In the case of De Maulde the punishment seemed especially severe.  His fate excited universal sympathy, and great efforts were made to obtain his pardon.  He was a universal favourite; he was young; he was very handsome; his manners were attractive; he belonged to an ancient and honourable race.  His father, the Seigneur de Mansart, had done great services in the war of independence, had been an intimate friend of the great Prince of Orange, and had even advanced large sums of money to assist his noble efforts to liberate the country.  Two brothers of the young captain had fallen in the service of the republic.  He, too, had distinguished himself at Ostend, and his gallantry during the recent siege of Sluys had been in every mouth, and had excited the warm applause of so good a judge of soldiership as the veteran Roger Williams.  The scars of the wounds received in the desperate conflicts of that siege were fresh upon his breast.  He had not intended to commit treason, but, convinced by the sophistry of older soldiers than himself, as well as by learned deacons and theologians, he had imagined himself doing his duty, while obeying the Earl of Leicester.  If there were ever a time for mercy, this seemed one, and young Maurice of Nassau might have remembered, that even in the case of the assassins who had attempted the life of his father, that great-hearted man had lifted up his voice—­which seemed his dying one—­in favour of those who had sought his life.

But they authorities were inexorable.  There was no hope of a mitigation of punishment, but a last effort was made, under favour of a singular ancient custom, to save the life of De Maulde.  A young lady of noble family in Leyden—­Uytenbroek by name—­claimed the right of rescuing the condemned malefactor, from the axe, by appearing upon the scaffold, and offering to take him for her husband.

Intelligence was brought to the prisoner in his dungeon, that the young, lady had made the proposition, and he was told to be of good cheer:  But he refused to be comforted.  He was slightly acquainted with the gentle-woman, he observed; and doubted much whether her request would be granted.  Moreover if contemporary chronicle can be trusted he even expressed a preference for the scaffold, as the milder fate of the two.  The lady, however, not being aware of those uncomplimentary sentiments, made her proposal to the magistrates, but was dismissed with harsh rebukes.  She had need be ashamed, they said; of her willingness to take a condemned traitor for her husband.  It was urged, in her behalf, that even in the cruel Alva’s time, the ancient custom had been respected, and that victims had been saved from the executioners, on a demand in marriage made even by women of abandoned character.  But all was of no avail.  The prisoners were executed on the 26th October, the same day on which the sentence had been pronounced.  The heads of Volmar and Cosmo were exposed on one of the turrets of the city.  That of Maulde was interred with his body.