cast suspicion upon the Prince, but had been actuated solely by the
desire to find out the inclination of the States. The communications
which he had made on the subject were neither for discrediting the Prince
nor for counteracting the schemes for his advancement. On the contrary,
he had conferred with deputies from great cities like Dordtrecht,
Enkhuyzen, and Amsterdam, most devoted to the Contra-Remonstrant party,
and had told them that, if they chose to propose the subject themselves,
he would conduct himself to the best of his abilities in accordance with
the wishes of the Prince.
It would seem almost impossible for a statesman placed in Barneveld's
position to bear himself with more perfect loyalty both to the country
and to the Stadholder. His duty was to maintain the constitution and laws
so long as they remained unchanged. Should it appear that the States,
which legally represented the country, found the constitution defective,
he was ready to aid in its amendment by fair public and legal methods.
If Maurice wished to propose himself openly as a candidate for the
sovereignty, which had a generation before been conferred upon his
father, Barneveld would not only acquiesce in the scheme, but propose it.
Should it fail, he claimed the light to lay down all his offices and go
into exile.
He had never said that the Prince was intriguing for, or even desired,
the sovereignty. That the project existed among the party most opposed to
himself, he had sufficient proof. To the leaders of that party therefore
he suggested that the subject should be publicly discussed, guaranteeing
freedom of debate and his loyal support so far as lay within his power.
This was his answer to the accusation that he had meanly, secretly, and
falsely circulated statements that the Prince was aspiring to the
sovereignty.
[Great pains were taken, in the course of the interrogatories, to
elicit proof that the Advocate had concealed important diplomatic
information from the Prince. He was asked why, in his secret
instructions to Ambassador Langerac, he ordered him by an express
article to be very cautious about making communications to the
Prince. Searching questions were put in regard to these secret
instructions, which I have read in the Archives, and a copy of which
now lies before me. They are in the form of questions, some of them
almost puerile ones, addressed to Barneveld by the Ambassador then
just departing on his mission to France in 1614, with the answers
written in the margin by the Advocate. The following is all that
has reference to the Prince:
"Of what matters may I ordinarily write to his Excellency?"
Answer--"Of all great and important matters."
It was difficult to find much that was treasonable in that.]
Among the heterogeneous articles of accusation he was asked why he had
given no attention to those who had so, frequently proposed the formation
of the West India Company.
He replied that it had from old time been the opinion of the States of
Holland, and always his own, that special and private licenses for
traffic, navigation, and foreign commerce, were prejudicial to the
welfare of the land. He had always been most earnestly opposed to them,
detesting monopolies which interfered with that free trade and navigation
which should be common to all mankind. He had taken great pains however
in the years 1596 and 1597 to study the nature of the navigation and
trade to the East Indies in regard to the nations to be dealt with in
those regions, the nature of the wares bought and sold there, the
opposition to be encountered from the Spaniards and Portuguese against
the commerce of the Netherlanders, and the necessity of equipping vessels
both for traffic and defence, and had come to the conclusion that these
matters could best be directed by a general company. He explained in
detail the manner in which he had procured the blending of all the
isolated chambers into one great East India Corporation, the enormous
pains which it had cost him to bring it about, and the great commercial
and national success which had been the result. The Admiral of Aragon,
when a prisoner after the battle of Nieuwpoort, had told him, he said,
that the union of these petty corporations into one great whole had been
as disastrous a blow to the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal as the Union
of the Provinces at Utrecht had been. In regard to the West India
Company, its sole object, so far as he could comprehend it, had been to
equip armed vessels, not for trade but to capture and plunder Spanish
merchantmen and silver fleets in the West Indies and South America. This
was an advantageous war measure which he had favoured while the war
lasted. It was in no sense a commercial scheme however, and when the
Truce had been made--the company not having come into existence--he
failed to comprehend how its formation could be profitable for the
Netherlanders. On the contrary it would expressly invite or irritate the
Spaniards into a resumption of the war, an object which in his humble
opinion was not at all desirable.
Certainly these ideas were not especially reprehensible, but had they
been as shallow and despicable as they seem to us enlightened, it is
passing strange that they should have furnished matter for a criminal
prosecution.
It was doubtless a disappointment for the promoters of the company, the
chief of whom was a bankrupt, to fail in obtaining their charter, but it
was scarcely high-treason to oppose it. There is no doubt however that
the disapprobation with which Barneveld regarded the West India Company,
the seat of which was at Amsterdam, was a leading cause of the deadly
hostility entertained for him by the great commercial metropolis.
It was bad enough for the Advocate to oppose unconditional predestination
and the damnation of infants, but to frustrate a magnificent system of
privateering on the Spaniards in time of truce was an unpardonable crime.
The patience with which the venerable statesman submitted to the taunts,
ignorant and insolent cross-questionings, and noisy interruptions of his
judges, was not less remarkable than the tenacity of memory which enabled
him thus day after day, alone, unaided by books, manuscripts, or friendly
counsel, to reconstruct the record of forty years, and to expound the
laws of the land by an array of authorities, instances, and illustrations
in a manner that would be deemed masterly by one who had all the
resources of libraries, documents, witnesses, and secretaries at command.
Only when insidious questions were put tending to impute to him
corruption, venality, and treacherous correspondence with the enemy--for
they never once dared formally to accuse him of treason--did that almost
superhuman patience desert him.
He was questioned as to certain payments made by him to a certain van der
Vecken in Spanish coin. He replied briefly at first that his money
transactions with that man of business extended over a period of twenty
or thirty years, and amounted to many hundred thousands of florins,
growing out of purchases and sales of lands, agricultural enterprises on
his estates, moneys derived from his professional or official business
and the like. It was impossible for him to remember the details of every
especial money payment that might have occurred between them.
Then suddenly breaking forth into a storm of indignation; he could mark
from these questions, he said, that his enemies, not satisfied with
having wounded his heart with their falsehoods, vile forgeries, and
honour-robbing libels, were determined to break it. This he prayed that
God Almighty might avert and righteously judge between him and them.
It was plain that among other things they were alluding to the stale and
senseless story of the sledge filled with baskets of coin sent by the
Spanish envoys on their departure from the Hague, on conclusion of the
Truce, to defray expenses incurred by them for board and lodging of
servants, forage of horses, and the like-which had accidentally stopped
at Barneveld's door and was forthwith sent on to John Spronssen,
superintendent of such affairs. Passing over this wanton bit of calumny
with disgust, he solemnly asserted that he had never at any period of his
life received one penny nor the value of one penny from the King of
Spain, the Archdukes, Spinola, or any other person connected with the
enemy, saving only the presents publicly and mutually conferred according
to invariable custom by the high contracting parties, upon the respective
negotiators at conclusion of the Treaty of Truce. Even these gifts
Barneveld had moved his colleagues not to accept, but proposed that they
should all be paid into the public treasury. He had been overruled, he
said, but that any dispassionate man of tolerable intelligence could
imagine him, whose whole life had been a perpetual offence to Spain, to
be in suspicious relations with that power seemed to him impossible. The
most intense party spirit, yea, envy itself, must confess that he had
been among the foremost to take up arms for his country's liberties, and
had through life never faltered in their defence. And once more in that
mean chamber, and before a row of personal enemies calling themselves
judges, he burst into an eloquent and most justifiable sketch of the
career of one whom there was none else to justify and so many to assail.
From his youth, he said, he had made himself by his honourable and
patriotic deeds hopelessly irreconcilable with the Spaniards. He was one
of the advocates practising in the Supreme Court of Holland, who in the
very teeth of the Duke of Alva had proclaimed him a tyrant and had sworn
obedience to the Prince of Orange as the lawful governor of the land. He
was one of those who in the same year had promoted and attended private
gatherings for the advancement of the Reformed religion. He had helped to
levy, and had contributed to, funds for the national defence in the early
days of the revolt. These were things which led directly to the Council
of Blood and the gibbet. He had borne arms himself on various bloody
fields and had been perpetually a deputy to the rebel camps. He had been
the original mover of the Treaty of Union which was concluded between the
Provinces at Utrecht. He had been the first to propose and to draw up the
declaration of Netherland independence and the abjuration of the King of
Spain. He had been one of those who had drawn and passed the Act
establishing the late Prince of Orange as stadholder. Of the sixty
signers of these memorable declarations none were now living save himself
and two others. When the Prince had been assassinated, he had done his
best to secure for his son Maurice the sovereign position of which murder
had so suddenly deprived the father. He had been member of the memorable
embassies to France and England by which invaluable support for the
struggling Provinces had been obtained.
And thus he rapidly sketched the history of the great war of independence
in which he had ever been conspicuously employed on the patriotic side.
When the late King of France at the close of the century had made peace
with Spain, he had been sent as special ambassador to that monarch, and
had prevailed on him, notwithstanding his treaty with the enemy, to
continue his secret alliance with the States and to promise them a large
subsidy, pledges which had been sacredly fulfilled. It was on that
occasion that Henry, who was his debtor for past services, professional,
official, and perfectly legitimate, had agreed, when his finances should
be in better condition, to discharge his obligations; over and above the
customary diplomatic present which he received publicly in common with
his colleague Admiral Nassau. This promise, fulfilled a dozen years
later, had been one of the senseless charges of corruption brought
against him. He had been one of the negotiators of the Truce in which
Spain had been compelled to treat with her revolted provinces as with
free states and her equals. He had promoted the union of the Protestant
princes and their alliance with France and the United States in
opposition to the designs of Spain and the League. He had organized and
directed the policy by which the forces of England, France, and
Protestant Germany had possessed themselves of the debateable land. He
had resisted every scheme by which it was hoped to force the States from
their hold of those important citadels. He had been one of the foremost
promoters of the East India Company, an organization which the Spaniards
confessed had been as damaging to them as the Union of the Provinces
itself had been.
The idiotic and circumstantial statements, that he had conducted
Burgomaster van Berk through a secret staircase of his house into his
private study for the purpose of informing him that the only way for the
States to get out of the war was to submit themselves once more to their
old masters, so often forced upon him by the judges, he contradicted with
disdain and disgust. He had ever abhorred and dreaded, he said, the House
of Spain, Austria, and Burgundy. His life had passed in open hostility to
that house, as was known to all mankind. His mere personal interests,
apart from higher considerations, would make an approach to the former
sovereign impossible, for besides the deeds he had already alluded to, he
had committed at least twelve distinct and separate acts, each one of
which would be held high-treason by the House of Austria, and he had
learned from childhood that these are things which monarchs never forget.
The tales of van Berk were those of a personal enemy, falsehoods scarcely
worth contradicting.
He was grossly and enormously aggrieved by the illegal constitution of
the commission. He had protested and continued to protest against it. If
that protest were unheeded, he claimed at least that those men should be
excluded from the board and the right to sit in judgment upon his person
and his deeds who had proved themselves by words and works to be his
capital enemies, of which fact he could produce irrefragable evidence. He
claimed that the Supreme Court of Holland, or the High Council, or both
together, should decide upon that point. He held as his personal enemies,
he said, all those who had declared that he, before or since the Truce
down to the day of his arrest, had held correspondence with the
Spaniards, the Archdukes, the Marquis Spinola, or any one on that side,
had received money, money value, or promises of money from them, and in
consequence had done or omitted to do anything whatever. He denounced
such tales as notorious, shameful, and villainous falsehoods, the
utterers and circulators of them as wilful liars, and this he was ready
to maintain in every appropriate way for the vindication of the truth and
his own honour. He declared solemnly before God Almighty to the
States-General and to the States of Holland that his course in the
religious matter had been solely directed to the strengthening of the
Reformed religion and to the political security of the provinces and
cities. He had simply desired that, in the awful and mysterious matter of
predestination, the consciences of many preachers and many thousands of
good citizens might be placed in tranquillity, with moderate and
Christian limitations against all excesses.
From all these reasons, he said, the commissioners, the States-General,
the Prince, and every man in the land could clearly see, and were bound
to see, that he was the same man now that he was at the beginning of the
war, had ever been, and with God's help should ever remain.
The proceedings were kept secret from the public and, as a matter of
course, there had been conflicting rumours from day to day as to the
probable result of these great state trials. In general however it was
thought that the prisoner would be acquitted of the graver charges, or
that at most he would be permanently displaced from all office and
declared incapable thenceforth to serve the State. The triumph of the
Contra-Remonstrants since the Stadholder had placed himself at the head
of them, and the complete metamorphosis of the city governments even in
the strongholds of the Arminian party seemed to render the permanent
political disgrace of the Advocate almost a matter of certainty.
The first step that gave rise to a belief that he might be perhaps more
severely dealt with than had been anticipated was the proclamation by the
States-General of a public fast and humiliation for the 17th April.
In this document it was announced that "Church and State--during several
years past having been brought into great danger of utter destruction
through certain persons in furtherance of their ambitious designs--had
been saved by the convocation of a National Synod; that a lawful sentence
was soon to be expected upon those who had been disturbing the
Commonwealth; that through this sentence general tranquillity would
probably be restored; and that men were now to thank God for this result,
and pray to Him that He would bring the wicked counsels and stratagems of
the enemy against these Provinces to naught."
All the prisoners were asked if they too would like in their chambers of
bondage to participate in the solemnity, although the motive for the
fasting and prayer was not mentioned to them. Each of them in his
separate prison room, of course without communication together, selected
the 7th Psalm and sang it with his servant and door-keeper.
From the date of this fast-day Barneveld looked upon the result of his
trial as likely to be serious.
Many clergymen refused or objected to comply with the terms of this
declaration. Others conformed with it greedily, and preached lengthy
thanksgiving sermons, giving praise to God that, He had confounded the
devices of the ambitious and saved the country from the "blood bath"
which they had been preparing for it.
The friends of Barneveld became alarmed at the sinister language of this
proclamation, in which for the first time allusions had been made to a
forthcoming sentence against the accused.
Especially the staunch and indefatigable du Maurier at once addressed
himself again to the States-General. De Boississe had returned to France,
having found that the government of a country torn, weakened, and
rendered almost impotent by its own internecine factions, was not likely
to exert any very potent influence on the fate of the illustrious
prisoner.
The States had given him to understand that they were wearied with his
perpetual appeals, intercessions, and sermons in behalf of mercy. They
made him feel in short that Lewis XIII. and Henry IV. were two entirely
different personages.
Du Maurier however obtained a hearing before the Assembly on the 1st May,
where he made a powerful and manly speech in presence of the Prince,
urging that the prisoners ought to be discharged unless they could be
convicted of treason, and that the States ought to show as much deference
to his sovereign as they had always done to Elizabeth of England. He made
a personal appeal to Prince Maurice, urging upon him how much it would
redound to his glory if he should now in generous and princely fashion
step forward in behalf of those by whom he deemed himself to have been
personally offended.
His speech fell upon ears hardened against such eloquence and produced no
effect.
Meantime the family of Barneveld, not yet reduced to despair, chose to
take a less gloomy view of the proclamation. Relying on the innocence of
the great statesman, whose aims, in their firm belief, had ever been for
the welfare and glory of his fatherland, and in whose heart there had
never been kindled one spark of treason, they bravely expected his
triumphant release from his long and, as they deemed it, his iniquitous
imprisonment.
On this very 1st of May, in accordance with ancient custom, a may-pole
was erected on the Voorhout before the mansion of the captive statesman,
and wreaths of spring flowers and garlands of evergreen decorated the
walls within which were such braised and bleeding hearts. These
demonstrations of a noble hypocrisy, if such it were, excited the wrath,
not the compassion, of the Stadholder, who thought that the aged matron
and her sons and daughters, who dwelt in that house of mourning, should
rather have sat in sackcloth with ashes on their heads than indulge in
these insolent marks of hope and joyful expectation.
It is certain however that Count William Lewis, who, although most
staunch on the Contra-Remonstrant side, had a veneration for the Advocate
and desired warmly to save him, made a last and strenuous effort for that
purpose.
It was believed then, and it seems almost certain, that, if the friends
of the Advocate had been willing to implore pardon for him, the sentence
would have been remitted or commuted. Their application would have been
successful, for through it his guilt would seem to be acknowledged.
Count William sent for the Fiscal Duyck. He asked him if there were no
means of saving the life of a man who was so old and had done the country
so much service. After long deliberation, it was decided that Prince
Maurice should be approached on the subject. Duyck wished that the Count
himself would speak with his cousin, but was convinced by his reasoning
that it would be better that the Fiscal should do it. Duyck had a long
interview accordingly with Maurice, which was followed by a very secret
one between them both and Count William. The three were locked up
together, three hours long, in the Prince's private cabinet. It was then
decided that Count William should go, as if of his own accord, to the
Princess-Dowager Louise, and induce her to send for some one of
Barneveld's children and urge that the family should ask pardon for him.
She asked if this was done with the knowledge of the Prince of Orange, or
whether he would not take it amiss. The Count eluded the question, but
implored her to follow his advice.
The result was an interview between the Princess and Madame de
Groeneveld, wife of the eldest son. That lady was besought to apply, with
the rest of the Advocate's children, for pardon to the Lords States, but
to act as if it were done of her own impulse, and to keep their interview
profoundly secret.
Madame de Groeneveld took time to consult the other members of the family
and some friends. Soon afterwards she came again to the Princess, and
informed her that she had spoken with the other children, and that they
could not agree to the suggestion. "They would not move one step in
it--no, not if it should cost him his head."
The Princess reported the result of this interview to Count William, at
which both were so distressed that they determined to leave the Hague.
There is something almost superhuman in the sternness of this stoicism.
Yet it lay in the proud and highly tempered character of the
Netherlanders. There can be no doubt that the Advocate would have
expressly dictated this proceeding if he had been consulted. It was
precisely the course adopted by himself. Death rather than life with a
false acknowledgment of guilt and therefore with disgrace. The loss of
his honour would have been an infinitely greater triumph to his enemies
than the loss of his head.
There was no delay in drawing up the sentence. Previously to this
interview with the widow of William the Silent, the family of the
Advocate had presented to the judges three separate documents, rather in
the way of arguments than petitions, undertaking to prove by elaborate
reasoning and citations of precedents and texts of the civil law that the
proceedings against him were wholly illegal, and that he was innocent of
every crime.
No notice had been taken of those appeals.
Upon the questions and answers as already set forth the sentence soon
followed, and it may be as well that the reader should be aware, at this
point in the narrative, of the substance of that sentence so soon to be
pronounced. There had been no indictment, no specification of crime.
There had been no testimony or evidence. There had been no argument for
the prosecution or the defence. There had been no trial whatever. The
prisoner was convicted on a set of questions to which he had put in
satisfactory replies. He was sentenced on a preamble. The sentence was a
string of vague generalities, intolerably long, and as tangled as the
interrogatories. His proceedings during a long career had on the whole
tended to something called a "blood bath"--but the blood bath had never
occurred.
With an effrontery which did not lack ingenuity, Barneveld's defence was
called by the commissioners his confession, and was formally registered
as such in the process and the sentence; while the fact that he had not
been stretched upon the rack during his trial, nor kept in chains for the
eight months of his imprisonment, were complacently mentioned as proofs
of exceptionable indulgence.
"Whereas the prisoner John of Barneveld," said the sentence, "without
being put to the torture and without fetters of iron, has confessed . . .
to having perturbed religion, greatly afflicted the Church of God, and
carried into practice exorbitant and pernicious maxims of State . . .
inculcating by himself and accomplices that each province had the right
to regulate religious affairs within its own territory, and that other
provinces were not to concern themselves therewith"--therefore and for
many other reasons he merited punishment.
He had instigated a protest by vote of three provinces against the
National Synod. He had despised the salutary advice of many princes and
notable personages. He had obtained from the King of Great Britain
certain letters furthering his own opinions, the drafts of which he had
himself suggested, and corrected and sent over to the States' ambassador
in London, and when written out, signed, and addressed by the King to the
States-General, had delivered them without stating how they had been
procured.
Afterwards he had attempted to get other letters of a similar nature from
the King, and not succeeding had defamed his Majesty as being a cause of
the troubles in the Provinces. He had permitted unsound theologians to be
appointed to church offices, and had employed such functionaries in
political affairs as were most likely to be the instruments of his own
purposes. He had not prevented vigorous decrees from being enforced in
several places against those of the true religion. He had made them
odious by calling them Puritans, foreigners, and "Flanderizers," although
the United Provinces had solemnly pledged to each other their lives,
fortunes, and blood by various conventions, to some of which the prisoner
was himself a party, to maintain the Reformed, Evangelical, religion
only, and to, suffer no change in it to be made for evermore.
In order to carry out his design and perturb the political state of the
Provinces he had drawn up and caused to be enacted the Sharp Resolution
of 4th August 1617. He had thus nullified the ordinary course of justice.
He had stimulated the magistrates to disobedience, and advised them to
strengthen themselves with freshly enlisted military companies. He had
suggested new-fangled oaths for the soldiers, authorizing them to refuse
obedience to the States-General and his Excellency. He had especially
stimulated the proceedings at Utrecht. When it was understood that the
Prince was to pass through Utrecht, the States of that province not
without the prisoner's knowledge had addressed a letter to his
Excellency, requesting him not to pass through their city. He had written
a letter to Ledenberg suggesting that good watch should be held at the
town gates and up and down the river Lek. He had desired that Ledenberg
having read that letter should burn it. He had interfered with the
cashiering of the mercenaries at Utrecht. He had said that such
cashiering without the consent of the States of that province was an act
of force which would justify resistance by force.
Although those States had sent commissioners to concert measures with the
Prince for that purpose, he had advised them to conceal their
instructions until his own plan for the disbandment could be carried out.
At a secret meeting in the house of Tresel, clerk of the States-General,
between Grotius, Hoogerbeets, and other accomplices, it was decided that
this advice should be taken. Report accordingly was made to the prisoner.
He had advised them to continue in their opposition to the National
Synod.
He had sought to calumniate and blacken his Excellency by saying that he
aspired to the sovereignty of the Provinces. He had received intelligence
on that subject from abroad in ciphered letters.
He had of his own accord rejected a certain proposed, notable alliance of
the utmost importance to this Republic.
[This refers, I think without doubt, to the conversation between
King James and Caron at the end of the year 1815.]
He had received from foreign potentates various large sums of money and
other presents.
All "these proceedings tended to put the city of Utrecht into a
blood-bath, and likewise to bring the whole country, and the person of
his Excellency into the uttermost danger."
This is the substance of the sentence, amplified by repetitions and
exasperating tautology into thirty or forty pages.
It will have been perceived by our analysis of Barneveld's answers to the
commissioners that all the graver charges which he was now said to have
confessed had been indignantly denied by him or triumphantly justified.
It will also be observed that he was condemned for no categorical
crime--lese-majesty, treason, or rebellion. The commissioners never
ventured to assert that the States-General were sovereign, or that the
central government had a right to prescribe a religious formulary for all
the United Provinces. They never dared to say that the prisoner had been
in communication with the enemy or had received bribes from him.
Of insinuation and implication there was much, of assertion very little,
of demonstration nothing whatever.
But supposing that all the charges had been admitted or proved, what
course would naturally be taken in consequence? How was a statesman who
adhered to the political, constitutional, and religious opinions on which
he had acted, with the general acquiescence, during a career of more than
forty years, but which were said to be no longer in accordance with
public opinion, to be dealt with? Would the commissioners request him to
retire honourably from the high functions which he had over and over
again offered to resign? Would they consider that, having fairly
impeached and found him guilty of disturbing the public peace by
continuing to act on his well-known legal theories, they might deprive
him summarily of power and declare him incapable of holding office again?
The conclusion of the commissioners was somewhat more severe than either
of these measures. Their long rambling preamble ended with these decisive
words:
"Therefore the judges, in name of the Lords States-General, condemn the
prisoner to be taken to the Binnenhof, there to be executed with the
sword that death may follow, and they declare all his property
confiscated."
The execution was to take place so soon as the sentence had been read to
the prisoner.
After the 1st of May Barneveld had not appeared before his judges. He had
been examined in all about sixty times.
In the beginning of May his servant became impatient. "You must not be
impatient," said his master. "The time seems much longer because we get
no news now from the outside. But the end will soon come. This delay
cannot last for ever."
Intimation reached him on Saturday the 11th May that the sentence was
ready and would soon be pronounced.
"It is a bitter folk," said Barneveld as he went to bed. "I have nothing
good to expect of them." Next day was occupied in sewing up and
concealing his papers, including a long account of his examination, with
the questions and answers, in his Spanish arm-chair. Next day van der
Meulen said to the servant, "I will bet you a hundred florins that you'll
not be here next Thursday."
The faithful John was delighted, not dreaming of the impending result.
It was Sunday afternoon, 12th May, and about half past five o'clock.
Barneveld sat in his prison chamber, occupied as usual in writing,
reviewing the history of the past, and doing his best to reduce into
something like order the rambling and miscellaneous interrogatories, out
of which his trial had been concocted, while the points dwelt in his
memory, and to draw up a concluding argument in his own defence. Work
which according to any equitable, reasonable, or even decent procedure
should have been entrusted to the first lawyers of the country--preparing
the case upon the law and the facts with the documents before them, with
the power of cross-questioning witnesses and sifting evidence, and
enlightened by constant conferences with the illustrious prisoner
himself--came entirely upon his own shoulders, enfeebled as he was by
age, physical illness, and by the exhaustion of along imprisonment.
Without books, notes of evidence, or even copies of the charges of which
he stood accused, he was obliged to draw up his counter-arguments against
the impeachment and then by aid of a faithful valet to conceal his
manuscript behind the tapestry of the chamber, or cause them to be sewed
up in the lining of his easy-chair, lest they should be taken from him by
order of the judges who sat in the chamber below.
While he was thus occupied in preparations for his next encounter with
the tribunal, the door opened, and three gentlemen entered. Two were the
prosecuting officers of the government, Fiscal Sylla and Fiscal van
Leeuwen. The other was the provost-marshal, Carel de Nijs. The servant
was directed to leave the room.
Barneveld had stepped into his dressing-room on hearing footsteps, but
came out again with his long furred gown about him as the three entered.
He greeted them courteously and remained standing, with his hands placed
on the back of his chair and with one knee resting carelessly against the
arm of it. Van Leeuwen asked him if he would not rather be seated, as
they brought a communication from the judges. He answered in the
negative. Von Leeuwen then informed him that he was summoned to appear
before the judges the next morning to hear his sentence of death.
"The sentence of death!" he exclaimed, without in the least changing his
position; "the sentence of death! the sentence of death!" saying the
words over thrice, with an air of astonishment rather than of horror. "I
never expected that! I thought they were going to hear my defence again.
I had intended to make some change in my previous statements, having set
some things down when beside myself with choler."
He then made reference to his long services. Van Leeuwen expressed
himself as well acquainted with them. "He was sorry," he said, "that his
lordship took this message ill of him."
"I do not take it ill of you," said Barneveld, "but let them," meaning
the judges, "see how they will answer it before God. Are they thus to
deal with a true patriot? Let me have pen, ink, and paper, that for the
last time I may write farewell to my wife."
"I will go ask permission of the judges," said van Leenwen, "and I cannot
think that my lord's request will be refused."
While van Leeuwen was absent, the Advocate exclaimed, looking at the
other legal officer:
"Oh, Sylla, Sylla, if your father could only have seen to what uses they
would put you!"
Sylla was silent.
Permission to write the letter was soon received from de Voogt, president
of the commission. Pen, ink, and paper were brought, and the prisoner
calmly sat down to write, without the slightest trace of discomposure
upon his countenance or in any of his movements.
While he was writing, Sylla said with some authority, "Beware, my lord,
what you write, lest you put down something which may furnish cause for
not delivering the letter."
Barneveld paused in his writing, took the glasses from his eyes, and
looked Sylla in the face.
"Well, Sylla," he said very calmly, "will you in these my last moments
lay down the law to me as to what I shall write to my wife?"
He then added with a half-smile, "Well, what is expected of me?"
"We have no commission whatever to lay down the law," said van Leeuwen.
"Your worship will write whatever you like."
While he was writing, Anthony Walaeus came in, a preacher and professor
of Middelburg, a deputy to the Synod of Dordtrecht, a learned and amiable
man, sent by the States-General to minister to the prisoner on this
supreme occasion; and not unworthy to be thus selected.
The Advocate, not knowing him, asked him why he came.
"I am not here without commission," said the clergyman. "I come to
console my lord in his tribulation."
"I am a man," said Barneveld; "have come to my present age, and I know
how to console myself. I must write, and have now other things to do."
The preacher said that he would withdraw and return when his worship was
at leisure.
"Do as you like," said the Advocate, calmly going on with his writing.
When the letter was finished, it was sent to the judges for their
inspection, by whom it was at once forwarded to the family mansion in the
Voorhout, hardly a stone's throw from the prison chamber.
Thus it ran:
"Very dearly beloved wife, children, sons-in-law, and grandchildren, I
greet you altogether most affectionately. I receive at this moment the
very heavy and sorrowful tidings that I, an old man, for all my services
done well and faithfully to the Fatherland for so many years (after
having performed all respectful and friendly offices to his Excellency
the Prince with upright affection so far as my official duty and vocation
would permit, shown friendship to many people of all sorts, and wittingly
injured no man), must prepare myself to die to-morrow.
"I console myself in God the Lord, who knows all hearts, and who will
judge all men. I beg you all together to do the same. I have steadily and
faithfully served My Lords the States of Holland and their nobles and
cities. To the States of Utrecht as sovereigns of my own Fatherland I
have imparted at their request upright and faithful counsel, in order to
save them from tumults of the populace, and from the bloodshed with which
they had so long been threatened. I had the same views for the cities of
Holland in order that every one might be protected and no one injured.
"Live together in love and peace. Pray for me to Almighty God, who will
graciously hold us all in His holy keeping.
"From my chamber of sorrow, the 12th May 1619.
"Your very dear husband, father, father-in-law, and grandfather,
"JOHN OF BARNEVELD."
It was thought strange that the judges should permit so simple and clear
a statement, an argument in itself, to be forwarded. The theory of his
condemnation was to rest before the public on his confessions of guilt,
and here in the instant of learning the nature of the sentence in a few
hours to be pronounced upon him he had in a few telling periods declared
his entire innocence. Nevertheless the letter had been sent at once to
its address.
So soon as this sad business had been disposed of, Anthony Walaeus
returned. The Advocate apologized to the preacher for his somewhat abrupt
greeting on his first appearance. He was much occupied and did not know
him, he said, although he had often heard of him. He begged him, as well
as the provost-marshal, to join him at supper, which was soon brought.
Barneveld ate with his usual appetite, conversed cheerfully on various
topics, and pledged the health of each of his guests in a glass of beer.
Contrary to his wont he drank at that repast no wine. After supper he
went out into the little ante-chamber and called his servant, asking him
how he had been faring. Now John Franken had just heard with grief
unspeakable the melancholy news of his master's condemnation from two
soldiers of the guard, who had been sent by the judges to keep additional
watch over the prisoner. He was however as great a stoic as his master,
and with no outward and superfluous manifestations of woe had simply
implored the captain-at-arms, van der Meulen, to intercede with the
judges that he might be allowed to stay with his lord to the last.
Meantime he had been expressly informed that he was to say nothing to the
Advocate in secret, and that his master was not to speak to him in a low
tone nor whisper in his ear.
When the Advocate came out into the ante-chamber and looking over his
shoulder saw the two soldiers he at once lowered his voice.
"Hush-speak low," he whispered; "this is too cruel." John then informed
him of van der Meulen's orders, and that the soldiers had also been
instructed to look to it sharply that no word was exchanged between
master and man except in a loud voice.
"Is it possible," said the Advocate, "that so close an inspection is held
over me in these last hours? Can I not speak a word or two in freedom?
This is a needless mark of disrespect."
The soldiers begged him not to take their conduct amiss as they were
obliged strictly to obey orders.
He returned to his chamber, sat down in his chair, and begged Walaeus to
go on his behalf to Prince Maurice.
"Tell his Excellency," said he, "that I have always served him with
upright affection so far as my office, duties, and principles permitted.
If I, in the discharge of my oath and official functions, have ever done
anything contrary to his views, I hope that he will forgive it, and that
he will hold my children in his gracious favour."
It was then ten o'clock. The preacher went downstairs and crossed the
courtyard to the Stadholder's apartments, where he at once gained
admittance.
Maurice heard the message with tears in his eyes, assuring Walaeus that
he felt deeply for the Advocate's misfortunes. He had always had much
affection for him, he said, and had often warned him against his mistaken
courses. Two things, however, had always excited his indignation. One was
that Barneveld had accused him of aspiring to sovereignty. The other that
he had placed him in such danger at Utrecht. Yet he forgave him all. As
regarded his sons, so long as they behaved themselves well they might
rely on his favour.
As Walaeus was about to leave the apartment, the Prince called him back.
"Did he say anything of a pardon?" he asked, with some eagerness.
"My Lord," answered the clergyman, "I cannot with truth say that I
understood him to make any allusion to it."
Walaeus returned immediately to the prison chamber and made his report of
the interview. He was unwilling however to state the particulars of the
offence which Maurice declared himself to have taken at the acts of the
Advocate.
But as the prisoner insisted upon knowing, the clergyman repeated the
whole conversation.
"His Excellency has been deceived in regard to the Utrecht business,"
said Barneveld, "especially as to one point. But it is true that I had
fear and apprehension that he aspired to the sovereignty or to more
authority in the country. Ever since the year 1600 I have felt this fear
and have tried that these apprehensions might be rightly understood."
While Walaeus had been absent, the Reverend Jean la Motte (or Lamotius)
and another clergyman of the Hague had come to the prisoner's apartment.
La Motte could not look upon the Advocate's face without weeping, but the
others were more collected. Conversation now ensued among the four; the
preachers wishing to turn the doomed statesman's thought to the
consolations of religion.
But it was characteristic of the old lawyer's frame of mind that even now
he looked at the tragical position in which he found himself from a
constitutional and controversial point of view. He was perfectly calm and
undaunted at the awful fate so suddenly and unexpectedly opened before
his eyes, but he was indignant at what he esteemed the ignorance,
injustice, and stupidity of the sentence to be pronounced against him.
"I am ready enough to die," he said to the three clergymen, "but I cannot
comprehend why I am to die. I have done nothing except in obedience to
the laws and privileges of the land and according to my oath, honour, and
conscience."
"These judges," he continued, "come in a time when other maxims prevail
in the State than those of my day. They have no right therefore to sit in
judgment upon me."
The clergymen replied that the twenty-four judges who had tried the case
were no children and were conscientious men; that it was no small thing
to condemn a man, and that they would have to answer it before the
Supreme Judge of all.
"I console myself," he answered, "in the Lord my God, who knows all
hearts and shall judge all men. God is just.
"They have not dealt with me," he continued, "as according to law and
justice they were bound to deal. They have taken away from me my own
sovereign lords and masters and deposed them. To them alone I was
responsible. In their place they have put many of my enemies who were
never before in the government, and almost all of whom are young men who
have not seen much or read much. I have seen and read much, and know that
from such examples no good can follow. After my death they will learn for
the first time what governing means."
"The twenty-four judges are nearly all of them my enemies. What they have
reproached me with, I have been obliged to hear. I have appealed against
these judges, but it has been of no avail. They have examined me in
piecemeal, not in statesmanlike fashion. The proceedings against me have
been much too hard. I have frequently requested to see the notes of my
examination as it proceeded, and to confer upon it with aid and counsel
of friends, as would be the case in all lands governed by law. The
request was refused. During this long and wearisome affliction and misery
I have not once been allowed to speak to my wife and children. These are
indecent proceedings against a man seventy-two years of age, who has
served his country faithfully for three-and-forty years. I bore arms with
the volunteers at my own charges at the siege of Haarlem and barely
escaped with life."
It was not unnatural that the aged statesman's thoughts should revert in
this supreme moment to the heroic scenes in which he had been an actor
almost a half-century before. He could not but think with bitterness of
those long past but never forgotten days when he, with other patriotic
youths, had faced the terrible legions of Alva in defence of the
Fatherland, at a time when the men who were now dooming him to a
traitor's death were unborn, and who, but for his labours, courage,
wisdom, and sacrifices, might have never had a Fatherland to serve, or a
judgment-seat on which to pronounce his condemnation.
Not in a spirit of fretfulness, but with disdainful calm, he criticised
and censured the proceedings against himself as a violation of the laws
of the land and of the first principles of justice, discussing them as
lucidly and steadily as if they had been against a third person.
The preachers listened, but had nothing to say. They knew not of such
matters, they said, and had no instructions to speak of them. They had
been sent to call him to repentance for his open and hidden sins and to
offer the consolations of religion.
"I know that very well," he said, "but I too have something to say
notwithstanding." The conversation then turned upon religious topics, and
the preachers spoke of predestination.
"I have never been able to believe in the matter of high predestination,"
said the Advocate. "I have left it in the hands of God the Lord. I hold
that a good Christian man must believe that he through God's grace and by
the expiation of his sin through our Redeemer Jesus Christ is predestined
to be saved, and that this belief in his salvation, founded alone on
God's grace and the merits of our Redeemer Jesus Christ, comes to him
through the same grace of God. And if he falls into great sins, his firm
hope and confidence must be that the Lord God will not allow him to
continue in them, but that, through prayer for grace and repentance, he
will be converted from evil and remain in the faith to the end of his
life."
These feelings, he said, he had expressed fifty-two years before to three
eminent professors of theology in whom he confided, and they had assured
him that he might tranquilly continue in such belief without examining
further. "And this has always been my creed," he said.
The preachers replied that faith is a gift of God and not given to all
men, that it must be given out of heaven to a man before he could be
saved. Hereupon they began to dispute, and the Advocate spoke so
earnestly and well that the clergymen were astonished and sat for a time
listening to him in silence.
He asked afterwards about the Synod, and was informed that its decrees
had not yet been promulgated, but that the Remonstrants had been
condemned.
"It is a pity," said he. "One is trying to act on the old Papal system,
but it will never do. Things have gone too far. As to the Synod, if My
Lords the States of Holland had been heeded there would have been first a
provincial synod and then a national one."--"But," he added, looking the
preachers in the face, "had you been more gentle with each other, matters
would not have taken so high a turn. But you have been too fierce one
against the other, too full of bitter party spirit."
They replied that it was impossible for them to act against their
conscience and the supreme authority. And then they asked him if there
was nothing that troubled him in, his conscience in the matters for which
he must die; nothing for which he repented and sorrowed, and for which he
would call upon God for mercy.
"This I know well," he said, "that I have never willingly done wrong to
any man. People have been ransacking my letters to Caron--confidential
ones written several years ago to an old friend when I was troubled and
seeking for counsel and consolation. It is hard that matter of
impeachment against me to-day should be sought for thus."
And then he fell into political discourse again on the subject of the
Waartgelders and the State rights, and the villainous pasquils and libels
that had circulated so long through the country.
"I have sometimes spoken hastily, I confess," he said; "but that was when
I was stung by the daily swarm of infamous and loathsome pamphlets,
especially those directed against my sovereign masters the States of
Holland. That I could not bear. Old men cannot well brush such things
aside. All that was directly aimed at me in particular I endeavoured to
overcome with such patience as I could muster. The disunion and mutual
enmity in the country have wounded me to the heart. I have made use of
all means in my power to accommodate matters, to effect with all
gentleness a mutual reconciliation. I have always felt a fear lest the
enemy should make use of our internal dissensions to strike a blow
against us. I can say with perfect truth that ever since the year '77 I
have been as resolutely and unchangeably opposed to the Spaniards and
their adherents, and their pretensions over these Provinces, as any man
in the world, no one excepted, and as ready to sacrifice property and
shed my blood in defence of the Fatherland. I have been so devoted to the
service of the country that I have not been able to take the necessary
care of my own private affairs."
So spoke the great statesman in the seclusion of his prison, in the
presence of those clergymen whom he respected, at a supreme moment, when,
if ever, a man might be expected to tell the truth. And his whole life
which belonged to history, and had been passed on the world's stage
before the eyes of two generations of spectators, was a demonstration of
the truth of his words.
But Burgomaster van Berk knew better. Had he not informed the twenty-four
commissioners that, twelve years before, the Advocate wished to subject
the country to Spain, and that Spinola had drawn a bill of exchange for
100,000 ducats as a compensation for his efforts?
It was eleven o'clock. Barneveld requested one of the brethren to say an
evening prayer. This was done by La Motte, and they were then requested
to return by three or four o'clock next morning. They had been directed,
they said, to remain with him all night. "That is unnecessary," said the
Advocate, and they retired.
His servant then helped his master to undress, and he went to bed as
usual. Taking off his signet-ring, he gave it to John Franken.
"For my eldest son," he said.
The valet sat down at the head of his bed in order that his master might
speak to him before he slept. But the soldiers ordered him away and
compelled him to sit in a distant part of the room.
An hour after midnight, the Advocate having been unable to lose himself,
his servant observed that Isaac, one of the soldiers, was fast asleep. He
begged the other, Tilman Schenk by name, to permit him some private words
with his master. He had probably last messages, he thought, to send to
his wife and children, and the eldest son, M. de Groeneveld, would no
doubt reward him well for it. But the soldier was obstinate in obedience
to the orders of the judges.
Barneveld, finding it impossible to sleep, asked his servant to read to
him from the Prayer-book. The soldier called in a clergyman however,
another one named Hugo Bayerus, who had been sent to the prison, and who
now read to him the Consolations of the Sick. As he read, he made
exhortations and expositions, which led to animated discussion, in which
the Advocate expressed himself with so much fervour and eloquence that
all present were astonished, and the preacher sat mute a half-hour long
at the bed-side.
"Had there been ten clergymen," said the simple-hearted sentry to the
valet, "your master would have enough to say to all of them."
Barneveld asked where the place had been prepared in which he was to die.
"In front of the great hall, as I understand," said Bayerus, "but I don't
know the localities well, having lived here but little."
"Have you heard whether my Grotius is to die, and Hoogerbeets also?" he
asked?
"I have heard nothing to that effect," replied the clergyman.
"I should most deeply grieve for those two gentlemen," said Barneveld,
"were that the case. They may yet live to do the land great service. That
great rising light, de Groot, is still young, but a very wise and learned
gentleman, devoted to his Fatherland with all zeal, heart, and soul, and
ready to stand up for her privileges, laws, and rights. As for me, I am
an old and worn-out man. I can do no more. I have already done more than
I was really able to do. I have worked so zealously in public matters
that I have neglected my private business. I had expressly ordered my
house at Loosduinen" [a villa by the seaside] "to be got ready, that I
might establish myself there and put my affairs in order. I have
repeatedly asked the States of Holland for my discharge, but could never
obtain it. It seems that the Almighty had otherwise disposed of me."
He then said he would try once more if he could sleep. The clergyman and
the servant withdrew for an hour, but his attempt was unsuccessful. After
an hour he called for his French Psalm Book and read in it for some time.
Sometime after two o'clock the clergymen came in again and conversed with
him. They asked him if he had slept, if he hoped to meet Christ, and if
there was anything that troubled his conscience.
"I have not slept, but am perfectly tranquil," he replied. "I am ready to
die, but cannot comprehend why I must die. I wish from my heart that,
through my death and my blood, all disunion and discord in this land may
cease."
He bade them carry his last greetings to his fellow prisoners. "Say
farewell for me to my good Grotius," said he, "and tell him that I must
die."
The clergymen then left him, intending to return between five and six
o'clock.
He remained quiet for a little while and then ordered his valet to cut
open the front of his shirt. When this was done, he said, "John, are you
to stay by me to the last?"
"Yes," he replied, "if the judges permit it."
"Remind me to send one of the clergymen to the judges with the request,"
said his master.
The faithful John, than whom no servant or friend could be more devoted,
seized the occasion, with the thrift and stoicism of a true Hollander, to
suggest that his lord might at the same time make some testamentary
disposition in his favour.
"Tell my wife and children," said the Advocate, "that they must console
each other in mutual love and union. Say that through God's grace I am
perfectly at ease, and hope that they will be equally tranquil. Tell my
children that I trust they will be loving and friendly to their mother
during the short time she has yet to live. Say that I wish to recommend
you to them that they may help you to a good situation either with
themselves or with others. Tell them that this was my last request."
He bade him further to communicate to the family the messages sent that
night through Walaeus by the Stadholder.
The valet begged his master to repeat these instructions in presence of
the clergyman, or to request one of them to convey them himself to the
family. He promised to do so.
"As long as I live," said the grateful servant, "I shall remember your
lordship in my prayers."
"No, John," said the Advocate, "that is Popish. When I am dead, it is all
over with prayers. Pray for me while I still live. Now is the time to
pray. When one is dead, one should no longer be prayed for."
La Motte came in. Barneveld repeated his last wishes exactly as he
desired them to be communicated to his wife and children. The preacher
made no response. "Will you take the message?" asked the prisoner. La
Motte nodded, but did not speak, nor did he subsequently fulfil the
request.
Before five o'clock the servant heard the bell ring in the apartment of
the judges directly below the prison chamber, and told his master he had
understood that they were to assemble at five o'clock.
"I may as well get up then," said the Advocate; "they mean to begin
early, I suppose. Give me my doublet and but one pair of stockings."
He was accustomed to wear two or three pair at a time.
He took off his underwaistcoat, saying that the silver bog which was in
one of the pockets was to be taken to his wife, and that the servant
should keep the loose money there for himself. Then he found an
opportunity to whisper to him, "Take good care of the papers which are in
the apartment." He meant the elaborate writings which he had prepared
during his imprisonment and concealed in the tapestry and within the
linings of the chair.
As his valet handed him the combs and brushes, he said with a smile,
"John, this is for the last time."
When he was dressed, he tried, in rehearsal of the approaching scene, to
pull over his eyes the silk skull-cap which he usually wore under his
hat. Finding it too tight he told the valet to put the nightcap in his
pocket and give it him when he should call for it. He then swallowed a
half-glass of wine with a strengthening cordial in it, which he was wont
to take.
The clergymen then re-entered, and asked if he had been able to sleep. He
answered no, but that he had been much consoled by many noble things
which he had been reading in the French Psalm Book. The clergymen said
that they had been thinking much of the beautiful confession of faith
which he had made to them that evening. They rejoiced at it, they said,
on his account, and had never thought it of him. He said that such had
always been his creed.
At his request Walaeus now offered a morning prayer Barneveld fell on his
knees and prayed inwardly without uttering a sound. La Motte asked when
he had concluded, "Did my Lord say Amen?"--"Yes, Lamotius," he replied;
"Amen."--"Has either of the brethren," he added, "prepared a prayer to be
offered outside there?"
La Motte informed him that this duty had been confided to him. Some
passages from Isaiah were now read aloud, and soon afterwards Walaeus was
sent for to speak with the judges. He came back and said to the prisoner,
"Has my Lord any desire to speak with his wife or children, or any of his
friends?" It was then six o'clock, and Barneveld replied:
"No, the time is drawing near. It would excite a new emotion." Walaeus
went back to the judges with this answer, who thereupon made this
official report:
"The husband and father of the petitioners, being asked if he desired
that any of the petitioners should come to him, declared that he did not
approve of it, saying that it would cause too great an emotion for
himself as well as for them. This is to serve as an answer to the
petitioners."
Now the Advocate knew nothing of the petition. Up to the last moment his
family had been sanguine as to his ultimate acquittal and release. They
relied on a promise which they had received or imagined that they had
received from the Stadholder that no harm should come to the prisoner in
consequence of the arrest made of his person in the Prince's apartments
on the 8th of August. They had opened this tragical month of May with
flagstaffs and flower garlands, and were making daily preparations to
receive back the revered statesman in triumph.
The letter written by him from his "chamber of sorrow," late in the
evening of 12th May, had at last dispelled every illusion. It would be
idle to attempt to paint the grief and consternation into which the
household in the Voorhout was plunged, from the venerable dame at its
head, surrounded by her sons and daughters and children's children, down
to the humblest servant in their employment. For all revered and loved
the austere statesman, but simple and benignant father and master.
No heed had been taken of the three elaborate and argumentative petitions
which, prepared by learned counsel in name of the relatives, had been
addressed to the judges. They had not been answered because they were
difficult to answer, and because it was not intended that the accused
should have the benefit of counsel.
An urgent and last appeal was now written late at night, and signed by
each member of the family, to his Excellency the Prince and the judge
commissioners, to this effect:
"The afflicted wife and children of M. van Barneveld humbly show that
having heard the sorrowful tidings of his coming execution, they humbly
beg that it may be granted them to see and speak to him for the last
time."
The two sons delivered this petition at four o'clock in the morning into
the hands of de Voogd, one of the judges. It was duly laid before the
commission, but the prisoner was never informed, when declining a last
interview with his family, how urgently they had themselves solicited the
boon.
Louise de Coligny, on hearing late at night the awful news, had been
struck with grief and horror. She endeavoured, late as it was, to do
something to avert the doom of one she so much revered, the man on whom
her illustrious husband had leaned his life long as on a staff of iron.
She besought an interview of the Stadholder, but it was refused. The wife
of William the Silent had no influence at that dire moment with her
stepson. She was informed at first that Maurice was asleep, and at four
in the morning that all intervention was useless.
The faithful and energetic du Maurier, who had already exhausted himself
in efforts to save the life of the great prisoner, now made a last
appeal. He, too, heard at four o'clock in the morning of the 13th that
sentence of death was to be pronounced. Before five o'clock he made
urgent application to be heard before the Assembly of the States-General
as ambassador of a friendly sovereign who took the deepest interest in
the welfare of the Republic and the fate of its illustrious statesman.
The appeal was refused. As a last resource he drew up an earnest and
eloquent letter to the States-General, urging clemency in the name of his
king. It was of no avail. The letter may still be seen in the Royal
Archives at the Hague, drawn up entirely in du Maurier's clear and
beautiful handwriting. Although possibly a first draft, written as it
was under such a mortal pressure for time, its pages have not one erasure
or correction.
It was seven o'clock. Barneveld having observed by the preacher (La
Motte's) manner that he was not likely to convey the last messages which
he had mentioned to his wife and children, sent a request to the judges
to be allowed to write one more letter. Captain van der Meulen came back
with the permission, saying he would wait and take it to the judges for
their revision.
The letter has been often published.
"Must they see this too? Why, it is only a line in favour of John," said
the prisoner, sitting quietly down to write this letter:
"Very dear wife and children, it is going to an end with me. I am,
through the grace of God, very tranquil. I hope that you are equally so,
and that you may by mutual love, union, and peace help each other to
overcome all things, which I pray to the Omnipotent as my last request.
John Franken has served me faithfully for many years and throughout all
these my afflictions, and is to remain with me to the end. He deserves to
be recommended to you and to be furthered to good employments with you or
with others. I request you herewith to see to this.
"I have requested his Princely Excellency to hold my sons and children in
his favour, to which he has answered that so long as you conduct
yourselves well this shall be the case. I recommend this to you in the
best form and give you all into God's holy keeping. Kiss each other and
all my grandchildren, for the last time in my name, and fare you well.
Out of the chamber of sorrow, 13th May 1619. Your dear husband and
father,
JOHN OF BARNEVELD.
"P.S. You will make John Franken a present in memory of me."
Certainly it would be difficult to find a more truly calm, courageous, or
religious spirit than that manifested by this aged statesman at an hour
when, if ever, a human soul is tried and is apt to reveal its innermost
depths or shallows. Whatever Gomarus or Bogerman, or the whole Council of
Dordtrecht, may have thought of his theology, it had at least taught him
forgiveness of his enemies, kindness to his friends, and submission to
the will of the Omnipotent. Every moment of his last days on earth had
been watched and jealously scrutinized, and his bitterest enemies had
failed to discover one trace of frailty, one manifestation of any
vacillating, ignoble, or malignant sentiment.
The drums had been sounding through the quiet but anxiously expectant
town since four o'clock that morning, and the tramp of soldiers marching
to the Inner Court had long been audible in the prison chamber.
Walaeus now came back with a message from the judges. "The high
commissioners," he said, "think it is beginning. Will my Lord please to
prepare himself?"
"Very well, very well," said the prisoner. "Shall we go at once?"
But Walaeus suggested a prayer. Upon its conclusion, Barneveld gave his
hand to the provost-marshal and to the two soldiers, bidding them adieu,
and walked downstairs, attended by them, to the chamber of the judges. As
soon as he appeared at the door, he was informed that there had been a
misunderstanding, and he was requested to wait a little. He accordingly
went upstairs again with perfect calmness, sat down in his chamber again,
and read in his French Psalm Book. Half an hour later he was once more
summoned, the provost-marshal and Captain van der Meulen reappearing to
escort him. "Mr. Provost," said the prisoner, as they went down the
narrow staircase, "I have always been a good friend to you."--"It is
true," replied that officer, "and most deeply do I grieve to see you in
this affliction."
He was about to enter the judges' chamber as usual, but was informed that
the sentence would be read in the great hall of judicature. They
descended accordingly to the basement story, and passed down the narrow
flight of steps which then as now connected the more modern structure,
where the Advocate had been imprisoned and tried, with what remained of
the ancient palace of the Counts of Holland. In the centre of the vast
hall--once the banqueting chamber of those petty sovereigns; with its
high vaulted roof of cedar which had so often in ancient days rung with
the sounds of mirth and revelry--was a great table at which the
twenty-four judges and the three prosecuting officers were seated, in
their black caps and gowns of office. The room was lined with soldiers
and crowded with a dark, surging mass of spectators, who had been waiting
there all night.
A chair was placed for the prisoner. He sat down, and the clerk of the
commission, Pots by name, proceeded at once to read the sentence. A
summary of this long, rambling, and tiresome paper has been already laid
before the reader. If ever a man could have found it tedious to listen to
his own death sentence, the great statesman might have been in that
condition as he listened to Secretary Pots.
During the reading of the sentence the Advocate moved uneasily on his
seat, and seemed about to interrupt the clerk at several passages which
seemed to him especially preposterous. But he controlled himself by a
strong effort, and the clerk went steadily on to the conclusion.
Then Barneveld said:
"The judges have put down many things which they have no right to draw
from my confession. Let this protest be added."
"I thought too," he continued, "that My Lords the States-General would
have had enough in my life and blood, and that my wife and children might
keep what belongs to them. Is this my recompense for forty-three years'
service to these Provinces?"
President de Voogd rose:
"Your sentence has been pronounced," he said. "Away! away!" So saying he
pointed to the door into which one of the great windows at the
south-eastern front of the hall had been converted.
Without another word the old man rose from his chair and strode, leaning
on his staff, across the hall, accompanied by his faithful valet and the
provost and escorted by a file of soldiers. The mob of spectators flowed
out after him at every door into the inner courtyard in front of the
ancient palace.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Better to be governed by magistrates than mobs
Burning with bitter revenge for all the favours he had received
Death rather than life with a false acknowledgment of guilt
Enemy of all compulsion of the human conscience
Heidelberg Catechism were declared to be infallible
I know how to console myself
Implication there was much, of assertion very little
John Robinson
Magistracy at that moment seemed to mean the sword
Only true religion
Rather a wilderness to reign over than a single heretic
William Brewster
THE LIFE AND DEATH of JOHN OF BARNEVELD, ADVOCATE OF HOLLAND
WITH A VIEW OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR
By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.
Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v11, 1619-23