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

CHAPTER XXI.

Barneveld's Execution--The Advocate's Conduct on the Scaffold--The

Sentence printed and sent to the Provinces--The Proceedings

irregular and inequitable.

In the beautiful village capital of the "Count's Park," commonly called

the Hague, the most striking and picturesque spot then as now was that

where the transformed remains of the old moated castle of those feudal

sovereigns were still to be seen. A three-storied range of simple,

substantial buildings in brown brickwork, picked out with white stone in

a style since made familiar both in England and America, and associated

with a somewhat later epoch in the history of the House of Orange,

surrounded three sides of a spacious inner paved quadrangle called the

Inner Court, the fourth or eastern side being overshadowed by a beechen

grove. A square tower flanked each angle, and on both sides of the

south-western turret extended the commodious apartments of the

Stadholder. The great gateway on the south-west opened into a wide open

space called the Outer Courtyard. Along the north-west side a broad and

beautiful sheet of water, in which the walls, turrets, and chapel-spires

of the enclosed castle mirrored themselves, was spread between the mass

of buildings and an umbrageous promenade called the Vyverberg, consisting

of a sextuple alley of lime-trees and embowering here and there a stately

villa. A small island, fringed with weeping willows and tufted all over

with lilacs, laburnums, and other shrubs then in full flower, lay in the

centre of the miniature lake, and the tall solid tower of the Great

Church, surmounted by a light openwork spire, looked down from a little

distance over the scene.

It was a bright morning in May. The white swans were sailing tranquilly

to and fro over the silver basin, and the mavis, blackbird, and

nightingale, which haunted the groves surrounding the castle and the

town, were singing as if the daybreak were ushering in a summer festival.

But it was not to a merry-making that the soldiers were marching and the

citizens thronging so eagerly from every street and alley towards the

castle. By four o'clock the Outer and Inner Courts had been lined with

detachments of the Prince's guard and companies of other regiments to the

number of 1200 men. Occupying the north-eastern side of the court rose

the grim, time-worn front of the ancient hall, consisting of one tall

pyramidal gable of ancient grey brickwork flanked with two tall slender

towers, the whole with the lancet-shaped windows and severe style of the

twelfth century, excepting a rose-window in the centre with the decorated

mullions of a somewhat later period.

In front of the lower window, with its Gothic archway hastily converted

into a door, a shapeless platform of rough, unhewn planks had that night

been rudely patched together. This was the scaffold. A slight railing

around it served to protect it from the crowd, and a heap of coarse sand

had been thrown upon it. A squalid, unclean box of unplaned boards,

originally prepared as a coffin for a Frenchman who some time before had

been condemned to death for murdering the son of Goswyn Meurskens, a

Hague tavern-keeper, but pardoned by the Stadholder--lay on the scaffold.

It was recognized from having been left for a long time, half forgotten,

at the public execution-place of the Hague.

Upon this coffin now sat two common soldiers of ruffianly aspect playing

at dice, betting whether the Lord or the Devil would get the soul of

Barneveld. Many a foul and ribald jest at the expense of the prisoner was

exchanged between these gamblers, some of their comrades, and a few

townsmen, who were grouped about at that early hour. The horrible libels,

caricatures, and calumnies which had been circulated, exhibited, and sung

in all the streets for so many months had at last thoroughly poisoned the

minds of the vulgar against the fallen statesman.

The great mass of the spectators had forced their way by daybreak into

the hall itself to hear the sentence, so that the Inner Courtyard had

remained comparatively empty.

At last, at half past nine o'clock, a shout arose, "There he comes! there

he comes!" and the populace flowed out from the hall of judgment into the

courtyard like a tidal wave.

In an instant the Binnenhof was filled with more than three thousand

spectators.

The old statesman, leaning on his staff, walked out upon the scaffold and

calmly surveyed the scene. Lifting his eyes to Heaven, he was heard to

murmur, "O God! what does man come to!" Then he said bitterly once more:

"This, then, is the reward of forty years' service to the State!"

La Motte, who attended him, said fervently: "It is no longer time to

think of this. Let us prepare your coming before God."

"Is there no cushion or stool to kneel upon?" said Barneveld, looking

around him.

The provost said he would send for one, but the old man knelt at once on

the bare planks. His servant, who waited upon him as calmly and

composedly as if he had been serving him at dinner, held him by the arm.

It was remarked that neither master nor man, true stoics and Hollanders

both, shed a single tear upon the scaffold.

La Motte prayed for a quarter of an hour, the Advocate remaining on his

knees.

He then rose and said to John Franken, "See that he does not come near

me," pointing to the executioner who stood in the background grasping his

long double-handed sword. Barneveld then rapidly unbuttoned his doublet

with his own hands and the valet helped him off with it. "Make haste!

make haste!" said his master.

The statesman then came forward and said in a loud, firm voice to the

people:

"Men, do not believe that I am a traitor to the country. I have ever

acted uprightly and loyally as a good patriot, and as such I shall die."

The crowd was perfectly silent.

He then took his cap from John Franken, drew it over his eyes, and went

forward towards the sand, saying:

"Christ shall be my guide. O Lord, my heavenly Father, receive my

spirit."

As he was about to kneel with his face to the south, the provost said:

"My lord will be pleased to move to the other side, not where the sun is

in his face."

He knelt accordingly with his face towards his own house. The servant

took farewell of him, and Barneveld said to the executioner:

"Be quick about it. Be quick."

The executioner then struck his head off at a single blow.

Many persons from the crowd now sprang, in spite of all opposition, upon

the scaffold and dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood, cut wet

splinters from the boards, or grubbed up the sand that was steeped in it;

driving many bargains afterwards for these relics to be treasured, with

various feelings of sorrow, joy, glutted or expiated vengeance.

It has been recorded, and has been constantly repeated to this day, that

the Stadholder, whose windows exactly faced the scaffold, looked out upon

the execution with a spy-glass; saying as he did so:

"See the old scoundrel, how he trembles! He is afraid of the stroke."

But this is calumny. Colonel Hauterive declared that he was with Maurice

in his cabinet during the whole period of the execution, that by order of

the Prince all the windows and shutters were kept closed, that no person

wearing his livery was allowed to be abroad, that he anxiously received

messages as to the proceedings, and heard of the final catastrophe with

sorrowful emotion.

It must be admitted, however, that the letter which Maurice wrote on the

same morning to his cousin William Lewis does not show much pathos.

"After the judges," he said, "have been busy here with the sentence

against the Advocate Barneveld for several days, at last it has been

pronounced, and this morning, between nine o'clock and half past, carried

into execution with the sword, in the Binnenhof before the great hall.

"The reasons they had for this you will see from the sentence, which will

doubtless be printed, and which I will send you.

"The wife of the aforesaid Barneveld and also some of his sons and

sons-in-law or other friends have never presented any supplication for

his pardon, but till now have vehemently demanded that law and justice

should be done to him, and have daily let the report run through the

people that he would soon come out. They also planted a may-pole before

their house adorned with garlands and ribbands, and practised other

jollities and impertinences, while they ought to have conducted

themselves in a humble and lowly fashion. This is no proper manner of

behaving, and moreover not a practical one to move the judges to any

favour even if they had been thereto inclined."

The sentence was printed and sent to the separate provinces. It was

accompanied by a declaration of the States-General that they had received

information from the judges of various points, not mentioned in the

sentence, which had been laid to the charge of the late Advocate, and

which gave much reason to doubt whether he had not perhaps turned his

eyes toward the enemy. They could not however legally give judgment to

that effect without a sharper investigation, which on account of his

great age and for other reasons it was thought best to spare him.

A meaner or more malignant postscript to a state paper recounting the

issue of a great trial it would be difficult to imagine. The first

statesman of the country had just been condemned and executed on a

narrative, without indictment of any specified crime. And now, by a kind

of apologetic after-thought, six or eight individuals calling themselves

the States-General insinuated that he had been looking towards the enemy,

and that, had they not mercifully spared him the rack, which is all that

could be meant by their sharper investigation, he would probably have

confessed the charge.

And thus the dead man's fame was blackened by those who had not hesitated

to kill him, but had shrunk from enquiring into his alleged crime.

Not entirely without semblance of truth did Grotius subsequently say that

the men who had taken his life would hardly have abstained from torturing

him if they had really hoped by so doing to extract from him a confession

of treason.

The sentence was sent likewise to France, accompanied with a statement

that Barneveld had been guilty of unpardonable crimes which had not been

set down in the act of condemnation. Complaints were also made of the

conduct of du Maurier in thrusting himself into the internal affairs of

the States and taking sides so ostentatiously against the government. The

King and his ministers were indignant with these rebukes, and sustained

the Ambassador. Jeannin and de Boississe expressed the opinion that he

had died innocent of any crime, and only by reason of his strong

political opposition to the Prince.

The judges had been unanimous in finding him guilty of the acts recorded

in their narrative, but three of them had held out for some time in

favour of a sentence of perpetual imprisonment rather than decapitation.

They withdrew at last their opposition to the death penalty for the

wonderful reason that reports had been circulated of attempts likely to

be made to assassinate Prince Maurice. The Stadholder himself treated

these rumours and the consequent admonition of the States-General that he

would take more than usual precautions for his safety with perfect

indifference, but they were conclusive with the judges of Barneveld.

"Republica poscit exemplum," said Commissioner Junius, one of the three,

as he sided with the death-warrant party.

The same Doctor Junius a year afterwards happened to dine, in company of

one of his fellow-commissioners, with Attorney-General Sylla at Utrecht,

and took occasion to ask them why it was supposed that Barneveld had been

hanging his head towards Spain, as not one word of that stood in the

sentence.

The question was ingenuous on the part of one learned judge to his

colleagues in one of the most famous state trials of history, propounded

as a bit of after-dinner casuistry, when the victim had been more than a

year in his grave.

But perhaps the answer was still more artless. His brother lawyers

replied that the charge was easily to be deduced from the sentence,

because a man who breaks up the foundation of the State makes the country

indefensible, and therefore invites the enemy to invade it. And this

Barneveld had done, who had turned the Union, religion, alliances, and

finances upside down by his proceedings.

Certainly if every constitutional minister, accused by the opposition

party of turning things upside down by his proceedings, were assumed to

be guilty of deliberately inviting a hostile invasion of his country,

there would have been few from that day to this to escape hanging.

Constructive treason could scarcely go farther than it was made to do in

these attempts to prove, after his death, that the Advocate had, as it

was euphuistically expressed, been looking towards the enemy.

And no better demonstrations than these have ever been discovered.

He died at the age of seventy-one years seven months and eighteen days.

His body and head were huddled into the box upon which the soldiers had

been shaking the dice, and was placed that night in the vault of the

chapel in the Inner Court.

It was subsequently granted as a boon to the widow and children that it

might be taken thence and decently buried in the family vault at

Amersfoort.

On the day of the execution a formal entry was made in the register of

the States of Holland.

"Monday, 13th May 1619. To-day was executed with the sword here in the

Hague, on a scaffold thereto erected in the Binnenhof before the steps of

the great hall, Mr. John of Barneveld, in his life Knight, Lord of

Berkel, Rodenrys, &c., Advocate of Holland and West Friesland, for

reasons expressed in the sentence and otherwise, with confiscation of his

property, after he had served the State thirty-three years two months and

five days since 8th March 1586.; a man of great activity, business,

memory, and wisdom--yes, extraordinary in every respect. He that stands

let him see that he does not fall, and may God be merciful to his soul.

Amen?"

A year later-on application made by the widow and children of the

deceased to compound for the confiscation of his property by payment of a

certain sum, eighty florins or a similar trifle, according to an ancient

privilege of the order of nobility--the question was raised whether he

had been guilty of high-treason, as he had not been sentenced for such a

crime, and as it was only in case of sentence for lese-majesty that this

composition was disallowed. It was deemed proper therefore to ask the

court for what crime the prisoner had been condemned. Certainly a more

sarcastic question could not have been asked. But the court had ceased to

exist. The commission had done its work and was dissolved. Some of its

members were dead. Letters however were addressed by the States-General

to the individual commissioners requesting them to assemble at the Hague

for the purpose of stating whether it was because the prisoners had

committed lese-majesty that their property had been confiscated. They

never assembled. Some of them were perhaps ignorant of the exact nature

of that crime. Several of them did not understand the words. Twelve of

them, among whom were a few jurists, sent written answers to the

questions proposed. The question was, "Did you confiscate the property

because the crime was lese-majesty?" The reply was, "The crime was

lese-majesty, although not so stated in the sentence, because we

confiscated the property." In one of these remarkable documents this was

stated to be "the unanimous opinion of almost all the judges."

The point was referred to the commissioners, some of whom attended the

court of the Hague in person, while others sent written opinions. All

agreed that the criminal had committed high-treason because otherwise his

property would not have been confiscated.

A more wonderful example of the argument in a circle was never heard of.

Moreover it is difficult to understand by what right the high commission,

which had been dissolved a year before, after having completed its work,

could be deemed competent to emit afterwards a judicial decision. But the

fact is curious as giving one more proof of the irregular,

unphilosophical, and inequitable nature of these famous proceedings.

CHAPTER XXII.

Grotius urged to ask Forgiveness--Grotius shows great Weakness--

Hoogerbeets and Grotius imprisoned for Life--Grotius confined at

Loevestein--Grotius' early Attainments--Grotius' Deportment in

Prison--Escape of Grotius--Deventer's Rage at Grotius' Escape.

Two days after the execution of the Advocate, judgment was pronounced

upon Gillis van Ledenberg. It would have been difficult to try him, or to

extort a confession of high-treason from him by the rack or otherwise, as

the unfortunate gentleman had been dead for more than seven months.

Not often has a court of justice pronounced a man, without trial, to be

guilty of a capital offence. Not often has a dead man been condemned and

executed. But this was the lot of Secretary Ledenberg. He was sentenced

to be hanged, his property declared confiscated.

His unburied corpse, reduced to the condition of a mummy, was brought out

of its lurking-place, thrust into a coffin, dragged on a hurdle to the

Golgotha outside the Hague, on the road to Ryswyk, and there hung on a

gibbet in company of the bodies of other malefactors swinging there in

chains.

His prudent scheme to save his property for his children by committing

suicide in prison was thus thwarted.

The reading of the sentence of Ledenberg, as had been previously the case

with that of Barneveld, had been heard by Grotius through the open window

of his prison, as he lay on his bed. The scaffold on which the Advocate

had suffered was left standing, three executioners were still in the

town, and there was every reason for both Grotius and Hoogerbeets to

expect a similar doom. Great efforts were made to induce the friends of

the distinguished prisoners to sue for their pardon. But even as in the

case of the Barneveld family these attempts were fruitless. The austere

stoicism both on the part of the sufferers and their relatives excites

something like wonder.

Three of the judges went in person to the prison chamber of Hoogerbeets,

urging him to ask forgiveness himself or to allow his friends to demand

it for him.

"If my wife and children do ask," he said, "I will protest against it. I

need no pardon. Let justice take its course. Think not, gentlemen, that I

mean by asking for pardon to justify your proceedings."

He stoutly refused to do either. The judges, astonished, took their

departure, saying:

"Then you will fare as Barneveld. The scaffold is still standing."

He expected consequently nothing but death, and said many years

afterwards that he knew from personal experience how a man feels who goes

out of prison to be beheaded.

The wife of Grotius sternly replied to urgent intimations from a high

source that she should ask pardon for her husband, "I shall not do it. If

he has deserved it, let them strike off his head."

Yet no woman could be more devoted to her husband than was Maria van

Reigersbergen to Hugo de Groot, as time was to prove. The Prince

subsequently told her at a personal interview that "one of two roads must

be taken, that of the law or that of pardon."

Soon after the arrest it was rumoured that Grotius was ready to make

important revelations if he could first be assured of the Prince's

protection.

His friends were indignant at the statement. His wife stoutly denied its

truth, but, to make sure, wrote to her husband on the subject.

"One thing amazes me," she said; "some people here pretend to say that

you have stated to one gentleman in private that you have something to

disclose greatly important to the country, but that you desired

beforehand to be taken under the protection of his Excellency. I have not

chosen to believe this, nor do I, for I hold that to be certain which you

have already told me--that you know no secrets. I see no reason therefore

why you should require the protection of any man. And there is no one to

believe this, but I thought best to write to you of it. Let me, in order

that I may contradict the story with more authority, have by the bearer

of this a simple Yes or No. Study quietly, take care of your health, have

some days' patience, for the Advocate has not yet been heard."

The answer has not been preserved, but there is an allusion to the

subject in an unpublished memorandum of Grotius written while he was in

prison.

It must be confessed that the heart of the great theologian and jurist

seems to have somewhat failed him after his arrest, and although he was

incapable of treachery--even if he had been possessed of any secrets,

which certainly was not the case--he did not show the same Spartan

firmness as his wife, and was very far from possessing the heroic calm of

Barneveld. He was much disposed to extricate himself from his unhappy

plight by making humble, if not abject, submission to Maurice. He

differed from his wife in thinking that he had no need of the Prince's

protection. "I begged the Chamberlain, Matthew de Cors," he said, a few

days after his arrest, "that I might be allowed to speak with his

Excellency of certain things which I would not willingly trust to the

pen. My meaning was to leave all public employment and to offer my

service to his Excellency in his domestic affairs. Thus I hoped that the

motives for my imprisonment would cease. This was afterwards

misinterpreted as if I had had wonderful things to reveal."

But Grotius towards the end of his trial showed still greater weakness.

After repeated refusals, he had at last obtained permission of the judges

to draw up in writing the heads of his defence. To do this he was allowed

a single sheet of paper, and four hours of time, the trial having lasted

several months. And in the document thus prepared he showed faltering in

his faith as to his great friend's innocence, and admitted, without any

reason whatever, the possibility of there being truth in some of the vile

and anonymous calumnies against him.

"The friendship of the Advocate of Holland I had always highly prized,"

he said, "hoping from the conversation of so wise and experienced a

person to learn much that was good . . . . I firmly believed that his

Excellency, notwithstanding occasional differences as to the conduct of

public affairs, considered him a true and upright servant of the land

. . . . I have been therefore surprised to understand, during my

imprisonment, that the gentlemen had proofs in hand not alone of his

correspondence with the enemy, but also of his having received money

from them.

"He being thus accused, I have indicated by word of mouth and afterwards

resumed in writing all matters which I thought--the above-mentioned

proofs being made good--might be thereto indirectly referred, in order to

show that for me no friendships were so dear as the preservation of the

freedom of the land. I wish that he may give explanation of all to the

contentment of the judges, and that therefore his actions--which,

supposing the said correspondence to be true, are subject to a bad

interpretation--may be taken in another sense."

Alas! could the Advocate--among whose first words after hearing of his

own condemnation to death were, "And must my Grotius die too?" adding,

with a sigh of relief when assured of the contrary, "I should deeply

grieve for that; he is so young and may live to do the State much

service." could he have read those faltering and ungenerous words from one

he so held in his heart, he would have felt them like the stab of Brutus.

Grotius lived to know that there were no such proofs, that the judges did

not dare even allude to the charge in their sentence, and long years

afterwards he drew a picture of the martyred patriot such as one might

have expected from his pen.

But these written words of doubt must have haunted him to his grave.

On the 18th May 1619--on the fifty-first anniversary, as Grotius

remarked, of the condemnation of Egmont and Hoorn by the Blood Tribunal

of Alva--the two remaining victims were summoned to receive their doom.

The Fiscal Sylla, entering de Groot's chamber early in the morning to

conduct him before the judges, informed him that he was not instructed to

communicate the nature of the sentence. "But," he said, maliciously, "you

are aware of what has befallen the Advocate."

"I have heard with my own ears," answered Grotius, "the judgment

pronounced upon Barneveld and upon Ledenberg. Whatever may be my fate, I

have patience to bear it."

The sentence, read in the same place and in the same manner as had been

that upon the Advocate, condemned both Hoogerbeets and Grotius to

perpetual imprisonment.

The course of the trial and the enumeration of the offences were nearly

identical with the leading process which has been elaborately described.

Grotius made no remark whatever in the court-room. On returning to his

chamber he observed that his admissions of facts had been tortured into

confessions of guilt, that he had been tried and sentenced against all

principles and forms of law, and that he had been deprived of what the

humblest criminal could claim, the right of defence and the examination

of testimony. In regard to the penalty against him, he said, there was no

such thing as perpetual imprisonment except in hell. Alluding to the

leading cause of all these troubles, he observed that it was with the

Stadholder and the Advocate as Cato had said of Caesar and Pompey. The

great misery had come not from their being enemies, but from their having

once been friends.

On the night of 5th June the prisoners were taken from their prison in

the Hague and conveyed to the castle of Loevestein.

This fortress, destined thenceforth to be famous in history and--from its

frequent use in after-times as a state-prison for men of similar

constitutional views to those of Grotius and the Advocate--to give its

name to a political party, was a place of extraordinary strength. Nature

and art had made it, according to military ideas of that age, almost

impregnable. As a prison it seemed the very castle of despair. "Abandon

all hope ye who enter" seemed engraven over its portal.

Situate in the very narrow, acute angle where the broad, deep, and turbid

Waal--the chief of the three branches into which the Rhine divides itself

on entering the Netherlands--mingles its current with the silver Meuse

whose name it adopts as the united rivers roll to the sea, it was guarded

on many sides by these deep and dangerous streams. On the land-side it

was surrounded by high walls and a double foss, which protected it

against any hostile invasion from Brabant. As the Twelve Years' Truce was

running to its close, it was certain that pains would be taken to

strengthen the walls and deepen the ditches, that the place might be

proof against all marauders and land-robbers likely to swarm over from

the territory of the Archdukes. The town of Gorcum was exactly opposite

on the northern side of the Waal, while Worcum was about a league's

distance from the castle on the southern side, but separated from it by

the Meuse.

The prisoners, after crossing the drawbridge, were led through thirteen

separate doors, each one secured by iron bolts and heavy locks, until

they reached their separate apartments.

They were never to see or have any communication with each other. It had

been accorded by the States-General however that the wives of the two

gentlemen were to have access to their prison, were to cook for them in

the castle kitchen, and, if they chose to inhabit the fortress, might

cross to the neighbouring town of Gorcum from time to time to make

purchases, and even make visits to the Hague. Twenty-four stuivers, or

two shillings, a day were allowed by the States-General for the support

of each prisoner and his family. As the family property of Grotius was at

once sequestered, with a view to its ultimate confiscation, it was clear

that abject indigence as well as imprisonment was to be the lifelong lot

of this illustrious person, who had hitherto lived in modest affluence,

occupying the most considerable of social positions.

The commandant of the fortress was inspired from the outset with a desire

to render the prisoner's situation as hateful as it was in his power to

make it. And much was in his power. He resolved that the family should

really live upon their daily pittance. Yet Madame de Groot, before the

final confiscation of her own and her husband's estates, had been able to

effect considerable loans, both to carry on process against government

for what the prisoners contended was an unjust confiscation, and for

providing for the household on a decent scale and somewhat in accordance

with the requirements of the prisoner's health. Thus there was a

wearisome and ignoble altercation, revived from day to day, between the

Commandant and Madame de Groot. It might have been thought enough of

torture for this virtuous and accomplished lady, but twenty-nine years of

age and belonging to one of the eminent families of the country, to see

her husband, for his genius and accomplishments the wonder of Europe,

thus cut off in the flower of his age and doomed to a living grave. She

was nevertheless to be subjected to the perpetual inquisition of the

market-basket, which she was not ashamed with her maid to take to and

from Gorcum, and to petty wrangles about the kitchen fire where she was

proud to superintend the cooking of the scanty fare for her husband and

her five children.

There was a reason for the spite of the military jailer. Lieutenant

Prouninx, called Deventer, commandant of Loevestein, was son of the

notorious Gerard Prouninx, formerly burgomaster of Utrecht, one of the

ringleaders of the Leicester faction in the days when the Earl made his

famous attempts upon the four cities. He had sworn revenge upon all those

concerned in his father's downfall, and it was a delight therefore to

wreak a personal vengeance on one who had since become so illustrious a

member of that party by which the former burgomaster had been deposed,

although Grotius at the time of Leicester's government had scarcely left

his cradle.

Thus these ladies were to work in the kitchen and go to market from time

to time, performing this menial drudgery under the personal inspection of

the warrior who governed the garrison and fortress, but who in vain

attempted to make Maria van Reigersbergen tremble at his frown.

Hugo de Groot, when thus for life immured, after having already undergone

a preliminary imprisonment of nine months, was just thirty-six years of

age. Although comparatively so young, he had been long regarded as one of

the great luminaries of Europe for learning and genius. Of an ancient and

knightly race, his immediate ancestors had been as famous for literature,

science, and municipal abilities as their more distant progenitors for

deeds of arms in the feudal struggles of Holland in the middle ages.

His father and grandfather had alike been eminent for Hebrew, Greek, and

Latin scholarship, and both had occupied high positions in the University

of Leyden from its beginning. Hugo, born and nurtured under such

quickening influences, had been a scholar and poet almost from his

cradle. He wrote respectable Latin verses at the age of seven, he was

matriculated at Leyden at the age of eleven. That school, founded amid

the storms and darkness of terrible war, was not lightly to be entered.

It was already illustrated by a galaxy of shining lights in science and

letters, which radiated over Christendom. His professors were Joseph

Scaliger, Francis Junius, Paulus Merula, and a host of others. His

fellow-students were men like Scriverius, Vossius, Baudius, Daniel

Heinsius. The famous soldier and poet Douza, who had commanded the forces

of Leyden during the immortal siege, addressed him on his admission to

the university as "Magne peer magni dignissime cura parentis," in a copy

of eloquent verses.

When fourteen years old, he took his bachelor's degree, after a rigorous

examination not only in the classics but astronomy, mathematics,

jurisprudence, and theology, at an age when most youths would have been

accounted brilliant if able to enter that high school with credit.

On leaving the University he was attached to the embassy of Barneveld and

Justinus van Nassau to the court of Henry IV. Here he attracted the

attention of that monarch, who pointed him out to his courtiers as the

"miracle of Holland," presented him with a gold chain with his miniature

attached to it, and proposed to confer on him the dignity of knighthood,

which the boy from motives of family pride appears to have refused. While

in France he received from the University of Orleans, before the age of

fifteen, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws in a very eulogistic

diploma. On his return to Holland he published an edition of the poet

Johannes Capella with valuable annotations, besides giving to the public

other learned and classical works and several tragedies of more or less

merit. At the age of seventeen he was already an advocate in full

practice before the supreme tribunals of the Hague, and when twenty-three

years old he was selected by Prince Maurice from a list of three

candidates for the important post of Fiscal or Attorney-General of

Holland. Other civic dignities, embassies, and offices of various kinds,

had been thrust upon him one after another, in all of which he had

acquitted himself with dignity and brilliancy. He was but twenty-six when

he published his argument for the liberty of the sea, the famous Mare

Liberum, and a little later appeared his work on the Antiquity of the

Batavian Republic, which procured for him in Spain the title of "Hugo

Grotius, auctor damnatus." At the age of twenty-nine he had completed his

Latin history of the Netherlands from the period immediately preceding

the war of independence down to the conclusion of the Truce, 1550-1609--a

work which has been a classic ever since its appearance, although not

published until after his death. A chief magistrate of Rotterdam, member

of the States of Holland and the States-General, jurist, advocate,

attorney-general, poet, scholar, historian, editor of the Greek and Latin

classics, writer of tragedies, of law treatises, of theological

disquisitions, he stood foremost among a crowd of famous contemporaries.

His genius, eloquence, and learning were esteemed among the treasures not

only of his own country but of Europe. He had been part and parcel of his

country's history from his earliest manhood, and although a child in

years compared to Barneveld, it was upon him that the great statesman had

mainly relied ever since the youth's first appearance in public affairs.

Impressible, emotional, and susceptive, he had been accused from time to

time, perhaps not entirely without reason, of infirmity of purpose, or at

least of vacillation in opinion; but his worst enemies had never assailed

the purity of his heart or integrity of his character. He had not yet

written the great work on the 'Rights of War and Peace', which was to

make an epoch in the history of civilization and to be the foundation of

a new science, but the materials lay already in the ample storehouse of

his memory and his brain.

Possessed of singular personal beauty--which the masterly portraits of

Miereveld attest to the present day--tall, brown-haired;

straight-featured, with a delicate aquiline nose and piercing dark blue

eyes, he was also athletic of frame and a proficient in manly exercises.

This was the statesman and the scholar, of whom it is difficult to speak

but in terms of affectionate but not exaggerated eulogy, and for whom the

Republic of the Netherlands could now find no better use than to shut him

up in the grim fortress of Loevestein for the remainder of his days. A

commonwealth must have deemed itself rich in men which, after cutting off

the head of Barneveld, could afford to bury alive Hugo Grotius.

His deportment in prison was a magnificent moral lesson. Shut up in a

kind of cage consisting of a bedroom and a study, he was debarred from

physical exercise, so necessary for his mental and bodily health. Not

choosing for the gratification of Lieutenant Deventer to indulge in weak

complaints, he procured a huge top, which he employed himself in whipping

several hours a day; while for intellectual employment he plunged once

more into those classical, juridical, and theological studies which had

always employed his leisure hours from childhood upwards.

It had been forbidden by the States-General to sell his likeness in the

shops. The copper plates on which they had been engraved had as far as

possible been destroyed.

The wish of the government, especially of his judges, was that his name

and memory should die at once and for ever. They were not destined to be

successful, for it would be equally difficult to-day to find an educated

man in Christendom ignorant of the name of Hugo Grotius, or acquainted

with that of a single one of his judges.

And his friends had not forgotten him as he lay there living in his tomb.

Especially the learned Scriverius, Vossius, and other professors, were

permitted to correspond with him at intervals on literary subjects, the

letters being subjected to preliminary inspection. Scriverius sent him

many books from his well-stocked library, de Groot's own books and papers

having been confiscated by the government. At a somewhat later period the

celebrated Orientalist Erpenius sent him from time to time a large chest

of books, the precious freight being occasionally renewed and the chest

passing to and from Loevestein by way of Gorcum. At this town lived a

sister of Erpenius, married to one Daatselaer, a considerable dealer in

thread and ribbons, which he exported to England. The house of Daatselaer

became a place of constant resort for Madame de Groot as well as the wife

of Hoogerbeets, both dames going every few days from the castle across

the Waal to Gorcum, to make their various purchases for the use of their

forlorn little households in the prison. Madame Daatselaer therefore

received and forwarded into Loevestein or into Holland many parcels and

boxes, besides attending to the periodical transmission of the mighty

chest of books.

Professor Vossius was then publishing a new edition of the tragedies of

Seneca, and at his request Grotius enriched that work, from his prison,

with valuable notes. He employed himself also in translating the moral

sentences extracted by Stobaeus from the Greek tragedies; drawing

consolation from the ethics and philosophy of the ancient dramatists,

whom he had always admired, especially the tragedies of Euripides; he

formed a complete moral anthology from that poet and from the works of

Sophocles, Menander, and others, which he translated into fluent Dutch

verse. Becoming more and more interested in the subject, he executed a

masterly rhymed translation of the 'Theban Brothers' of Euripides, thus

seeking distraction from his own tragic doom in the portraiture of

antique, distant, and heroic sorrow.

Turning again to legal science, he completed an Introduction to the

Jurisprudence of Holland, a work which as soon as published became

thenceforward a text-book and an oracle in the law courts and the high

schools of the country. Not forgetting theology, he composed for the use

of the humbler classes, especially for sailors, in whose lot, so exposed

to danger and temptation, he ever took deep interest, a work on the

proofs of Christianity in easy and familiar rhyme--a book of gold, as it

was called at once, which became rapidly popular with those for whom it

was designed.

At a somewhat later period Professor Erpenius, publishing a new edition

of the New Testament in Greek, with translations in Arabic, Syriac, and

Ethiopian, solicited his friend's help both in translations and in the

Latin commentaries and expositions with which he proposed to accompany

the work. The prisoner began with a modest disclaimer, saying that after

the labours of Erasmus and Beza, Maldonatus and Jasenius, there was

little for him to glean. Becoming more enthusiastic as he went on, he

completed a masterly commentary on the Four Evangelists, a work for which

the learned and religious world has ever recognized a kind of debt of

gratitude to the castle of Loevestein, and hailed in him the founder of a

school of manly Biblical criticism.

And thus nearly two years wore away. Spinning his great top for exercise;

soothing his active and prolific brain with Greek tragedy, with Flemish

verse, with jurisprudence, history, theology; creating, expounding,

adorning, by the warmth of his vivid intellect; moving the world, and

doing good to his race from the depths of his stony sepulchre; Hugo

Grotius rose superior to his doom and took captivity captive. The man is

not to be envied who is not moved by so noble an example of great

calamity manfully endured.

The wife of Hoogerbeets, already advanced in years, sickened during the

imprisonment and died at Loevestein after a lingering illness, leaving

six children to the care of her unfortunate husband. Madame de Groot had

not been permitted by the prison authorities to minister to her in

sickness, nor to her children after her death.

Early in the year 1621 Francis Aerssens, Lord of Sommelsdyk, the arch

enemy of Barneveld and of Grotius, was appointed special ambassador to

Paris. The intelligence--although hardly unexpected, for the stratagems

of Aerssens had been completely successful--moved the prisoner deeply. He

felt that this mortal enemy, not glutted with vengeance by the beheading

of the Advocate and the perpetual imprisonment of his friend, would do

his best at the French court to defame and to blacken him. He did what he

could to obviate this danger by urgent letters to friends on whom he

could rely.

At about the same time Muis van Holy, one of the twenty-four

commissioners, not yet satisfied with the misery he had helped to

inflict, informed the States-General that Madame de Groot had been buying

ropes at Gorcum. On his motion a committee was sent to investigate the

matter at Castle Loevestein, where it was believed that the ropes had

been concealed for the purpose of enabling Grotius to make his escape

from prison.

Lieutenant Deventer had heard nothing of the story. He was in high

spirits at the rumour however, and conducted the committee very eagerly

over the castle, causing minute search to be made in the apartment of

Grotius for the ropes which, as they were assured by him and his wife,

had never existed save in the imagination of Judge Muis. They succeeded

at least in inflicting much superfluous annoyance on their victims, and

in satisfying themselves that it would be as easy for the prisoner to fly

out of the fortress on wings as to make his escape with ropes, even if he

had them.

Grotius soon afterwards addressed a letter to the States-General

denouncing the statement of Muis as a fable, and these persistent

attempts to injure him as cowardly and wicked.

A few months later Madame de Groot happened to be in the house of

Daatselaer on one of her periodical visits to Gorcum. Conversation

turning on these rumours March of attempts at escape, she asked Madame

Daatselaer if she would not be much embarrassed, should Grotius suddenly

make his appearance there.

"Oh no," said the good woman with a laugh; "only let him come. We will

take excellent care of him."

At another visit one Saturday, 20th March, (1621) Madame de Groot asked

her friend why all the bells of Gorcum march were ringing.

"Because to-morrow begins our yearly fair," replied Dame Daatselaer.

"Well, I suppose that all exiles and outlaws may come to Gorcum on this

occasion," said Madame de Groot.

"Such is the law, they say," answered her friend.

"And my husband might come too?"

"No doubt," said Madame Daatselaer with a merry laugh, rejoiced at

finding the wife of Grotius able to speak so cheerfully of her husband in

his perpetual and hopeless captivity. "Send him hither. He shall have, a

warm welcome."

"What a good woman you are!" said Madame de Groot with a sigh as she rose

to take leave. "But you know very well that if he were a bird he could

never get out of the castle, so closely, he is caged there."

Next morning a wild equinoctial storm was howling around the battlements

of the castle. Of a sudden Cornelia, daughter of the de Groots, nine

years of age, said to her mother without any reason whatever,

"To-morrow Papa must be off to Gorcum, whatever the weather may be."

De Groot, as well as his wife, was aghast at the child's remark, and took

it as a direct indication from Heaven.

For while Madame Daatselaer had considered the recent observations of her

visitor from Loevestein as idle jests, and perhaps wondered that Madame

de Groot could be frivolous and apparently lighthearted on so dismal a

topic, there had been really a hidden meaning in her words.

For several weeks past the prisoner had been brooding over a means of

escape. His wife, whose every thought was devoted to him, had often cast

her eyes on the great chest or trunk in which the books of Erpenius had

been conveyed between Loevestein and Gorcum for the use of the prisoner.

At first the trunk had been carefully opened and its contents examined

every time it entered or left the castle. As nothing had ever been found

in it save Hebrew, Greek, and Latin folios, uninviting enough to the

Commandant, that warrior had gradually ceased to inspect the chest very

closely, and had at last discontinued the practice altogether.

It had been kept for some weeks past in the prisoner's study. His wife

thought--although it was two finger breadths less than four feet in

length, and not very broad or deep in proportion--that it might be

possible for him to get into it. He was considerably above middle height,

but found that by curling himself up very closely he could just manage to

lie in it with the cover closed. Very secretly they had many times

rehearsed the scheme which had now taken possession of their minds, but

had not breathed a word of it to any one. He had lain in the chest with

the lid fastened, and with his wife sitting upon the top of it, two hours

at a time by the hour-glass. They had decided at last that the plan,

though fraught with danger, was not absolutely impossible, and they were

only waiting now for a favourable opportunity. The chance remark of the

child Cornelia settled the time for hazarding the adventure. By a strange

coincidence, too, the commandant of the fortress, Lieutenant Deventer,

had just been promoted to a captaincy, and was to go to Heusden to

receive his company. He left the castle for a brief absence that very

Sunday evening. As a precautionary measure, the trunk filled with books

had been sent to Gorcum and returned after the usual interval only a few

days before.

The maid-servant of the de Groots, a young girl of twenty, Elsje van

Houwening by name, quick, intelligent, devoted, and courageous, was now

taken into their confidence. The scheme was explained to her, and she was

asked if she were willing to take the chest under her charge with her

master in it, instead of the usual freight of books, and accompany it to

Gorcum.

She naturally asked what punishment could be inflicted upon her in case

the plot were discovered.

"None legally," answered her master; "but I too am innocent of any crime,

and you see to what sufferings I have been condemned."

"Whatever come of it," said Elsje stoutly; "I will take the risk and

accompany my master."

Every detail was then secretly arranged, and it was provided beforehand,

as well as possible, what should be said or done in the many

contingencies that might arise.

On Sunday evening Madame de Groot then went to the wife of the

Commandant, with whom she had always been on more friendly terms than

with her malicious husband. She had also recently propitiated her

affections by means of venison and other dainties brought from Gorcum.

She expressed the hope that, notwithstanding the absence of Captain

Deventer, she might be permitted to send the trunk full of books next day

from the castle.

"My husband is wearing himself out," she said, "with his perpetual

studies. I shall be glad for a little time to be rid of some of these

folios."

The Commandant's wife made no objection to this slight request.

On Monday morning the gale continued to beat with unabated violence on

the turrets. The turbid Waal, swollen by the tempest, rolled darkly and

dangerously along the castle walls.

But the die was cast. Grotius rose betimes, fell on his knees, and prayed

fervently an hour long. Dressed only in linen underclothes with a pair of

silk stockings, he got into the chest with the help of his wife. The big

Testament of Erpenius, with some bunches of thread placed upon it, served

him as a pillow. A few books and papers were placed in the interstices

left by the curves of his body, and as much pains as possible taken to

prevent his being seriously injured or incommoded during the hazardous

journey he was contemplating. His wife then took solemn farewell of him,

fastened the lock, which she kissed, and gave the key to Elsje.

The usual garments worn by the prisoner were thrown on a chair by the

bedside and his slippers placed before it. Madame de Groot then returned

to her bed, drew the curtains close, and rang the bell.

It was answered by the servant who usually waited on the prisoner, and

who was now informed by the lady that it had been her intention to go

herself to Gorcum, taking charge of the books which were valuable. As the

weather was so tempestuous however, and as she was somewhat indisposed,

it had been decided that Elsje should accompany the trunk.

She requested that some soldiers might be sent as usual to take it down

to the vessel. Two or three of the garrison came accordingly, and seeing

the clothes and slippers of Grotius lying about, and the bed-curtains

closed, felt no suspicion.

On lifting the chest, however, one of them said, half in jest:

"The Arminian must be in it himself, it seems so heavy!"

"Not the Arminian," replied Madame de Groot, in a careless voice, from

the bed; "only heavy Arminian books."

Partly lifting, partly dragging the ponderous box, the soldiers managed

to get it down the stairs and through the thirteen barred and bolted

doors. Four several times one or other of the soldiers expressed the

opinion that Grotius himself must be locked within it, but they never

spoke quite seriously, and Elsje was ever ready to turn aside the remark

with a jest. A soldier's wife, just as the box was approaching the wharf,

told a story of a malefactor who had once been carried out of the castle

in a chest.

"And if a malefactor, why not a lawyer?" she added. A soldier said he

would get a gimlet and bore a hole into the Arminian. "Then you must get

a gimlet that will reach to the top of the castle, where the Arminian

lies abed and asleep," said Elsje.

Not much heed was given to this careless talk, the soldiers, before

leaving the chamber of Grotius, having satisfied themselves that there

were no apertures in the chest save the keyhole, and that it would be

impossible by that means alone for sufficient air to penetrate to keep a

man enclosed in it from smothering.

Madame Deventer was asked if she chose to inspect the contents of the

trunk, and she enquired whether the Commandant had been wont so to do.

When told that such search had been for a long time discontinued, as

nothing had ever been found there but books, she observed that there was

no reason why she should be more strict than her husband, and ordered the

soldiers to take their heavy load to the vessel.

Elsje insisted that the boatmen should place a doubly thick plank for

sliding the box on board, as it seemed probable, she said, that the usual

one would break in two, and then the valuable books borrowed of Professor

Erpenius would be damaged or destroyed. The request caused much further

grumbling, but was complied with at last and the chest deposited on the

deck. The wind still continued to blow with great fury, and as soon as

the sails were set the vessel heeled over so much, that Elsje implored

the skipper to cause the box to be securely lashed, as it seemed in

imminent danger, at the first lurch of the vessel, of sliding into the

sea.

This done, Elsje sat herself down and threw her white handkerchief over

her head, letting it flutter in the wind. One of the crew asked her why

she did so, and she replied that the servant in the castle had been

tormenting her, saying that she would never dare to sail to Gorcum in

such tempestuous weather, and she was now signalling him that she had

been as good as her word. Whereupon she continued to wave the

handkerchief.

In reality the signal was for her mistress, who was now straining her

eyes from the barred window which looked out upon the Waal, and with whom

the maid had agreed that if all went prosperously she would give this

token of success. Otherwise she would sit with her head in her hands.

During the voyage an officer of the garrison, who happened to be on

board, threw himself upon the chest as a convenient seat, and began

drumming and pounding with his heels upon it. The ever watchful Elsje,

feeling the dreadful inconvenience to the prisoner of these proceedings,

who perhaps was already smothering and would struggle for air if not

relieved, politely addressed the gentleman and induced him to remove to

another seat by telling him that, besides the books, there was some

valuable porcelain in the chest which might easily be broken.