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The idiotic and circumstantial statements, that he had conducted Burgomaster van Berk through a secret staircase of his house into his private study for the purpose of informing him that the only way for the States to get out of the war was to submit themselves once more to their old masters, so often forced upon him by the judges, he contradicted with disdain and disgust.
The idiotic and circumstantial statements, that he had conducted Burgomaster van Berk through a secret staircase of his house into his private study for the purpose of informing him that the only way for the States to get out of the war was to submit themselves once more to their old masters, so often forced upon him by the judges, he contradicted with disdain and disgust.
And his whole life which belonged to history, and had been passed on the world's stage before the eyes of two generations of spectators, was a demonstration of the truth of his words. But Burgomaster van Berk knew better.
But the most subtle and far-reaching research into past transactions was due to the Greffier Cornelis Aerssens, father of the Ambassador Francis, and to a certain Nicolas van Berk, Burgomaster of Utrecht. The process of tale-bearing, hearsay evidence, gossip, and invention went back a dozen years, even to the preliminary and secret conferences in regard to the Treaty of Truce.
Crossing the length of the old-fashioned Elizabethan terrace, little Berk passed him: he motioned the lad toward the Viscount. "Royal wants to see you, young one."
Frankly, Berk, I am all down-hill; my bills may be called in any moment; when they are I must send in my papers to sell, and cut the country, if my duns don't catch me before, which they probably will; in which event I shall be to all intents and purposes dead. This is not lively conversation, but you will do me the justice to say that it was not I who introduced it.
The tales of van Berk were those of a personal enemy, falsehoods scarcely worth contradicting. He was grossly and enormously aggrieved by the illegal constitution of the commission. He had protested and continued to protest against it.
The case is a pregnant example of the proceedings employed to destroy the Advocate. The testimony of Nicolas van Berk was at any rate more direct.
No other offers from the King of Spain or the Archdukes had ever been made to him, said van Berk, than those indicated in this deposition against the Advocate as coming from that statesman. Nor had Barneveld ever spoken to him upon such subjects except on that one occasion.
Barneveld had also referred, so said van Berk, to the conduct of the Spanish king towards those who had helped him to the kingdom of Portugal. The Burgomaster was unable however to specify the date, year, or month in which the Advocate had held this language.
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