The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, 1619-23 | Page 6

This was
afterwards misinterpreted as if I had had wonderful things to reveal."
But Grotius towards the end of his trial showed still greater weakness.
After repeated refusals, he had at last obtained permission of the judges
to draw up in writing the heads of his defence. To do this he was
allowed a single sheet of paper, and four hours of time, the trial having
lasted several months. And in the document thus prepared he showed
faltering in his faith as to his great friend's innocence, and admitted,
without any reason whatever, the possibility of there being truth in
some of the vile and anonymous calumnies against him.
"The friendship of the Advocate of Holland I had always highly
prized," he said, "hoping from the conversation of so wise and
experienced a person to learn much that was good . . . . I firmly
believed that his Excellency, notwithstanding occasional differences as
to the conduct of public affairs, considered him a true and upright
servant of the land . . . I have been therefore surprised to understand,
during my imprisonment, that the gentlemen had proofs in hand not
alone of his correspondence with the enemy, but also of his having
received money from them.
"He being thus accused, I have indicated by word of mouth and
afterwards resumed in writing all matters which I thought--the
above-mentioned proofs being made good--might be thereto indirectly
referred, in order to show that for me no friendships were so dear as the
preservation of the freedom of the land. I wish that he may give
explanation of all to the contentment of the judges, and that therefore
his actions--which, supposing the said correspondence to be true, are
subject to a bad interpretation--may be taken in another sense."
Alas! could the Advocate--among whose first words after hearing of his

own condemnation to death were, "And must my Grotius die too?"
adding, with a sigh of relief when assured of the contrary, "I should
deeply grieve for that; he is so young and may live to do the State much
service "could he have read those faltering and ungenerous words from
one he so held in his heart, he would have felt them like the stab of
Brutus.
Grotius lived to know that there were no such proofs, that the judges
did not dare even allude to the charge in their sentence, and long years
afterwards he drew a picture of the martyred patriot such as one might
have expected from his pen.
But these written words of doubt must have haunted him to his grave.
On the 18th May 1619--on the fifty-first anniversary, as Grotius
remarked, of the condemnation of Egmont and Hoorn by the Blood
Tribunal of Alva--the two remaining victims were summoned to
receive their doom. The Fiscal Sylla, entering de Groot's chamber early
in the morning to conduct him before the judges, informed him that he
was not instructed to communicate the nature of the sentence. "But," he
said, maliciously, "you are aware of what has befallen the Advocate."
"I have heard with my own ears," answered Grotius, "the judgment
pronounced upon Barneveld and upon Ledenberg. Whatever may be
my fate, I have patience to bear it."
The sentence, read in the same place and in the same manner as had
been that upon the Advocate, condemned both Hoogerbeets and
Grotius to perpetual imprisonment.
The course of the trial and the enumeration of the offences were nearly
identical with the leading process which has been elaborately
described.
Grotius made no remark whatever in the court-room. On returning to
his chamber he observed that his admissions of facts had been tortured
into confessions of guilt, that he had been tried and sentenced against
all principles and forms of law, and that he had been deprived of what
the humblest criminal could claim, the right of defence and the
examination of testimony. In regard to the penalty against him, he said,
there was no such thing as perpetual imprisonment except in hell.
Alluding to the leading cause of all these troubles, he observed that it
was with the Stadholder and the Advocate as Cato had said of Caesar
and Pompey. The great misery had come not from their being enemies,

but from their having once been friends.
On the night of 5th June the prisoners were taken from their prison in
the Hague and conveyed to the castle of Loevestein.
This fortress, destined thenceforth to be famous in history and--from its
frequent use in after-times as a state-prison for men of similar
constitutional views to those of Grotius and the Advocate--to give its
name to a political party, was a place of extraordinary strength. Nature
and art had made it, according to military ideas of that age, almost
impregnable. As a prison it