The night previous to the execution his good servant took up his post at the head of his master’s bed to receive his last instructions, but was warned off by one of the sentinels.
However, no sooner did the surly fellow fall asleep than this faithful friend, by dint of bribes and persuasions, prevailed on his comrade to let him return to the bedside. Barneveldt evinced great anxiety respecting his beloved friend Grotius,[[3]] fearing he might share the same fate. He sent tender messages to his family, recommending the bearer to their protection, and expressed his regret, if, stung by indignation at the loathsome slanders published against him, he had at any time spoken too fiercely and vehemently.
[3]. Grotius was imprisoned for two years, and finally escaped in a case of books, through the medium of his wife.
The next morning he rose quietly. ‘Come and help me, good John,’ said he; ‘it is the last time that I shall require your services.’ When the clergyman entered and asked if he had slept, he said he had not, but was much soothed and strengthened by the beautiful passages he had been reading in a French version of the Psalms. Why linger over these sad details?
In the great hall where the judges were assembled, the prisoner listened wearily to the long rambling sentence, and demurred several times at its flagrant injustice. When the clerk had concluded, he said, ‘I thought, my Lords, the States-General would have had enough of my life, and blood, without depriving my wife and children of their property. Is this my recompense for forty-three years of service to the Provinces?’
The President rose with this cruel reply on his lips: ‘You have heard the sentence—away, away! that is enough.’
The old man obeyed, leaning on his staff, and, followed by his faithful John and the guard, he passed on to death on the scaffold, and, looking down, addressed the mob: ‘Men,’ he said, ‘do not believe that I am a traitor; I have lived as a patriot, and as a patriot I will die.’
He himself drew the cap over his eyes, ejaculating, ‘Christ shall be my guide; O Lord, my Heavenly Father, receive my spirit.’ Then kneeling down, as he desired, with his face directed towards his home, he begged the executioner to use all despatch; the heavy sword was swung, the noble head was struck off at a blow, and the soul of John Olden de Barneveldt took flight for a land where ingratitude and injustice are alike unknown.
We are told that the Stadtholder sat in his cabinet with closed doors, and forbade any one wearing his livery to go abroad, or be seen in the streets during the execution of the Advocate; nay, it is further recorded that he evinced some emotion on hearing that all was over. But sadly did he neglect an opportunity that presented itself, not very long afterwards, of showing some spark of that generosity which once characterised him.
Barneveldt had left two sons, both high in position, and in affluent circumstances, until their father’s sentence reduced them to poverty and obscurity. The younger son, Governor of Bergen-op-Zoom, was a wild, turbulent spirit, and had given his family much uneasiness. Stung to the quick by his father’s wrongs, he laid a plot for the assassination of the Stadtholder; with some difficulty he prevailed on his more timid brother to enlist in the same cause, and as Maurice’s popularity was already on the wane, he found several conspirators not unwilling to join. The scheme was discovered or betrayed, and all implicated therein, who had the means of escape, fled; the younger De Barneveldt was conveyed in a case to the house of a friend at Rotterdam, whence he started for Brussels, and reached the Court of the Archduchess Isabella, who took him under her protection. He afterwards entered his native country with alien troops as a traitor and a renegade. His less fortunate, less blameable brother, wandered about from place to place a miserable fugitive, and was at last taken in the island of Flieland.