The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, 1618 | Page 6

John Lothrop Motley
am sprung from the ancient and knightly
family of Amersfoort, which for three or four hundred years has been
known as foremost among the nobles of Utrecht in all state affairs and
as landed proprietors."
It is only for the sake of opening these domestic and private lights upon
an historical character whose life was so pre-eminently and almost
exclusively a public one that we have drawn some attention to this
stately defence made by the Advocate of his birth, life, and services to
the State. The public portions of the state paper belong exclusively to
history, and have already been sufficiently detailed.
The letter to Prince Maurice was delivered into his hands by Cornelis
van der Myle, son-in-law of Barneveld.
No reply to it was ever sent, but several days afterwards the Stadholder
called from his open window to van der Myle, who happened to be
passing by. He then informed him that he neither admitted the premises
nor the conclusion of the Advocate's letter, saying that many things set
down in it were false. He furthermore told him a story of a certain old
man who, having in his youth invented many things and told them
often for truth, believed them when he came to old age to be actually

true and was ever ready to stake his salvation upon them. Whereupon
he shut the window and left van der Myle to make such application of
the parable as he thought proper, vouchsafing no further answer to
Barneveld's communication.
Dudley Carleton related the anecdote to his government with much glee,
but it may be doubted whether this bold way of giving the lie to a
venerable statesman through his son-in-law would have been accounted
as triumphant argumentation anywhere out of a barrack.
As for the Remonstrance to the States of Holland, although most
respectfully received in that assembly except by the five opposition
cities, its immediate effect on the public was to bring down a fresh
"snow storm"--to use the expression of a contemporary--of pamphlets,
libels, caricatures, and broadsheets upon the head of the Advocate. In
every bookseller's and print shop window in all the cities of the country,
the fallen statesman was represented in all possible ludicrous,
contemptible, and hateful shapes, while hags and blind beggars about
the streets screeched filthy and cursing ballads against him, even at his
very doors.
The effect of energetic, uncompromising calumny has rarely been more
strikingly illustrated than in the case of this statesman. Blackened daily
all over by a thousand trowels, the purest and noblest character must
have been defiled, and it is no wonder that the incrustation upon the
Advocate's fame should have lasted for two centuries and a half. It may
perhaps endure for as many more: Not even the vile Marshal d'Ancre,
who had so recently perished, was more the mark of obloquy in a
country which he had dishonoured, flouted, and picked to the bone than
was Barneveld in a commonwealth which he had almost created and
had served faithfully from youth to old age. It was even the fashion to
compare him with Concini in order to heighten the wrath of the public,
as if any parallel between the ignoble, foreign paramour of a stupid and
sensual queen, and the great statesman, patriot, and jurist of whom
civilization will be always proud, could ever enter any but an idiot's
brain.
Meantime the Stadholder, who had so successfully handled the
Assembly of Gelderland and Overyssel, now sailed across the
Zuiderzee from Kampen to Amsterdam. On his approach to the stately
northern Venice, standing full of life and commercial bustle upon its

vast submerged forest of Norwegian pines, he was met by a fleet of
yachts and escorted through the water gates of the into the city.
Here an immense assemblage of vessels of every class, from the
humble gondola to the bulky East Indianian and the first-rate ship of
war, gaily bannered with the Orange colours and thronged from deck to
topmast by enthusiastic multitudes, was waiting to receive their
beloved stadholder. A deafening cannonade saluted him on his
approach. The Prince was escorted to the Square or Dam, where on a
high scaffolding covered with blue velvet in front of the stately
mediaeval town-hall the burgomasters and board of magistrates in their
robes of office were waiting to receive him. The strains of that most
inspiriting and suggestive of national melodies, the 'Wilhelmus van
Nassouwen,' rang through the air, and when they were silent, the chief
magistrate poured forth a very eloquent and tedious oration, and
concluded by presenting him with a large orange in solid gold; Maurice
having succeeded to the principality a few months before on the death
of his half-brother Philip William.
The "Blooming in Love," as one of the Chambers of "Rhetoric "
Continue reading on your phone by scaning this QR Code

 / 35
Tip: The current page has been bookmarked automatically. If you wish to continue reading later, just open the Dertz Homepage, and click on the 'continue reading' link at the bottom of the page.