Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland : with a view of the primary causes and movements of the Thirty Years' War, 1619-23Motley, 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, 1619-23
Motley, John Lothrop
Oldenbarnevelt, Johan van, 1547-1619; Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648
The sight of that long, sandy beach stretching for more than seventy
miles in an unbroken, melancholy line, without cove, curve, or
indentation to break its cruel monotony, and with the wild waves of the
German Ocean, lashed by a wintry storm, breaking into white foam as far
as the eye could reach, appalled the fugitive criminal. With the
certainty of an ignominious death behind him, he shrank abjectly from
the terrors of the sea, and, despite the honest fisherman's entreaties,
refused to enter the boat and face the storm. He wandered feebly along
the coast, still accompanied by his humble friend, to another little
village, where the fisherman procured a waggon, which took them as far as
Sandvoort. Thence he made his way through Egmond and Petten and across
the Marsdiep to Tegel, where not deeming himself safe he had himself
ferried over to the neighbouring island of Vlieland. Here amongst the
quicksands, whirlpools, and shallows which mark the last verge of
habitable Holland, the unhappy fugitive stood at bay.
Meantime information had come to the authorities that a suspicious
stranger had been seen at Scheveningen. The fisherman's wife was
arrested. Threatened with torture she at last confessed with whom her
husband had fled and whither. Information was sent to the bailiff of
Vlieland, who with a party of followers made a strict search through his
narrow precincts. A group of seamen seated on the sands was soon
discovered, among whom, dressed in shaggy pea jacket with long
fisherman's boots, was the Seigneur de Groeneveld, who, easily recognized
through his disguise, submitted to his captors without a struggle. The
Scheveningen fisherman, who had been so faithful to him, making a sudden
spring, eluded his pursuers and disappeared; thus escaping the gibbet
which would probably have been his doom instead of the reward of 4000
golden guilders which he might have had for betraying him. Thus a
sum more than double the amount originally furnished by Groeneveld,
as the capital of the assassination company, had been rejected by the
Rotterdam boatman who saved Stoutenburg, and by the Scheveningen
fisherman who was ready to save Groeneveld. On the 19th February, within
less than a fortnight from the explosion of the conspiracy, the eldest
son of Barneveld was lodged in the Gevangen Poort or state prison of the
Hague.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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