"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 inhis favour, to which he has answered that so long as you conductyourselves well this shall be the case. I recommend this to you in thebest form and give you all into God's holy keeping. Kiss each other andall 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 andfather,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 mobsBurning with bitter revenge for all the favours he had receivedDeath rather than life with a false acknowledgment of guiltEnemy of all compulsion of the human conscienceHeidelberg Catechism were declared to be infallibleI know how to console myselfImplication there was much, of assertion very littleJohn RobinsonMagistracy at that moment seemed to mean the swordOnly true religionRather a wilderness to reign over than a single hereticWilliam Brewster
Barneveld's Execution—The Advocate's Conduct on the Scaffold—TheSentence printed and sent to the Provinces—The Proceedingsirregular 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.