We’ve previously addressed in these pages the 1623 execution of Reinier van Oldenbarnevelt for attempting to assassinate Maurice, Prince of Orange in revenge for his, Maurice’s, 1619 execution of Oldenbarnevelt’s father.
Well, the scheme here was to hire a number of assassins for the attack, a plan which guaranteed that someone would blab and blow the whole deal. But before the blabbing and the blowing, the hiring required a vast cash outlay — 6,000 guilders to be precise.
Claes Michielsz Bontebal (English Wikipedia entry | Dutch) was one of the financiers who did the hiring, and got caught in the blowback after the blabbing. He was executed with three other conspirators
Detail view of a 1623 print reporting the beheading (click for a larger view with portraits of Bontebal and his collaborators).
On this day..
- 1936: Saburo Aizawa, incidentally
- 1941: 3,500 Jews at the Khotyn Fortress ... but not Adolph Sternschuss
- 1939: Ramiro Artieda, Bolivian serial killer
- 1741: Prince, Tony, Cato, Harry and York
- 1865: Okada Izo, barbarian-expeller
- 1817: Two-fifths of the condemned in Valenciennes
- 1969: Lee Soogeun, North Korean defector
- 1945: Dr. Achmad Mochtar, quiet hero
- 1648: The leaders of the Salt Riot
- 1972: Three Somali officers for an attempted coup
- 1931: Ernesto Opisso
- 1570: Aonio Paleario, Italian religious reformer