The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, 1618-19 | Page 5

to embark, pillaged
and stripped by catchpoles, exhibited as a show to grinning country
folk, the women and children dealt with like drunken tramps, led before
magistrates, committed to jail; Mr. Brewster and six other of the
principal ones being kept in prison and bound over to the assizes; they
were only able after attempts lasting through two years' time to effect

their escape to Amsterdam. After remaining there a year they had
removed to Leyden, which they thought "a fair and beautiful city, and
of a sweet situation."
They settled in Leyden in the very year in which Arminius was buried
beneath the pavement of St. Peter's Church in that town. It was the year
too in which the Truce was signed. They were a singularly tranquil and
brotherly community. Their pastor, who was endowed with remarkable
gentleness and tact in dealing with his congregation, settled amicably
all their occasional disputes. The authorities of the place held them up
as a model. To a Walloon congregation in which there were many
troublesome and litigious members they said: "These English have
lived among us ten years, and yet we never had any suit or accusation
against any of them, but your quarrels are continual."
Although many of them were poor, finding it difficult to earn their
living in a foreign land among people speaking a strange tongue, and
with manners and habits differing from their own, and where they were
obliged to learn new trades, having most of them come out of an
agricultural population, yet they enjoyed a singular reputation for
probity. Bakers and butchers and the like willingly gave credit to the
poorest of these English, and sought their custom if known to be of the
congregation. Mr. Brewster, who had been reduced almost to poverty
by his charities and munificent aid to his struggling brethren, earned his
living by giving lessons in English, having first composed a grammar
according to the Latin model for the use of his pupils. He also set up a
printing establishment, publishing many controversial works prohibited
in England, a proceeding which roused the wrath of Carleton, impelling
him to do his best to have him thrown into prison.
It was not the first time that this plain, mechanical, devout Englishman,
now past middle age, had visited the Netherlands. More than
twenty-five years before he had accompanied William Davison on his
famous embassy to the States, as private secretary.
When the keys of Flushing, one of the cautionary towns, were
committed to the Ambassador, he confided them to the care of
Brewster, who slept with them under his pillow. The gold chain which
Davison received as a present from the provincial government on
leaving the country was likewise placed in his keeping, with orders to
wear it around his neck until they should appear before the Queen. To a

youth of ease and affluence, familiar with ambassadors and statesmen
and not unknown at courts, had succeeded a mature age of obscurity,
deep study, and poverty. No human creature would have heard of him
had his career ended with his official life. Two centuries and a half
have passed away and the name of the outlawed Puritan of Scrooby and
Leyden is still familiar to millions of the English race.
All these Englishmen were not poor. Many of them occupied houses of
fair value, and were admitted to the freedom of the city. The pastor
with three of his congregation lived in a comfortable mansion, which
they had purchased for the considerable sum of 8000 florins, and on the
garden of which they subsequently erected twenty-one lesser tenements
for the use of the poorer brethren.
Mr. Robinson was himself chosen a member of the famous university
and admitted to its privileges. During his long residence in Leyden,
besides the daily care of his congregation, spiritual and temporal, he
wrote many learned works.
Thus the little community, which grew gradually larger by emigration
from England, passed many years of tranquillity. Their footsteps were
not dogged by constables and pursuivants, they were not dragged daily
before the magistrates, they were not thrown into the town jails, they
were not hunted from place to place with bows and bills and mounted
musketeers. They gave offence to none, and were respected by all.
"Such was their singleheartedness and sincere affection one towards
another," says their historian and magistrate, "that they came as near
the primitive pattern of the first churches as any other church of these
later times has done, according to their rank and quality."
Here certainly were English Puritans more competent than any men
else in the world to judge if it were a slander upon the English
government to identify them with Dutch Puritans. Did they sympathize
with the party in Holland which the King, who had