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Updated: May 11, 2025
When it was understood that the Prince was to pass through Utrecht, the States of that province not without the prisoner's knowledge had addressed a letter to his Excellency, requesting him not to pass through their city. He had written a letter to Ledenberg suggesting that good watch should be held at the town gates and up and down the river Lek.
The Utrechters resolved to wait at least several days before opening the subject of their mission to the Prince. Meantime Ledenberg made a rough draft of a report of what had occurred between them and Grotius and his colleagues which it was resolved to lay secretly before the States of Utrecht. The Hollanders hoped that they had at last persuaded the commissioners to maintain the Waartgelders.
In the same quiet way orders were sent to secure Secretary Ledenberg, who had returned to Utrecht, and who now after a short confinement in that city was brought to the Hague and imprisoned in the Hof. At the very moment of the Advocate's arrest his son-in-law van der Myle happened to be paying a visit to Sir Dudley Carleton, who had arrived very late the night before from England.
It had likewise been intimated that the guard should be doubled at the Amersfoort gate, and a watch set on the river Lek above and below the city in order to prevent fresh troops of the States-General from being introduced by surprise. These precautions had been suggested a year before, as we have seen, in a private autograph letter from Barneveld to Secretary Ledenberg.
He denied that he had initiated the proceedings at Utrecht in conversation with Ledenberg or any one else, but he had not refused, he said, his approval of the perfectly legal measures adopted for keeping the peace there when submitted to him.
They were eight in number, three of whom, including Gillis van Ledenberg, lodged at the house of Daniel Tressel, first clerk of the States-General. The leaders of the Barneveld party, aware of the purport of this mission and determined to frustrate it, contrived a meeting between the Utrecht commissioners and Grotius, Hoogerbeets, de Haan, and de Lange at Tressel's house. Grotius was spokesman.
For change of air, ostensibly at least, he had absented himself from the seat of government, and was during several weeks under the hands of his old friend and physician Dr. Saul. He was strictly advised to abstain altogether from political business, but he might as well have attempted to abstain from food and drink. Gillis van Ledenberg, secretary of the States of Utrecht, visited him frequently.
The Utrechters resolved to wait at least several days before opening the subject of their mission to the Prince. Meantime Ledenberg made a rough draft of a report of what had occurred between them and Grotius and his colleagues which it was resolved to lay secretly before the States of Utrecht. The Hollanders hoped that they had at last persuaded the commissioners to maintain the Waartgelders.
It is amusing to see the ferocity thus exhibited by the royal pamphleteer against a rival; especially when one can find no crime in 'The Balance' save a stinging and well-merited criticism of a very stupid oration. Gillis van Ledenberg was generally supposed to be the author of it.
Not often has a dead man been condemned and executed. But this was the lot of Secretary Ledenberg. He was sentenced to be hanged, his property declared confiscated.
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