On hearing of his capture, his mother’s anguish knew no bounds; she remained for days tearless, speechless, immoveable; but at length she roused herself, and, accompanied by her daughter-in-law and infant grandchild, she went her way to the Stadtholder’s palace.
Bowing the lofty spirit which had hitherto upheld her in all her misfortunes, she cast herself on her knees, and with all the wild eloquence of maternal sorrow, she implored mercy for her son.
Maurice received her with cold courtesy, and asked why she had never raised her voice in behalf of the prisoner’s father. The answer was worthy the widow of the great patriot:—
‘My husband,’ she said, ‘was innocent; my son is guilty.’
The Prince was unmoved, and coldly replied that it was out of his power to interfere with the course of justice. The two unhappy women and the little one, who was so soon to be an orphan, passed out of the room, and all hope of mercy was at an end. The only clemency shown the son of Olden de Barneveldt was exemption from the ignominy and anguish of torture which was inflicted on his fellow-conspirators. The deportment of this weak-minded man at his trial formed a sad contrast to that of his illustrious father. When sentence of death had been passed, he had a last interview with his mother and wife. The latter, amid all the agony of her grief, exhorted her husband to die as became his father’s memory and the noble name he bore. These loving commands were strictly obeyed. The prisoner was calm and composed on the scaffold, and in a few words he addressed to the people, told them that evil counsel and the desire for vengeance had brought him to so sad an end. His last audible word was ‘Patience.’
The days of Maurice of Nassau were also numbered. For a short time the flame of popularity flickered; but his reputation had suffered, not only by his injustice, but by his severity to the widow and family of a man to whose memory his very opponents in religion and politics were now beginning to render tardy justice. On one occasion the Stadtholder was deeply mortified, when, crossing the public square of a large town, amid a concourse of citizens, he was allowed to do so without the slightest sign of recognition, without the lifting of a single hat, or the raising of one shout in his honour. No man said, ‘God bless him;’—he who was wont to ride down the streets amid deafening cries of ‘Long live Prince Maurice!’
He was thwarted and opposed in many of his favourite measures by the very party he had so strenuously upheld. He was more especially mortified when they refused the subsidies he asked for the prolongation of the war with Spain, and, though successful in his attempt on Bergen-op-Zoom, he failed before Antwerp, while the reverses of the Protestant army in Germany weighed heavily on his mind. He received the exiled King and Queen of Bohemia at the Hague with generous hospitality, and sympathised truly in their misfortunes; but the successes of his great rival, the Marquis Spinola, which he was now powerless to withstand, seemed the culminating point to his distress. His last days were embittered by the knowledge that his beloved stronghold of Breda, on the recovery of which he had expended so much ingenuity, and run such enormous risks, thirty-four years before, was now hotly besieged by the great Italian general, and he himself unable to lift a finger in its defence. Maurice of Nassau became thin and haggard, and fits of sleeplessness reduced his strength,—he who his life long had slept so heavily that two gentlemen were stationed in his bedchamber to awake him in any case of emergency. He died in the spring of the year 1625.
Maurice, Prince of Orange, had announced his intention early in life never to marry, a resolution to which he adhered; but he was a man of pleasure, and not very refined in his tastes. He left several natural children, of whom one, M. de Beverweert by name, was distinguished, and held a high office under Government. Maurice’s chief pastime was chess, at which (singular as it may appear) he was not very skilful. His customary antagonist was a captain of the guard, one De la Caze, greatly his superior in the game; but as the Prince hated defeat, and would burst forth into fits of fury when worsted, his prudent adversary was frequently induced to allow his Excellency to be victorious in their trials of skill. On these propitious occasions the Prince’s good-humour knew no bounds, conducting the officer to the outer door, and bidding the attendants light, and even accompany him home. The captain, whose income depended chiefly on his skill at games of chance, was sorely put to it in the choice of winning and losing, of times and of seasons.
Maurice merited the name of ‘the Silent’ more than his father; and when he did speak, says La Houssaye (whose Memoirs throw great light on the history of the time), ‘Il se servoit toujours, de petites fraizes gauderonnées.’
He was of a dry and caustic humour, and showed especial contempt for what he considered coxcombry in dress. He used to rally the French gentlemen in particular on the lightness of their apparel, observing they would rather catch cold than conceal their figures. He depreciated the use of tight riding-boots, which prevented the horseman from vaulting into his saddle, and set an example of simplicity, sometimes amounting to shabbiness, in his own attire.