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
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page 16 of 66 (24%)
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held in his heart, he would have felt them like the stab of Brutus.
Grotius lived to know that there were no such proofs, that the judges did not dare even allude to the charge in their sentence, and long years afterwards he drew a picture of the martyred patriot such as one might have expected from his pen. But these written words of doubt must have haunted him to his grave. On the 18th May 1619--on the fifty-first anniversary, as Grotius remarked, of the condemnation of Egmont and Hoorn by the Blood Tribunal of Alva--the two remaining victims were summoned to receive their doom. The Fiscal Sylla, entering de Groot's chamber early in the morning to conduct him before the judges, informed him that he was not instructed to communicate the nature of the sentence. "But," he said, maliciously, "you are aware of what has befallen the Advocate." "I have heard with my own ears," answered Grotius, "the judgment pronounced upon Barneveld and upon Ledenberg. Whatever may be my fate, I have patience to bear it." The sentence, read in the same place and in the same manner as had been that upon the Advocate, condemned both Hoogerbeets and Grotius to perpetual imprisonment. The course of the trial and the enumeration of the offences were nearly identical with the leading process which has been elaborately described. Grotius made no remark whatever in the court-room. On returning to his chamber he observed that his admissions of facts had been tortured into |
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