United States or Réunion ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
New Netherland exchanged Stuyvesant and the West India Company and a republican sovereignty for Nicolls, a royal proprietor and a hereditary king. The province was not represented in Parliament, nor could the voice of its people reach the chapel of St. Stephen at Westminster as readily as it had reached the chambers of the Binnenhof at the Hague."
There was and still remains a two-storied structure, then of modern date, immediately behind the antique hall of the old Counts within the Binnenhof. On the first floor was a courtroom of considerable extent, the seat of one of the chief tribunals of justice The story above was divided into three chambers with a narrow corridor on each side.
At the Hague the basin, which is in the middle of the city, near to the Binnenhof, is invaded by a mingling crowd of people, who interlace, knock against each other, and form a confused giddy mass.
There were streets of tall, brown palaces, far finer than the royal dwelling which Robert pointed out; the shops made me long to spring from the car and spend every penny set apart for the tour; the Binnenhof that sinister theater of Dutch history with its strangely grouped towers and palaces, and its huge squares, made me feel an insignificant insect with no right to opinions of any kind; and as I gazed up at the dark, medieval buildings, vague visions of Cornelis and John de Witt in their torture, of van Oldenbarneveld, and fair Adelaide de Poelgust stabbed and bleeding, flitted fearfully through my brain.
The nobility, the representatives of eight cities, and the council-pensionary remained at the Hague, met as the Estates of Holland, repealed all the anti-Orange edicts, and invited the prince to return. Amidst scenes of great enthusiasm the stadholder made his entry into the Binnenhof on September 20.
In the Binnenhof was decapitated the venerated Van Olden Barneveldt, the second founder of the republic, the most illustrious victim of that ever-recurring struggle between the burgher aristocracy and the Statholderate, between the republican and the monarchical principle, which worked so miserably in Holland. The scaffold was erected in front of the edifice where the States General sat.
The conclusion of the commissioners was somewhat more severe than either of these measures. Their long rambling preamble ended with these decisive words: "Therefore the judges, in name of the Lords States-General, condemn the prisoner to be taken to the Binnenhof, there to be executed with the sword that death may follow, and they declare all his property confiscated."
At night the courtyard is lighted only by an occasional lamp; the few people who pass through it quicken their pace as if they are afraid. There is no sound of steps to be heard, no lighted windows to be seen; one enters it with a vague restlessness, and leaves it almost with pleasure. With the exception of the Binnenhof, the Hague has no important monuments ancient or modern.
Meanwhile Oldenbarneveldt and the other prisoners had been confined in separate rooms in the Binnenhof and were treated with excessive harshness and severity. They were permitted to have no communication with the outside world, no books, paper or writing materials; and the conditions of their imprisonment were such as to be injurious to health.
The place of the Assembly as well as that of the States-General was within what was called the Binnenhof or Inner Court; the large quadrangle enclosing the ancient hall once the residence of the sovereign Counts of Holland. The apartments of the Stadholder composed the south-western portion of the large series of buildings surrounding this court.
Word Of The Day