Trial of Oldenbarnevelt, Grotius and Hogerbeets

This policy (of which Grotius was the main author) was embedded in the placard (statute) "For the Peace of the Church" of January 1614, which was adopted by the States of Holland with a minority, led by Amsterdam (a bastion of the Counter-Remonstrants) opposed.

But Oldenbarnevelt and Grotius opposed this, because they feared this could only lead to a schism, and also because a National Synod might impose on the privilege of Holland to regulate religious matters without interference from other provinces.

[3] The "Tolerance placard" meanwhile led to popular unrest, because it was enforced only in towns with Remonstrant magistrates, and therefore only used against Counter-Remonstrant preachers who disobeyed the prohibition of preaching about the conflict from the pulpit.

[Note 4] The preachers were dismissed from their livings (paid for by the local authorities), but then simply moved to neighboring congregations where they attracted large audiences of church-goers with the same doctrinal convictions.

[13] This had from the 12th century on been applied by learned jurists as a crime against the "majesty" of the sovereign lord, under the maxim rex in rego suo principes est (the king in his realm is the highest power).

[13] However, this application could not as easily be effected in the Dutch Republic after the States of Holland had drawn the mantle of sovereignty upon themselves in 1587, when they made the "Deduction" of François Vranck the law of the land.

It was clear that the sovereign no longer was a single person (as the Count of Holland), but an assembly of legal entities (18 voting cities and the ridderschap or College of Nobles).

Here treason was defined as "seditious writings, conspiracies, surreptitious assaults, and the scattering of pasquilts ...that stir up sedition and the diminution of the authority of their government, magistrates and the courts of the cities".

[15] After the Betrayal of Geertruidenberg the States General also passed a piece of treason legislation that retro-actively branded the mutineers "traitors" and outlawed them as "disturbers of the peace".

The extraordinaris trial consisted of first an informative stage (informatie precedente or inquisitio generalis) in which the court investigated the facts and considered whether a crime had been committed.

The confession had to be confirmed by the defendant in open court in the absence of undue pressure (the formula in verdicts was buiten pijne ende banden van ijsere, or "without torture and fetters of iron").

It was not an "indictment" (as Van den Bergh thinks), nor something comparable to the Conclusion or Opinion given by an Advocate general before the Court of Justice of the European Union (as Uitterhoeve states[19]), nor is it a requisitoir (summing up by the prosecutor) as in modern Dutch criminal cases.

The next day he rode the short distance to the Binnenhof, where the government center was located, in his carriage (because he had difficulty walking, due to arthritis), accompanied by his personal servant, Jan Francken.

[24] The arrest had been effected by the confederal military, with questionable jurisdiction over civilians, on the orders of Maurice, not in his capacity of Holland stadtholder, but of that of Captain-General of the States Army.

[26] The whole affair caused civil unrest in The Hague and because of this the States General decided to have an anonymous pamphlet printed in which it was asserted that during the recent mission of the States-General delegation to Utrecht certain "facts had been discovered, that had caused great suspicion" and that indicated the risk "of a bloodbath" and this had made it necessary to arrest the "principal suspects"[27][Note 11] The envoys of England (Dudley Carleton, 1st Viscount Dorchester,[Note 12]) and France (Benjamin Aubery du Maurier), were informed, but Carleton did not protest, and the Frenchman only in a muted fashion.

In the first place the partisans of Oldenbarnevelt at this time were still in the majority in the States of Holland, making it unlikely that they would agree with a prosecution and instruct the procureur-generaal (solicitor general) at the court to open one.

In the Fall of 1618 Maurice continued the political "alteration" in Holland by visiting a number of the "Remonstrant" cities, usually with a strong armed escort, and changing their governments (a practice known as verzetten van de wet) by replacing pro-Oldenbarnevelt burgomasters and vroedschappen with Counter-Remonstrant ones.

From Grotius' Memorie van mijn Intentiën en notabele bejegening (Memorandum of my Intentions and noteworthy treatment),[36] written after the trial during his incarceration in Loevestein Castle, we know that he often disagreed with the summation of his words noted down by clerk Pots, though he sometimes relented and signed anyway.

He was hard pressed by his personal enemy the Utrecht fiscal van Leeuwen (according to some with threats of torture, though this was officially denied in a resolution of the States General) and this treatment caused him to commit suicide by slitting his throat with a bread knife on 28 September 1618 (so after two weeks).

[43] According to the suicide note in the French language that he left, that was referred to in his verdict, he hoped with this desperate act to halt the trial (a not unreasonable expectation) and thereby to prevent a sentence of forfeiture of his assets.

[50] The plethora of facts in the several processen-verbaal of the interrogation sessions was unmanageable for the judges, also because the questions and answers were presented in a haphazard fashion, jumping from one subject to another, without an easily discernible "narrative" that people could make head or tail of.

[53] Several historians (Uiterhoeve, Den Tex) have taken the fiscals posthumously to task for the way they took statements of the defendants in their depositions out of context, and twisted their meaning (even more than griffier Pots had already done) in an attempt to further their own argument.

All preambles contain the following phrase: ... it is permitted to nobody, to violate or sever the bond and fundamental laws upon which the government of the United Netherlands is founded, and these countries through God's gracious blessing having until now been protected against all violence and machinations of her enemies and malignants he the prisoner has endeavored to perturbed the stance of the religion, and to greatly encumber and grieve the Church of God, and to that end has sustained and employed maxims exorbitant and pernicious to the state of the lands...[58]Damen comments that here the treason definition from the treason statutes of the States of Holland and the States General of the late 1580s and early 1590s is extended from "perturbation of the public order" to "perturbation of the stance of the religion" and hence of the Church.

It recognizes the Union as the "injured party" in the trial and puts down the coalition of the eight "Arminian" cities that Oldenbarnevelt led, as a "rival faction" aimed at undermining the United Netherlands.

The fiscals van Leeuwen and de Silla arrived in the late afternoon of Sunday 12 May 1619 in his room to announce that he had received the death sentence and that he would be executed the next morning.

The next morning, after a sleepless night, Oldenbarnevelt was marched to the Rolzaal (Audience Chanber) of the Hof van Holland on the floor of the building below his room, where the court was assembled.

Then Oldenbarnevelt, accompanied by his valet Jan Francken, who had shared his incarceration since the previous August, was led through the building of the Ridderzaal, leaving by the front entrance.

Today was executed with the sword here in The Hague, on a scaffold thereto erected in the Binnenhof before the steps of the Great Hall, Mr. Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, in his life Knight, Lord of Berkel, Rodenrijs, etc., Advocate of Holland and West Friesland, for reasons expressed in the sentence and otherwise, with confiscation of his property., after he had served the state thirty-three years two months and five days since 8 March 1586; a man of great activity, business, memory and wisdom - yes, extraordinary in every respect.

She and her family tried to quash it and at first seemed successful in their suit before the Hof van Holland, because Oldenbarnevelt had not been sentenced for crimen laesae majestatis which carried an automatic forfeiture penalty (the term is nowhere used in the verdict).

To "remedy" this omission and to frustrate the lawsuit a meeting of the former judges (those that were still alive at that time) was convened by former griffier Pots on 6 June 1620, and the judges stated (as minuted by Pots) that "... at the time of the determination of the verdict they were of the opinion, and have interpreted the case in the sense, that the aforesaid Jan van Oldenbarnevelt and the other prisoners and condemned persons have committed, or have instigated, the crimen laesae majestatis"[71] Consequently, the petition to quash the forfeiture was refused by the court.