Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland : with a view of the primary causes and movements of the Thirty Years' War, 1618-19Motley, John Lothrop
History
Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland : with a view of the primary causes and movements of the Thirty Years' War, 1618-19
Motley, John Lothrop
Oldenbarnevelt, Johan van, 1547-1619; Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648
Most fitly then, as a distinguished American statesman has remarked, does
that scene on board the little English vessel, with the English pastor
uttering his farewell blessing to a handful of English exiles for
conscience sake; depicted on canvas by eminent artists, now adorn the
halls of the American Congress and of the British Parliament. Sympathy
with one of the many imperishable bonds of union between the two great
and scarcely divided peoples.
We return to Barneveld in his solitary prison.
CHAPTER XX.
Barneveld's Imprisonment--Ledenberg's Examination and Death--
Remonstrance of De Boississe--Aerssens admitted to the order of
Knights--Trial of the Advocate--Barneveld's Defence--The States
proclaim a Public Fast--Du Maurier's Speech before the Assembly--
Barneveld's Sentence--Barneveld prepares for Death--Goes to
Execution.
The Advocate had been removed within a few days after the arrest from the
chamber in Maurice's apartments, where he had originally been confined,
and was now in another building.
It was not a dungeon nor a jail. Indeed the commonplace and domestic
character of the scenery in which these great events were transacted has
in it something pathetic. There was and still remains a two-storied
structure, then of modern date, immediately behind the antique hall of
the old Counts within the Binnenhof. On the first floor was a courtroom
of considerable extent, the seat of one of the chief tribunals of justice
The story above was divided into three chambers with a narrow corridor
on each side. The first chamber, on the north-eastern side, was
appropriated for the judges when the state prisoners should be tried.
In the next Hugo Grotius was imprisoned. In the third was Barneveld.
There was a tower at the north-east angle of the building, within which
a winding and narrow staircase of stone led up to the corridor and so to
the prisoners' apartments. Rombout Hoogerbeets was confined in another
building.
As the Advocate, bent with age and a life of hard work, and leaning on
his staff, entered the room appropriated to him, after toiling up the
steep staircase, he observed--
"This is the Admiral of Arragon's apartment."
It was true. Eighteen years before, the conqueror of Nieuwpoort had
assigned this lodging to the chief prisoner of war in that memorable
victory over the Spaniards, and now Maurice's faithful and trusted
counsellor at that epoch was placed in durance here, as the result of the
less glorious series of victories which had just been achieved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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