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"Whereas in the course of the changes within the city of Utrecht and in other places brought about by the high and mighty Lords the States- General of the United Netherlands, through his Excellency and their Lordships' committee to him adjoined, sundry things have been discovered of which previously there had been great suspicion, tending to the great prejudice of the Provinces in general and of each province in particular, not without apparent danger to the state of the country, and that thereby not only the city of Utrecht, but various other cities of the United Provinces would have fallen into a blood bath; and whereas the chief ringleaders in these things are considered to be John van Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, Rombout Hoogerbeets, and Hugo Grotius, whereof hereafter shall declaration and announcement be made, therefore their High Mightinesses, in order to prevent these and similar inconveniences, to place the country in security, and to bring the good burghers of all the cities into friendly unity again, have resolved to arrest those three persons, in order that out of their imprisonment they may be held to answer duly for their actions and offences."
He did not return till November 6, but all the time he was in active correspondence with his party in Holland, at whose head were the three pensionaries of Rotterdam, Leyden and Haarlem De Groot, Hoogerbeets and De Haan.
Information of this condition of affairs was conveyed to Hoogerbeets and Grotius by means of an ingenious device of the distinguished scholar, who was then editing the Latin works of the Hague poet, Janus Secundus.
The Estates of Holland impelled by Oldenbarneveldt now took a very strong step, a step which could not be retrieved. They resolved also to despatch commissioners to Utrecht to urge the town-council to stand firm. De Groot, Hoogerbeets and two others were nominated, and they at once set out for Utrecht.
Here an engraving represented him seated at table with Grotius, Hoogerbeets, and others, discussing the National Synod, while a flap of the picture being lifted put the head of the Duke of Alva on the legs of Barneveld, his companions being transformed in similar manner into Spanish priests and cardinals assembled at the terrible Council of Blood-with rows of Protestant martyrs burning and hanging in the distance.
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