The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, 1609-10

Life of John of Barneveld,
1609-10

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Title: The Life of John of Barneveld, 1609
Author: John Lothrop Motley
Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4886] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 22,
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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 86
The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v1, 1609

PREFACE:
These volumes make a separate work in themselves. They form also the
natural sequel to the other histories already published by the Author, as
well as the necessary introduction to that concluding portion of his
labours which he has always desired to lay before the public; a History
of the Thirty Years' War.
For the two great wars which successively established the
independence of Holland and the disintegration of Germany are in
reality but one; a prolonged Tragedy of Eighty Years. The brief pause,
which in the Netherlands was known as the Twelve Years' Truce with

Spain, was precisely the epoch in which the elements were slowly and
certainly gathering for the renewal over nearly the whole surface of
civilized Europe of that immense conflict which for more than forty
years had been raging within the narrow precincts of the Netherlands.
The causes and character of the two wars were essentially the same.
There were many changes of persons and of scenery during a struggle
which lasted for nearly three generations of mankind; yet a natural
succession both of actors, motives, and events will be observed from
the beginning to the close.
The designs of Charles V. to establish universal monarchy, which he
had passionately followed for a lifetime through a series of colossal
crimes against humanity and of private misdeeds against individuals,
such as it has rarely been permitted to a single despot to perpetrate, had
been baffled at last. Disappointed, broken, but even to our own
generation never completely unveiled, the tyrant had withdrawn from
the stage of human affairs, leaving his son to carry on the great
conspiracy against Human Right, independence of nations, liberty of
thought, and equality of religions, with the additional vigour which
sprang from intensity of conviction.
For Philip possessed at least that superiority over his father that he was
a sincere bigot. In the narrow and gloomy depths of his soul he had
doubtless persuaded himself that it was necessary for the redemption of
the human species that the empire of the world should be vested in his
hands, that Protestantism in all its forms should be extirpated as a
malignant disease, and that to behead, torture, burn alive, and bury
alive all heretics who opposed the decree of himself and the Holy
Church was the highest virtue by which he could merit Heaven.
The father would have permitted Protestantism if Protestantism would
have submitted to universal monarchy. There would have been small
difficulty in the early part of his reign in effecting a compromise
between Rome and Augsburg, had the gigantic secular ambition of
Charles not preferred to weaken the Church and to convert
conscientious religious reform into political mutiny; a crime against
him who claimed the sovereignty of Christendom.
The materials for the true history of that reign lie in the Archives of
Spain,