A Brill Calendar: March 16

The Rise of John Barneveld

Few stories remain more inspirational to the United States of America than Holland's struggle for national independence from Spain in the five decades following 1568.

And over a further period of thirty years - an era later known as ‘Eighty Years War’ (ending with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648) - the juvenile Republic proved its viability as a potential European Power.

More than a century later, the parallels with Holland's struggle and the clamouring for independence from Great-Britain were all too clear for true Americans: the Spirit prevailing among the populace of the British Crown Colonies in 1776 seemed to echo the one in 1568. The feeling of kinship proved to be mutual; with the Republic of the United Provinces as the first State recognizing United States of America as a peer.

After William ‘The Silent’, Count of Nassau & Prince of Orange; Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (Amersfoort, Utrecht Province, September 14 1547 – The Hague, May 13 1619) may be termed ‘Founding Father’ of this independent State. Unlike William, Van Oldenbarnevelt was born & bred in these parts. As a young man he fought to relieve the Spanish siege of Leyden in 1574; and became a diplomat, politician and statesman of steadily increasing stature. After William’s assassination in 1584 he was appointed, on March 16 1586, ‘Landsadvocaat’ of Holland Province, 'de facto' the most powerful official in the Republic as a whole. His down-fall and execution under the regime of William’s son Maurice remain among the darkest pages in chronicles of party-politics anywhere.

It is seldom in historiography that such a labyrinthine subject generates an ever-seller outside of the country where the tragedy occurred. The US diplomat John Motley (1814 – 1877) published in 1874 ‘The Life and Death of John of Barneveld’; at a time when the USA was still to engage in world-encompassing power-politics. If you look for a flamboyantly written book combining a surfeit of drama with an utter lack of trustworthiness, don’t look further.