Title:  The Life of John of Barneveld, 1609

Author:  John Lothrop Motley

Release Date:  January, 2004 [EBook #4886] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 22, 2002]

Edition:  10

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

*** Start of the project gutenberg EBOOK life of John of Barneveld, 1609 ***

This eBook was produced by David Widger widger@cecomet.net

[Note:  There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the file for those who may wish to sample the author’s ideas before making an entire meal of them.  D.W.]

THE LIFE AND DEATH of JOHN OF BARNEVELD, ADVOCATE OF HOLLAND

WITH A VIEW OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS’ WAR

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

PREFACE: 

These volumes make a separate work in themselves.  They form also the natural sequel to the other histories already published by the Author, as well as the necessary introduction to that concluding portion of his labours which he has always desired to lay before the public; a History of the Thirty Years’ War.

For the two great wars which successively established the independence of Holland and the disintegration of Germany are in reality but one; a prolonged Tragedy of Eighty Years.  The brief pause, which in the Netherlands was known as the Twelve Years’ Truce with Spain, was precisely the epoch in which the elements were slowly and certainly gathering for the renewal over nearly the whole surface of civilized Europe of that immense conflict which for more than forty years had been raging 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 which lasted for nearly three generations of mankind; yet a natural succession both of actors, motives, and events will be observed from the beginning to the close.

The designs of Charles V. to establish universal monarchy, which he had passionately followed for a lifetime through a series of colossal crimes against humanity and of private misdeeds against individuals, such as it has rarely been permitted to a single despot to perpetrate, had been baffled at last.  Disappointed, broken, but even to our own generation never completely unveiled, the tyrant had withdrawn from the stage of human affairs, leaving his son to carry on the great conspiracy against Human Right, independence of nations, liberty of thought, and equality of religions, with the additional vigour which sprang from intensity of conviction.