“I have requested his Princely Excellency to hold my sons and children in his favour, to which he has answered that so long as you conduct yourselves well this shall be the case.  I recommend this to you in the best form and give you all into God’s holy keeping.  Kiss each other and all my grandchildren, for the last time in my name, and fare you well.  Out of the chamber of sorrow, 13th May 1619.  Your dear husband and father,
                  John of Barneveld.

“P.S.  You will make John Franken a present in memory of me.”

Certainly it would be difficult to find a more truly calm, courageous, or religious spirit than that manifested by this aged statesman at an hour when, if ever, a human soul is tried and is apt to reveal its innermost depths or shallows.  Whatever Gomarus or Bogerman, or the whole Council of Dordtrecht, may have thought of his theology, it had at least taught him forgiveness of his enemies, kindness to his friends, and submission to the will of the Omnipotent.  Every moment of his last days on earth had been watched and jealously scrutinized, and his bitterest enemies had failed to discover one trace of frailty, one manifestation of any vacillating, ignoble, or malignant sentiment.

The drums had been sounding through the quiet but anxiously expectant town since four o’clock that morning, and the tramp of soldiers marching to the Inner Court had long been audible in the prison chamber.

Walaeus now came back with a message from the judges.  “The high commissioners,” he said, “think it is beginning.  Will my Lord please to prepare himself?”

“Very well, very well,” said the prisoner.  “Shall we go at once?”

But Walaeus suggested a prayer.  Upon its conclusion, Barneveld gave his hand to the provost-marshal and to the two soldiers, bidding them adieu, and walked downstairs, attended by them, to the chamber of the judges.  As soon as he appeared at the door, he was informed that there had been a misunderstanding, and he was requested to wait a little.  He accordingly went upstairs again with perfect calmness, sat down in his chamber again, and read in his French Psalm Book.  Half an hour later he was once more summoned, the provost-marshal and Captain van der Meulen reappearing to escort him.  “Mr. Provost,” said the prisoner, as they went down the narrow staircase, “I have always been a good friend to you.”—­“It is true,” replied that officer, “and most deeply do I grieve to see you in this affliction.”

He was about to enter the judges’ chamber as usual, but was informed that the sentence would be read in the great hall of judicature.  They descended accordingly to the basement story, and passed down the narrow flight of steps which then as now connected the more modern structure, where the Advocate had been imprisoned and tried, with what remained of the ancient palace of the Counts of Holland.  In the centre of the vast hall—­once the banqueting chamber of those petty sovereigns; with its high vaulted roof of cedar which had so often in ancient days rung with the sounds of mirth and revelry—­was a great table at which the twenty-four judges and the three prosecuting officers were seated, in their black caps and gowns of office.  The room was lined with soldiers and crowded with a dark, surging mass of spectators, who had been waiting there all night.