Title:  The Life of John of Barneveld, 1618

Author:  John Lothrop Motley

Release Date:  January, 2004 [EBook #4895] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 24, 2002]

Edition:  10

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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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 95

Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v9, 1618

CHAPTER XVI.

Maurice revolutionizes the Provinces—­Danckaert’s libellous Pamphlet —­Barneveld’s Appeal to the Prince—­Barneveld’a Remonstrance to the States—­The Stadholder at Amsterdam—­The Treaty of Truce nearly expired—­King of Spain and Archduke Albert—­Scheme for recovering the Provinces—­Secret Plot to make Maurice Sovereign.

Early in the year (1618) Maurice set himself about revolutionizing the provinces on which he could not yet thoroughly rely.  The town of Nymegen since its recovery from the Spaniards near the close of the preceding century had held its municipal government, as it were, at the option of the Prince.  During the war he had been, by the terms of surrender, empowered to appoint and to change its magistracy at will.  No change had occurred for many years, but as the government had of late fallen into the hands of the Barneveldians, and as Maurice considered the Truce to be a continuance of the war, he appeared suddenly, in the city at the head of a body of troops and surrounded by his lifeguard.  Summoning the whole board of magistrates into the townhouse, he gave them all notice to quit, disbanding them like a company of mutinous soldiery, and immediately afterwards appointed a fresh list of functionaries in their stead.

This done, he proceeded to Arnhem, where the States of Gelderland were in session, appeared before that body, and made a brief announcement of the revolution which he had so succinctly effected in the most considerable town of their province.  The Assembly, which seems, like many other assemblies at precisely this epoch, to have had an extraordinary capacity for yielding to gentle violence, made but little resistance to the extreme measures now undertaken by the Stadholder, and not only highly applauded the subjugation of Nymegen, but listened with sympathy to his arguments against the Waartgelders and in favour of the Synod.