1525: Jan de Bakker

Heretical prelate Jan de Bakker went to The Stake at The Hague on this date in 1525.


Stained glass dedicated to Jan de Bakker at Sint-Jacobskerk in The Hague. (cc) image from Roel Wijnants.

A young ordained priest, Bakker (English Wikipedia entry | Dutch), Bakker got interested in early Sacramentarianism and learned at the foot of that Reformation-proximate scholar Erasmus.

His preaching veering outside the bounds of orthodoxy he was imprisoned briefly and soon set aside his holy orders for the baking trade, itinerant evangelizing, and marriage.

After the Inquisition had a go at menacing him into compliance, Bakker had the honor of submitting his living flesh to the flame under the eyes of the Hapsburg governor, Margaret of Austria. “O death, where is thy victory?” were his last words, quoting Corinthians. “O death, where is they sting?” Not so sanguine as he about the pains of the stake, his illicit wife preferred strategic repudiation to scriptural owns.

As he’s remembered as the Protestant protomartyr in the northern Netherlands he’s had a purchase on subsequent generations’ remembrance, and there are some streets and schools named for him.

On this day..

1813: Adriana Bouwman, guillotined at The Hague

The young maid Adriana Bouwman was guillotined on this date in 1813 for theft and arson; it was the second and last use of that notorious machine in The Hague, during the three years that the Netherlands was directly incorporated into Napoleon’s First Empire.

Arijaantje Apersdr Bouman was condemned for robbing and torching a farmhouse where she worked as a domestic. She was four months shy of her 20th birthday when beheaded.

On this day..

1623: Reinier van Oldenbarnevelt, family tradition

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..

1562: Sophie Harmansdochter, “Gele Fye”

Sophie Harmansdochter, aka Gele Fye, a notorious fink, was executed at The Hague on this date in 1562.

She was the daughter of an Anabaptist martyr, but where she might have taken her heritance in zeal for the evangelium she settled instead for for taking the contact list. By 1537, three years after her father lost her head for the faith, Harmansdochter was informing on his ex-associates; resulting in several more executions and several hundred guilders’ worth of rewards. As late as 1552-53 her information triggered Mennonite hunts across the Low Countries touching not only Amsterdam but Leiden, Friesland, and Antwerp.

This was also about the time when her husband died and left her with four whelps to raise, and the need for her pieces of silver became extremely pressing. But in a pattern similar to many witch hunt informers, Gele Fye’s snitching was abruptly terminated by attempting to point the finger at a person of actual power — namely the former mayor of Amsterdam, who had also once been her paymaster. She was arrested as a perjurer in 1556 and spent six years in prison in The Hague, giving birth to her fifth child while behind bars.*

On March 3, 1662, Sophie Harmansdochter had her tongue — the source of her false witness — cut out, then her scaffold put to the torch.

She survives in Dutch literature as an emblematic deceitful mole.

* A collaborator, Volckje Willems, was also arrested but died in her dungeon before she could qualify for Executed Today treatment.

On this day..

1594: Michael Renichon, impoverished assassin

Confession of Michael Renichon of Templeu, Parson of Bossier, in the County of Namours

Concerning, The bloudy enterprise, which by him should have bene committed upon the person of County Maurice, Prince of Orange, as also, The sentence denounced against hym for that déede, in the Haghe on the third of June 1594.

Printed at Utrecht, by Salomon de Roy, ordinary Printer of the Estates, in their language, and now truely translated into english by R. R.

LONDON Imprinted by John Wolfe. 1594.

Michael Renichon of Templeu, and Parson of Bossier in the County of Namur aforesaid (dispatched with Letters of the Earle of Barlaymont, in the habite of a Souldier, from Brussel, the tenth day of March last:) was by Convoy conducted thence to Louen, Diest, Herentals, and Tuernoult: from whence accompanied onely with one of the garrison of the sayd Towne, he was guided to the Towne of Bredau: where being entred, he delivered certaine close sealed Letters, unto the Governour there, which were addressed from the Earle of Barlaymont unto Captayne Larigon Commaunder of the Castle of Tuernoult, importing, that the bringer thereof, was sent thither by expresse commaundement of Archduke Ernestus of Austria, to communicate unto him a certaine enterprise, to be done upon the towne of Bredau.

The Gouernour desirous to be by him further instructed, as well of the cause of his comming thither, as of the particularities of the said enterprise: Renichon first humbly besought him, that it would please him to entertaine him into his service, and then, persisting (though differing and dubling in his assertions, which savored of manifest untruethes) that his matter was just and perfect: Affirmed, that for certaine yeares, he had bene Secretary to the Abbot of Malonne, and for his knowledge and experience, he was by him advaunced to the same place, with the Earle of Barlaymont: from whome hee had after thys manner withdrawen himselfe, onely for the fervent desire hé had to doe him service, with such other the like accomplements.

The Governour finding small probability in hys filed speeches, feared greatly some pretence of waightier matter: and for that cause, caused him forthwith to be conveighed to the Haghe: Where, upon the first of Aprill, (fearing what would ensue) he attempted to strangle himselfe with a corde made of points and stringes of his Armes, fastened to a certayne iron in the Gaole, under which he was found all be blouded, and speechlesse.

Revived now, and come to his speech agayne, one demaunded for what cause he would have committed this acte upon himselfe: whereunto replying, hee confessed volontarily, without proffer of any torture or constraint, as well by word of mouth, on the second of Aprill, as also afterward by his owne hand writing at sundry times, as namely on the twentieth day of Aprill, and last of May, the very absolute trueth of hys comming thither: affirming the speeches uttered by him and fathered uppon the Abbot of Malonne, and Earle of Barlaymont, to bee false and forged, acknowledging further.

That having had long processe in Law against his Parishioners of Bossier, touching the revenues of his Parsonage: as also endamaged through the dayly incursions of the unbrideled souldiours: he was enforced by meere necessity about some two yeares sithence, to abandon his Parsonage, and committing the cure thereof unto a Chaplaine, retired himselfe unto the Towne of Namours, where he supplied the roome of a Scholemaster.

The Earle of Barlaymont, having had some intelligence of my being there, entreated me by some of hys gentlemen, on an Evening to suppe with him: supper being ended, the Earle retired himselfe into hys Chamber, and commaunded me to bee brought in to him: where (his people withdrawen) he asked me how I could with so small allowance content my self, and spend my time, to so little proffite, adding further, that hee knew the meanes how to advaunce my estate, if eyther I would seeke it at his handes, or rouse and plucke up my appaled spirites, for which his honourable courtesies, humbly thanking him, I presented him my best service.

The which now presented, hee tooke occasion to send for me in February last past, by his Chaplaine after supper, falling in discourse with me, in the presence of some other, of an enterprise to be done upon the Towne of Bredau.

Likewise at an other time being entred into his Chamber, he sent for me againe, at which time he tolde mee, that hee was to communicate unto me a matter of greater consequence and importance, and that if I would employ my selfe in the service of the king, he would richly and royally recompence me. Uppon which promise, I vowed my service to him againe.

Not long after this, I was by him commaunded to follow him to Brussels, where the sayd Earle divers and sondry times frequenting the Court, at length commanded me to attend on him thither: with whome passing from chamber to chamber, at last, the Earle entred the chamber of the Archduke Ernestus: whom I then beheld, minding to follow after hym: at which tyme I was partly hindered by the suddaine falling too of the doore: which not fully shut, (listening what might passe betwéene the Archduke and the sayd Earle,) I easely heard them speake Spanish and Latine: and at sundry times, make repetition of recompence and reward: The Earle ready to take hys leave of the Duke, who brought him to the chamber doore: the Duke at his last farewell, sayd, Cumulate & largo foenore satisfaciam. When the Earle returned, he told mee, that they had all that time, conferred about my matters: and that the Archduke had ordained two hundred Phillips Dollors to be delivered me.

Retired now to his lodging, he gave me further to understand that the Archdukes pleasure and full intention was, to roote out, or by a third hand violently to murther the Counte Maurice of Nassau: and for that end and purpose, he had already dispatched certaine other persons, assuring me, that if I would likewise undertake the like action, it should be great advauncement for me and all my fréendes: saying further, that there were allready fiftéene thousand crownes gathered together, to bee disbursed to him, that first should bring to passe the foresaid massacre or murther.

Uppon this point I aunsweared the Earle, that it was an action méerely impertinent to my profession, who had never borne armes: he replied that it was the will and pleasure of the king, and the commaund of the Archduke, and therewithall, fell to perswading me agayne wyth many vehement reasons, in such sort, as I promised to do my uttermost endevor to that ende.

Thereuppon I desired the said Earle, to instruct mee how I might behave my selfe in this enterprise: hee aunsweared, that the Counte Maurice being a yong noble man, very familiar and popular, it were a very easie matter to insinuate himselfe in hys favor: that it must not bee wrought in hast or rashly, but wyth great advise and leysure, That he was to make hys repaire into the Haghe, or such other place where the Counte were most restant: that there, he should under the coullour of teaching a common schoole, expect and waight for the comming of such other as were assigned to the like ende and purpose (whereof there were six and he was the seaventh, who taking advise and councell together uppon one observation made, might easely woorke the depth of their desire: advising me further, that I was to provide my selfe of a paire of good Pistols, with firelockes, the which (biting carefully and clenly kept) I should charge with two or thrée bullets, and upon the first occasion proffered, should shoot through the said Counte, or otherwise murther hym by what devyse or practise I either best could my selfe: or the other which yet were to repayre unto me. In conclusion affirming, that hee who best and first behaved himselfe in this action, should be best and first rewarded.

That there were also other, which were to be made away by like practise, videlicet, Barnevelt, Longolius, and S. Allegonde: of whome, or any of them, if he could procure their death and destruction: he should bee richly likewise recompenced, charginge him especially to alter his name, and to apparell himselfe souldiorlike for this purpose.

These and such other exhortations ended, the Counte Barlaymont caused certayne other persons to bee brought into my presence: of whome, he said that one of them, was of the six above mentioned: to whome he declared that I was lately adopted into their fellowship: upon which spéech, the said party embracing me, called me his Camerado: assuring me that in short time, he would follow me into Holland, for and upon the like occasions.

The said Countie further declared, that the sayde sixe persons are, and have bene ever since the death of the Prince of Parma, and before, notorious murtherers, and that they are allowed gentlemens pay in the Court there, by the King, and uppon any such desperate action, are onely and ever employed against the ennemy.

Thus retyring himselfe from our company, he dispatched hys Secretary incontinently to Stephen de Narra, of whome he received in sundry kindes of quoyne, the foresayde somme of two hundred Dollars, the which was presently by him delivered me.

Being now furnished of all things expedient for my iourney, and ready to depart from Brussels to Andwerpe, I was by one of the sixe persons above mencioned, conducted to the Schuite, who at my very departure signified unto mee, that hee assuredly hoped to have borne me company to Leiden: of whom demaunding where that was, and to what ende: hee aunsweared me, that Leiden was a Towne and an University in Holland, wher the younge Prince of Orange studied, whether hee should likewise be employed, to the intent that insinuating himselfe into his favor, he might with better conveniency bereave hym of hys life.

Thus resolved to obey the Counte of Barlaymonts pleasure and commaund, I first cloathed my selfe souldierlike, named my selfe Michil de Triuier, and arrived at Andwerpe with the forsaid Letters of the County of Barlaymont, addressed to Largion, where (understanding that he was upon occasions departed from Tuernault) I was enforced to alter my course, and returned to Brussels againe: where receiving other Letters of the foresaide County, tooke my way to Louen, Diest, Herentals, and Tuernault, from whence as aforesaid, I came to Bredau.

The generall Estates of the united Provinces of the Low-Countries, duely examining the state of this cause, finding it a matter of very evill example, as also, that in a Country of Justice, where all daungerous and perillous actions and eventes ought to be prevented, and the peace and tranquillity of the same highly preferred and advaunced, estéemed it in their wisedomes a matter not onely not tollerable, but rather severely to bee punished, to the terror and example of all other: and thereuppon have condemned and adjudged, and doe by these presentes condemne and judge the Author of this intended murther, to be presently conveighed from hence to the ordinary place of execution, and there to be beheaded with the sword: and afterwardes, hys body to be quartered, his head to bee put uppon a pole, and the quarters hanged on the foure corners of the Haghe, declaring further his goods to be confiscated.

This was pronounced in the Audience of the Court of Holland, the third of June 1594. And Signed

Nievelt.

Under that was written, The Decree of the foresaid Councel. And was subscribed.

J. van Zuilon.

On this day..

1672: Not Cornelius van Baerle, tulip-fancier

For this date’s post we welcome back to Executed Today the prolific pen of Alexandre Dumas, here working on the “fictional” side of his familiar historical fiction genre.

Dumas’s novel The Black Tulip (La Tulipe Noire) begins with the very real Aug. 20, 1672 lynching of Dutch statesmen Cornelis and Johann de Witt, and from that point unfolds the story of a fictional godson, Cornelius van Baerle — whose green thumb will nurture the titular flower along with a love for the jailer’s daughter Rosa. (To the very great wrath of van Baerle’s neighbor and murderous rival gardener, Isaac Boxtel.)

Dumas has already sown both seeds when he dates his narrative via van Baerle’s will, written when the fictional main character is in danger of succumbing to the same cataclysm that swallowed up his godfather: already smitten with Rosa, he purposes to bequeath her the bulbs, whose rare product will be worth a bounty.

On this day, the 23d of August, 1672, being on the point of rendering, although innocent, my soul to God on the scaffold, I bequeath to Rosa Gryphus the only worldly goods which remain to me of all that I have possessed in this world, the rest having been confiscated; I bequeath, I say, to Rosa Gryphus three bulbs, which I am convinced must produce, in the next May, the Grand Black Tulip for which a prize of a hundred thousand guilders has been offered by the Haarlem Society, requesting that she may be paid the same sum in my stead, as my sole heiress, under the only condition of her marrying a respectable young man of about my age, who loves her, and whom she loves, and of her giving the black tulip, which will constitute a new species, the name of Rosa Barlaensis, that is to say, hers and mine combined.

So may God grant me mercy, and to her health and long life!

Cornelius van Baerle.

And having done this, van Baerle is escorted directly to the scaffold, where we pick up Dumas’s narrative courtesy of Gutenberg.org:


Chapter 12: The Execution

Cornelius had not three hundred paces to walk outside the prison to reach the foot of the scaffold. At the bottom of the staircase, the dog quietly looked at him whilst he was passing; Cornelius even fancied he saw in the eyes of the monster a certain expression as it were of compassion.

The dog perhaps knew the condemned prisoners, and only bit those who left as free men.

The shorter the way from the door of the prison to the foot of the scaffold, the more fully, of course, it was crowded with curious people.

These were the same who, not satisfied with the blood which they had shed three days before, were now craving for a new victim.

And scarcely had Cornelius made his appearance than a fierce groan ran through the whole street, spreading all over the yard, and re-echoing from the streets which led to the scaffold, and which were likewise crowded with spectators.

The scaffold indeed looked like an islet at the confluence of several rivers.

In the midst of these threats, groans, and yells, Cornelius, very likely in order not to hear them, had buried himself in his own thoughts.

And what did he think of in his last melancholy journey?

Neither of his enemies, nor of his judges, nor of his executioners.

He thought of the beautiful tulips which he would see from heaven above, at Ceylon, or Bengal, or elsewhere, when he would be able to look with pity on this earth, where John and Cornelius de Witt had been murdered for having thought too much of politics, and where Cornelius van Baerle was about to be murdered for having thought too much of tulips.

“It is only one stroke of the axe,” said the philosopher to himself, “and my beautiful dream will begin to be realised.”

Only there was still a chance, just as it had happened before to M. de Chalais, to M. de Thou, and other slovenly executed people, that the headsman might inflict more than one stroke, that is to say, more than one martyrdom, on the poor tulip-fancier.

Yet, notwithstanding all this, Van Baerle mounted the scaffold not the less resolutely, proud of having been the friend of that illustrious John, and godson of that noble Cornelius de Witt, whom the ruffians, who were now crowding to witness his own doom, had torn to pieces and burnt three days before.

He knelt down, said his prayers, and observed, not without a feeling of sincere joy, that, laying his head on the block, and keeping his eyes open, he would be able to his last moment to see the grated window of the Buytenhof.

At length the fatal moment arrived, and Cornelius placed his chin on the cold damp block. But at this moment his eyes closed involuntarily, to receive more resolutely the terrible avalanche which was about to fall on his head, and to engulf his life.

A gleam like that of lightning passed across the scaffold: it was the executioner raising his sword.

Van Baerle bade farewell to the great black tulip, certain of awaking in another world full of light and glorious tints.

Three times he felt, with a shudder, the cold current of air from the knife near his neck, but what a surprise! he felt neither pain nor shock.

He saw no change in the colour of the sky, or of the world around him.

Then suddenly Van Baerle felt gentle hands raising him, and soon stood on his feet again, although trembling a little.

He looked around him. There was some one by his side, reading a large parchment, sealed with a huge seal of red wax.

And the same sun, yellow and pale, as it behooves a Dutch sun to be, was shining in the skies; and the same grated window looked down upon him from the Buytenhof; and the same rabble, no longer yelling, but completely thunderstruck, were staring at him from the streets below.

Van Baerle began to be sensible to what was going on around him.

His Highness, William, Prince of Orange, very likely afraid that Van Baerle’s blood would turn the scale of judgment against him, had compassionately taken into consideration his good character, and the apparent proofs of his innocence.

His Highness, accordingly, had granted him his life.

Cornelius at first hoped that the pardon would be complete, and that he would be restored to his full liberty and to his flower borders at Dort.

But Cornelius was mistaken. To use an expression of Madame de Sevigne, who wrote about the same time, “there was a postscript to the letter;” and the most important part of the letter was contained in the postscript.

In this postscript, William of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland, condemned Cornelius van Baerle to imprisonment for life. He was not sufficiently guilty to suffer death, but he was too much so to be set at liberty.

Cornelius heard this clause, but, the first feeling of vexation and disappointment over, he said to himself —

“Never mind, all this is not lost yet; there is some good in this perpetual imprisonment; Rosa will be there, and also my three bulbs of the black tulip are there.”

But Cornelius forgot that the Seven Provinces had seven prisons, one for each, and that the board of the prisoner is anywhere else less expensive than at the Hague, which is a capital.

His Highness, who, as it seems, did not possess the means to feed Van Baerle at the Hague, sent him to undergo his perpetual imprisonment at the fortress of Loewestein, very near Dort, but, alas! also very far from it; for Loewestein, as the geographers tell us, is situated at the point of the islet which is formed by the confluence of the Waal and the Meuse, opposite Gorcum.


Aerial view of present-day Loewestein Castle. (cc) image from Hans Elbers

Van Baerle was sufficiently versed in the history of his country to know that the celebrated Grotius was confined in that castle after the death of Barneveldt; and that the States, in their generosity to the illustrious publicist, jurist, historian, poet, and divine, had granted to him for his daily maintenance the sum of twenty-four stivers.

“I,” said Van Baerle to himself, “I am worth much less than Grotius. They will hardly give me twelve stivers, and I shall live miserably; but never mind, at all events I shall live.”

Then suddenly a terrible thought struck him.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, “how damp and misty that part of the country is, and the soil so bad for the tulips! And then Rosa will not be at Loewestein!”

Chapter 13: What was going on all this Time in the Mind of one of the Spectators

Whilst Cornelius was engaged with his own thoughts, a coach had driven up to the scaffold. This vehicle was for the prisoner. He was invited to enter it, and he obeyed.

His last look was towards the Buytenhof. He hoped to see at the window the face of Rosa, brightening up again.

But the coach was drawn by good horses, who soon carried Van Baerle away from among the shouts which the rabble roared in honour of the most magnanimous Stadtholder, mixing with it a spice of abuse against the brothers De Witt and the godson of Cornelius, who had just now been saved from death.

This reprieve suggested to the worthy spectators remarks such as the following:—

“It’s very fortunate that we used such speed in having justice done to that great villain John, and to that little rogue Cornelius, otherwise his Highness might have snatched them from us, just as he has done this fellow.”

Among all the spectators whom Van Baerle’s execution had attracted to the Buytenhof, and whom the sudden turn of affairs had disagreeably surprised, undoubtedly the one most disappointed was a certain respectably dressed burgher, who from early morning had made such a good use of his feet and elbows that he at last was separated from the scaffold only by the file of soldiers which surrounded it.

Many had shown themselves eager to see the perfidious blood of the guilty Cornelius flow, but not one had shown such a keen anxiety as the individual just alluded to.

The most furious had come to the Buytenhof at daybreak, to secure a better place; but he, outdoing even them, had passed the night at the threshold of the prison, from whence, as we have already said, he had advanced to the very foremost rank, unguibus et rostro — that is to say, coaxing some, and kicking the others.

And when the executioner had conducted the prisoner to the scaffold, the burgher, who had mounted on the stone of the pump the better to see and be seen, made to the executioner a sign which meant —

“It’s a bargain, isn’t it?”

The executioner answered by another sign, which was meant to say —

“Be quiet, it’s all right.”

This burgher was no other than Mynheer Isaac Boxtel, who since the arrest of Cornelius had come to the Hague to try if he could not get hold of the three bulbs of the black tulip.

Boxtel had at first tried to gain over Gryphus to his interest, but the jailer had not only the snarling fierceness, but likewise the fidelity, of a dog. He had therefore bristled up at Boxtel’s hatred, whom he had suspected to be a warm friend of the prisoner, making trifling inquiries to contrive with the more certainty some means of escape for him.

Thus to the very first proposals which Boxtel made to Gryphus to filch the bulbs which Cornelius van Baerle must be supposed to conceal, if not in his breast, at least in some corner of his cell, the surly jailer had only answered by kicking Mynheer Isaac out, and setting the dog at him.

The piece which the mastiff had torn from his hose did not discourage Boxtel. He came back to the charge, but this time Gryphus was in bed, feverish, and with a broken arm. He therefore was not able to admit the petitioner, who then addressed himself to Rosa, offering to buy her a head-dress of pure gold if she would get the bulbs for him. On this, the generous girl, although not yet knowing the value of the object of the robbery, which was to be so well remunerated, had directed the tempter to the executioner, as the heir of the prisoner.

In the meanwhile the sentence had been pronounced. Thus Isaac had no more time to bribe any one. He therefore clung to the idea which Rosa had suggested: he went to the executioner.

Isaac had not the least doubt that Cornelius would die with the bulbs on his heart.

But there were two things which Boxtel did not calculate upon:—

Rosa, that is to say, love;

William of Orange, that is to say, clemency.

But for Rosa and William, the calculations of the envious neighbour would have been correct.

But for William, Cornelius would have died.

But for Rosa, Cornelius would have died with his bulbs on his heart.

Mynheer Boxtel went to the headsman, to whom he gave himself out as a great friend of the condemned man; and from whom he bought all the clothes of the dead man that was to be, for one hundred guilders; rather an exorbitant sum, as he engaged to leave all the trinkets of gold and silver to the executioner.

But what was the sum of a hundred guilders to a man who was all but sure to buy with it the prize of the Haarlem Society?

It was money lent at a thousand per cent, which, as nobody will deny, was a very handsome investment.

The headsman, on the other hand, had scarcely anything to do to earn his hundred guilders. He needed only, as soon as the execution was over, to allow Mynheer Boxtel to ascend the scaffold with his servants, to remove the inanimate remains of his friend.

The thing was, moreover, quite customary among the “faithful brethren,” when one of their masters died a public death in the yard of the Buytenhof.

A fanatic like Cornelius might very easily have found another fanatic who would give a hundred guilders for his remains.

The executioner also readily acquiesced in the proposal, making only one condition — that of being paid in advance.

Boxtel, like the people who enter a show at a fair, might be disappointed, and refuse to pay on going out.

Boxtel paid in advance, and waited.

After this, the reader may imagine how excited Boxtel was; with what anxiety he watched the guards, the Recorder, and the executioner; and with what intense interest he surveyed the movements of Van Baerle. How would he place himself on the block? how would he fall? and would he not, in falling, crush those inestimable bulbs? had not he at least taken care to enclose them in a golden box — as gold is the hardest of all metals?

Every trifling delay irritated him. Why did that stupid executioner thus lose time in brandishing his sword over the head of Cornelius, instead of cutting that head off?

But when he saw the Recorder take the hand of the condemned, and raise him, whilst drawing forth the parchment from his pocket — when he heard the pardon of the Stadtholder publicly read out — then Boxtel was no more like a human being; the rage and malice of the tiger, of the hyena, and of the serpent glistened in his eyes, and vented itself in his yell and his movements. Had he been able to get at Van Baerle, he would have pounced upon him and strangled him.

And so, then, Cornelius was to live, and was to go with him to Loewestein, and thither to his prison he would take with him his bulbs; and perhaps he would even find a garden where the black tulip would flower for him.

Boxtel, quite overcome by his frenzy, fell from the stone upon some Orangemen, who, like him, were sorely vexed at the turn which affairs had taken. They, mistaking the frantic cries of Mynheer Isaac for demonstrations of joy, began to belabour him with kicks and cuffs, such as could not have been administered in better style by any prize-fighter on the other side of the Channel.

Blows were, however, nothing to him. He wanted to run after the coach which was carrying away Cornelius with his bulbs. But in his hurry he overlooked a paving-stone in his way, stumbled, lost his centre of gravity, rolled over to a distance of some yards, and only rose again, bruised and begrimed, after the whole rabble of the Hague, with their muddy feet, had passed over him.

One would think that this was enough for one day, but Mynheer Boxtel did not seem to think so, as, in addition to having his clothes torn, his back bruised, and his hands scratched, he inflicted upon himself the further punishment of tearing out his hair by handfuls, as an offering to that goddess of envy who, as mythology teaches us, wears a head-dress of serpents.

On this day..

1619: Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, laandsadvocaat

On this date in 1619, Dutch stadtholder Maurice of Orange beheaded his political and religious rival, jurist Johan van Oldenbarnevelt.

Both men had in their day been instrumental to winning the independence (de facto, if not yet de jure) that the Low Countries were already enjoying: laandsadvocaat van Oldenbarnevelt as the commanding political personality holding together the potentially fractious provinces in the 1580s and 1590s; stadtholder Maurice as the great general* of those provinces, whose sword-arm in the 1590s and 1600s more or less staked out the borders of the present-day Netherlands.

Thanks to their good offices, the once-desperate Dutch Revolt had triumphed in all but name, and in the 1610s paused to savor the fruits of victory during the Twelve Years’ Truce.**

Increasingly after 1600, the two developed a rivalry that was both personal, and political, and religious — for in their prominence they also became the chief exponents of the neighborhood schism, van Oldenbarnevelt championing the Remonstrants or Arminians (they remonstrated against some Calvinist doctrines) and Maurice upholding the orthodox Counter-Remonstrants or Gomarist side. The conflict was no joke; the States of Holland at van Oldenbarnevelt’s urging went so far as to hire its own mercenary army, knowing that it could not trust the national army commanded by the Counter-Remonstrant William. William secured the support of the States-General to forcibly disband this rival militia in July 1618† — and from that point until his death in 1625, William was the strongman in the Low Countries.

And van Oldenbarnevelt, well — he got the kangaroo court. See?


Detail view (click for the full image) of Satire on the trial of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, by Cornelis Saftleven (1663). Saftleven liked painting animals.

Tried by a special (dubiously legal) court comprised of enemies, the grizzled pol was condemned to death as a traitor. On May 13, the day he went to the block at the Binnenhof in The Hague, his home province the States of Holland saluted him as “a man of great business, activity, memory and wisdom — yes, extra-ordinary in every respect.”

And it added a passage from Corinthians:

Die staet siet toe dat hij niet en valle

He who stands, let him take care that he does not fall


Detail view (click for the full image) of a 17th century engraving of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt’s beheading.

Van Oldenbarnevelt’s son Reinier, lord of Groeneveld was beheaded in 1623 for conspiring to assassinate Maurice in revenge for his father’s execution.

* Maurice of Orange was recognized in his time as perhaps Europe’s greatest and most innovative commander. His introduction of infantry volley fire and highly disciplined drill regimens revolutionized the battlefield — and made the Dutch very difficult for their Spanish masters to handle.

The Indian Ocean island-nation Mauritius, discovered by Dutch explorers in 1598, was named for him.

** Posterity has the luxury of hindsight knowledge that although war would resume for the Low Countries in 1621, the peace of Westphalia would secure an independent Netherlands. However, already during the Twelve Years’ Truce the place was acting as an independent country, and some other states formally recognized it as such.

† One of van Oldenbarnevelt’s supporters was international law pioneer Hugo Grotius. Grotius was clapped in prison with van Oldenbarnevelt’s fall in 1618; he famously escaped this dungeon in 1621 by hiding in a chest of books and lived out his scribbling days in France.

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1946: Anton Mussert, Dutch collaborator

On this date in 1946, the Dutch fascist leader Anton Mussert was shot

Mussert was a young engineer who came to the fore in the interwar period as a strident right-wing populist. He co-founded in 1931 the Netherlands’ homegrown Nazi knockoff, the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging; by 1935, it was polling 300,000 votes.

Mussert of course welcomed the German incursion into the Netherlands on the way to someplace else. That put the Dutch under wartime Nazi administration, but Mussert didn’t score a Quislingesque head-of-state plum out of the arrangement.

Instead, Mussert found himself brusquely shut out of any real power; the Austrian Arthur Seyss-Inquart ran the country instead, and would eventually hang via the Numremberg trial for his occupation atrocities, such as the wholesale deportation of the Dutch Jewish population that swept up diarist Anne Frank. Plum or no, however, what Mussert had done was more than enough to elevate him to the most conspicuous Nazi collaborator in the postwar Netherlands.

Mussert was captured after the war and shot at the open-air location near The Hague where over 250 people had been put to death during the war years.

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1672: Cornelis and Johan de Witt lynched

Chapter 1. A Grateful People

On the 20th of August, 1672, the city of the Hague, always so lively, so neat, and so trim that one might believe every day to be Sunday, with its shady park, with its tall trees, spreading over its Gothic houses, with its canals like large mirrors, in which its steeples and its almost Eastern cupolas are reflected,–the city of the Hague, the capital of the Seven United Provinces, was swelling in all its arteries with a black and red stream of hurried, panting, and restless citizens, who, with their knives in their girdles, muskets on their shoulders, or sticks in their hands, were pushing on to the Buytenhof, a terrible prison, the grated windows of which are still shown, where, on the charge of attempted murder preferred against him by the surgeon Tyckelaer, Cornelius de Witt, the brother of the Grand Pensionary of Holland was confined.

the whole town was crowding towards the Buytenhof, to witness the departure of Cornelius de Witt from prison, as he was going to exile; and to see what traces the torture of the rack had left on the noble frame of the man who knew his Horace so well.

Yet all this multitude was not crowding to the Buytenhof with the innocent view of merely feasting their eyes with the spectacle; there were many who went there to play an active part in it, and to take upon themselves an office which they conceived had been badly filled,–that of the executioner.

There were, indeed, others with less hostile intentions. All that they cared for was the spectacle, always so attractive to the mob, whose instinctive pride is flattered by it,–the sight of greatness hurled down into the dust.

-Alexandre Dumas, pere, The Black Tulip

That ominous mob got its spectacle this date in 1672, lynching the Dutch Republic’s longtime de facto head of state, Johan de Witt along with his brother Cornelis/Cornelius.


A statue of Johan (standing) and Cornelis de Witt in their native Dordrecht.

The mercantile powerhouse that was the 17th century Dutch Republic was the stage for a long-running conflict between the Orange monarchists (hence the soccer uniforms) and the Republican merchant class.

With the sudden death of the young William II, Prince of Orange in 1650, leaving the (non-hereditary) executive office of stadtholder vacant, the Republicans became ascendant.

And the outstanding figure of the First Stadtholderless Period was Johan de Witt, scion of a Dordrecht merchant family powerful enough that William II had imprisoned de Witt’s own father during a power struggle.

Elevated in 1653 and at the tender age of 28 to the leadership position of Grand Pensionary, Johan de Witt’s “eloquence, sagacity and business talents” guided the Dutch ship of state for essentially the remainder of his life.

This was the apex of the Dutch Golden Age. The Dutch East India Company dominated Asian trade routes,* and the Low Countries’ culture thrived on the wealth: Rembrandt and Vermeer were at the height of their talents; Spinoza revolutionized philosophy; van Leeuwenhoek invented the microscope.

While all these guys were landing themselves in their respective canons, Johan de Witt was trying to keep the age Golden.

Having only relatively recently broken free of Spain, the small country was an up-and-comer on the horns of a serious security dilemma: its leading commercial position put it into maritime competition with England, while its continental location made it vulnerable to the enormous army of the neighboring continental hegemon, France. Ultimately, even with its trade wealth, it did not have the resources to keep up with both of western Europe’s leading powers.

For a generation, de Witt’s statecraft kept the men of the Low Countries out of that predicament, while his brother Cornelis chipped in with a couple of timely naval victories. (Actually authored by Michiel de Ruyter, but Cornelis rode shotgun.)

In 1654, Johan brought the First Anglo-Dutch War to a close, making with Oliver Cromwell a secret pact he was only too happy to enforce never to allow William II’s son, the eventual William III, to be named stadtholder. Reason being: William III was the grandson of the Stuart king Cromwell beheaded, Charles I, and thus a potential claimant to the English throne. Both Protestant Republics had a distinct interest in keeping this monarchist well away from power. (Both would be sorely disappointed.)

A decade and a Stuart Restoration later, de Witt maintained (mostly) Dutch dominance of the seas in the Second Anglo-Dutch War, then held off France (with the help of a timely alliance with the recent adversary, England) in the War of Devolution.

In each case, he kept at least one of England or France on the sideline, or in his own camp.

But the Third Anglo-Dutch War was the charm — as it was also the Franco-Dutch War, and therefore 1672 was Rampjaar: disaster year. While the Dutch were aces on the waves, a massive French invasion easily overwhelmed them on terra firma.

Detail view (click for the full image) of a grisly painting of the mutilated de Witt brothers strung up at The Hague. It’s attributed to Jan de Baen, who in better times took Johan de Witt’s portrait.

De Witt’s never-beloved mercantile oligarchy speedily collapsed with the military reverses, and the now all-grown-up William III was there to pick up the pieces to popular acclaim. Arrested for treason, Cornelis sustained torture without confessing, but when Johan visited him in prison — and William III incriminatingly withdrew the cavalry protecting the brothers — the mob quenched its fury with the de Witts’ blood.

every one of the miscreants, emboldened by his [Johan’s] fall, wanted to fire his gun at him, or strike him with blows of the sledge-hammer, or stab him with a knife or swords, every one wanted to draw a drop of blood from the fallen hero, and tear off a shred from his garments.

And after having mangled, and torn, and completely stripped the two brothers, the mob dragged their naked and bloody bodies to an extemporised gibbet, where amateur executioners hung them up by the feet.

Then came the most dastardly scoundrels of all, who not having dared to strike the living flesh, cut the dead in pieces, and then went about the town selling small slices of the bodies of John and Cornelius at ten sous a piece.

-Dumas

The word “ungrateful” comes to mind.

De Witt stood altogether on a lower plane than Cromwell. We regard him rather as a man of rare and singular talent, than as one of the chosen great ones of the earth, which Cromwell was. He stands far above the common run of men; and he was head and shoulders above nearly all the notable men of his time. He would have been greater if the movement of his limbs had been less burdened with the Dutch governing apparatus … He is not one whom the world can ever greatly admire or love.

History of the administration of John De Witt, grand pensionary of Holland, a Google books freebie.

(Here’s another, and here’s a 17th century volume de Witt himself coauthored.)

The rise of William III came with the decline of that Dutch Golden Age: the country fended off the immediate military threat, but it increasingly slipped behind its larger neighbors. Costly as was the Franco-Dutch War, it is a step on the path towards the present-day Europe, and this gives us enough excuse to notice that the Eurovision lead-in tune is actually from a Te Deum composed to mark its end.

But William’s own ascent to this wealthy sovereignty was just the beginning for him. Sixteen years later, the House of Orange’s champion vindicated Cromwell’s trepidation about him and gained a far more satisfactory position from which to do battle with his Gallic rival Louis XIV by stunningly overthrowing the Stuart dynasty and becoming King of England in the Glorious Revolution.**

* The Dutch remained the sole western contact of closed Japan until 1854, which is why Japan’s eventual period of scientific advancement became known as ‘Dutch Learning’.

** Albion did not forget the de Witts, either: according to this 1785 cant dictionary, the term “dewitted” had a 17th-18th century run in English to denote — well, exactly what happened to Cornelis and Johan.

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