ExecutedToday.com

1623: Claes Michielsz Bontebal, Maurice murder moneybags

Add comment July 3rd, 2019 Headsman

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 - 2020
• 1941: 3,500 Jews at the Khotyn Fortress ... but not Adolph Sternschuss - 2018
• 1939: Ramiro Artieda, Bolivian serial killer - 2017
• 1741: Prince, Tony, Cato, Harry and York - 2016
• 1865: Okada Izo, barbarian-expeller - 2015
• 1817: Two-fifths of the condemned in Valenciennes - 2014
• 1969: Lee Soogeun, North Korean defector - 2013
• 1945: Dr. Achmad Mochtar, quiet hero - 2012
• 1648: The leaders of the Salt Riot - 2011
• 1972: Three Somali officers for an attempted coup - 2010
• 1931: Ernesto Opisso - 2009
• 1570: Aonio Paleario, Italian religious reformer - 2008

Entry Filed under: 17th Century,Assassins,Attempted Murder,Beheaded,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,History,Netherlands,Notable for their Victims,Public Executions,Treason

Tags: 1620s, 1623, claes michielsz bontebal, july 3, maurice of orange, reinier van oldenbarnevelt, rotterdam

1623: Reinier van Oldenbarnevelt, family tradition

Add comment March 29th, 2019 Headsman

Reinier van Oldenbarnevelt was a chip off the old headsman’s block on this date in 1623, beheaded in The Hague for plotting to avenge the beheading of his father.

The old man, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt by name, had lost a power struggle to Maurice of Orange and gone to the scaffold in 1619.

Full of murderous filial piety, our man Reinier (English Wikipedia entry | Dutch) conspired with his brother Willem and others of their faction to return the favor on Maurice by having a gang of toughs ambush him in early February.

Word leaked early; the plot fizzled and Reinier was captured to face the vengeance Maurice had once once designed for his father. (Willem escaped to Belgium, but two of their accomplices were dismembered with Reinier.)

Dutch illustrator Claes Janszoon Visscher depicted the son’s execution, as he had once depicted the father’s. For an analysis of the scene, see John Decker’s Death, Torture and the Broken Body in European Art, 1300-1650.

On this day..

• 1987: Lawrence Anini, The Law - 2020
• 1825: El Pirata Cofresi - 2018
• 1929: Luther Baker, moonshine bootlegger - 2017
• 1560: Baron de Castelnau, for the Amboise Conspiracy - 2016
• 4 BCE: Antipater, disinherited Herodian - 2015
• 1875: Richard Coates, gunner and rapist - 2014
• Daily Double: Victorian Soldiery - 2014
• 1944: Roger Bushell and others for the Great Escape - 2013
• 1946: Laszlo Baky and Laszlo Endre, Hungarian Holocaust authors - 2012
• 1946: Phillip and William Heincy, father and son - 2011
• 1935: Thomasina Sarao, miscalculated - 2010
• 1796: Francois de Charette, Vendee rebel - 2009
• 1720: Charles Vane, an unsinkable pirate - 2008

Entry Filed under: 17th Century,Assassins,Attempted Murder,Beheaded,Capital Punishment,Cycle of Violence,Death Penalty,Execution,History,Netherlands,Power,Public Executions

Tags: 1620s, 1623, family, johan van oldenbarnevelt, march 29, maurice of orange, reinier van oldenbarnevelt, revenge, the hague