The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, 1618-19 | Page 4

those malicious
spirits." It seemed a strange caprice of Destiny that assigned to this
hater of Netherlanders, of Puritans, and of the Reformed religion, the
decision of disputed points between Puritans and anti-Puritans in the
Reformed Church of the Netherlands.
It seemed stranger that his opinions should be hotly on the side of the
Puritans.
Barneveld, who often used the expression in later years, as we have

seen in his correspondence, was opposed to the Dutch Puritans because
they had more than once attempted subversion of the government on
pretext of religion, especially at the memorable epoch of Leicester's
government.
The business of stirring up these religious conspiracies against the
magistracy he was apt to call "Flanderizing," in allusion to those
disastrous days and to the origin of the ringleaders in those tumults. But
his main object, as we have seen, was to effect compromises and
restore good feeling between members of the one church, reserving the
right of disposing over religious matters to the government of the
respective provinces.
But James had remedied his audacious inconsistency by discovering
that Puritanism in England and in the Netherlands resembled each other
no more than certain letters transposed into totally different words
meant one and the same thing. The anagrammatic argument had been
neatly put by Sir Dudley Carleton, convincing no man. Puritanism in
England "denied the right of human invention or imposition in religious
matters." Puritanism in the Netherlands denied the right of the legal
government to impose its authority in religious matters. This was the
great matter of debate in the Provinces. In England the argument had
been settled very summarily against the Puritans by sheriffs' officers,
bishops' pursuivants, and county jails.
As the political tendencies, so too the religious creed and observances
of the English Puritans were identical with that of the Contra-
Remonstrants, whom King James had helped to their great triumph.
This was not very difficult to prove. It so happened that there were
some English Puritans living at that moment in Leyden. They formed
an independent society by themselves, which they called a
Congregational Church, and in which were some three hundred
communicants. The length of their residence there was almost exactly
coeval with the Twelve Years' Truce. They knew before leaving
England that many relics of the Roman ceremonial, with which they
were dissatisfied, and for the discontinuance of which they had in vain
petitioned the crown--the ring, the sign of the cross, white surplices,
and the like--besides the whole hierarchical system, had been disused in
the Reformed Churches of France, Switzerland, and the United
Provinces, where the forms of worship in their view had been brought

more nearly to the early apostolic model. They admitted for truth the
doctrinal articles of the Dutch Reformed Churches. They had not come
to the Netherlands without cause. At an early period of King James's
reign this congregation of seceders from the establishment had been
wont to hold meetings at Scrooby in Nottinghamshire, once a manor of
the Archbishop of York, but then the residence of one William
Brewster. This was a gentleman of some fortune, educated at
Cambridge, a good scholar, who in Queen Elizabeth's time had been in
the service of William Davison when Secretary of State. He seemed to
have been a confidential private secretary of that excellent and unlucky
statesman, who found him so discreet and faithful as to deserve
employment before all others in matters of trust and secrecy. He was
esteemed by Davison "rather as a son than a servant," and he repaid his
confidence by doing him many faithful offices in the time of his
troubles. He had however long since retired from connection with
public affairs, living a retired life, devoted to study, meditation, and
practical exertion to promote the cause of religion, and in acts of
benevolence sometimes beyond his means.
The pastor of the Scrooby Church, one John Robinson, a graduate of
Cambridge, who had been a benefited clergyman in Norfolk, was a man
of learning, eloquence, and lofty intellect. But what were such good
gifts in the possession of rebels, seceders, and Puritans? It is needless to
say that Brewster and Robinson were baited, persecuted, watched day
and night, some of the congregation often clapped into prison, others
into the stocks, deprived of the means of livelihood, outlawed,
famished, banned. Plainly their country was no place for them. After a
few years of such work they resolved to establish themselves in
Holland, where at least they hoped to find refuge and toleration.
But it proved as difficult for them to quit the country as to remain in it.
Watched and hunted like gangs of coiners, forgers, or other felons
attempting to flee from justice, set upon by troopers armed with "bills
and guns and other weapons," seized when about