12 - The establishment of an Orangist foreign policy

Summary

On 1 November the promised embassy from the United Provinces disembarked on English soil, hoping to achieve a triple alliance among France, England and the United Provinces to guarantee commerce and mutual defense. Despite “the demonstration of honor and kindness” to which they were treated, little progress was made in their negotiation by the following spring. It is true, of course, that the Dutch were irritated with the renewal of the Navigation Act and the discussion of a nationalist fishing measure in the House of Commons. But this was hardly the cause of the delay. It was soon clear to everyone that the Navigation Act was not being enforced. Instead the difficulties were ideological. “The treaty here with the Dutch is not at all advanced,” Charles's chief minister, the Earl of Clarendon, complained to his French correspondent Bastide, because of “sharp expostulations between us upon the affair of the Prince of Orange.” Given the ideological outlook of the three Dutch ambassadors this was hardly surprising. Simon Van Horn, a burgomaster of Amsterdam, was said to be “one of the chiefest” of the republican faction. Louis of Nassau, the Heer of Beeverweert, “shows himself outwardly as if he were neutral for that he being descended from the House of Orange, which he inwardly hated by reason of a reproach of his birth objected to him by the late Prince of Orange's mother.” The third ambassador, Rippenda Van Farnsum, was “well affected to the interest of Orange, but is overvoted by the two others.”