‘stupefying’ volte-face by a lifelong
Protestant.77 But in fact Grotius had always understood reunion to
include both the Catholic and the Greek Orthodox Church: it was
merely the order of the successive stages of such reunion that he had
now been obliged to change. Originally, he had envisaged a
Protestant union, on the Erasmian model, to which Romans and
Greeks would be invited to adhere. Now, since the Protestants were

unable to form the necessary nucleus, the order was altered: the
Romans would be in at the beginning - provided that they made the
necessary concessions. When his Calvinist assailants declared that
he had been bought by promises, he was indignant. His views were
still the same, he maintained: they were those of his Protestant
precursors, M elanchthon and Casaubon. I f he had been willing to
surrender to Rome, he could have enjoyed the ample honours and
rewards which had been offered to him in France: he would not have
felt obliged, when he had already been imprisoned, despoiled and
driven out by his own country, then to leave France for Germ any
and serve an unknown Protestant kingdom.78 In other words, he
echoed the reply of his friend, Archbishop Laud, when he was
offered a cardinal’s hat if he would be converted: that Rome would
have to be ‘other than it is’ before he could consider such a step. He
would not deny his own deep convictions like M arcantonio de
Dom inis.79
Since that did not happen, he remained a Protestant and, i n f o r o
in t e r n o , an Anglican to the end. The Anglican Church might be in
convulsion, but he was loyal to its idea. In December 1644 he even

offered an Anglican solution for the religious problems of the
Netherlands. Ideally, he then wrote, the Remonstrants should
establish episcopacy on the Anglican model: they should choose
eminent men who should seek consecration by laying-on of hands
from Archbishop Ussher, then at Oxford with the King; then these
bishops should consecrate others, and so start the process of return
to the good old system whose rejection had led to all the trouble.80
Four months later, in April 1645, he wrote to his brother that ‘the
Anglican liturgy has always been held by all learned men to be the
best’ .81 Then he left for Sweden, to wait on Queen Christina and be
discharged from his embassy. O n his return journey he was
shipwrecked on the Pomeranian coast and died from exposure near
Rostock. Had he returned to Paris, being now liberated from his
embassy, which had previously inhibited him, he would no doubt
have communicated, as he had advised his wife and children to do
(and as they did), in the Anglican Church:82 that is, attended the
services in the house of the royalist British ambassador — the only
place in the world, it was said, where the now proscribed service of
his proposed universal Church was still publicly celebrated.
When we look at Grotius’s life in its own terms, as defined by him, it
has a tragic character. A boy-prodigy, initiated into public life at
fifteen, holding high office at twenty-six, an international statesman
at thirty, described, by no mean judge, as the greatest universal
scholar since Aristotle,83 at thirty-five his fortune changed, and for
the next twenty-seven years he was first a prisoner, then (apart from
a few disappointing months in 1631-2) an exile. From beginning to
end, his life was dominated by a single purpose, to which all his
activities, political, diplomatic, intellectual, were directed. At his
death, he had not only failed: he was completely isolated. His former
friends and allies, who for a time had shared, or seemed to share, his
ideals, had disappeared. Oldenbarnevelt and Laud had perished on
the block, M arcantonio de Dominis had died in the prison of the
Inquisition, Cyril Lucaris had been strangled in that of the Sultan.
It was, once again, a repetition of the story of his hero Erasmus: how
prophetic had been that warning of Jacques-Auguste de Thou!
Looking back on his career, we may say, with the wisdom of
hindsight, that his cause had been hopeless from the start. The
division of Christendom was a fact; the several forms of Christianity
had been hardened by mutual opposition and welded into the social
and political diversity of Europe. The mould had set even in the time
of Erasmus, and was far harder a century later in that of Grotius.
However, his ideas had a future which, in his last years, he can
hardly have foreseen: a future not in the restoration of religious
unity, which remained a chimera, but in the emergence, behind the
permanent religious fragmentation, of a new intellectual unity: the
unity of that natural law and that human reason which he had seen
as providing the essential means to religious unity. Francis Bacon
wrote, of the alchemists, that their operations, in their own terms,
were futile, but that they were not to be condemned since,
incidentally and accidentally, they led to the new science of
chemistry. Similarly Grotius, seeking to establish the universal
truth o f Christianity and the universal validity of law by placing
under both a universal human reason, laid a foundation for the
philosophy of the next century. Dutch Arminianism, separated from
the politics which had at first discredited it, and Polish Socinianism,
passing through it into Anglicanism and even into Calvinism itself,
by dissolving the bristling theological outworks of the established
Churches, cleared the way from the ideological jungle of the Thirty
Years W ar into the open landscape of the Enlightenment. Thereby,
as he had hoped, the ideological heat being taken out o f internatio

nal relations, the savagery of war was, for a time, reduced. As he
him self put it, even if his efforts for reunion should achieve no more
than making Christians gentler and more civil to each other, they
would not have been in vain: profuturi sumus aut huic aetati aut aliis.
The subject o f this essay is Grotius’s relations with England. For
accidental historical reasons - because the English Church, more
than any other, had preserved some continuity with Erasmian
reform and because England had not been sucked into the whirlpool
o f the W ars of Religion - Grotius saw England as central to his
programme. I have called it an idealized England, for he knew little
o f its reality. O n his brief official visit in 1613, he moved in a
charmed, or at least a closed circle. Thirty years later, when
England was engulfed in civil war, he would dwell nostalgically on
his memories of that delightful visit.84 But what did he know of the
real England? In all his vast surviving correspondence, he shows no
sign o f having conversed or corresponded with any Englishman
outside that circle. His scholarly interests did not bring him into
contact with Cam den or Ussher or Selden or Cotton or Bacon, his
political interests with Sir Henry Wotton or Sir W illiam Boswell or
Sir Thom as Roe. Self-centred, wedded to his own ideas, inflexible,
somewhat insensitive, and ignorant of the language, he had no
understanding o f the tradition which these men had inherited from
Elizabethan times. Perhaps, like Charles I and Laud, he regarded
them all as Puritans: a great mistake. After 1613 his contact with
England was either through foreigners - the two Casaubons, Isaac
and Meric, Vossius and Junius - or through committed members of
the party to which he had attached himself: first Andrewes and
Overall, then the Laudians: Laud himself, Christopher Wren,
Samson Johnson, Scudamore, and L aud’s agent in the Netherlands,
Stephen Gofle. The picture of England conveyed by these men was
partisan, black and white. O f the political conditions which limited
the freedom of English statesmen, bishops, ambassadors, he showed
no awareness. No wonder the cautious Andrewes, and even the
incautious Laud, were chary o f his support. No wonder Oxenstjerna
found him an imperfect diplomatist. No wonder he was surprised by
the ‘sedition’ which broke out in England in 1640.
However, there is the epilogue. A few years after his death, when
the political circumstances which had made and marred his career
had changed — when the house o f Orange was in eclipse in the
Hugo Grotius and England 8i
Netherlands, Laudianism and episcopacy itself extinct in England,

peace made and the Swedish army no longer formidable in Europe -
the underlying philosophy o f Grotius began to penetrate European
thought, and nowhere more than in England, where the new
Anglicanism o f Hammond and Sheldon and the new royalism of
Clarendon found it a more acceptable intellectual support than the
abrasive clericalism of the old Laudians or the radical new absolut
ism o f Thom as Hobbes.85 Grotius had not realized his hope of seeing
all his works published in his lifetime, but his heirs were less casual
than he had feared, and his sons Cornelius and Pieter de Groot
fulfilled his wishes. They published his still unpublished works - his
Tacitean Histories and Annals of the Netherlands, whose mag
nanimity towards his persecutor, Prince Maurice, would so impress
Pierre Bayle;86 his defence of Erastianism, which had shocked the
clergy o f all denominations; his Annotations on the New Testament,
which would inspire Henry Hammond and convert the great editor
o f Erasmus and publicist of the eighteenth-century Republic of
Letters, Jean Leclerc.87 They also resolved to publish his complete
theological works. This enterprise was delayed by war in the
Netherlands and a disastrous fire in the printing house: but when
the four folio volumes were at last ready for the press, their editor,
Pieter de Groot, could think of no more proper dedicatee than the
K ing o f Great Britain: was he not the grandson o f K ing James ‘of
immortal memory’, whom Grotius so venerated, and the supreme
governor of the restored Church which he had chosen as the model
for Christendom?88
In a published essay,89 I have suggested that the medium through
which the ideas of Grotius were separated from present politics and
thereby regained their value as an objective intellectual force was
the group of independent spirits who gathered in the circle of Lord
Falkland at Great Tew. The last question that I shall ask here is,
how were those ideas carried into that circle? For nowhere in the
surviving correspondence of Grotius do I find any sign that he knew
any of them, and on the other side no private papers of Falkland,
Chillingworth and their friends at that time survive. However, it is
clear that Grotius was well informed about matters which interested
him in England; he had many visitors in Paris who are not recorded
by him9° and we need not be deterred from speculation.
Although the chronology of the Great Tew circle is not at all clear,
it seems, from a poem by Falkland in praise of Grotius, which was
printed with George Sandys’s English translation of G rotius’s early

poem Christus P a tien sf that Falkland had met Grotius personally. If
so this must have been in 1631, when Falkland visited the Nether
lands to which Grotius, in that year, had returned.9* It was also in
1631 that Francis Coventry, a young man at Oxford and a pupil of
Gilbert Sheldon, who was one of Falkland’s close friends, undertook
to translate G rotius’s De Veritate into English. The translation was
anonymous, but Grotius knew the identity of the translator.93 We
also know that Chillingworth, the intellectual leader o f the Tew
cirlcle, who had just returned, disillusioned, from Douai, was ‘not
far from O xford’ - which could mean at T ew - in M arch 1632, when
he refused to commit him self to the Anglican Church, to which he
was being pressed, at the request of his godfather, Faud, by Juxon
and Sheldon, without first going to Holland to consult Grotius. We
do not know whether he actually went - probably not, for Grotius
was already preparing to leave the Netherlands for Ham burg - but
he would hardly have proposed the journey without some encour
agement or introduction, perhaps from Falkland. It therefore seems
possible that the intellectual starting-point for the reception of
G rotius’s ideas in England was a meeting of Grotius and Falkland in
Holland in 1631. I f so, that meeting o f one of the greatest of
Europeans with a young Englishman of no note or public position
had profounder and more lasting consequences than Grotius’s long
wooing o f Andrewes and Faud, and can be seen as a moment in
Anglo-Dutch intellectual history.
304 Sources
4 Hugo Grotius and England
1 Briefwisseling van Hugo Grotius, ed. P. C. Moelhuysen (The Hague

1928-), Ep. no. 25. The twelve volumes of this great series so far
published carry Grotius’s correspondence up to the end of 1642. I
therefore give references to it (as BHG) for that period, citing letters by
their number. For the period 1643—5 I quote from the older collection
published by Grotius’s grandsons Huig and Jan de Groot, Hugonis Grotii
Espistolae (Amsterdam 1687).
2 BHG , Epp. 1769, 1633.
3 Parallelon Rerumpublicarum liber tertius (Haarlem 1802), X X IV , pp. 34-5.
4 Hugo Grotius, Meletius, ed. Guillaume Posthumus-Meyjes (Leiden
1988).
5 BHG , Ep. 239.
6 BHG , Ep. 219.
7 BHG , Epp. 268, 271.
8 BHG, Epp. 259, 262, 265.
9 Ordinum Hollandiae ac Westfrisiae Pietas (1613).
10 Defensio Fidei Catholicae de Satisfactione Christi adversus Faustum Socinum
(written ?1614, published 1617).
11 E.g. Bishop Bramhall. See Bishop Bramhall’s Vindication of himself and the
episcopal clergy . . . (1672), p. 18.
12 Letters of John Chamberlain, ed. J. C. McClure (Philadelphia 1939), II, p.
III.
13 BHG, Ep. 266.
14 BHG, Ep. 403.
15 Hugonis Grotii Opera Theologica (1679) III, p. 654.
16 BHG, Ep. 595.
17 The relations of Grotius with Dudley Carleton are documented in PRO
State Papers, Holland, many of which are printed in Letters from and to
Sources 305
ed. Philip Yorke,
S ir D u d le y C a r le to n fr o m J a n u a r y 1 6 1 5 - 6 to D e cem b er 16 2 0 ,
2nd Earl of Hardwicke (1757). They are further illustrated by the
private correspondence of Carleton with John Chamberlain. See T h e
L e tters o f J o h n C h a m b e r la in , II, pp. h i , 138, 141 ; D u d le y C a rleto n to J o h n
C h a m b er la in 1 6 0 5 - 2 4 , ed. Maurice Lee jr. (Rutgers University Press
1972), pp. 247, 250, 253. The letter to de Dominis is printed in B H G ,
Ep. 542. See also Noel Malcolm, D e D o m in is ( 1 5 6 0 - 1 6 2 4 ) , V enetian,
A n g lic a n , E c u m e n is t a n d R e la p s e d H e r e tic (1984), pp. 58-60.
18 Carleton, L e tte r s , p. 253.
19 B H G , Ep. 595.
20 B H G , Ep. 590.
21 B H G , Ep. 653.
22 B H G , Epp. 653, 662, 858. Grotius remained a firm supporter of de
Dominis’s ideas. He was ‘a man of great judgment’, he wrote in 1639,
‘except for one thing: that he went to Rome’ (‘m a g n i vir in d ic ii, s i unum
e x c ip ia s , q u od R o m a m iv it ’ (Ep. 4288).
23 B H G , Ep. 668.
24 B H G , Ep. 998. As Louis Aubéry du Maurier wrote, Richelieu drove a
great man out of France to save 3,000 livres p.a. while spending 80,000
livres p.a. maintaining third-rate poets ‘to praise him continually as a
visible God’ (M é m o ir e s p o u r servir à T h isto ire de H o lla n d e (1680), p. 409).
25 B H G , Epp. 869, 874, 884.
26 B H G , Ep. 1864.
27 B H G , Epp. 965, 1460.
28 B H G , Epp. 782, 784, 788.
29 B H G , Epp. 1342, 1382.
30 Grotius’s letter to Laud does not survive, but it is mentioned by Laud to
Vossius on 7 Nov. 1631: ‘A t t u l it secum [Franciscus Junius] littera s ab
a m p lissim o viro H u g o n e G ro tio a d me d a ta s. G ra tissim a e illa e . . . sed rescribendi
otiu m non d a t u r ' (Laud, W orks (1847-60) VI, p. 297). Since Junius left
Grotius in Paris, the letter must have been written while Grotius was
still there. For his uncertainty about his return as late as April 1631 see
Grotius’s letter to his brother from Paris, B H G , Ep. 1613.
31 BHG, Ep. 1737.
32 G .J . V o ssii et clarorum virorum a d eum E p is to la e (1690), Ep. clviii, and cf.
ibid., Ep. elix.
33 ‘ . . . sed et ab A n g lia a liq u a me aura a ffla v it. D e lib e r a n d u m est diu quod
fa c ie n d u m est s e m e l'. B H G , Ep. 1745.
34 ‘ . . . sed ut nunc res su n t a p u d nos, de ea re ne cogitan du m q u id e m '. Laud, W orks
(1847-60) VI, p. 299.
35 V o ssii E p is to la e , Ep. clxxxii.
36 B H G , Ep. 1745.
37 B H G , Epp. 1815, 1819, 1909, 1921.
38 V o ssii E p is to la e , Epp. cxcv, ccx.
39 B H G , Ep. 1907.
40 B H G , Epp. 1929, 1933, 1935; M e r ic i C a sa u b o n i . . . E p is to la e , p. 8,
printed in Is a a c i C a sa u b o n i E p is to la e , 3rd edition (Rotterdam 1709).
41 B H G , Ep. 2011.
306 Sources
42 Louis Aubéry du Maurier, M é m o ir e s p o u r servir à l ’h isto ire de H o lla n d e

(1680), pp. 413-14.
43 Ibid.
44 Oxenstjerna’s complaints were made by his son Bengt Oxenstjerna,
who was Swedish ambassador at the Hague, to Grotius’s brother-in
law Nicolas van Reigersberch, Letter of 6 Aug. 1644, cited in R. W. Lee,
‘Grotius, the Last Phase’, ( T ra n sa ctio n s o f the G ro tiu s S o ciety , 1945).
45 As Grotius himself felt obliged to report to Oxenstjerna: ‘ in g ra tu s sane
G a llis h o sp es ’. B H G , Ep. 2734.
46 ‘m u ltu sq u e m ih i cum eo ser m o \ B H G , Ep. 2407.
47 Scudamore to Laud 2 Oct. 1637, cited in M. Gibson, A V iew o f the
C h u rch es o f D o o r , H o lm e L a c y a n d H e m p ste d (1737), pp. 78-81. Gf. B H G ,
Ep. 3355 ·
48 B H G , Epp. 3241-2, 3281, 4786.
49 For Laud’s compliments to Grotius retailed by him to Oxenstjerna, see
B H G , Epp. 3333, 3372.
50 G. H. Turnbull, H a r tlib , D u r y a n d C o m en iu s (1947), pp. 159-60. Dury
approached Grotius through Grotius’s protégé Samson Johnson, then
chaplain to the British ambassador to the German Princes, Sir Robert
Anstruther. On Johnson, see below, pp. 71-2.
51 Turnbull, op. cit., p. 161.
52 For Laud’s ambiguities, B H G 2207, 3372, 3416.
53 I have touched on this in my essay ‘Laudianism and Political Power’, in
C a th o lic s , A n g lic a n s a n d P u r ita n s (1987), pp. io6ff.
54 B H G , Epp. 514, 516, 539.
55 B H G , Ep. 660.
56 Laud to Goffe 30 Nov. 1638. B H G , Ep. 3869.
57 B H G , Epp. 2226, 2363, 2523. The States General employed another
lawyer, Dirck Graswinckel, to answer Seiden. Graswinckel was a
former protégé of Grotius and submitted his drafts to him. Grotius
sought to tone them down out of respect for Seiden and Swedish
interests. B H G , Epp. 2588, 2732, 2888.
58 For the affair of Samson Johnson see B H G , Epp. 2092, 2126, 3787,
3806, 3824, 4039, 4093, 4113, 4124, 4546, 5801; Laud, W o rk s VII, pp.
555 - 7 ; Cal. S . P . D orn . 1 6 3 9 , pp. 76-7, 1 6 3 9 - 4 0 , pp. 9-10, 305-6.
Cheynell’s charges are in his T h e R is e a n d G ro w th o f S o cin ia n ism e (1643).
59 Laud, W o rk s, VI, p. 297; B H G , Ep. 2126.
60 B H G , Ep. 4074.
61 Du Maurier, op. cit.
62 B H G , Ep. 4786.
63 B H G , Ep. 5331.
64 L. Twells, ‘The Life of Dr. Edward Pococke’ in T h e T h e o lo g ica l W orks o f
the lea rn ed D r . P o co c k e (1740) I, pp. 18-20.
65 B H G , Epp. 4599, 4653, 4801, 5011, 5018, 5029, 5039, 5312.
66 B H G , Ep. 2907.
67 B H G , Epp. 4599, 5029.
68 H u g o n is G r o tii O p era T h eo lo g ica (1679) III, pp. 672, 674.
69 G r o tii E p is to la e II, nos. 650, 674.
Sources 307
70 Johannes de Laet to Sir William Boswell, 9 May 1640. BL Add. MS
6395 fo· 59 ·
71 L e tters a n d J o u r n a ls o f R o b er t B a il l i e , ed. D. Laing (Edinburgh 1841-2),
I I I , p. 406.
72 L e ttres de G u i P a t i n ,
ed. J. H. Reveillé-Parise (1846), I, pp. 352, 364. For
Patin’s personal devotion to Grotius see ibid. II, p. 536; IV, pp. 793—4.
73 ‘ Verum est b ella fe r m e om nia s ec u li nostri p e r relig io n is d issid ia n asci au t a li \
G r o tii E p is to la e I, no. 1510.
74 G r o tii O pera T h eo lo g ica III, p. 684. Cf. G r o tii E p is to la e II, no. 686: ‘sta tu s
ille non m a lu s, q u a lis f u e r a t p o s t L ic e s tr ii tem pora a d nostram ca p tivita tem *.
75 G r o tii E p is to la e I, no. 1753.
76 G r o tii O p era T h eo lo g ica III, p. 744.
77 Hans Bots and Pierre Leroy, ‘Hugo Grotius et la Réunion des
Chrétiens’, 1 feme Siècle (1983).
78 O pera T h eo lo g ica III, p. 744.
79 The clearest expression of Grotius’s position in relation to Rome is in
the moving letter which he wrote in 1623 to J. Hemelaer, a canon of
Antwerp cathedral, who had helped him on his flight to France. B H G ,
Ep. 858.
80 G r o tii E p is to la e II, no. 739. The phrase lq u i XetpuGeciov sum erent at
A r ch iep isc o p o H ib e r n oq u i ib i est’ is ambiguous. ‘ I b i could mean in
Holland. In 1643 Ussher had contemplated emigrating to Holland and
tried, through Dury, who was by then chaplain to the Queen of
Bohemia at The Hague, to obtain a professorship at Leiden; but the
attempt failed. In December 1644 he was still at Oxford - though still
planning emigration.
82 See the evidence of Sir Richard Browne’s chaplain cited by Francis
Cholmondeley in 1707 and printed in Jean Leclerc’s edition of D e
V eritate R e lig io n is C h r istia n a e (Glasgow 1745).
83 The opinion was that of Jérôme Bignon, avocat-général in the Parle
ment of Paris, ‘ T u n des p lu s doctes su jets de ce s iè c le ’, cited by du Maurier,
op. cit., p. 393. Bignon encouraged Grotius to publish the Latin version
of D e V erita te , which is dedicated to him.
85 Grotius read Hobbes’s D e C iv e (1640) but, predictably, disapproved of
its philosophy ( G r o tii E p is to la e II, no. 648).
86 P. Bayle, D ic tio n n a ir e , s.v. ‘Grotius’.
87 Annie Barnes, J e a n L e cle r c 1 6 5 7 - 1 7 3 6 et la R é p u b liq u e de L e ttres (Paris
1938), pp. 46, 145 etc.
88 H u g o n is G r o tii O pera T h e o lo g ic a , Preface. Pieter de Groot’s letter to Sir
Joseph Williamson seeking permission to dedicate the work to Charles
II is printed in W. P. van Stockum, L a L ib r a ir ie , l ’Im pression et la P resse
(The Hague 1910), nos. 85-8.
89 C a th o lic s , A n g lic a n s a n d P u r ita n s , pp. 166—230, ‘The Great Tew Circle’.
90 E.g. John Milton, who visited him, introduced by Scudamore, in 1638,
and Gui Patin, who clearly saw him often: j ’étois tran sporté de j o i e q u a n d je
308 Sources
l ’avois entretenu’ (Lettres de Gui Patin, ed. J. H. Reveillé-Parise (1846), II,

P· 53 6)·
91 Christ’s Passion, a Tragédie (1640). Grotius was delighted with this
translation and sent his thanks to both Sandys and Falkland through
Meric Casaubon, who had sent him copies of the work. (B H G , Epp.
4405,4416,4458,4543.)
92 Such a meeting is assumed by H. J. McLachlan, Socinianism in
Seventeenth Century England (Oxford 1951), p. 69.
93 See my Catholics, Anglicans and Puritans, p. 218.

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H ugo G ro tiu s’s love-affair with England - a platonic love for an

Index o f Prohibited Books as too conciliatory to heretics. O n e o f the

T h e om ens, in general, seemed good. T h e truce o f 1609 between

H ow often has it happened in history? W e think o f the Polish, Swiss

prepared to endorse it absolutely. K in gs, after all, can change.

*See below, p. 92.

conditioned by the special circum stances o f their recent history.

O ld en b arn evelt and G rotius. T h ree months later the national

Im prisoned in the fortress o f Loevestein, alone, ‘behind iron bars’ ,

was forced to leave. H e chose to settle in H am burg, w hich he found

had left the N etherlands and was in H am burg. In a w arm and

and G rotius soon becam e friends and had frequent conversations

opponents and dw elling w ith satisfaction on the fulsom e com pli­

H e had quite enough trouble enforcing the authority o f his C h u rch

and this suspicion w as increased by his friendly discussions w ith the

form er friend, now colleague at T h e H ague, the evangelist D ury;

sedition - he was referring to the trouble in England - should not

— he w as a m ystery, feu M . Grotius, dont Von ignore la religion’ : it had

Greeks would be invited to adhere. Now, since the Protestants were

convulsion, but he was loyal to its idea. In December 1644 he even

as he had hoped, the ideological heat being taken out o f internatio­

Netherlands, Laudianism and episcopacy itself extinct in England,

printed with George Sandys’s English translation of G rotius’s early

4 Hugo Grotius and England

1 Briefwisseling van Hugo Grotius, ed. P. C. Moelhuysen (The Hague

42 Louis Aubéry du Maurier, M é m o ir e s p o u r servir à l ’h isto ire de H o lla n d e

l ’avois entretenu’ (Lettres de Gui Patin, ed. J. H. Reveillé-Parise (1846), II,

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opponents and dw elling w ith satisfaction on the fulsom e com pli

as he had hoped, the ideological heat being taken out o f internatio