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Two days after the execution of the Advocate, judgment was pronounced upon Gillis van Ledenberg. It would have been difficult to try him, or to extort a confession of high-treason from him by the rack or otherwise, as the unfortunate gentleman had been dead for more than seven months. Not often has a court of justice pronounced a man, without trial, to be guilty of a capital offence.
His prudent scheme to save his property for his children by committing suicide in prison was thus thwarted. The reading of the sentence of Ledenberg, as had been previously the case with that of Barneveld, had been heard by Grotius through the open window of his prison, as he lay on his bed.
He was asked why he wrote the warning letter to Ledenberg, and why he was so anxious that the letter should be burned; as if that were a deadly offence.
He was startled, groped in the darkness towards his bed and felt his arm, which was stone cold. He spoke to him and received no answer. He gave the alarm, the watch came in with lights, and it was found that Ledenberg had given himself two mortal wounds in the abdomen with a penknife and then cut his throat with a table-knife which he had secreted, some days before, among some papers.
In truth the senior captain of the Waartgelders, Harteveld by name, had privately informed the leaders of the Barneveld party in Utrecht that he would not draw his sword against Prince Maurice and the States-General. "Who asks you to do so?" said some of the deputies, while Ledenberg on the other hand flatly accused him of cowardice. For this affront the Captain had vowed revenge.
Ledenberg and his colleagues took their departure from the Hague without communicating their message to Maurice. Soon afterwards the States-General appointed a commission to Utrecht with the Stadholder at the head of it. The States of Holland appointed another with Grotius as its chairman. On the 25th July Grotius and Pensionary Hoogerbeets with two colleagues arrived in Utrecht.
"But," he said, maliciously, "you are aware of what has befallen the Advocate." "I have heard with my own ears," answered Grotius, "the judgment pronounced upon Barneveld and upon Ledenberg. Whatever may be my fate, I have patience to bear it."
Gillis van Ledenberg was there to receive them. A tall, handsome, bald-headed, well-featured, mild, gentlemanlike man was this secretary of the Utrecht assembly, and certainly not aware, while passing to and fro on such half diplomatic missions between two sovereign assemblies, that he was committing high-treason.
Lieutenant Nythof told Grotius that Ledenberg had accordingly been threatened with torture, and that the executioner had even handled him for that purpose. This was however denied by the judges of instruction who had been charged with the preliminary examination. That examination took place on the 27th September.
Two days after the execution of the Advocate, judgment was pronounced upon Gillis van Ledenberg. It would have been difficult to try him, or to extort a confession of high-treason from him by the rack or otherwise, as the unfortunate gentleman had been dead for more than seven months. Not often has a court of justice pronounced a man, without trial, to be guilty of a capital offence.
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