Now these statements hardly amounted to a confession of abominable and unpardonable crimes by Ledenberg, nor did they establish a charge of high-treason and corrupt correspondence with the enemy against Barneveld.  It is certain that the extent of the revelations seemed far from satisfactory to the accusers, and that some pressure would be necessary in order to extract anything more conclusive.  Lieutenant Nythof told Grotius that Ledenberg had accordingly been threatened with torture, and that the executioner had even handled him for that purpose.  This was however denied by the judges of instruction who had been charged with the preliminary examination.

That examination took place on the 27th September.  After it had been concluded, Ledenberg prayed long and earnestly on returning to prison.  He then entrusted a paper written in French to his son Joost, a boy of eighteen, who did not understand that language.  The youth had been allowed to keep his father company in his confinement, and slept in the same room.

The next night but one, at two o’clock, Joost heard his father utter a deep groan.  He was startled, groped in the darkness towards his bed and felt his arm, which was stone cold.  He spoke to him and received no answer.  He gave the alarm, the watch came in with lights, and it was found that Ledenberg had given himself two mortal wounds in the abdomen with a penknife and then cut his throat with a table-knife which he had secreted, some days before, among some papers.

The paper in French given to his son was found to be to this effect.

“I know that there is an inclination to set an example in my person, to confront me with my best friends, to torture me, afterwards to convict me of contradictions and falsehoods as they say, and then to found an ignominious sentence upon points and trifles, for this it will be necessary to do in order to justify the arrest and imprisonment.  To escape all this I am going to God by the shortest road.  Against a dead man there can be pronounced no sentence of confiscation of property.  Done 17th September (o. s.) 1618.”

The family of the unhappy gentleman begged his body for decent burial.  The request was refused.  It was determined to keep the dead secretary above ground and in custody until he could be tried, and, if possible, convicted and punished.  It was to be seen whether it were so easy to baffle the power of the States-General, the Synod, and the Stadholder, and whether “going to God by the shortest road” was to save a culprit’s carcass from ignominy, and his property from confiscation.

The French ambassadors, who had been unwearied in their endeavour to restore harmony to the distracted Commonwealth before the arrest of the prisoners, now exerted themselves to throw the shield of their sovereign’s friendship around the illustrious statesman and his fellow-sufferers.