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Maurice was no theologian. He was a steady churchgoer, and his favorite divine, the preacher at his court chapel, was none other than Uytenbogaert. The very man who was instantly to be the champion of the Arminians, the author of the Remonstrance, the counsellor and comrade of Barneveld and Grotius, was now sneered at by the Gomarites as the "Court Trumpeter."
The celebrated divine John Uytenbogaert, leader among the Arminians, devoted friend of Barneveld, and up to that moment the favorite preacher of Maurice, stigmatized indeed, as we have seen, by the orthodox as "Court Trumpeter," was requested by the Prince to prepare the chief criminal for death.
His stern, stoical face was like that of a lion at bay. Uytenbogaert tried to arouse him from his gloom, consoling him by reflections on the innumerable instances, in all countries and ages, of patriotic statesmen who for faithful service had reaped nothing but ingratitude.
It is melancholy to see the Republic thus perversely occupying its energies. It is melancholy to see the great soldier becoming gradually more ardent for battle with Barneveld and Uytenbogaert than with Spinola and Bucquoy, against whom he had won so many imperishable laurels.
It was answered by the city magistrates that two of their persuasion, La Motte and La Faille, preached regularly in the Great Church, and that Rosaeus had been silenced only because he refused to hold communion with Uytenbogaert. Maurice insisted that a separate church should be assigned them. "But this is open schism," said Uytenbogaert.
He did so, and from that day forth the Stadholder ceased to be his friend, although regularly listening to his preaching in the French chapel of the court for more than a year longer. Some time afterwards the Advocate informed Uytenbogaert that the Prince was very much embittered against him.
Yet he would be found ready at the bidding of his master to grapple with Grotius and Barneveld on the field of history and law, and thread with Uytenbogaert or Taurinus all the subtleties of Arminianism and Gomarism as if he had been half his life both a regular practitioner at the Supreme Court of the Hague and professor of theology at the University of Leyden.
"I will await the issue of this business," he said, "in the Hague, where my home is, and where I have faithfully served my masters. I had rather for the sake of the Fatherland suffer what God chooses to send me for having served well than that through me and on my account any city should fall into trouble and difficulties." Next morning, Wednesday, at seven o'clock, Uytenbogaert paid him a visit.
Referring to the intimate relations which Uytenbogaert had so long enjoyed with the Prince, the Advocate alluded to the difficulty he had in believing that his Excellency intended to act in opposition to the efforts of the States of Holland in the cause of mutual toleration, to the manifest detriment of the country and of many of its best and truest patriots and the greater number of the magistrates in all the cities.
Uytenbogaert so ran the tale in the course of his conversation with the condemned murderer, John of Paris, expressed a natural surprise that there should have been no soldiers on guard in the court on the evening when the crime was committed and the body subsequently removed.
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