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THE LIFE AND DEATH of JOHN OF BARNEVELD, ADVOCATE OF HOLLAND
By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.
MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, Project Gutenberg Edition, Volume 86
The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v1, 1609
These volumes make a separate work in themselves. They form also thenatural sequel to the other histories already published by the Author,as well as the necessary introduction to that concluding portion of hislabours which he has always desired to lay before the public; a Historyof the Thirty Years' War.
For the two great wars which successively established the independenceof Holland and the disintegration of Germany are in reality but one;a prolonged Tragedy of Eighty Years. The brief pause, which in theNetherlands was known as the Twelve Years' Truce with Spain, wasprecisely the epoch in which the elements were slowly and certainlygathering for the renewal over nearly the whole surface of civilizedEurope of that immense conflict which for more than forty years had beenraging within the narrow precincts of the Netherlands.
The causes and character of the two wars were essentially the same.There were many changes of persons and of scenery during a struggle whichlasted for nearly three generations of mankind; yet a natural successionboth of actors, motives, and events will be observed from the beginningto the close.
The designs of Charles V. to establish universal monarchy, which he hadpassionately followed for a lifetime through a series of colossal crimesagainst humanity and of private misdeeds against individuals, such as ithas rarely been permitted to a single despot to perpetrate, had beenbaffled at last. Disappointed, broken, but even to our own generationnever completely unveiled, the tyrant had withdrawn from the stage ofhuman affairs, leaving his son to carry on the great conspiracy againstHuman Right, independence of nations, liberty of thought, and equality ofreligions, with the additional vigour which sprang from intensity ofconviction.
For Philip possessed at least that superiority over his father that hewas a sincere bigot. In the narrow and gloomy depths of his soul he haddoubtless persuaded himself that it was necessary for the redemption ofthe human species that the empire of the world should be vested in hishands, that Protestantism in all its forms should be extirpated as amalignant disease, and that to behead, torture, burn alive, and buryalive all heretics who opposed the decree of himself and the Holy Churchwas the highest virtue by which he could merit Heaven.
The father would have permitted Protestantism if Protestantism would havesubmitted to universal monarchy. There would have been small difficultyin the early part of his reign in effecting a compromise between Rome andAugsburg, had the gigantic secular ambition of Charles not preferred toweaken the Church and to convert conscientious religious reform intopolitical mutiny; a crime against him who claimed the sovereignty ofChristendom.
The materials for the true history of that reign lie in the Archives ofSpain, Austria, Rome, Venice, and the Netherlands, and in many otherplaces. When out of them one day a complete and authenti