The Embassy of Everaard van Weede 3 



The Importance of Dykvelt's Embassy 

 The importance of the embassy of Everaard van Weede, Lord 

 of Dykvelt, to England in 1687, has been variously estimated 

 by the many historians of the Revolution of 1688. Bishop Burnet, 

 who played an important role in all the counsels of William and 

 acted as the spiritual minister to Mary, speaks intimately of the 

 whole affair. He gives an account of the mission which purports 

 to be as he had it from the envoy himself. In Burnet's opinion the 

 embassy may from one point of view be looked upon as a failure, 

 for its ostensible objects were not attained. But Burnet believed 

 that the real significance of the embassy was to be found in "the 

 management of instructions to the Parliamentary leaders" and 

 that from this point of view the embassy was "more prosperous." 

 A secret cabal, he says, formed under the direction of Dykvelt, 

 "concerted such advices and advertisements as might be fit for 

 the prince to know, . . . and upon these the prince governed all 

 his motions." Burnet intimates that already at this time the 

 Prince had in mind some "change in the face of affairs as would 

 amaze all the world." 1 



Avaux, the French ambassador at the Hague, suspicious, 

 crafty, and vigilant, seems to have noted the whole project of 

 William at this time. Yet, he confesses many months afterwards, 

 when the enterprise was on the point of taking place, that he could 

 never understand how Dykvelt and the others had been able to 

 establish in England a sufficiently large commerce for fomenting 

 an uprising of so many different people or how they had distributed 

 money for this enterprise without the King of England discovering 

 anything of it. 2 



1 Burnet, History of His Own Time, p. 452. 



2 Avaux, Negotiations, October 21, 1688, vol. vi, p. 300. 



"Je mandai au Roi que je n'avais jamais pu comprendre comment Messrs. 

 Citters et Dickfeld, le Dr. Burnet et Zullestein, ont pu avoir etabli et entretenu en 

 Angleterre une assez grande correspondance pour fomenter un soulevement de tant 

 de differentes personnes, et qu'ils ayent meme distribue de l'argent pour ce sujet, 

 sans qu'on en ait pu decouvrir quelque chose a la Cour de S. M. Britannique. 

 C'est pourtant a leur cabale qu'on attribue ce que ce voit a cette heure: mais je 

 suis encore plus surpris de voir que depuis que l'affaire est decouverte, personne 

 n'ait donne connaissance de ce comploit a S. M. Britannique." 



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