The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, 1609-23 | Page 4

in
his own country is Oldenbarneveld, but in his lifetime and always in
history from that time to this he has been called Barneveld in English
as well as French, and this transformation, as it were, of the name has
become so settled a matter that after some hesitation it has been
adopted in the present work.
The Author would take this opportunity of expressing his gratitude for
the indulgence with which his former attempts to illustrate an important
period of European history have been received by the public, and his
anxious hope that the present volumes may be thought worthy of
attention. They are the result at least of severe and conscientious labour
at the original sources of history, but the subject is so complicated and
difficult that it may well be feared that the ability to depict and unravel
is unequal to the earnestness with which the attempt has been made.
LONDON, 1873.

The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v1, 1609

CHAPTER I
.
John of Barneveld the Founder of the Commonwealth of the United
Provinces--Maurice of Orange Stadholder, but Servant to the States-
General--The Union of Utrecht maintained--Barneveld makes a
Compromise between Civil Functionaries and Church Officials--
Embassies to France, England, and to Venice--the Appointment of
Arminius to be Professor of Theology at Leyden creates Dissension--
The Catholic League opposed by the Great Protestant Union--Death of
the Duke of Cleve and Struggle for his Succession--The Elector of
Brandenburg and Palatine of Neuburg hold the Duchies at Barneveld's
Advice against the Emperor, though having Rival Claims themselves--
Negotiations with the King of France--He becomes the Ally of the
States-General to Protect the Possessory Princes, and prepares for war.
I propose to retrace the history of a great statesman's career. That
statesman's name, but for the dark and tragic scenes with which it was
ultimately associated, might after the lapse of two centuries and a half
have faded into comparative oblivion, so impersonal and shadowy his

presence would have seemed upon the great European theatre where he
was so long a chief actor, and where his efforts and his achievements
were foremost among those productive of long enduring and
widespread results.
There is no doubt whatever that John of Barneveld, Advocate and Seal
Keeper of the little province of Holland during forty years of as
troubled and fertile an epoch as any in human history, was second to
none of his contemporary statesmen. Yet the singular constitution and
historical position of the republic whose destinies he guided and the
peculiar and abnormal office which he held combined to cast a veil
over his individuality. The ever-teeming brain, the restless almost
omnipresent hand, the fertile pen, the eloquent and ready tongue, were
seen, heard, and obeyed by the great European public, by the monarchs,
statesmen, and warriors of the time, at many critical moments of
history, but it was not John of Barneveld that spoke to the world. Those
"high and puissant Lords my masters the States-General" personified
the young but already majestic republic. Dignified, draped, and
concealed by that overshadowing title the informing and master spirit
performed its never ending task.
Those who study the enormous masses of original papers in the
archives of the country will be amazed to find how the penmanship,
most difficult to decipher, of the Advocate meets them at every turn.
Letters to monarchs, generals, ambassadors, resolutions of councils, of
sovereign assemblies, of trading corporations, of great Indian
companies, legal and historical disquisitions of great depth and length
on questions agitating Europe, constitutional arguments, drafts of
treaties among the leading powers of the world, instructions to great
commissions, plans for European campaigns, vast combinations
covering the world, alliances of empire, scientific expeditions and
discoveries--papers such as these covered now with the satirical dust of
centuries, written in the small, crabbed, exasperating characters which
make Barneveld's handwriting almost cryptographic, were once, when
fairly engrossed and sealed with the great seal of the haughty
burgher-aristocracy, the documents which occupied the close attention
of the cabinets of Christendom.
It is not unfrequent to find four or five important despatches
compressed almost in miniature upon one sheet of gigantic foolscap. It

is also curious to find each one of these rough drafts conscientiously
beginning in the statesman's own hand with the elaborate phrases of
compliment belonging to the epoch such as "Noble, strenuous, severe,
highly honourable, very learned, very discreet, and very wise masters,"
and ending with "May the Lord God Almighty eternally preserve you
and hold you in His holy keeping in this world and for
ever"--decorations which one might have thought it safe to leave to be
filled in by the secretary or copying clerk.
Thus there have been few men at any period whose lives have been
more closely identical than his with a