He had no penny to give to the cause in which his nearest relatives mere so deeply involved and for which his only possible allies were pledged; but he was ready to give advice to all parties, and with ludicrous gravity imagined himself playing the umpire between great contending hosts, when in reality he was only playing the fool at the beck of masters before whom he quaked.
"You are not to vilipend my counsel," said he one day to a foreign envoy.
"I am neither a camel nor an ass to take up all this work on my shoulders.

Where would you find another king as willing to do it as I am ?" The King had little time and no money to give to serve his own family and allies and the cause of Protestantism, but he could squander vast sums upon worthless favourites, and consume reams of paper on controverted points of divinity.

The appointment of Vorstius to the chair of theology in Leyden aroused more indignation in his bosom, and occupied more of his time, than the conquests of Spinola in the duchies, and the menaces of Spain against Savoy and Bohemia.

He perpetually preached moderation to the States in the matter of the debateable territory, although moderation at that moment meant submission to the House of Austria.

He chose to affect confidence in the good faith of those who were playing a comedy by which no statesman could be deceived, but which had secured the approbation of the Solomon of the age.
But there was one man who was not deceived.