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Title: The Life of John of Barneveld, 1618-19

Author: John Lothrop Motley

Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4896] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 24, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF JOHN OF BARNEVELD, 1618-19 ***

This eBook was produced by David Widger

[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an entire meal of them. D.W.]

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.

MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, Project Gutenberg Edition, Volume 96

Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v10, 1618-19

CHAPTER XIX.

     Rancour between the Politico-Religious Parties—Spanish Intrigues
     Inconsistency of James—Brewster and Robinson's Congregation at
     Leyden—They decide to leave for America—Robinson's Farewell Sermon
     and Prayer at Parting.

During this dark and mournful winter the internal dissensions and, as a matter of course, the foreign intrigues had become more dangerous than ever. While the man who for a whole generation had guided the policy of the Republic and had been its virtual chief magistrate lay hidden from all men's sight, the troubles which he had sought to avert were not diminished by his removal from the scene. The extreme or Gomarist party which had taken a pride in secret conventicles where they were in a minority, determined, as they said, to separate Christ from Belial and, meditating the triumph which they had at last secured, now drove the Arminians from the great churches. Very soon it was impossible for these heretics to enjoy the rights of public worship anywhere. But they were not dismayed. The canons of Dordtrecht had not yet been fulminated. They avowed themselves ready to sacrifice worldly goods and life itself in defence of the Five Points. In Rotterdam, notwithstanding a garrison of fifteen companies, more than a thousand Remonstrants assembled on Christmas-day in the Exchange for want of a more appropriate place of meeting and sang the 112th Psalm in mighty chorus. A clergyman of their persuasion accidentally passing through the street was forcibly laid hands upon and obliged to preach to them, which he did with great unction. The magistracy, where now the Contra-Remonstrants had the control, forbade, under severe penalties, a repetition of such scenes. It was impossible not to be reminded of the days half a century before, when the early Reformers had met in the open fields or among the dunes, armed to the teeth, and with outlying pickets to warn the congregation of the approach of Red Rod and the functionaries of the Holy Inquisition.

In Schoonhoven the authorities attempted one Sunday by main force to induct a Contra-Remonstrant into the pulpit from which a Remonstrant had just been expelled. The women of the place turned out with their distaffs and beat them from the field. The garrison was called out, and there was a pitched battle in the streets between soldiers, police officers, and women, not much to the edification certainly of the Sabbath-loving community on either side, the victory remaining with the ladies.

In short it would be impossible to exaggerate the rancour felt between the different politico-religious parties. All heed for the great war now raging in the outside world between the hostile elements of Catholicism and Protestantism, embattled over an enormous space, was lost in the din of conflict among the respective supporters of conditional and unconditional damnation within the pale of the Reformed Church. The earthquake shaking Europe rolled unheeded, as it was of old said to have done at Cannae, amid the fierce shock of mortal foes in that narrow field.

The respect for authority which had so long been the distinguishing characteristic of the Netherlanders seemed to have disappeared. It was difficult—now that the time-honoured laws and privileges in defence of which, and of liberty of worship included in them, the Provinces had made war forty years long had been trampled upon by military force—for those not warmed by the fire of Gomarus to feel their ancient respect for the magistracy. The magistracy at that moment seemed to mean the sword.

The Spanish government was inevitably encouraged by the spectacle thus presented. We have seen the strong hopes entertained by the council at Madrid, two years before the crisis now existing had occurred. We have witnessed the eagerness with which the King indulged the dream of recovering the sovereignty which his father had lost, and the vast schemes which he nourished towards that purpose, founded on the internal divisions which were reducing the Republic to impotence. Subsequent events had naturally made him more sanguine than ever. There was now a web of intrigue stretching through the Provinces to bring them all back under the sceptre of Spain. The imprisonment of the great stipendiary, the great conspirator, the man who had sold himself and was on the point of selling his country, had not terminated those plots. Where was the supposed centre of that intrigue? In the council of state of the Netherlands, ever fiercely opposed to Barneveld and stuffed full of his mortal enemies. Whose name was most familiar on the lips of the Spanish partisans engaged in these secret schemes? That of Adrian Manmaker, President of the Council, representative of Prince Maurice as first noble of Zealand in the States-General, chairman of the committee sent by that body to Utrecht to frustrate the designs of the Advocate, and one of the twenty-four commissioners soon to be appointed to sit in judgment upon him.

The tale seems too monstrous for belief, nor is it to be admitted with certainty, that Manmaker and the other councillors implicated had actually given their adhesion to the plot, because the Spanish emissaries in their correspondence with the King assured him of the fact. But if such a foundation for suspicion could have been found against Barneveld and his friends, the world would not have heard the last of it from that hour to this.

It is superfluous to say that the Prince was entirely