Holland Part 12

King James was extremely jealous of the more prominent part taken by the French amba.s.sadors, and of the sub-altern consideration held by his own envoys, Winwood and Spencer, in consequence of the disfavor in which he himself was held by the Dutch people.

It appears evident that, whether deservedly or the contrary, England was at this period unpopular in the United Provinces, while France was looked up to with the greatest enthusiasm. This is not surprising, when we compare the characters of Henry IV.

and James I., bearing in mind how much of national reputation at the time depended on the personal conduct of kings; and how political situations influence, if they do not create, the virtues and vices of a people. Independent of the suspicions of his being altogether unfavorable to the declaration required by the United Provinces from Spain, to which James's conduct had given rise, he had established some exactions which greatly embarra.s.sed their fishing expeditions on the coasts of England.

The main points for discussion, and on which depended the decision for peace or war, were those which concerned religion; and the demand, on the part of Spain, that the United Provinces should renounce all claims to the navigation of the Indian seas. Philip required for the Catholics of the United Provinces the free exercise of their religion; this was opposed by the states-general: and the archduke Albert, seeing the impossibility of carrying that point, despatched his confessor, Fra Inigo de Briznella, to Spain.

This Dominican was furnished with the written opinion of several theologians, that the king might conscientiously slur over the article of religion; and he was the more successful with Philip, as the duke of Lerma, his prime minister, was resolved to accomplish the peace at any price. The conferences at The Hague were therefore not interrupted on this question; but they went on slowly, months being consumed in discussions on articles of trifling importance.

They were, however, resumed in the month of August with greater vigor. It was announced that the king of Spain abandoned the question respecting religion; but that it was in the certainty that his moderation would be recompensed by ample concessions on that of the Indian trade, on which he was inexorable. This article became the rock on which the whole negotiation eventually split. The court of Spain on the one hand, and the states-general on the other, inflexibly maintained their opposing claims. It was in vain that the amba.s.sadors turned and twisted the subject with all the subtleties of diplomacy. Every possible expedient was used to shake the determination of the Dutch. But the influence of the East India Company, the islands of Zealand, and the city of Amsterdam, prevailed over all. Reports of the avowal on the part of the king of Spain, that he would never renounce his t.i.tle to the sovereignty of the United Provinces, unless they abandoned the Indian navigation and granted the free exercise of religion, threw the whole diplomatic corps into confusion; and, on the 25th of August, the states-general announced to the marquis of Spinola and the other amba.s.sadors that the congress was dissolved, and that all hopes of peace were abandoned.

Nothing seemed now likely to prevent the immediate renewal of hostilities, when the amba.s.sadors of France and England proposed the mediation of their respective masters for the conclusion of a truce for several years. The king of Spain and the archdukes were well satisfied to obtain even this temporary cessation of the war; but Prince Maurice and a portion of the Provinces strenuously opposed the proposition. The French and English amba.s.sadors, however, in concert with Barneveldt, who steadily maintained his influence, labored incessantly to overcome those difficulties; and finally succeeded in overpowering all opposition to the truce. A new congress was agreed on, to a.s.semble at Antwerp for the consideration of the conditions; and the states-general agreed to remove from The Hague to Berg-or-Zoom, to be more within reach, and ready to co-operate in the negotiation.

But, before matters a.s.sumed this favorable turn, discussions and disputes had intervened on several occasions to render fruitless every effort of those who so incessantly labored for the great causes of humanity and the general good. On one occasion, Barneveldt, disgusted with the opposition of Prince Maurice and his partisans, had actually resigned his employments; but brought back by the solicitations of the states-general, and reconciled to Maurice by the intervention of Jeannin, the negotiations for the truce were resumed; and, under the auspices of the amba.s.sadors, they were happily terminated. After two years' delay, this long-wished-for truce was concluded, and signed on the 9th of April, 1609, to continue for the s.p.a.ce of twelve years.

This celebrated treaty contained thirty-two articles; and its fulfilment on either side was guaranteed by the kings of France and England. Notwithstanding the time taken up in previous discussions, the treaty is one of the most vague and unspecific state papers that exists. The archdukes, in their own names and in that of the king of Spain, declared the United Provinces to be free and independent states, on which they renounced all claim whatever. By the third article each party was to hold respectively the places which they possessed at the commencement of the armistice.

The fourth and fifth articles grant to the republic, but in a phraseology obscure and even doubtful, the right of navigation and free trade to the Indies. The eighth contains all that regards the exercise of religion; and the remaining clauses are wholly relative to points of internal trade, custom-house regulations, and matters of private interest.

Ephemeral and temporary as this peace appeared, it was received with almost universal demonstrations of joy by the population of the Netherlands in their two grand divisions. Everyone seemed to turn toward the enjoyment of tranquillity with the animated composure of tired laborers looking forward to a day of rest and sunshine. This truce brought a calm of comparative happiness upon the country, which an almost unremitting tempest had desolated for nearly half a century; and, after so long a series of calamity, all the national advantages of social life seemed about to settle on the land. The att.i.tude which the United Provinces a.s.sumed at this period was indeed a proud one. They were not now compelled to look abroad and solicit other states to become their masters.

They had forced their old tyrants to acknowledge their independence; to come and ask for peace on their own ground; and to treat with them on terms of no doubtful equality. They had already become so flourishing, so powerful, and so envied, that they who had so lately excited but compa.s.sion from the neighboring states were now regarded with such jealousy as rivals, unequivocally equal, may justly inspire in each other.

The ten southern provinces, now confirmed under the sovereignty of the House of Austria, and from this period generally distinguished by the name of Belgium, immediately began, like the northern division of the country, to labor for the great object of repairing the dreadful sufferings caused by their long and cruel war. Their success was considerable. Albert and Isabella, their sovereigns, joined, to considerable probity of character and talents for government, a fund of humanity which led them to unceasing acts of benevolence. The whole of their dominions quickly began to recover from the ravages of war. Agriculture and the minor operations of trade resumed all their wonted activity. But the manufactures of Flanders were no more; and the grander exercise of commerce seemed finally removed to Amsterdam and the other chief towns of Holland.

This tranquil course of prosperity in the Belgian provinces was only once interrupted during the whole continuance of the twelve years' truce, and that was in the year following its commencement.

The death of the duke of Cleves and Juliers, in this year, gave rise to serious disputes for the succession to his states, which was claimed by several of the princes of Germany. The elector of Brandenburg and the duke of Neuburg were seconded both by France and the United Provinces; and a joint army of both nations, commanded by Prince Maurice and the marshal de la Chatre, was marched into the county of Cleves. After taking possession of the town of Juliers, the allies retired, leaving the two princes above mentioned in a partnership possession of the disputed states. But this joint sovereignty did not satisfy the ambition of either, and serious divisions arose between them, each endeavoring to strengthen himself by foreign alliances. The archdukes Albert and Isabella were drawn into the quarrel; and they despatched Spinola at the head of twenty thousand men to support the duke of Neuburg, whose pretensions they countenanced. Prince Maurice, with a Dutch army, advanced on the other hand to uphold the claims of the elector of Brandenburg. Both generals took possession of several towns; and this double expedition offered the singular spectacle of two opposing armies, acting in different interests, making conquests, and dividing an important inheritance, without the occurrence of one act of hostility to each other. But the interference of the court of Madrid had nearly been the cause of a new rupture. The greatest alarm was excited in the Belgic provinces; and nothing but the prudence of the archdukes and the forbearance of the states-general could have succeeded in averting the threatened evil.

With the exception of this bloodless mimicry of war, the United Provinces presented for the s.p.a.ce of twelve years a long-continued picture of peace, as the term is generally received; but a peace so disfigured by intestine troubles, and so stained by actions of despotic cruelty, that the period which should have been that of its greatest happiness becomes but an example of its worst disgrace.

The a.s.sa.s.sination of Henry IV., in the year 1609, was a new instance of the bigoted atrocity which reigned paramount in Europe at the time; and while robbing France of one of its best monarchs, it deprived the United Provinces of their truest and most powerful friend. Henry has, from his own days to the present, found a ready eulogy in all who value kings in proportion as they are distinguished by heroism, without ceasing to evince the feelings of humanity. Henry seems to have gone as far as man can go, to combine wisdom, dignity and courage with all those endearing qualities of private life which alone give men a prominent hold upon the sympathies of their kind. We acknowledge his errors, his faults, his follies, only to love him the better. We admire his valor and generosity, without being shocked by cruelty or disgusted by profusion. We look on his greatness without envy; and in tracing his whole career we seem to walk hand in hand beside a dear companion, rather than to follow the footsteps of a mighty monarch.

But the death of this powerful supporter of their efforts for freedom, and the chief guarantee for its continuance, was a trifling calamity to the United Provinces, in comparison with the rapid fall from the true point of glory so painfully exhibited in the conduct of their own domestic champion. It had been well for Prince Maurice of Na.s.sau that the last shot fired by the defeated Spaniards in the battle of Nieuport had struck him dead in the moment of his greatest victory and on the summit of his fame.

From that celebrated day he had performed no deed of war that could raise his reputation as a soldier, and all his acts as stadtholder were calculated to sink him below the level of civil virtue and just government. His two campaigns against Spinola had redounded more to the credit of his rival than to his own; and his whole conduct during the negotiation for the truce too plainly betrayed the unworthy nature of his ambition, founded on despotic principles. It was his misfortune to have been completely thrown out of the career for which he had been designed by nature and education. War was his element. By his genius, he improved it as a science: by his valor, he was one of those who raised it from the degradation of a trade to the dignity of a pa.s.sion.

But when removed from the camp to the council room, he became all at once a common man. His frankness degenerated into roughness; his decision into despotism; his courage into cruelty. He gave a new proof of the melancholy fact that circ.u.mstances may transform the most apparent qualities of virtue into those opposite vices between which human wisdom is baffled when it attempts to draw a decided and invariable line.

Opposed to Maurice in almost every one of his acts, was, as we have already seen, Barneveldt, one of the truest patriots of any time or country; and, with the exception of William the Great, prince of Orange, the most eminent citizen to whom the affairs of the Netherlands have given celebrity. A hundred pens have labored to do honor to this truly virtuous man. His greatness has found a record in every act of his life; and his death, like that of William, though differently accomplished, was equally a martyrdom for the liberties of his country. We cannot enter minutely into the train of circ.u.mstances which for several years brought Maurice and Barneveldt into perpetual concussion with each other. Long after the completion of the truce, which the latter so mainly aided in accomplishing, every minor point in the domestic affairs of the republic seemed merged in the conflict between the stadtholder and the pensionary. Without attempting to specify these, we may say, generally, that almost every one redounded to the disgrace of the prince and the honor of the patriot. But the main question of agitation was the fierce dispute which soon broke out between two professors of theology of the university of Leyden, Francis Gomar and James Arminius. We do not regret on this occasion that our confined limits spare us the task of recording in detail controversies on points of speculative doctrine far beyond the reach of the human understanding, and therefore presumptuous, and the decision of which cannot be regarded as of vital importance by those who justly estimate the grand principles of Christianity. The whole strength of the intellects which had long been engaged in the conflict for national and religious liberty, was now directed to metaphysical theology, and wasted upon interminable disputes about predestination and grace. Barneveldt enrolled himself among the partisans of Arminius; Maurice became a Gomarist.

It was, however, scarcely to be wondered at that a country so recently delivered from slavery both in church and state should run into wild excesses of intolerance, before sectarian principles were thoroughly understood and definitively fixed. Persecutions of various kinds were indulged in against Papists, Anabaptists, Socinians, and all the shades of doctrine into which Christianity had split. Every minister who, in the milder spirit of Lutheranism, strove to moderate the rage of Calvinistic enthusiasm, was openly denounced by its partisans; and one, named Gaspard Koolhaas, was actually excommunicated by a synod, and denounced in plain terms to the devil. Arminius had been appointed professor at Leyden in 1603, for the mildness of his doctrines, which were joined to most affable manners, a happy temper, and a purity of conduct which no calumny could successfully traduce.

His colleague Gomar, a native of Bruges, learned, violent, and rigid in sectarian points, soon became jealous of the more popular professor's influence. A furious attack on the latter was answered by recrimination; and the whole battery of theological authorities was reciprocally discharged by one or other of the disputants.

The states-general interfered between them: they were summoned to appear before the council of state; and grave politicians listened for hours to the dispute. Arminius obtained the advantage, by the apparent reasonableness of his creed, and the gentleness and moderation of his conduct. He was meek, while Gomar was furious; and many of the listeners declared that they would rather die with the charity of the former than in the faith of the latter.

A second hearing was allowed them before the states of Holland.

Again Arminius took the lead; and the controversy went on unceasingly, till this amiable man, worn out by his exertions and the presentiment of the evil which these disputes were engendering for his country, expired in his forty-ninth year, piously persisting in his opinions.

The Gomarists now loudly called for a national synod, to regulate the points of faith. The Arminians remonstrated on various grounds, and thus acquired the name of Remonstrants, by which they were soon generally distinguished. The most deplorable contests ensued.

Serious riots occurred in several of the towns of Holland; and James I. of England could not resist the temptation of entering the polemical lists, as a champion of orthodoxy and a decided Gomarist. His hostility was chiefly directed against Vorstius, the successor and disciple of Arminius. He pretty strongly recommended to the states-general to have him burned for heresy.

His inveterate intolerance knew no bounds; and it completed the melancholy picture of absurdity which the whole affair presents to reasonable minds.

In this dispute, which occupied and agitated all, it was impossible that Barneveldt should not choose the congenial temperance and toleration of Arminius. Maurice, with probably no distinct conviction or much interest in the abstract differences on either side, joined the Gomarists. His motives were purely temporal; for the party he espoused was now decidedly as much political as religious.

King James rewarded him by conferring on him the ribbon of the Order of the Garter, vacant by the death of Henry IV. of France.

The ceremony of investment was performed with great pomp by the English amba.s.sador at The Hague; and James and Maurice entered from that time into a closer and more uninterrupted correspondence than before.

During the long continuance of the theological disputes, the United Provinces had nevertheless made rapid strides toward commercial greatness; and the year 1616 witnessed the completion of an affair which was considered the consolidation of their independence. This important matter was the recovery of the towns of Brille and Flessingue, and the fort of Rammekins, which had been placed in the hands of the English as security for the loan granted to the republic by Queen Elizabeth. The whole merit of the transaction was due to the perseverance and address, of Barneveldt acting on the weakness and the embarra.s.sments of King James. Religious contention did not so fully occupy Barneveldt but that he kept a constant eye on political concerns. He was well informed on all that pa.s.sed in the English court; he knew the wants of James, and was aware of his efforts to bring about the marriage of his son with the infanta of Spain. The danger of such an alliance was evident to the penetrating Barneveldt, who saw in perspective the probability of the wily Spaniards obtaining from the English monarch possession of the strong places in question. He therefore resolved on obtaining their recovery; and his great care was to get them back with a considerable abatement of the enormous debt for which they stood pledged, and which now amounted to eight million florins.

Barneveldt commenced his operations by sounding the needy monarch through the medium of Noel Caron, the amba.s.sador from the states-general; and he next managed so as that James himself should offer to give up the towns, thereby allowing a fair pretext to the states for claiming a diminution of the debt. The English garrisons were unpaid and their complaints brought down a strong remonstrance from James, and excuses from the states, founded on the poverty of their financial resources. The negotiation rapidly went on, in the same spirit of avidity on the part of the king, and of good management on that of his debtors. It was finally agreed that the states should pay in full of the demand two million seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand florins (about two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling), being about one-third of the debt. Prince Maurice repaired to the cautionary towns in the month of June, and received them at the hands of the English governors; the garrisons at the same time entering into the service of the republic.

The accomplishment of this measure afforded the highest satisfaction to the United Provinces. It caused infinite discontent in England; and James, with the common injustice of men who make a bad bargain (even though its conditions be of their own seeking and suited to their own convenience), turned his own self-dissatisfaction into bitter hatred against him whose watchful integrity had successfully labored for his country's good. Barneveldt's leaning toward France and the Arminians filled the measure of James's unworthy enmity.

Its effects were soon apparent, on the arrival at The Hague of Carleton, who succeeded Winwood as James's amba.s.sador. The haughty pretensions of this diplomatist, whose attention seemed turned to theological disputes rather than politics, gave great disgust; and he contributed not a little to the persecution which led to the tragical end of Barneveldt's valuable life.

While this indefatigable patriot was busy in relieving his country from its dependence on England, his enemies accused him of the wish to reduce it once more to Spanish tyranny. Francis Aa.r.s.ens, son to him who proved himself so incorruptible when attempted to be bribed by Neyen, was one of the foremost of the faction who now labored for the downfall of the pensionary. He was a man of infinite dissimulation; versed in all the intrigues of courts; and so deep in all their tortuous tactics that Cardinal Richelieu, well qualified to prize that species of talent, declared that he knew only three great political geniuses, of whom Francis Aa.r.s.ens was one.

Prince Maurice now almost openly avowed his pretensions to absolute sovereignty: he knew that his success wholly depended on the consent of Barneveldt. To seduce him to favor his designs he had recourse to the dowager princess of Orange, his mother-in-law, whose gentle character and exemplary conduct had procured her universal esteem and the influence naturally attendant on it.

Maurice took care to make her understand that her interest in his object was not trifling. Long time attached to Gertrude van Mechlen, his favorite mistress, who had borne him several children, he now announced his positive resolution to remain unmarried; so that his brother Frederick Henry, the dowager's only son, would be sure to succeed to the sovereignty he aimed at. The princess, not insensible to this appeal, followed the instructions of Maurice, and broached the affair to Barneveldt; but he was inexorable. He clearly explained to her the perilous career on which the prince proposed to enter; he showed how great, how independent, how almost absolute, he might continue, without shocking the principles of republicanism by grasping at an empty dignity, which could not virtually increase his authority, and would most probably convulse the state to its foundation and lead to his own ruin. The princess, convinced by his reasoning, repaired to Maurice; but instead of finding him as ready a convert as she herself had been, she received as cold an answer as was compatible with a pa.s.sionate temper, wounded pride, and disappointed ambition. The princess and Barneveldt recounted the whole affair to Maurier, the French amba.s.sador; and his son has transmitted it to posterity.

We cannot follow the misguided prince in all the winding ways of intrigue and subterfuge through which he labored to reach his object. Religion, the holiest of sentiments, and Christianity, the most sacred of its forms, were perpetually degraded by being made the pretexts for that unworthy object. He was for a while diverted from its direct pursuit by the preparation made to afford a.s.sistance to some of the allies of the republic. Fifty thousand florins a month were granted to the duke of Savoy, who was at war with Spain; and seven thousand men, with nearly forty ships, were despatched to the aid of the republic of Venice, in its contest with Ferdinand, archduke of Gratz, who was afterward elected emperor. The honorary empire of the seas seems at this time to have been successfully claimed by the United Provinces.

They paid back with interest the haughty conduct with which they had been long treated by the English; and they refused to pay the fishery duties to which the inhabitants of Great Britain were subject. The Dutch sailors had even the temerity, under pretext of pursuing pirates, to violate the British territory.

They set fire to the town of Crookhaven, in Ireland, and ma.s.sacred several of the inhabitants. King James, immersed in theological studies, appears to have pa.s.sed slightly over this outrage. More was to have been expected from his usual attention to the affairs of Ireland; his management of which ill-fated country is the best feature of his political character, and ought, to Irish feelings at least, to be considered to redeem its many errors.

But he took fire at the news that the states had prohibited the importation of cloth dyed and dressed in England. It required the best exertion of Barneveldt's talents to pacify him; and it was not easy to effect this through the jaundiced medium of the amba.s.sador Carleton. But it was unanswerably argued by the pensionary that the manufacture of cloth was one of those ancient and natural sources of wealth which England had ravished from the Netherlands, and which the latter was justified in recovering by every effort consistent with national honor and fair principles of government.

The influence of Prince Maurice had gained complete success for the Calvinist party, in its various t.i.tles of Gomarists, non-remonstrants, etc. The audacity and violence of these ferocious sectarians knew no bounds. Outrages, too many to enumerate, became common through the country; and Arminianism was on all sides a.s.sailed and persecuted. Barneveldt frequently appealed to Maurice without effect; and all the efforts of the former to obtain justice by means of the civil authorities were paralyzed by the inaction in which the prince retained the military force. In this juncture, the magistrates of various towns, spurred on by Barneveldt, called out the national militia, termed Waardegelders, which possessed the right of arming at its own expense for the protection of the public peace. Schism upon schism was the consequence, and the whole country was reduced to that state of anarchy so favorable to the designs of an ambitious soldier already in the enjoyment of almost absolute power. Maurice possessed all the hardihood and vigor suited to such an occasion. At the head of two companies of infantry, and accompanied by his brother Frederick Henry, he suddenly set out at night from The Hague; arrived at the Brille; and in defiance of the remonstrances of the magistrates, and in violation of the rights of the town, he placed his devoted garrison in that important place. To justify this measure, reports were spread that Barneveldt intended to deliver it up to the Spaniards; and the ignorant, insensate, and ungrateful people swallowed the calumny.

This and such minor efforts were, however, all subservient to the one grand object of utterly destroying, by a public proscription, the whole of the patriot party, now identified with Arminianism.

A national synod was loudly clamored for by the Gomarists; and in spite of all opposition on const.i.tutional grounds, it was finally proclaimed. Uitenbogaard, the enlightened pastor and friend of Maurice, who on all occasions labored for the general good, now moderated, as much as possible, the violence of either party; but he could not persuade Barneveldt to render himself, by compliance, a tacit accomplice with a measure that he conceived fraught with violence to the public privileges. He had an inflexible enemy in Carleton, the English amba.s.sador. His interference carried the question; and it was at his suggestion that Dordrecht, or Dort, was chosen for the a.s.sembling of the synod. Du Maurier, the French amba.s.sador, acted on all occasions as a mediator; but to obtain influence at such a time it was necessary to become a partisan. Several towns--Leyden, Gouda, Rotterdam, and some others--made a last effort for their liberties, and formed a fruitless confederation.

Barneveldt solicited the acceptance of his resignation of all his offices. The states-general implored him not to abandon the country at such a critical moment: he consequently maintained his post. Libels the most vindictive and atrocious were published and circulated against him; and at last, forced from his silence by these multiplied calumnies, he put forward his "Apology,"

addressed to the States of Holland.

This dignified vindication only produced new outrages; Maurice, now become Prince of Orange by the death of his elder brother without children, employed his whole authority to carry his object, and crush Barneveldt. At the head of his troops he seized on towns, displaced magistrates, trampled under foot all the ancient privileges of the citizens, and openly announced his intention to overthrow the federative const.i.tution. His bold conduct completely terrified the states-general. They thanked him; they consented to disband the militia; formally invited foreign powers to favor and protect the synod about to be held at Dort. The return of Carleton from England, where he had gone to receive the more positive promises of support from King James, was only wanting, to decide Maurice to take the final step; and no sooner did the amba.s.sador arrive at The Hague than Barneveldt and his most able friends, Grotius, Hoogerbeets, and Ledenberg, were arrested in the name of the states-general.

The country was taken by surprise; no resistance was offered.

The concluding scenes of the tragedy were hurried on; violence was succeeded by violence, against public feeling and public justice. Maurice became completely absolute in everything but in name. The supplications of amba.s.sadors, the protests of individuals, the arguments of statesmen, were alike unavailing to stop the torrent of despotism and injustice. The synod of Dort was opened on the 13th of November, 1618. Theology was mystified; religion disgraced; Christianity outraged. And after one hundred and fifty-two sittings, during six months' display of ferocity and fraud, the solemn mockery was closed on the 9th of May, 1619, by the declaration of its president, that "its miraculous labors had made h.e.l.l tremble."

Proscriptions, banishments, and death were the natural consequences of this synod. The divisions which it had professed to extinguish were rendered a thousand times more violent than before. Its decrees did incalculable ill to the cause they were meant to promote. The Anglican Church was the first to reject the canons of Dort with horror and contempt. The Protestants of France and Germany, and even Geneva, the nurse and guardian of Calvinism, were shocked and disgusted, and unanimously softened down the rigor of their respective creeds. But the moral effects of this memorable conclave were too remote to prevent the sacrifice which almost immediately followed the celebration of its rites. A trial by twenty-four prejudiced enemies, by courtesy called judges, which in its progress and its result throws judicial dignity into scorn, ended in the condemnation of Barneveldt and his fellow patriots, for treason against the liberties they had vainly labored to save. Barneveldt died on the scaffold by the hands of the executioner on the 13th of May, 1619, in the seventy-second year of his age. Grotius and Hoogerbeets were sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. Ledenberg committed suicide in his cell, sooner than brave the tortures which he antic.i.p.ated at the hands of his enemies.

Many more pages than we are able to afford sentences might be devoted to the details of these iniquitous proceedings, and an account of their awful consummation. The pious heroism of Barneveldt was never excelled by any martyr to the most holy cause. He appealed to Maurice against the unjust sentence which condemned him to death; but he scorned to beg his life. He met his fate with such temperate courage as was to be expected from the dignified energy of his life. His last words were worthy a philosopher whose thoughts, even in his latest moments, were superior to mere personal hope or fear, and turned to the deep mysteries of his being. "O G.o.d!"

cried De Barneveldt, "what then is man?" as he bent his head to the sword that severed it from his body, and sent the inquiring spirit to learn the great mystery for which it longed.

CHAPTER XVII

TO THE DEATH OF PRINCE MAURICE

A.D. 1619--1625

The princess-dowager of Orange, and Du Maurier, the French amba.s.sador, had vainly implored mercy for the innocent victim at the hands of the inexorable stadtholder. Maurice refused to see his mother-in-law: he left the amba.s.sador's appeal unanswered.

This is enough for the rigid justice of history that cannot be blinded by partiality, but hands over to shame, at the close of their career, even those whom she nursed in the very cradle of heroism. But an accusation has become current, more fatal to the fame of Prince Maurice, because it strikes at the root of his claims to feeling, which could not be impugned by a mere perseverance in severity that might have sprung from mistaken views. It is a.s.serted, but only as general belief, that he witnessed the execution of Barneveldt. The little window of an octagonal tower, overlooking the square of the Binnenhof at The Hague, where the tragedy was acted, is still shown as the spot from which the prince gazed on the scene. Almost concealed from view among the cl.u.s.tering buildings of the place, it is well adapted to give weight to the tradition; but it may not, perhaps, even now be too late to raise a generous incredulity as to an a.s.sertion of which no eye-witness attestation is recorded, and which might have been the invention of malignity. There are many statements of history which it is immaterial to substantiate or disprove.

Splendid fictions of public virtue have often produced their good if once received as fact; but, when private character is at stake, every conscientious writer or reader will cherish his "historic doubts," when he reflects on the facility with which calumny is sent abroad, the avidity with which it is received, and the careless ease with which men credit what it costs little to invent and propagate, but requires an age of trouble and an almost impossible conjunction of opportunities effectually to refute.

Grotius and Hoogerbeets were confined in the castle of Louvestein.

Moersbergen, a leading patriot of Utrecht, De Haan, pensionary of Haarlem, and Uitenbogaard, the chosen confidant of Maurice, but the friend of Barneveldt, were next accused and sentenced to imprisonment or banishment. And thus Arminianism, deprived of its chiefs, was for the time completely stifled. The Remonstrants, thrown into utter despair, looked to emigration as their last resource. Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, and Frederick, duke of Holstein, offered them shelter and protection in their respective states. Several availed themselves of these offers; but the states-general, alarmed at the progress of self-expatriation, moderated their rigor, and thus checked the desolating evil.

Several of the imprisoned Arminians had the good fortune to elude the vigilance of their jailers; but the escape of Grotius is the most remarkable of all, both from his own celebrity as one of the first writers of his age in the most varied walks of literature, and from its peculiar circ.u.mstances, which only found a parallel in European history after a lapse of two centuries.

We allude to the escape of Lavalette from the prison of the Conciergerie in Paris in 1815, which so painfully excited the interest of all Europe for the intended victim's wife, whose reason was the forfeit of her exertion.