Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland : with a view of the primary causes and movements of the Thirty Years' War, 1619-23 by John Lothrop Motley
page 12 of 66 (18%)

His unburied corpse, reduced to the condition of a mummy, was brought out
of its lurking-place, thrust into a coffin, dragged on a hurdle to the
Golgotha outside the Hague, on the road to Ryswyk, and there hung on a
gibbet in company of the bodies of other malefactors swinging there in
chains.

His prudent scheme to save his property for his children by committing
suicide in prison was thus thwarted.

The reading of the sentence of Ledenberg, as had been previously the case
with that of Barneveld, had been heard by Grotius through the open window
of his prison, as he lay on his bed. The scaffold on which the Advocate
had suffered was left standing, three executioners were still in the
town, and there was every reason for both Grotius and Hoogerbeets to
expect a similar doom. Great efforts were made to induce the friends of
the distinguished prisoners to sue for their pardon. But even as in the
case of the Barneveld family these attempts were fruitless. The austere
stoicism both on the part of the sufferers and their relatives excites
something like wonder.

Three of the judges went in person to the prison chamber of Hoogerbeets,
urging him to ask forgiveness himself or to allow his friends to demand
it for him.

"If my wife and children do ask," he said, "I will protest against it.
I need no pardon. Let justice take its course. Think not, gentlemen,
that I mean by asking for pardon to justify your proceedings."

He stoutly refused to do either. The judges, astonished, took their
DigitalOcean Referral Badge