A tour through Holland

by Sir John Carr

Anth. and Cleop. Act I. Sc. 4.

The lines of Horace may be well applied to this great man;

Urit enim fulgore suo, qui praergravat artes

Infra se positas: extinctus amabitur idem.

I shall conclude these interesting anecdotes of Grotius, by giving his excellent sentiments on the education of boys, as he imparted them to Isaac Vossius, which in my humble opinion ought to be considered as a treasure to every parent; “Many persons,” says he, “make use of tutors for the education of their children, which hardly ever succeeds as it was intended. I have never approved of that method of education, for I know that young persons learn only when they are together, and that their application is languid where there is no emulation. I am as little of a friend to schools, where the master scarce knows the names of his scholars; where the number is so great that he cannot distribute his attention upon each of them, whose composition requires a particular attention. For these reasons I wish that a medium of the two methods were taken, that a master took only ten or twelve boys, who should live in the same house, and be of the same classes, by which means the master himself would not be overloaded with cares.” Grotius also recommends the student to begin with those histories which are nearest to his own time.

The fate of Barneveldt is related with great spirit by Voltaire, who says, But human affairs are ever chequered with good and evil. Mankind are so apt to deviate from their principles, that this republic (Holland) had nearly destroyed the liberty for which she had so bravely fought, and persecution boiled in the blood of a people, whose happiness and laws were founded on toleration. Two calvinistical doctors did what so many doctors have done in so many other places. Gomar and Arminius disputed most furiously at Leyden, about what neither of them understood. This produced dissensions in the United Provinces.

The dispute was in many respects similar to those of the Thomists and Scotists, or of the Jansenists and Molinists, concerning predestination, grace, liberty, and other obscure and frivolous articles, where they know not how to define the very subject on which they dispute. The leisure they enjoyed during the truce, unluckily gave those ignorant people an opportunity to fill their heads with theological disputes, till at length, out of a scholastic controversy, there arose two parties in the state. Maurice, Prince of Orange, headed the Gomarists, and the pensionary Barneveldt supported the Arminians.

Du Maurier says, that he had been told by the ambassador his father, that Maurice having proposed to the pensionary Barneveldt, to concur in giving him the supreme power, this zealous republican showed him the danger and injustice of the proposal, and from that time Barneveldt’s ruin was resolved upon. This however is certain, that the Stadtholder endeavoured to increase his authority by means of the Gomarists, and Barneveldt to check it by means of the Arminians: that several towns levied soldiers who were called Expectants, because they expected orders from the magistrate, but would take none from the Stadtholder: that there were insurrections in some cities, and that Prince Maurice vigorously persecuted the opposite party. At length he convened a calvinistical council at Dordrecht, composed of all the reformed churches in Europe, except that of France, the deputies from which were not permitted by the King of France to attend.

The fathers of this synod who had exclaimed so loudly against the fathers of various councils, and against their authority, condemned the Arminians, just as they themselves had been condemned by the council of Trent. Above a hundred Arminian ministers were banished from the United Provinces. Prince Maurice chose twenty-six commissioners from the nobility and the magistrates, to try the grand pensionary Barneveldt, the celebrated Grotius, and some others of the Arminian party. They had been kept six months in confinement, previous to their trial.

One of the chief motives of the revolt of the Seven Provinces, and of the house of Orange, against Spain, was the Duke of Alva’s severity, in suffering the accused to languish for a long period in confinement, without bringing them to trial, and in appointing commissioners to condemn them. The same grievances which had caused such complaints under the Spanish monarchy, were revived in the bosom of liberty. Barneveldt was beheaded at the Hague, more unjustly than Count Egmont, and Count Horn at Brussels. He was an old man of seventy, who had served the Republic forty years in the cabinet, with as much success as Maurice and his brothers had served her in the field. The sentence imported, “That he had done all he could to vex the Church of God.”