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Had the Estates-General really been an effective body in 1614, it might have taken a position similar to that of the seventeenth-century Parliament in England and established constitutional government in France, but its organization and personnel militated against such heroic action.
As to the matter of religion, he said he was willing to leave it to be settled by the estates-general; but doubted whether anything short of entire liberty of worship would ever satisfy the people.
More particularly his Majesty decrees that the august people do declare its will upon the formation of a constitution and other grave matters, by appointing representatives of the Third Estate to the Assembly of the Estates-General." "I don't understand anything about all that." "My dear Monsieur Pioche, that does not matter in the slightest.
Requesens was more than ever straitened for funds, wringing, with increasing difficulty, a slender subsidy, from time to time, out of the reluctant estates of Brabant, Flanders, and the other obedient provinces. While he was still at Duiveland, the estates-general sent him a long remonstrance against the misconduct of the soldiery, in answer to his demand for supplies.
This article he declared to be in direct contravention to the Ghent treaty, by which this point was left to the decision of a future assembly of the estates-general. Leoninus essayed, as well as he could, to dispute these positions. In their last interview, the Prince persisted in his intention of laying the whole matter before the states of Holland and Zealand.
He had been a physician, and for skill in his profession, as well as for contributions to the science of physics, he had received an honorary degree from St. Andrews University in Scotland, and for a time he was in the service of the count of Artois. The convocation of the Estates-General turned his attention to public affairs.
He had favored the fusion of the three councils. He had maintained that the estates-general ought to be forthwith assembled, that otherwise the debts of his Majesty and of the country could never be paid, and that the provinces would go to the French, to the Germans, or to the devil.
In the missive issued for this purpose, he formally agreed to abolish the whole tax, on condition that the estates-general of the Netherlands would furnish him with a yearly supply of two millions of florins.
He had favored the fusion of the three councils. He had maintained that the estates-general ought to be forthwith assembled, that otherwise the debts of his Majesty and of the country could never be paid, and that the provinces would go to the French, to the Germans, or to the devil.
He was convinced of its futility and unhesitatingly declined to consult it. Gradually the idea became current that the Estates-General was an out- worn, medieval institution, totally unfit for modern purposes, and that official business could best and therefore properly be conducted, not by the representatives of the chief social classes in the nation, but by personal appointees of the king.
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